NY Times mentions Party for Socialism and Liberation

In their article about Saturday’s March on the Pentagon, the NY Times mentions the Party for Socialism and Liberation and gets the facts correct, unlike too many uninformed articles about ANSWER the past few years.

Saturday’s march was organized by the Answer Coalition â┚¬â€ named for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism â┚¬â€ an organization that was initially associated with the Workers World Party and now affiliated with a breakaway faction of that party called the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

That faction broke from WWP nearly three years ago and formed the now-thriving PSL. From the PSL founding statement.

As former leaders and members of Workers World Party, we defend that group’s historical tradition and mission, particularly that of its founder Sam Marcy. Although we believe that the Workers World Party leadership is no longer capable of fulfilling that mission, we still consider it to be a progressive organization with many honest activists.

Yet many supposed leftist publications still get this simple fact wrong, and continue to link ANSWER with Workers World, not forgetting to toss in some red-baiting and socialist-bashing too. How progressive is it to recycle right-wing smears without even fact-checking first? Not very…

Back to the NY Times article

Brian Becker, the national coordinator of the Answer Coalition and a member of the Party of Socialism and Liberation, said the group held out little hope of influencing either the president or Congress. “It is about radicalizing people,” Mr. Becker said in an interview. “You hook into a movement that exists â┚¬â€ in this case the antiwar movement â┚¬â€ and channel people who care about that movement and bring them into political life, the life of political activism.”

Precisely, that’s what activism is about. All the causes are linked. That’s the point that needs to be made.

PSLweb is the primary news site for PSL, with timely articles and analysis appearing several times a week. It’s well worth checking out.

(As an aside, if you look at hard-core organizing in the States, socialists and the religious often play major roles. The labor struggles of the early 1900’s had socialists at the core, and without them we might not have a 40 hour work week or unemployment insurance. The civil rights and anti-Vietnam war campaigns of the 50’s and 60’s had both socialists and people of faith as key organizers from the beginning.)