Campus Antiwar Protest Strategy: Building the Movement & Mobilizing to the DNC

We are joined by a special guest, Cora Bergantiños-Crespo. Cora is a geneticist, and the outgoing President of UAW 4100, the union of postdoctoral researchers at Columbia University and Mount Sinai Hospital. She is also a member of Socialist Alternative and Workers Strike Back. Cora talks to us about what escalation strategy the anti-war movement, and specifically the campus encampment protests, urgently need. She describes the role of the labor movement, and the need to harness the power of organized labor in order to end the war on Gaza and end all U.S. military funding to the Israeli state. A lot of political analysts are comparing this moment to 1968, when the movement against the Vietnam War took its protests to the DNC, and faced all kinds of police repression. That DNC was also in Chicago just as it will be in August this year. It is absolutely crucial that the anti-war movement builds for mass protests at the DNC. The campus protests are an enormous and historic development, but we also know from history that student protests alone will not be enough to end the genocidal war or the stranglehold of Wall Street billionaires on universities, much less on our society as a whole. They have the potential, however, to be a spark for even larger developments. There was a near revolution against capitalism in France in 1968 - major student protests acted as a spark that initiated a mass movement leading up to a general strike in France. A revolution would have been possible, which could have then spread regionally and globally, had it not been for the betrayal of the leaders of mass worker organizations who undermined the movement and failed to provide any leadership, in effect rescuing the capitalist class. If you live in or near Seattle, join us in person for a special rally and public meeting on May 16th at 6PM at Smith 120 on UW campus, where we will discuss these and other next steps for the antiwar movement. And on Sunday May 19th, Workers Strike Back and Socialist Alternative are hosting a national public meeting over Zoom to discuss how we can take this movement forward by bringing the momentum of the student protests to the DNC in Chicago this August, and having campus worker unions across the country take up the example of UAW 4811’s strike authorization vote and WEA members’ resolution to rescind the endorsement of Biden and bring a powerful challenge to US imperialism and end this genocidal war. On Strike is 100% funded by working people. BECOME A MEMBER of Workers Strike Back now to support our work: https://www.workersstrikeback.org/mem... Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OnStrikeShow On Strike is a production of Workers Strike Back.