Socialist Party USA – Joint NYC/NJ Local Discussion Group

AN END AND NEW BEGINNINGS
Howard Zinn, “Beyond the Soviet Union,”
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers/content/1999-09/2zinn.htm
Bertell Ollman, “America Beyond Capitalism: A Socialist Stew Prepared for Liberals and Conservatives,”
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/america_beyond_capitalism.php

INTRODUCTION TO DIALECTICAL THOUGHT
Bertell Ollman, “The Meaning of Dialectics,” in Dance of the Dialectic
http://www.nyu.edu/projects/ollman/docs/dd_ch01.php
Dialectics - http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/d/i.htm#dialectics
Historical materialism - http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/h/i.htm#historical-materialismread more »

May 1st, International Workers' Day, commemorates the historic struggle of working people throughout the world, and is recognized in every country except the United States, Canada, and South Africa. This despite the fact that the holiday began in the 1880s in the United States, with the fight for an eight-hour work day.

In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions passed a resolution stating that eight hours would constitute a legal day's work from and after May 1, 1886. The resolution called for a general strike to achieve the goal, since legislative methods had already failed. With workers being forced to work ten, twelve, and fourteen hours a day, rank-and-file support for the eight-hour movement grew rapidly, despite the indifference and hostility of many union leaders. By April 1886, 250,000 workers were involved in the May Day movement.

The heart of the movement was in Chicago, organized primarily by the anarchist International Working People's Association. Businesses and the state were terrified by the increasingly revolutionary character of the movement and prepared accordingly. The police and militia were increased in size and received new and powerful weapons financed by local business leaders. Chicago's Commercial Club purchased a $2000 machine gun for the Illinois National Guard to be used against strikers. Nevertheless, by May 1st, the movement had already won gains for many Chicago clothing cutters, shoemakers, and packing-house workers. But on May 3, 1886, police fired into a crowd of strikers at the McCormick Reaper Works Factory, killing four and wounding many. Anarchists called for a mass meeting the next day in Haymarket Square to protest the brutality.

The meeting proceeded without incident, and by the time the last speaker was on the platform, the rainy gathering was already breaking up, with only a few hundred people remaining. It was then that 180 cops marched into the square and ordered the meeting to disperse. As the speakers climbed down from the platform, a bomb was thrown at the police, killing one and injuring seventy. Police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one worker and injuring many others.read more »

Click For PDF of Flyer

Free Screening and Discussion: "Engendering Colonialism: The Effect of 100 Years of U.S. Colonialism on Women in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and The Philippines"

Join us for a free screening and discussion of "Engendering Colonialism: The Effect of 100 Years of U.S. Colonialism on Women in Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and The Philippines," looking at 100 years of U.S. colonialism and its impact on the women of Hawai'i, Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico - and their resistance to it. Presented by the Socialist Party USA Greater NYC Local, GABRIELA Network USA, and the The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign, in observance of IWD (International Women's Day).

WHERE AND WHEN Sunday, March 25th, 2007 at 3pm 339 Lafayette Street (between Bleecker & Bond), Manhattan, NYC 3rd Floor (up flight of stairs), AJ Muste Room Take 6 train to Bleecker Street or F/V train to Broadway/Lafayette The event will be preceded by SPNYC's monthly meeting at 1PM

• More about the Film: www.prairiefire.org/video.shtml
  
• More info on SPUSA's IWD Events: intwomensday.pdf

About the Presenters:

• Socialist Party USA Greater NYC Local - http://www.spnyc.org
  
• GABRIELA Network USA
  
• The ProLibertad Freedom Campaign
  
• Hawaii Solidarity Committee

FREE! (preceded by the SPNYC meeting at 1PM in same location)

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International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for "liberty, equality, fraternity" marched on Versailles to demand women's suffrage.

The idea of an International Women's Day first arose at the turn of the century, which in the industrialized world was a period of expansion and turbulence, booming population growth and radical ideologies. Following is a brief chronology of the most important events:

1909

In accordance with a declaration by the Socialist Party of America, the first National Woman's Day was observed across the United States on 28 February. Women continued to celebrate it on the last Sunday of that month through 1913.

1910

The Socialist International, meeting in Copenhagen, established a Women's Day, international in character, to honour the movement for women's rights and to assist in achieving universal suffrage for women. The proposal was greeted with unanimous approval by the conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, which included the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament. No fixed date was selected for the observance.

1911

As a result of the decision taken at Copenhagen the previous year, International Women's Day was marked for the first time (19 March) in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland, where more than one million women and men attended rallies. In addition to the right to vote and to hold public office, they demanded the right to work, to vocational training and to an end to discrimination on the job.

Less than a week later, on 25 March, the tragic Triangle Fire in New York City took the lives of more than 140 working girls, most of them Italian and Jewish immigrants. This event had a significant impact on labour legislation in the United States, and the working conditions leading up to the disaster were invoked during subsequent observances of International Women's Day.

1913-1914

As part of the peace movement brewing on the eve of World War I, Russian women observed their first International Women's Day on the last Sunday in February 1913. Elsewhere in Europe, on or around 8 March of the following year, women held rallies either to protest the war or to express solidarity with their sisters.

1917

With 2 million Russian soldiers dead in the war, Russian women again chose the last Sunday in February to strike for "bread and peace". Political leaders opposed the timing of the strike, but the women went on anyway. The rest is history: Four days later the Czar was forced to abdicate and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. That historic Sunday fell on 23 February on the Julian calendar then in use in Russia, but on 8 March on the Gregorian calendar in use elsewhere.

Since those early years, International Women's Day has assumed a new global dimension for women in developed and developing countries alike. The growing international women's movement, which has been strengthened by four global United Nations women's conferences, has helped make the commemoration a rallying point for coordinated efforts to demand women's rights and participation in the political and economic process. Increasingly, International Women's Day is a time to reflect on progress made, to call for change and to celebrate acts of courage and determination by ordinary women who have played an extraordinary role in the history of women's rights.

And download the SP-USA's 2007 IWD pamphlet (pdf)