WI BOPM has been friends with the members of Wisconsin FRSO (Fightback) and their national organization for decades. This red baiting attack by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is beyond outrageous – and very dangerous. We express our solidarity with FRSO and like them will never back down to corporations, the banks and the Pentagon that are the real enemies of workers and oppressed peoples the world over.
January 7, 2020 statement from: Wisconsin FRSO
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization was named in an article published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel this week after a candidate for Milwaukee County Executive was pictured at an anti-war protest near an FRSO banner.
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As a revolutionary socialist organization, we do not currently endorse candidates for public office, however, we appreciate political candidates that are willing to take a principled stand against Trump’s escalation of war with Iran.
Over 100 community members, trade unionists, students, elected officials, and progressive candidates attended the anti-war rally on January 4th to say “Money for human needs, not war,” “No war against Iran,” and “U.S. Out of Iraq!”
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization has played a leading role in organizing mass movements in Milwaukee for over a decade. Nationally, FRSO claims hundreds of members as leaders in the anti-war, labor, immigrant rights, campus organizing, and police accountability movements. These popular movements encompass a broad spectrum of political ideologies, from liberalism, to social democracy, to revolutionary socialism. FRSO believes a broad united front strategy is necessary to defeat our enemies, the billionaire capitalist class.
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As a billionaire’s son, Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele has used his inherited wealth to buy power and attack the interests of working and oppressed people in Milwaukee County. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that a representative of Abele referred to FRSO as “kooks” in the Journal Sentinel’s redbaiting hit piece.
FRSO wants to replace the inherently undemocratic system that allows the super-rich, such as Abele and Trump, to implement their racist and anti-worker agendas over the working class majority. Recent polls show that socialism is extremely popular among young people, so while billionaires slander Socialists as “kooky,” we know that now is the time to build a mass movement for socialism to end the power of the billionaire class.
FRSO will play a leading role in the January 14th protest outside Trump’s rally at the UWM Panther Arena at 5:00pm. We look forward to working with other socialists, as well as progressives, liberals, and all others who oppose Trump’s racist, anti-worker agenda.
