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Cooking meals, accessing healthcare, doing the laundry, caring for children and the elderly, and taking out the trash are daily activities. We rarely think of them as having much social, economic, or political significance. But they do. In our society much of this work is often ascribed to women and also devalued. This hides the fact that all this work is necessary for the reproduction of society, of social relations, of people.

Social reproduction clearly concerns the biological reproduction of children, most of whom will become workers. But one does not have to bear or care for children to engage in social reproduction activities. Every person either engages in social reproduction or pays someone else to do reproductive work each and every day.

In general terms, there are two main classes in capitalist society: those who own and control the means of production (the capitalists) and those who sell their labor power to survive (the workers). Capitalism is constructed around a basic relationship of exploitation. The capitalists profit from the exploitation of workers. Social reproduction deals with the question of how those workers and capitalists are reproduced and maintained.

A social reproduction framework helps us to remember that when we talk about class struggle, we must be concerned not only with the relation of workers and owners at the point of production, but also with the social relations that make and remake those workers and owners. Put another way, social reproduction activities are essential to the maintenance of capitalism, even as capitalist modes of exploitation and domination work to render this work invisible.

Read the full article: https://liberationschool.org/social-reproduction-a-theoretical-framework-with-organizing-potential/

In this 2019 forum in NYC, Comrade Sasha Murphy speaks on the tremendous, inspiring legacy of Chairman Fred Hampton of the Chicago Black Panther Party.

This forum concentrates specifically what we learn and continue in the tradition of being revolutionary socialists. Moving forward the concepts of giving power to the people, loving the people, and being for the people.

In this speech from a 2018 PSL forum in Washington DC, Central Committee member Eugene Puryear speaks on, in context of the downplaying of White Supremacist terrorism, the efforts of US political establishment to paint Black radical movements as extremist and terroristic.

Specifically, Eugene concentrates on historical periods BEFORE the Civil Rights movement from slavery and colonialism to the end of WWII showing that Radicalism is an integral part of Black history and has always been legitimate and justified.

Democratic candidate Joe Biden recently announced a $2 trillion climate plan to be implemented over four years if he wins the presidential seat. The plan promises a 100 percent clean energy economy by 2050. A more moderate version of U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal proposal, the plan eliminates more progressive goals, such as universal healthcare and job guarantees. The Biden plan would need approval by the Senate and House, which after the coming election may or may not be controlled by the Democrats.

Biden’s plan comes as the Trump administration continues to roll back environmental regulations that protect public health and the ecosystem — nearly 100 so far since he took office. While the Trump regime is particularly aggressive in its pro-business, anti-people/planet policies, are we really to believe that Biden is going to lead the charge toward meaningful climate action?

The main focus of the plan is to reinstate Obama-era programs like the Clean Power Plan and fuel efficiency standards with a commitment to clean energy research and development and rejoining the Paris Agreement. These Obama-era policies fell far short of what is needed to reduce the U.S. contribution of greenhouse gas emissions to levels that will avert a runaway scenario.

When you look at what Biden means by “clean energy,” he does not mean solar and wind energy, but is instead referring to nuclear and carbon capture technologies. Nuclear energy has the 3rd highest lifecycle emissions after scrubbed coal-fired plants and natural gas. This is not to mention the catastrophic risk of nuclear reactor failure and waste disposal. And carbon capture technologies actually create more emissions from building the facilities than those facilities can capture.

While campaigning, Biden made it clear that he will not end his support for fracking and recently hired Heather Zichal to help mold his climate plan. Zichal served on the board of the natural gas company Cheniere Energy from 2014 to 2018 — hardly an environmentalist position.

Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/bidens-climate-plan-tactic-to-win-sanders-supporters-or-something-more/

Buy the book "Climate Solutions Beyond Capitalism"

http://store.pslweb.org/Climate-Solutions-Beyond-Capitalism_p_69.html

Some people are hailing the recent Supreme Court ruling on so-called “faithless electors” as a victory for democracy. However, we should be acutely aware that the Electoral College is actually a firewall against democracy.

The case came from Washington state in 2016 when four electors were fined $1,000 each for refusing to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton who had won the state’s popular vote. The four electors cast their votes for Colin Powell rather than Hillary Clinton in a last ditch attempt to get Republican electors to break from voting for Donald Trump. Washington State then fined them $1,000 under a new state law that requires electors to abide by the popular vote.

The intended goal of the suit was not to escape the $1,000 fine. The scope was larger. The plaintiffs were hoping to settle a 230 year old question: Are electors independent, or can a state force them to follow the popular vote of their state? Their desired outcome was for the court to rule that electors could vote their conscience, bringing into question the entire validity of the Electoral College. Another stated outcome they desired was that the conversation created around such a ruling would lead to “a popular uprising to change the Constitution, ditch the Electoral College and embrace the national popular vote.” (Seattle Times)

The history of the Electoral College begins with the history of the United States, or the “American experiment.” In the bourgeois revolution that shook off the yoke of British rule, the colonial settlers set out to form a new type of state without a monarch.

Originally they envisioned a ‘league of friendship” between the 13 colonies and thus formed the Articles of Confederation that created a weak central government. However, class antagonisms would soon arise from the agrarian population against the state governments dominated by the merchant classes in the north. One stark example was the debt crisis that occurred in Massachusetts which would lead to an open rebellion.

Shay’s Rebellion revealed some of the flaws of the Articles of Confederation. The new U.S. bourgeoisie sought to remedy these flaws and to take advantage of what they saw as the “blank slate” of the North American continent. The landed, capitalist and slave-owner elite convened in 1787 to debate a new form of government; one that would protect their ruling class interests.

Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/the-electoral-college-protecting-the-rich-from-democracy-since-1787/

Una profunda rebelión contra el racismo ha estado conmoviendo a los Estados Unidos durante un mes. Millones de personas han salido a las calles en todas partes del país, sacudiendo la opinión pública. Instituciones de élite, individuos y marcas corporativas están luchando para ofrecer sacrificios simbólicos en el altar de la justicia racial, con la esperanza de poder librarse de la justificada ira en las calles.

Al mismo tiempo, la policía está atacando sin motivo a manifestantes y continúa asesinando afroamericanos, burlándose de todas las declaraciones “oficiales” de “antirracismo”.

Oculto en este hecho está la lección más importante: el sistema capitalista otorga concesiones solo en defensa de su propia estabilidad. Ninguno de los espeluznantes hechos racistas eran desconocidos o indocumentados antes del asesinato de George Floyd. Lo único que ha cambiado es que la gente está dispuesta a incendiar edificios y enfrentarse a las brigadas antidisturbios que disparan con intención a mutilar.

La estabilidad no ha sido restaurada. Multitudes masivas continúan saliendo a las calles; los sindicatos están tomando medidas de huelga por la Liberación Negra; y, en una importante instancia cultural, se presentó a un comunista negro como the hero.

Varios intentos de extinguir las llamas de la resistencia, a través de la fuerza o la adulación, han tenido el efecto contrario. Para las autoridades, esto plantea la pregunta de qué sacará a la gente de las calles. Mientras tanto, los que están en las calles lidian con lo que se necesita para hacer cambios sustantivos y lo que incluso constituiría un “cambio real”.

Hay muchas rebeliones, menos revoluciones. Las rebeliones generalmente se asocian con una batalla de causa justa, las revoluciones con ganarla. Recordamos muchas rebeliones de esclavos en todo el continente americano, pero solo una revolución de esclavos. Celebramos el heroísmo de Nat Turner y Dessalines por igual, pero reconocemos que sus logros son de diferentes órdenes.

Las rebeliones expresan la incapacidad del sistema actual para resolver sus propias contradicciones utilizando el marco político existente. Las revoluciones resuelven esas contradicciones: un nuevo marco, un nuevo sistema.

Lea el artículo completo: https://www.liberationnews.org/de-rebelion-a-revolucion/

For 63 days, every possible attempt to derail a people’s movement in defense of Black lives has been made against protesters in Portland, Oregon. Every red-baiting, reactionary talking point has been deployed. On the ground, the Portland Police Bureau, the National Guard and three different types of federal paramilitary police have attempted to crush dissent. They claim it is about “law and order,” about protecting federal property from “violent anarchists.” Protesters see it for what it really is: repression. Repression of not only of 1st amendment right to peacefully assemble, but of the right of recourse against a racist government that does not serve the people, and finally, repression of a deepening movement.

The protests have ebbed and flowed. There have been internal disputes and setbacks, but the largest crowds ever appeared night after night in the days following the attack on Donavan Labella, shot in the face and permanently brain damaged by a federal rubber bullet. Contingents of protesters–mothers, fathers, veterans, healthcare and culinary workers, teachers, and more–have shown up en masse to join in the call to stop the war on Black America, and to assert the right to protest. To varying degrees, protesters arrive ready to defend themselves from impact munitions and CS gas, donning gear like goggles, helmets, gas masks, gloves, and carrying homemade shields and battery operated leaf blowers.

Some national media outlets have tried and failed to smear these largely non-Black groups of protesters as ‘privileged’ people co-opting a Black movement. Meanwhile in the streets, signs carried by white members of ‘the wall of moms’ read: “Wall of Moms is not the story. Black people dying is the story.” Another sign reads, “REST IN PEACE QUANICE/KILLED BY PDX POLICE,” referencing the 2017 killing of a 17-year old Black child named Quanice Hayes, whose killer still serves in the PPB. These small examples represent an attempt to build trust between an increasingly race-and-class conscious white population and the Black communities of Portland. Two months of protest cannot undo this state’s history (and present) of white supremacy, but this is a beginning.

Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/portland-anti-racist-protesters-undeterred-by-repression/

Slogans play a key role in all political activities, whether they be local demonstrations, pickets, strikes, or mass movements. While the fact that slogans are short might make it seem as though they’re of minor importance or a mere matter of semantics, the fact is that slogans can be decisive factors in individual and more protracted political struggles, for movements for reform and revolution.

Slogans aren’t just words that we put on banners and placards. They are tools to orient and guide political activity–including mass outreach–to unite different sectors of the movement, to educate people by helping them reach their own conclusions, and to educate the Party by revealing the consciousness of the people.

As crystallizations of complex situations and ideas, slogans distill political theory and strategy into concise formulas; they can’t say everything. Because struggles are dynamic, they have to be re-evaluated constantly. A slogan could be correct one day and incorrect the next.

All of this means that slogans can have real, material consequences. They can advance a struggle or move it backwards, alienate people or draw them in, communicate the truth or deceive.

Whether a slogan is correct or not isn’t an abstract question, but a concrete one. A slogan can be theoretically correct, in that it communicates a political truth, yet still be practically incorrect because it doesn’t relate this truth to the specific conditions of struggle at that time.

Slogans have to be accessible to the broad masses of people, not only in terms of wording but in terms of the content establishing a point of contact with people’s consciousness. This doesn’t mean that they cater to the “lowest common denominator,” but that they speak to the broadest possible segments of the movement. In other words, Marxists don’t create slogans for ourselves and other Marxists, but for the masses. They’re teaching tools.

Like all propaganda, slogans have different scales. They might be specific to one struggle in one town or city at one moment, or they might have national and international relevance. Some slogans take the form of demands, while others take the form of statements.

The purpose of this article is to flesh out the above elements and functions of slogans, and to illustrate the critical roles they assume during concrete struggles. This is illustrated most clearly in the twists and turns of the revolutionary struggle in Russia as it unfolded in 1917. In the final sections, we give some more contemporary examples and then walk through some guiding questions to aid in the formulation of slogans.

Read the full article: https://liberationschool.org/formulating-slogans/

On July 3, the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, signed into law the Anti-Terrorism Bill of 2020, commonly known as the “Anti-Terrorism Law.” The bill, which broadens the definition of terrorism, takes effect July 18.

Historical context

The National Democratic movement in the Philippines has waged a struggle for liberation and democracy against three basic problems: imperialism, feudalism, and bureaucrat capitalism. It is the primary mass movement in the Philippines.

The Philippines has been in a state of revolution since the late 1960s and early 1970s with the beginning of a protracted people’s war. The re-founded Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army, have been fighting a civil war non-stop since 1969 for the liberation of the Filipino people. The Communist base of power has grown each year, and the NPA now has a presence in a majority of the provinces of the Philippines.

As this war developed, groups like Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth), an organization of youths and students, and MAKIBAKA (Struggle), a militant women’s rights group, organized mass protests, from January to March 1970, against then-President Ferdinand Marcos, who sought to consolidate his power by implementing martial law. The series of mass actions, known as the First Quarter Storm, saw millions of Filipinos take to the streets to challenge the dictatorship. These groups were later forced to go underground during martial law but continued their resistance against Marcos. While they were unafraid of the word “communist,” the legal implications meant death.

The protracted people’s war continued and alliances developed, including between the NPA and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, as the revolution increased in strength. However, in 1991, in the southern island of Mindanao, a faction split from the MILF called the Abu Sayyaf, an Islamic separatist group that engaged in bombings, extortion, drug trafficking, and assassination. In 2014, the group swore allegiance to ISIS. In 2016, the Philippine government bombed the city of Marawi, displacing thousands of people. Duterte implemented martial law throughout the island as a means to combat ISIS but, more insidiously, to stifle the revolutionary movement where its forces were most consolidated.

In the past two years, overseas Filipinos in the United States have fought tirelessly for the liberation of the homeland. Due to their efforts, the United Nations published a report on Human Rights in the Philippines and more than 300 people mobilized in Washington, D.C., to condemn Duterte’s crimes and war on the people. An episode of NBC’s Superstore had an entire plot line revolving around Duterte’s “War on Drugs,” exposing its violence.

Read the full article: https://www.liberationnews.org/philippine-president-duterte-signs-anti-terrorism-bill-into-law/

The name Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) is commonplace in the field of education. Ask any teacher or professor of education about Vygotsky and chances are they will at least recall the name from their child development or educational psychology classes. His theories are still foundational to even mainstream education but, as is the case with so many revolutionaries, they have been stripped of their Marxist foundations. One result is that the revolutionary potential of Vygotsky’s theories have remained largely unknown not only inside schools and teacher education programs, but also inside social movements.

This article introduces Vygotsky’s theories on educational psychology and human development, contextualizes them within the transition from Czarist Russia to the Soviet Union, draws out the main elements of his work that have utility for revolutionary organizers, and provides concrete illustrations of their utility.

Read the full article: https://liberationschool.org/vygotskys-revolutionary-educational-psychology/