Statewide Organizing Conference - Build the Movement
A group of Fran Hong supporters and socialists in central Wisconsin have organized a conference at Steven’s Point on Oct 3, inviting organizers from around the state to attend. Here is the introduction and starting list of demands. Milwaukee Beagle does not ascribe to all of their ideas, especially around a strategy withholding support, but we do admire the effort to bring the state together, and the openness to dialog.
Introduction
Capitalism has firmly entered a new era of crisis, marked by major interimperial conflict. The old figureheads of the ruling class, unable to use their usual tools of neoliberalism to address the crises of today, have been forced into the background by the rising right wing parties and Trumpism around the world. Donald Trump’s reactionary and conservative base may be cracking right now with the failure of the US/Israel War on Iran, but at their height they helped to bring Trump into power both in 2016 and 2024.
This trajectory isn’t set in stone. While the left remains disorganized, especially here in the United States, massive movements of struggle are emerging that can not only beat back Trump but also build the sort of working class organizations needed to escalate the struggle further. The Democratic Party has long been seen by many activists as a graveyard for social movements, but this election cycle has exposed them even further; instead of building any sort of meaningful fight back against Trump they’ve focused on crushing the left-wing wave within their own party.
The wave of progressive challenges to the Democratic Party are an important step in this direction, but they are limited by the political approach of the Democratic Party, with no factor being more significant than the fact that the party itself is completely in the pocket of big business. The genuine efforts to reform this party are admirable, and rooted in the understanding that the system is not working for working people. But even recent history shows us that the Democratic Party establishment and its big-business backers are totally unwilling to allow a genuine left wing takeover of their party. They’ll pour money into campaigns against progressives, even sometimes pushing write-in candidates after their preferred candidate loses the primary like they did against India Walton in Buffalo, New York. They’ll leave the party entirely if they lose a majority, like the Las Vegas DSA experienced and like John Fetterman is now publicly threatening. And, most insidiously, politicians that aren’t rooted in a strong working class movement with real democratic structures to hold them accountable and keep them loyal will be co-opted and brought in line with the Democratic Party machine instead of pushing it to the left. When the Democratic Party has proven time and again that they won’t go far enough to fight against the right, and abandon important fights like enshrining Roe into law because, as Obama said in 2009, it "is not the highest legislative priority."
We can’t sit out of the 2026 Midterm elections, but we also don’t have to follow along with the standard “vote blue no matter who” arguments that are rolled out election cycle after election cycle, no matter how bad the establishment candidate is. This argument is fueled by the false idea that politicians are owed our vote to fend off the horrors the Republican Party will bring if they get in. While it’s true that the right wing represents a real and terrifying danger, it’s also true that the Democratic Party establishment is moving to the right and abandoning many of the most vulnerable among us, especially trans people and immigrants, in their effort to appeal to some mythical layer of Republican voters who they claim will be won over by a watered-down version of the same right-wing talking points. The claim that we need to “vote blue no matter who” falls apart when the Democratic Party leadership fails to do the bare minimum in the fight against the right-wing attacks on working and oppressed people. Workers need to fight back and stand up for our own interests. We need to demand that any elected representative fight for us, and that if they won’t support us then we won’t support them. Ultimately neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party really represent the interests of the working people that vote them into office. We need to stop supporting candidates who won’t commit to fighting alongside our movements for the demands we need to see realized, and if there are no candidates that will take up this fight, then we need to create a movement from which elected representatives can run and stay accountable to the people.
All of these demands would need to be expanded on and concretized for them to be effective in an official campaign. But for now they are a starting point to coalesce an effective, independent struggle for the working class. This document is essentially meant to function both as a starting point for the fightback as well as a broad “points of unity” around which a movement can be built.
The following demands and action steps were formulated by a group in Central Wisconsin, and are being proposed for the Oct 3 Statewide Organizing Conference. We’re presenting these as a starting point for discussions, knowing that they will be strengthened and fleshed out further with discussion and debate. Proposals and amendments are encouraged!
Demands
(to be debated and voted on, bring suggestions, amendments, and proposals!)
We Need Green Jobs, Not Data Centers!
We need a total ban on hyperscale data center construction. The working class must organize to fight for a massive, unionized green jobs program to build sustainable energy infrastructure and affordable housing. Workers in polluting industries should be given the option of a union job rapidly building and operating green infrastructure with no loss in pay, benefits, or seniority.
We need fully-funded emergency systems to protect and evacuate people from the more frequent and severe storms, floods, and fires caused by climate change. High-quality housing and assistance for those displaced or otherwise affected. These funds must come from a higher tax on the rich and corporations, rather than from further taxation on working people. Money should also be shifted away from the bloated police budgets, which currently waste exorbitant amounts of money on socially-useless ALPR cameras from companies like Flock and crowd control weapons used against protestors, towards these socially-useful and badly needed emergency programs.
Fully Fund Community Services, Community Control of the Police Budget!
Democratic community control of police across the state. Elected bodies of working people, especially from overly policed areas, should have authority over hiring, firing, disciplinary action, the authority to subpoena, and allocating the budget.
The efforts to defund the Madison Police Civilian Oversight Board shows us that “suggesting” changes to Police Departments and Sheriffs Offices won’t result in the changes we need to stop their destruction of workers' lives. We need to build on the work won through the BLM movement and the George Floyd Uprising with full democratic community control of the police.
We Need Inclusive Medicare for All!
Workers shouldn’t have to rely on their jobs for meager health insurance that hardly covers even a percentage of the most basic procedures, or have to worry about staying below the poverty level to get Badgercare. At the state level, we need an expanded public option with Badgercare for All, but it can’t stop there. We need to be fighting at all levels for a nationwide Medicare for All program, paired with programs to increase access to medical facilities in underserved areas. Reproductive healthcare, including free, safe, and legal abortion must be included in this, as well as access to gender affirming care, both of which are vital healthcare services deeply tied to basic human rights that the right wing has spent years attacking.
Fund Public Schools, Not Private Institutions!
“School choice” is a thinly-veiled attempt to siphon resources away from public schools in order to fund inaccessible institutions. We must fully fund public education and end school privatization. Curriculum should be developed in collaboration with teachers’ unions, parents, and students, based on the scientific method and an uncensored version of history that does not cover up the historic crimes of imperialism, colonialism, and slavery.
Sovereign Nations Deserve Sovereign Rights!
Restoring Stewardship - give the Indigenous Peoples of this land (the/full) legal control and care over their traditional ancestral ceremonial “territories”/homelands
Recognition of Sovereignty: Reaffirm that treaties agreed upon and signed between Wisconsin's recognized tribes as the law of the land.
The Tribes of Wisconsin have historically and currently served as vital leaders, partners, and contributors to the state's economy, tourism, land stewardship, culture, and more. Elected state leadership should always engage in good-faith collaboration, relationships building, and decision-making when it comes to matters that affect tribal population and lands.
Enbridge’s Line 5 and similar pipelines have shown time and time again that they are too dangerous both for our environment, and future economic outlook. Our next state leader needs to commit to working with both tribes and union workers, in order to stop this pipeline project, while supporting workers who may be impacted by the halting of the project.
Fight Against the Attacks on all Working and Oppressed People!
The attacks on workers through state sponsored terror, like DHS and ICE, must be brought to an end. The Democratic Party has voted to fund ICE and have shown that they just want a return to a supposedly more humane version of immigration enforcement, like the massive wave of deportations that occurred under Obama. ICE raids against immigrants must be fought tooth and nail by communities, and elected representatives must stand up to the Democratic and Republican Party’s use of ICE, with the ultimate, non-negotiable goal of abolishing ICE.
Stop the scapegoating of queer and especially trans people. Protection under the law for freedom in gender expression and identity. Having the right to change gender markers on all personal legal documents. Enshrine the right to gender affirming care, including hormone replacement therapy and gender affirming surgeries in law, with no discrimination against young people seeking to transition. End laws and school district policies forcing teachers to “out” students to their parents or preventing students from using a name and pronouns of their choice at school. No to bathroom bans, locker room bans, and bans on trans athletes.
Elected Officials Must Represent Their Constituency
Take only the average wage of the skilled workers in the constituency you represent, with the rest of the money being set aside into a “solidarity fund” that is allocated to movement-based struggles where it can do the most good, with a publicly available ledger of how much is in the fund and where it is being spent and yearly audits of the account records. .
Lobbying and corporate money must be refused at all times. These are insidious ways that even the best intentioned of politicians lose touch with their constituency
Term limits