Bernie Sanders

October 6, 2020

Us versus the billionaires and their parties

In a recent interview, Joe Biden was visually irritated when responding to a reporter who asked if his proposed policies are “socialist”. “Do I look like a socialist? Look at my career — my whole career. I am not a socialist…I beat the socialist!”

This back-handed slap at Bernie Sanders occurred precisely at the time that Sanders and the self-identified progressives and Socialists in Congress push for the 10-15 million people who voted for Sanders in the primaries to get behind Biden—despite deep ideological differences.

On the heels of the deployment of Federal police in several states to repress Black Lives Matter protests, and Trump accusing him of being soft on the movement against police violence, Biden defensively replied and criticized the protests. At a high-profile press conference at a steel mill in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with all of its dog-whistle

May 13, 2020

by Blas Reies

Los Demócratas: partido sangriento del imperialismo, guerra, y opresión

Ese momento ha vuelto, llega cada cuatro años, cuando la gente nos dice que es nuestro deber votar…votar por el mal menor, votar contra los republicanos, votar por los demócratas. En este momento algunas personas están entusiasmadas con el demócrata Bernie Sanders, esa gran esperanza para los liberales.

Muchos justifican su apoyo a Sanders por diciendo que el empujara a los demócratas hacia la izquierda y los regresara a sus raíces “progresistas.” La verdad es que los demócratas no son el partido del mal menor y sus raíces están lejos de ser “progresistas.” No es un aliado de la clase obrera y de los oprimidos, y nunca lo fue. El Partido Demócrata es el otro partido de la clase dominante angloamericana, es un partido que hace cumplir el encarcelamiento en masa y las deportaciones en masa, ejecuta guerras imperialistas y apoya dictaduras sangrientas en otros países. Esto es lo que es Partido Demócrata: un partido capitalista e imperialista.

May 5, 2020

by Lupita Romero and Hector A. Rivera

Puntorojo roundtable: What’s next for the Latinx left?

Now that Bernie Sanders has left the race and endorsed Joe Biden, several articles in The Red Nation, New Politics, Latino Rebels and Jacobin, have assessed the campaign and offered next steps for socialists. At puntorojo, we’d like to contribute to this comradely debate by opening up our magazine for others who want to contribute their reflections. In this piece, we offer two reflections from members of our editorial collective and we invite other Latinx and people of color (POC) socialists to contribute their insights and perspectives as we move forward in a post-Bernie landscape.

April 2, 2020

by Blas Reies

The Democrats: blood-stained party of imperialism, war, and oppression

That time has come again, it comes every four years, when people tell us it is our duty to vote…to vote for the lesser evil, to vote against the Republicans, to vote for the Democrats. Right now, some people are enthusing over Democrat Bernie Sanders, that great hope for liberals.

Many justify their support of Sanders by stating that he will push the Democrats to the left, take them back to its “progressive” roots. The truth is that the Democrats are not the party of lesser evil and its roots are far from “progressive.” It is not an ally of labor and the oppressed, and it never was. The Democratic Party is the other party of the Anglo-American ruling class, it is a party that enforces mass incarceration and mass deportations, wages imperialist wars, and supports bloody dictatorships abroad. This is what the Democratic Party is – a capitalist, imperialist party.

December 20, 2019

by Lupita Romero

Bernie Sanders’s immigration plan: a response from the front-lines of struggle

I live in Queens, New York, one of the most diverse areas in the country. I arrived from Mexico as a child in the post 9/11 period of social militarization, carried out under the veil of “national security”. This era has been marked by scapegoating and repression. Between Republican’s nauseatingly racist attacks on our civil rights and the shallow support of establishment Democrats, the voice of undocumented immigrants is ignored in elections if it does not fall in line behind the Democratic Party, or if we go beyond merely focusing our efforts to register our documented community to vote “blue”.

Despite being taxpayers, we are not allowed to vote, run for office or donate to, fund-raise, or directly campaign for candidates in most local elections and in no state or federal elections. For this reason, civil society and immigrant rights organizations are constrained to waging limited legal challenges and legislative reforms that rely on building alliance with Democrats at the cost of independent action and accountability to the larger community. This marginalization in the electoral arena