Two years ago, Seattle-area Turkish-American antiwar activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was murdered by the Israeli state in the occupied West Bank. I remember Ezgi again as I get ready to travel to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Revolutionary Workers, @revworkers. and Workers Strike Back, @wrkrsstrikeback, stand in solidarity with all those fighting for Palestinian liberation, especially the courageous Palestinians and their supporters on the ground in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. I knew Ezgi well. She and I were together in the same socialist organization for a while. The last time I talked to her was at a Workers Strike Back meeting at the University of Washington in Seattle, just weeks prior to her murder. We discussed strategy for the antiwar movement. Honoring Ezgi's memory is to organize to end the genocide in Gaza, to end the violence by settlers and the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank. It means fighting to end the entire genocidal Zionist project and the brutal occupation of Palestinian lands. The Israeli ruling class needs to be brought down and the genocidal apartheid Israeli state smashed. But the Israeli state exists because of American state support, as an outpost of the American capitalist class and global forces of imperialism. This is why Palestinian solidarity in the U.S. means openly fighting against both the Democratic and Republican parties, both of which represent the war-profiteering billionaires and multimillionaires. We cannot accept the whitewashing of Zionism by self-described progressives or democratic socialists who claim to be pro-Palestinian and still support blatantly Zionist Democratic Party leaders who are funding the Israeli state.

Jacobin magazine, the principal mouthpiece of the leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America, today released a hit piece on Amazon labor leader Chris Smalls, @Shut_downAmazon. It could be legit if Jacobin had had an honest critique of Smalls to clarify what class struggle unionist leaders should be doing. But the article is not that at all. It’s a hatchet job against a leading labor activist who has refused to toe the line of the DSA and the business unionist labor leaders who give cover to the so-called progressive Democrats and to the Democratic Party as a whole, despite shocking betrayals by them against working people. The crux of the real reason why Jacobin went after Smalls is contained in this sentence: “[Smalls] blames the two-party system for the state of the American labor movement…” Smalls is spot on about this and the need to break from the Democratic and Republican parties. We need a new party of the working class. The DSA leadership, on the other hand, sees giving cover to the Democratic Party as job number one. The Democratic Party is the party under whom the genocide in Gaza began and which engineered the breaking of the railroad workers’ strike — both under President Joe Biden. ALL Democrats in the House, including DSA star AOC voted to break the strike. The Democratic Party is one of the two most powerful capitalist parties in the world, and in no way represents working people or the oppressed. Business unionist labor leaders are those who have made peace with the capitalist system and are driven by protecting their careers, which means placating the bosses, not organizing the rank and file against the bosses to win substantive working-class victories. Refusing to fight the bosses also means aligning with the parties of the bosses, like the Democratic Party. The overwhelming majority of the labor leadership today is business unionist, with some crucial exceptions like Smalls. We need a reckoning in the labor movement. Brother Smalls has put his life on the line for the antiwar movement in solidarity with the Palestinia people against the Israeli state’s genocide bankrolled by both the Democratic and Republican parties. Smalls went on a Gaza aid flotilla carrying food, baby formula, diapers and medicine in the context of catastrophic levels of mass starvation in Gaza. The flotilla was attacked by the Israeli military, who physically assaulted Smalls, and kicked and choked him. In contrast, AOC has voted for the Iron Dome which is part of the Israeli state’s genocidal apparatus. For having the temerity to expose AOC and other self-described “progressive” politicians, Smalls is called “narcissistic” by Jacobin, a term the magazine’s editors were apparently forced to retract after they got huge amounts of flak on all social media. Personal attacks and character assassination like in this case are often used by the political establishment’s spokespeople as proxy for their real objections — in this case, the threat they feel from Smalls openly calling out the Democratic Party’s actual role. The only way of rebuilding a militant labor movement is to pose a concrete threat to both the Democratic and Republican parties, which in turn requires a challenge to the business unionist labor leadership. That is the basis on which I won the nation’s highest minimum wage and the Amazon Tax during the decade I was the sole socialist on the Seattle City Council. I am now running as an independent revolutionary socialist against genocidal Democrat Adam Smith. I am calling for an end to all military aid to Israel and an end to all weapons and tech for genocide and imperialist war. kshamasawant.org

I'm so honored to have the support of Bedria, who is fighting for working people in SeaTac. Cities like SeaTac and Tukwila in Washington State’s ninth Congressional District have double-digit poverty rates. Rents are skyrocketing, and families are getting evicted. Healthcare is out of reach for so many. Immigrant community members in these cities face ICE terror on top of the economic hardship. Adam Smith, the Democratic Congressmember of this district for nearly 30 years, has represented war profiteers, insurance industry executives, and the billionaire class. Smith voted to create and fund ICE, fund the Gaza genocide, and slash Medicare and Medicaid funding. Meanwhile, the Democrat-dominated State Legislature has presided over the nation's second-most regressive tax system in a state with 12 billionaires and 17,000 individuals who have over $15 million in wealth. I'm running for Congress because working people desperately need a breakthrough. Join me to fight for free healthcare for all funded by taxing the rich, to shut down ICE, and to end all weapons and tech for genocide and imperialist war.

Shirley Henderson, co-owner of Squirrel Chops, has been a relentless fighter for struggling small businesses. If you are a small business owner, come out with Shirley on Thursday, May 14th, at 6 pm for our Small Businesses for Kshama event! RSVP: kshamasawant.org/events/410 My campaign is the only one in this Congressional election that is fighting for: 👉Commercial and residential rent control 👉Free healthcare for all - tax the rich 👉Building millions of affordable homes 👉Ending all military aid to Israel.

I am excited to announce that our campaign IS ON THE BALLOT for the U.S. Congress! kshamasawant.org/kshama-is-o… I am  running as an independent antiwar socialist against warmongering Democrat Adam Smith! For the month of May, my campaign is launching a fundraising drive for $75,000 to build on our momentum and go all-out to defeat warmonger Adam Smith. Raising $75,000 in May would bring our campaign to $600,000 overall. Please donate now, and help us spread the word!