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2009 in Review

1. Boston Socialist Alternative’s Year in Review

2009 was an important year for socialists. The hated Bush regime exited the halls of power, ushering in hopes that have not resulted in real change. World capitalism’s Great Recession has caused massive unemployment, budget cuts and social hardship. Meanwhile, Wall Street executives enjoy bonuses, bailouts and profits. While a fight against these conditions has not yet reached a generalized scale, the anger is mounting, and the battles are looming as we enter into 2010.

Boston Socialist Alternative, Socialist Alternative nationally, and the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) worldwide have helped to strengthen campaigns around day-to-day issues while also building a clearly socialist movement. Our sister organization in Ireland, Socialist Party, won a seat in European Parliament for Joe Higgins (see joehiggins.eu). The CWI has campaigned for Tamil refugee rights in South Asia (tamilsolidarity.org). CWI members played a central role in many victorious strikes, particularly in England and Pakistan. Still, the CWI has analyzed key world and historical events in order to equip ourselves for the movements of today (socialistworld.net and socialismtoday.org). While the left internationally is unfortunately marked by division, there was a merger of two organizations in Brazil to form a new section of the CWI (http://www.sr-cio.org/). Nationally and internationally, we have made modest but important steps forward in building the forces of genuine Marxism.

In Boston:

Locally, we have played an important role in numerous union campaigns while also winning new forces to the socialist movement through youth outreach and community public meetings. In Quincy, we have held regular public meetings on topics ranging from “Labor and the Great Depression” to “Marx was Right.” These meetings have seen excellent turnouts and lively discussions. During the health care debate, we put forward a single-payer position at two Town Hall meetings, the Labor Day rally and two of our own successful public meetings. We also hosted a speaking tour of an activist, Adam Ziemkowski, who has been living in Bolivia for many years. Adam’s meetings were boldly titled “Join the Socialists” with engaging discussions at three college campuses.

In May 2009, we held the third annual Massachusetts Socialist Conference. We were pleased to have guest speakers Steve Early and Dorothea Manuela in attendance. Steve Early spoke on the way forward for the labor movement after the release of his new book. Steve also spoke at previous Socialist Alternative public meetings, and Dorothea is going to be speaking at our upcoming meeting in Dorchester. The fourth annual Massachusetts Socialist Conference is being planned for the fall of 2010, possibly with an attempt to build the event throughout New England.

Union Successes:

With Harvard having literally tens of billions of dollars in their endowment, they are laying workers off. Socialist Alternative helped to initiate the Harvard No Layoffs campaign which enjoys the cooperation and support of student groups, Allston community organizations, numerous union activists and some union leaders. Three “No Layoffs” candidates were recently elected as union representatives in the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers. The No Layoffs Campaign has hosted numerous rallies on the Harvard campus both against layoffs in general and to stop victimization (sometimes racist victimization) of union activists (see harvardnolayoffs.blogspot.com).

Socialist Alternative members also helped wage a campaign in cooperation with other members of the Massachusetts Nurses Association to Save Our Hospitals. This campaign attempted to stop the gutting of numerous health facilities in the Cambridge and Somerville region. Many workers became active for the first time, petitioning on the streets, speaking at public hearings while building awareness and struggle against the cuts. Based on respect won from this campaign, a Socialist Alternative member, Seamus Whelan, became a union representative for his unit in Cambridge Hospital. Also, based on respect gained from our activities in construction unions over the years, another member of Socialist Alternative is becoming a shop steward in the Carpenters Union.

While increasing our focus on economic campaigns, community meetings and union work, we have still maintained a presence in immigrant rights coalitions, the anti-war demonstrations and the struggle for LGBT equality.


Building Regionally and Nationally:

Boston Socialist Alternative members have played an increased role in our regional and national organization, helping to open up our first activities in Brockton with public meetings there. We also had an extremely successful meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire; the first ever Socialist Alternative public meeting in New Hampshire got extensive press coverage in local newspapers and an excellent turnout! Boston members are also playing an increased role in Justice newspaper.


With growing interest in socialist ideas, we expect to go from strength to strength in 2010! There are possibilities opening up for young people to take a stand against U.S. wars and occupations worldwide. The growing economic anger in society will turn to resistance, and socialists need to play a crucial role in this.

2. Upcoming Events

On Wednesday, January 27th beginning at 7pm, Socialist Alternative will be hosting a meeting in Dorchester entitled “A Future with Mass Unemployment…Is Capitalism the Problem?” The event will be held at 42 Charles Street in the Vietnamese-American Institute for Development. Speakers will include Geoff Carens of the Harvard No Layoffs campaign, Dorothea Manuela of the Boston May Day Committee and Bryan Koulouris of Socialist Alternative.  The meeting will be free and open to the public. 42 Charles Street is right next to the Field’s Corner T stop.

There will be a National Day of Action to Defend Education on March 4th. It is unclear what the character of this will be locally. See defendeducation.org and socialistalternative.org for more information.

March 20th will see actions against the wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. See stopthewars.org for more information.

Socialist Alternative will also be building for May 1st, International Workers’ Day, in 2010. See bostonmayday.org for details as they arise.

3. An Appeal: Get Active!

With wars ravaging, Wall Street dominating and environmental destruction looming, it is easy to get discouraged, especially in this alienating U.S. capitalist culture. Still, history shows that movements can change society, and that ordinary people can play a key role in those movements. We need more workers and youth involved in the struggle to change society.
The world, at this critical juncture, needs more people willing to educate, agitate and organize for thoroughgoing and fundamental social change. Our forces may be small compared to the monumental tasks we have set for ourselves, but our ideas and methods are strong as we enter a period of massive social upheaval.
We need to build broad movements and a democratic socialist worldwide organization. We need to educate ourselves about events, struggles and solidarity. Please contact boston@socialistalternative.org or 774-454-9060. An activist near you would be happy to meet you for coffee so that you can ask whatever questions you have about socialism or politics in general. Hopefully, you would eventually make the decision to get involved in Socialist Alternative or one of the campaigns mentioned above in whatever capacity you would like. If you would like to make a donation or subscribe to Justice newspaper, then visit socialistalternative.org.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 at 7:14 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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