On April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a speech against the Vietnam War. He made explicit the connection between the bombing of decolonial movements abroad and systemic racism here. He said that a country that “spend[s] more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” But it went even further. He said that the United States government was on the wrong side of global revolution. Both that revolution itself, and the role of the United States within it, continues. 

Today, on a day when we should be celebrating Dr. King’s life, legacy, and most importantly the struggles he took part in, instead a white supremacist is being inaugurated for his second term. A massive deportation operation is likely starting in Chicago, with more like it on the way. The rights and autonomy of our transgender siblings are under attack, with many Democrats using their loss as a ready excuse to capitulate. Local governments across the country stand ready to blame poverty on the poor and scapegoat people systemically deprived of housing, as public enemies. The battle lines are being drawn for a year, for several years, of tough fights ahead.

So if that’s the bad news, what’s the good news? The good news is that the ideological conditioning of the ruling class is not working. No side of capitalist ideology has a future to offer us. Capitalism offers no path to a habitable Earth. But we have an antidote to this bleak future capitalism promises us: solidarity and collective working class power.

Civil rights organizer Ella Baker called the building of this power Spadework, the steady, patient, everyday work that prepares the ground for dramatic action. While many people are justifiably scared and have their eyes on the power games up top, organizers shift the ground beneath their feet. This steady work, this organizing reconstructs the foundations of class struggle and brings up new possibilities. Things that do not seem possible or even foreseeable now become unlocked. These are the steps to fighting back.

In 2020, when the Democratic Party pushed Biden on us, it was an attempt to preserve the neoliberal order, with corporate profits as the first priority, and human lives last. Despite this, his Administration somehow had the most pro labor National Labor Relations Board in decades. How did this happen? Was it from the kindness of Biden’s heart? Hell no! It was the upsurge in labor militancy, years in the making, that swept across this country and still goes strong. As socialists, we know that while the rulers may write history, the workers make it. 

We’re stepping into new terrain now, but remember that the victories of the labor movement never relied on friendly bureaucrats to push it along.  Rather, the labor movement itself created the conditions for things like the NLRB, the minimum wage, the weekend, and other rights to exist at all. Socialists and radicals of all stripes have always been pivotal to labor militancy. So it may not look like it, but the best time to join the labor movement and organize with your fellow workers is right now!

As of yesterday, we’ve finally seen a ceasefire in Gaza. If you saw like I did the videos of Palestinian children dancing in the streets, then your heart was moved too. Just like with Biden we ask, how did this happen? Did Donald Trump become an anti-imperialist? Of course not. It was the strength and persistence of the resistance movement to this genocide throughout the world. One part of that were radicals right here in the heart of the Empire. For over a year, when it seemed hopeless, when it looked like the great machine of imperial slaughter would never stop, people kept organizing and fighting back. Because we had to. Because we could not stand by as witnesses, as accomplices, to this horror. 

One of the most organized and strategic manifestations of the resistance movement here in the US were the student encampments and occupations. Some of those students are here with us today – let’s hear it for them. And so is our local Palestinian Rights Committee – let’s hear it for them too.

If you played any part in this movement, you have learned a few things. First, you’ve already experienced what fighting fascism looks like. Second, you’ve seen how rapidly change can happen. Our systems of power are tough, but brittle. Capitalism is not adapting in ways to ensure its own survival. Pushing against this wall feels invincible until the moment it breaks. So the third lesson is to keep pushing.

Right now, nurses at NYSNA are fighting for dignity and safe working conditions not just for themselves, but better care and safety for their patients. Workers at Starbucks and Amazon are fighting for recognition of their unions and fair contracts.

Right now, tenant unions have formed right here in Albany and are fighting to have autonomy over their living conditions.

Right now, civil rights struggles take place across this region, including in Saratoga where Black organizers fight against systemic white supremacy in the police and city government.

Right now, organizing against the military industrial complex and our financial ties to Israeli apartheid continue, demanding not just a ceasefire but full Palestinian liberation.

Right now, organizers are fighting against the capitalist fossil fuel economy because that is the only path to a beautiful future we all deserve.

These are all deeply significant sites of class struggle that will help set the terrain of what is possible in the future. And they’re not happening somewhere else. We’re not watching them on our screens. They are here and now. The contradictions of Capitalism will always create the opportunities to fight against it. As socialists, we’re not gonna lay low for four years and pick up from there. We’re not gonna wait for the revolution to come, we have the power to change the conditions of our lives right now. We are going to fight back, and over the long haul we will win the world we deserve. Thank you everyone.