| OPINION
Looks like the "left wing" of the Democratic Party is trying to build its base for the 2016 presidential election. Possibly an initiative to position Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders who has always ran as an 'independent" as a candidate in the Democratic primaries. Their aim will be aligning the wider progressive and left forces with the Democratic Party as was done in 2008 with Obama.
Looks like they are trying to incorporate a number of popular movements like climate justice, Black Lives Matter, fast food workers raise up for $15, a section of the women's movement and remnants of the occupy wall street among others.The progressive caucus is a caucus within the Democratic Party Caucus. www.discoverthenetworks.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6497
By incorporating Black Lves Matter, this initiative would attempt to connect a popular slogan for Black Liberation to their agenda and program of the Democratic Party. By liquidating our peoples right of self-determination by their incorporating it, this section of the Democratic Party will be defining Black political demands and strategic direction.
A popular national discussion by all Black people of the proposed "Draft Manifesto for Black Liberation" initiated by the Black Left Unity Network (BLUN) is NOW all the more important in establishing an independent Black political mandate for our people. A political program is needed to help to guide the social movements and mass peoples' organizations in fighting around our "peoples concrete demands on the ground" from a perspective of building "our own contending and transformative power" against the racist capitalist control of government, social institutions and the economy no matter who is elected in 2016 elections.
On the question of "repressive police state violence" that has given Black Lives Matter a platform, there needs to be a concrete political and social movement program that places our peoples demands on the government, state and forces of capital for " community control " with disciplinary power and demilitarization of the police, a Human Right trial of the U.S. before the International Criminal Court and for reparations in violation of international human rights.
The Million Peoples March Against Police Brutality, Racial Injustice and Economic Inequalities being sponsored by POP in Newark, NJ for July 2015, could be a time where such a program and alignment of forces can begin to be developed.
As we are seeing, the slogan Black Lives Matter, while drawing important attention to the government's/ state's attacks on Black people; is also being promoted by liberal and opportunist forces to reshape its meaning away from building a powerful national and internationalist anti-capitalist/imperialist/patriarchy movement for contending and transformative power as a struggle for self-determination and Black liberation.
Let's get a community speakout and forum organized to study the article by I.J. Poole below "A Platform for the People and Planet", so our community can assess these developments and talk about it !
"A Platform for People and the Planet"
Isaiah J. Poole
March 20, 2015
Campaign for America's Future
The Populism 2015 platform is a set of principles; the Progressive Caucus budget shows how those principles can be translated into government policy.
A new progressive platform for “Building a Movement for People and the Planet” was published this week by the Campaign for America’s Future and National People’s Action. That platform lays out 12 key planks of a progressive agenda that the two organizations expect to become the foundation of independent progressive political organizing over the next two years.
This platform is the backbone of the “Populism 2015″ conference in Washington April 18-20 that CAF is co-sponsoring with National People’s Action, USAction and Alliance for a Just Society. (Go to Populism2015.org to see the complete platform, learn more about the conference and register.)
The release of the platform coincides this week’s release of the Congressional Progressive Caucus “People’s Budget” and a drive to sign up tens of thousands of citizen co-sponsors in advance of a budget vote expected between Tuesday and Thursday. (Read our analyses and sign the co-sponsor petition on our People’s Budget page. For a comparison of the People’s Budget to alternatives from House and Senate Republicans and the Obama administration, see this chart by the National Priorities Project.)
A comparison of the planks in the Populism 2015 platform with the proposals in the Progressive Caucus budget reveals strong parallels that allow both to be used synergistically in the upcoming political debate over America’s economic and political direction. The Populism 2015 platform is a set of principles; the Progressive Caucus budget shows how those principles can be translated into government policy.
The 12 planks in the “Building a Movement for People and the Planet” platform are:
Rebuild America for the 21st C |
Fruit of Labor
World Cultural Center Newsletter
the 2015 YOUTH Self Determination Award. They will be honored along with other NC activists at their
