Where I Stand.

So I've been asked by a few of my non-political friends to share more information about my perspectives on certain issues or struggles, and I thought it would be easier to provide a link to a very informative packet that pretty much encapsulates where I stand on things. I'll post an excerpt below and then the link! Enjoy!

Socialism, Not Capitalism

War, poverty, exploitation and oppression are products

of the capitalist system, a system in which a minority rul-

ing class profits from the labor of the majority. The alter-

native is socialism, a society based on workers collectively

owning and controlling the wealth their labor creates.

We stand in the Marxist tradition, founded by Karl

Marx and Frederick Engels, and continued by V.I. Lenin,

Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky.

Workers’ Power

Workers create society’s wealth, but have no control

over its production and distribution. A socialist society

can only be built when workers collectively take control

of that wealth and democratically plan its production and

distribution according to human needs instead of profit.

The working class is the vast majority of society and is

the key to the fight for socialism. Workers’ central role in

production gives them a social power—by use of the strike

weapon—to paralyze the system like no other social force.

Socialism is working-class self-emancipation. Only

mass struggles of the workers themselves can put an end

to the capitalist system of oppression and exploitation.

We support trade unions as essential to the fight for

workers’ economic and political rights. To make the unions

fight for workers’ interests, rank-and-file workers must or-

ganize themselves independent of the union officials.

Revolution

We actively support the struggle of workers and all op-

pressed people for economic, political and social reforms,

both as a means to improve their conditions and to ad-

vance their confidence and fighting strength. But reforms

within the capitalist system cannot put an end to oppres-

sion and exploitation. Capitalism must be replaced.

The structures of the present government grew up

under capitalism and are designed to protect capitalist

rule. The working class needs an entirely different kind of

independence from the corporate-dominated two-party

system in the U.S.

Internationalism

Capitalism is an international system, so the struggle

for socialism must be international, uniting workers of all

countries. Socialists oppose imperialism--the division of

the globe based on the subjugation of weaker nations by

stronger ones—and support the self-determination of op-

pressed nations. We oppose all immigration controls.

We oppose U.S. intervention in Cuba, the Middle

East, and elsewhere. We are for self-determination for

Puerto Rico.

China and Cuba, like the former Soviet Union and

Eastern Bloc, have nothing to do with socialism. They are

state capitalist regimes. We support the struggles of work-

ers in these countries against the bureaucratic ruling class.

Full Equality and Liberation

Capitalism divides the working class, based on sexual,

gender, racial, national and other distinctions. The spe-

cially oppressed groups within the working class suffer the

most under capitalism.

We oppose racism in all its forms. We support the

struggle for immigrant rights. We fight for real social,

economic and political equality for women, and for an

end to discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and

transgender people.

We support the fight for Black liberation and all the

struggles of the oppressed. The liberation of the op-

pressed is essential to socialist revolution and impossible

without it.

http://internationalsocialist.org/pdfs/WhereWeStandPamphlet.pdf