Zack Frailey Escobar

January 7, 2022

What kind of party do we need?

This is a crucial moment for the socialist movement. There has been substantial growth of socialist organization in the last four years and the highest point of public support for socialism since the 1970s. But it would be a mistake to believe that socialism’s popularity will simply continue along this trajectory indefinitely, or that this necessarily translates to a fundamental shift towards class struggle. Membership in the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), largest U.S. socialist group in the US, has recently plateaued. The second largest group, the International Socialist Organization, collapsed 2 years ago. To make matters worse, the trend within DSA which had been moving toward a break with the Democrats and the formation of an independent party has undergone a reversal. If this trend becomes dominant within the socialist movement, the trajectory towards socialist party building will become stunted, and a new generation of potential revolutionaries will be funneled back into the Democratic Party like so many before them.

November 19, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Base building meets cadre development: the alternative to socialist opportunism

The subterranean forces of capitalist development have begun to produce ruptures. The economic growth of the neoliberal period stalled as early as 2007-08, leading to the Occupy movement and the nascent class politics of the 99%. The phony post-racialism of the early Obama period has been exposed as a fraud again and again, most significantly by the Ferguson riots and the national uprising following the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Covid-19 exposed the inability of our capitalistic health infrastructure to even keep the economy running, let alone care for people’s basic needs. As both the ecological and economic situation continue to deteriorate, these crises will only compound. Without an organizational framework that can capture the inevitable rage of the exploited and oppressed and bind it to a vision for revolutionary transformation, the potential power of the working class – the only class which can overthrow capitalism – will not be realized. It will remain a “class-in-itself” but not a “class-for-itself.”

August 12, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Agitating for the “General Strike”: a shortcut to nowhere

If you’re plugged in to progressive social media pages, you might have heard the buzz around the date October 15. Apparently, there is going to be a general strike! According to the strike organizers’ website (https://octoberstrike.com/), workers will be refusing to show up indefinitely as they demand a 25% corporate tax rate, free healthcare, 12 weeks paid paternity and maternity leave, a $20 minimum wage, a 4 day work week, and “stricter environmental regulations on corporations”.
In spite of these lofty goals, the “organization” of this would-be strike does not inspire a great deal of confidence. So far, it consists of little more than the website referenced above and a change.org petition. Other than a simple call to action and the list of demands, the website contains some basic information on the right to strike and links to various associated social media pages which post essentially the same information. The activists or organizations

July 1, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Zionists Weep Crocodile Tears

As Israel bombs Palestinian civilians in Gaza, ethnically cleanses Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and deliberately unleashes right wing mobs to terrorize Palestinians everywhere, the whole U.S. congressional establishment has united to condemn Israel’s critics.

The entire Democratic leadership joined with the most rabidly racist sections of the Republican Party to slander congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s statements comparing Israel’s and the United States’ crimes with those of Hamas and the Taliban as antisemitic. The statement they issued on June 11th reads, in part: “Drawing false equivalencies between democracies like the US and Israel and groups that engage in terrorism like Hamas and the Taliban foments prejudice and undermines progress toward a future of peace and security for all.”

June 7, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

The QAnon Coup: hysteria and conspiracy at the end of the world

In the halls of Congress, Democrats are attempting (or at least feigning an attempt) to force an investigation into the January 6th riot, in which Trump supporters invaded the US Capitol building. Many on the left correctly view this step as a piece of political theater designed to simultaneously appease their base and generate a rationale for further expansion of the national security state. Despite the ridiculous charade of the capitalist parties, however, there is nothing frivolous about the riot or the horde of fanatical “QAnon” conspiracy theorists that spawned it. The events of January 6 portend the emergence of a new, radicalized Right which the Left must be prepared to combat.

May 13, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

The Colombian Working Class Against Neoliberalism and Imperialism

In the aftermath of the pandemic, Colombians are striking and demonstrating against austerity and police repression in a historic rebellion. The uprising highlights the power workers hold – and if the rising is successful, it could spell the end of decades of right-wing rule.

April 13, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Bolivia: The golpistas must be punished

The return to power of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party after the 2019 coup, has been followed by a swift effort to hold the golpistas accountable. In response, the US media has taken up the State Department’s line, shedding crocodile tears over alleged civil rights abuses. Ironically, these same voices utterly failed to condemn a right-wing coup which led to a year-long period of political violence that left at least 30 dead and thousands more injured or arrested. These disingenuous commentators are now wringing their hands over the arrest and prosecution of the guilty parties. Those of us concerned with genuine democracy in Latin America should ignore them, looking at similar machinations that previously occurred in Brazil.

March 22, 2021

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Return of the Spectre

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the Left and the various social movements associated with it have been caught in a cycle of helplessness. From the riots of the Anti-globalization movement to the Occupy movement, social ferment erupts onto the scene in the form of mass protests, only to be crushed by police power and then co-opted by hegemonic liberalism. This process is dialectically both a symptom and a cause of an ethos that reduces politics to a set of individual moral endeavors, rather than a collective project of liberation. Unable even to raise Lenin’s (in)famous query, “What is to be Done?”, a Left seemingly afraid of its own shadow has been stuck asking itself – “What do we want?”