Kevin Akin at PeaceAndFreedom.org:
The following invitation was first circulated to interested organizations and individuals on September 11. Please visit noc2012.org for more information.
Dear Friends,
The National Organizing Committee invites you to participate in the founding conference of a coalition intended to provide a Left political presence in the 2012 election cycle. The meeting will take place over the weekend of December 10 and 11, 2011 in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The National Organizing Committee was originated by the Peace and Freedom Party, which has ballot status in California with about 60,000 registered members. Freedom Socialist Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and Socialist Organizer are among other NOC affiliated organizations.
We decided that rather than three or four small socialist parties trying to get on the ballot, it would be better if the different socialist organizations worked together electorally. A broad range of Left leaning groups and individuals has also been involved in planning discussions. We are inviting many more to join in the effort. Some of the organizations invited have a history of using independent electoral campaigns to advance a working-class agenda.
This conference is expected to create the initial structure of a national independent Left electoral coalition for 2012 and beyond. Although the immediate focus of the coalition we are building may be electoral, we intend to engage in a wide breadth of movement-oriented activities. The Democratic and Republican Parties are owned lock, stock and barrel by the ultra-rich and their corporations who control our economy (and mass media). In order to advance the real interests of the working people of our country, a new independent Left political formation is needed to fight for our own needs.
The December conference is not expected to nominate a presidential ticket, but may produce interim candidates for the purpose of gaining ballot access. We seek cooperation in backing unity candidates for United States Senate and House of Representatives, state legislatures and local offices. Conference participants will determine the rules, structure, and plans of the national coalition.
We are eager to welcome conference participants from all areas of the country. Please let us know how many of your delegates from out of the area will need housing so we can offer accommodations with local Bay Area activists.
We look forward to your participation. Between now and the conference, we hope your organization will affiliate with NOC and join our planning committee. For more information, please see our website at www.noc2012.org. We will be happy to answer any questions you may have, and discuss any related issue with you. Thank you.
In solidarity,
Kevin Akin
Interim Chair
NOC2012
Kevin Akin is a member of the State Executive Committee, and past State Chair, of the Peace and Freedom Party.
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The only thing I’d add is that the FSP, pretty much since it’s origins, has been a self described feministorganization, and they were also pro-gay rights long before that was acceptable among other Troskyist, or Leftist in general, organizations.
They also have pretty much always had strong female leadership when much of the US Left’s leadership was still male-dominated.
I also hope this to be an explictly socialist effort. My hope is that the effort is democratic and multi-tendency, rather than run by a Leninist cadre.
What are SPUSA thinking abt the NOC??
Party for Socialism and Liberation split from the Workers World Party in 2004. WWP ran a candidate for President that year, and the West Coast branches opposed doing so because they were working with Democrats in antiwar groups.
The west coast branches split and formed PSL which now has branches in New York and the Mid-West. In 2008 PSL ran Gloria LaRiva for President while WWP backed Cynthia McKinney on the Green Party ticket.
WWP was formed by dissidents from the Socialist Workers Party in 1959. WWP supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, which SWP opposed. WWP was also pro-China, and less critical of Stalin than other Trotskyist groups. PSL has stands that are almost the same as WWP.
Pete @ 4 –
The Freedom Socialist Party started as the Seattle (Washington) branch of the Socialist Workers Party. They split in the early 1960s and formed FSP on the basis of two disagreements with SWP.
SWP was supporting Black Nationalist tendencies, including the Nation of Islam. SWP really wanted to recruit Malcolm X, and in fact they got the rights to publish many of his speeches as books or pamphlets. The group that formed FSP opposed racial separatism, and proposed “revolutionary integration” as the alternative.
The Freedom Socialist Party took a very favorable view of Mao and the Communist Party of China, considering that the CCP was carrying out the Trotskyist program of Permanent Revolution (buduan geming in Chinese) through their implementation of Peoples Communes in China and Chinese support for revolutionary movements in Asia and Africa. SWP was more critical of China, mostly because their factional opponents in the Fourth International were pro-China.
Freedom Socialist Party backed the Peace & Freedom Party in 1968, and FSP activists have been involved in California’s PFP at times since then.
Now FSP considers China is moving toward capitalism, and looks to Cuba to lead the international socialist movement.
@#2: why is upholding a rule of going into electoral alliance with non-socialist parties an “invitation to sectarian hell?” On the one hand, the proposed common platform for NOC members running for office (http://noc2012.org/noc2012_003.htm) is pretty brief and broadly written, so a number of progressive, though non-socialist candidates could sign on. But at the same time, the NOC aims to be explicitly socialist (“The National Organizing Committee seeks to build a broad-based nonsectarian socialist electoral coalition”), so why would non-socialist groups be allowed to participate in what’s being put forth as an explicitly socialist effort?
In the interest of full disclosure, I’m an NC member of the Socialist Party USA, which at this time does not have any relationship with the NOC. My own position would be one of cautious support.
Yeah, FSP and PSL, how’d you guess? The funny thing is the PSL is an old orthodox Marxist-Leninist group (some would call them Stalinist but I wouldn’t) and I don’t really know the origins of the FSP but they don’t strike me as typical trotskyites. Do you know their origins? In any case, the Peace and Freedom types have their hands full already.
Let me guess, FSP and PSL?
In 1983 I participated in a similar conference initiated by P&FP, SCULPT, Search Committee for a United Left Presidential Ticket. Between the Newmanite-Fulanite New Alliance Party and the onetime Internationalist Workers Party (Fourth International), a trotsykist sect, try to take over, the whole effort went no where. And the conference ended up being focused on stopping the NAP or IWP(FI) from taking over.
Hopefully the PF&P and the SPUSA are better organized and can keep the focus on building a broader multi-tendency Left political party.
One potential problem with at least two of the groups already named as members of the NOC is that they have told me that they will not enter into electoral alliance with any party that isn’t “Socialist”. That’s an invitation to sectarian hell if that rule holds up at this conference.
It will be very interesting to see if the indie socialists and the SPUSA, &c can keep the NOC from falling under the control of one of the trotskyist or stalinist elements. It would be even better if the NOC could bring in new blood, instead of just being a coalition of existing socialist political parties.
I like the P&FP model of a decentralized, multi-tendency Left political party. Rather than a Leninist vanguardist effort.