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Delegates
elected from Socialist Action branches across the country, as well as
SA rank-and-filers from some 20 cities, attended Socialist Action’s
13th national convention in Hartford, Conn. They discussed and debated
the party’s politics and current work in the mass movement and set a
course for the coming year.
The
Feb. 22-24 gathering was the culmination of a three-month
pre-convention discussion period, where five resolutions prepared by
the SA National Committee plenum were presented for the consideration
of the party ranks.
The
main document under discussion was the Draft Political Resolution
(DPR), presented by SA leaders Adam Shils
from Chicago and Adam Ritscher from Duluth. The DPR and the two
reports included a detailed Marxist analysis of the unprecedented
economic crisis unfolding in the U.S and worldwide.
The
reports by Shils and Ritscher
also focused on the fight against the ever-expanding U.S. imperialist wars, the attacks
on civil liberties, the bankruptcy of the present trade-union
leadership, the fight to recompose, expand, and democratize the unions,
and a critical analysis of the meaning of the Obama
election.
The
reports explained SA’s united-front
strategies and tactics, the fight for working-class political
independence—including the need for a labor party based on a fighting
trade union movement—and an evaluation of the state of the broader
socialist and workers’ movement.
The
DPR, to be published soon in pamphlet form, will also be posted on
Socialist Action’s website, socialistaction.org. In addition to a
comprehensive evaluation of the present economic crisis, the document
takes up the unprecedented threats to the future of all humanity
presented by the fossil fuel-induced climate crisis and global warming.
On
the floor of the convention, the need to pose a rounded and realistic
"Workers’ Action Program," to engage working people in
ongoing challenges to the mounting capitalist disorder, provoked a
wide-ranging discussion regarding the rapidly changing consciousness of
millions affected by the present capitalist onslaught.
SA
National Committee member James Frickey
presented a special report on the centrality of the fight for immigrant
rights to the coming working-class fight back. Frickey
reviewed Socialist Action’s participation in national and local
struggles opposing the monstrous ICE raids and deportations, and the
fight for immediate and unconditional amnesty.
Gerry
Foley, the international editor of Socialist Action newspaper,
presented the Draft International Report. Foley focused on developments
in the Latin American revolution, including an assessment of the
populist reformist regimes that have come to power in Venezuela, Bolivia, and elsewhere.
The
International Report also evaluated new developments in the Fourth
International, the revolutionary international current with which SA
maintains fraternal relations. Particular and critical attention was
paid to the recent dissolution of the FI's
largest section, the French Revolutionary Communist League (LCR), and
its role in the formation of the larger and more politically diffuse
New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA) in France. Foley discussed the
challenges of building Leninist organizations today and described some
of the new political formations in the worldwide workers’ movement.
National
Committee member Chris Gauvreau presented a
comprehensive report on Socialist Action’s major orientation to the U.S. antiwar movement and the
role played by SA in helping to initiate the National Assembly to End
the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and
Occupations.
The
National Assembly’s founding conference in June 2008 in Cleveland, Ohio, was the first open,
democratic (one person-one-vote) national antiwar conference since the
Iraq War began six years ago.
The
gathering lent an important national impetus toward the process of
constructing a united antiwar movement. The National Assembly aims at
fighting for a mass action, Out Now! broad and
democratic antiwar movement whose united front politics are aimed at
building the most powerful mass opposition to all U.S. wars.
Gauvreau stressed the need for inclusion of opposition to U.S. support to the Israeli
occupation of Palestine in the broad movement’s
mobilizations and its demands presented to the U.S. government.
As
the conference was underway Socialist Action was deeply involved in the
planning and preparation of the coordinated bi-coastal March 21 antiwar
protests set for Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Los Angeles as
well as the preparations for the July 10-12 Second National Antiwar
conference called by the National Assembly, to take place in
Pittsburgh.
San
Francisco-based National Committee member Grace O’Rien
presented a report on the state of the struggle for women’s liberation
and equality that focused on the central role of women in the coming
mass struggles to challenge the capitalist order. O’Rien
reviewed Socialist Action’s long history in the fight for women's
rights and the present weakness of the movement, as with several other
critical social struggles, due to its subordination to the Democratic
Party.
The
convention’s Organizational Report, presented by SA National Committee
member Andrew Pollack, reviewed the progress on several fronts SA had
made since the last convention, including continued membership growth.
Socialist Action currently has members in some 31 cities. New members
attending the national convention for the first time came from recently
organized chapters in Chicago, Florida, and Philadelphia, as well as from Denver, Atlanta, the Twin Cities, and elsewhere.
Pollack
reported that Socialist Action will give priority to educational
programs this year, with plans for conferences in several areas of the
country. Socialist Action National Secretary Jeff Mackler
will undertake an educational speaking tour in May, with engagements in
New York City, Philadelphia, Connecticut, upper New York state, and
Toronto.
Pollack
reviewed Socialist Action’s success in publishing six new popular
pamphlets in the last year dealing with the key struggles of the day.
He outlined projections for a new series of publications and
improvements of the party’s website and news blog,
and Socialist Action newspaper.
He
presented to the delegates a proposal that Socialist Action members and
supporters around the country undertake a Spring 2009 subscription
drive to increase the circulation of the newspaper.
Delegates
also approved a detailed financial report, which took up the need for
constant attention to the financial underpinnings of the party. They
approved an ambitious national fund drive this Spring, to help with the
maintenance and expansion of Socialist Action’s publishing program and
other key areas of work.
The
convention closed with the election of a National Committee that
included a new layer of youth who have emerged as party leaders.
The
deliberations included active participation by Socialist Action’s
friends and collaborators in various political movements. Oral
greetings were received from representatives of Socialist Action’s
sister party, SA (Canada). Solidarity messages were read from SA’s Fourth International co-thinkers in Mexico,
the United Socialist League (LUS).
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