Linking jobs, anti-war struggle

Operation POWER (People Organizing and Working for Empowerment and Respect), a Black grassroots organization, held an outreach forum on July 17 at the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn. The group uses various organizing tactics, including running candidates of color for office, to promote the right to self-determination.

Brenda Stokely WW photos: Monica Moorehead

Brenda Stokely, a leader of the Million Worker March Movement and Operation POWER founding member, gave a presentation on the New York City Jobs for All Campaign. The origins of this campaign began last Sept. 20 with a national march for jobs and a week-long tent city organized in the Black community of Pittsburgh.

Stokely emphasized that “a job is a right” means workers should not be forced to work more than one job in order to cover their housing, health care, education and other necessities. She said people also need jobs to be fully productive in society.

The campaign is reaching out to unemployed and underemployed workers and supporters throughout the New York City region to fight for a comprehensive jobs program in the form of building unemployment councils and people’s assemblies. E-mail [email protected] for more information.

LeiLani Dowell

LeiLani Dowell, an organizer for the youth group Fight Imperialism, Stand Together and the Bail Out the People Movement, spoke on the impact of the U.S. war budget on the cutbacks in social services at home.

Dowell gave important facts and figures showing that the 2010 Pentagon budget, passed under the Barack Obama administration, is the largest in U.S. history. “At $680 billion, it’s larger than the military expenditures of the whole rest of the world combined,” she said. Part of this budget has gone to fight the people and occupy the countries of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Dowell explained that imperialism is not a policy, but rather a worldwide system of capitalist exploitation that destroys the Indigenous economies of developing countries.

Charles Barron

Brooklyn City Councilperson Charles Barron opened up the forum with a talk that condemned capitalism as a system that cares more about making profits than providing for human needs. He said Cuba’s socialist revolution has created a humane society where people live longer and where there is a lower infant mortality rate compared to the U.S.

Barron also stated that while New York City’s $63 billion annual budget is higher than the budgets of 48 U.S. states, Black people suffer from high unemployment, foreclosures and homelessness. Barron is attempting to get on the ballot as a New York gubernatorial candidate for the recently-formed Freedom Party.