Solidarity with Palestine!

On Wednesday, November 14th, Israel assassinated Mohammad Jabari, a Hamas military chief, sparking the latest round of bloodshed only one day after a tentative cease-fire was reached. Although Israel murdered 6 Palestinians (3 of whom were civilians) in the week leading up to Jabari's assassination, Egypt had been able to reach a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Palestine on Nov. 13th. Ahmed Jabari honored this cease-fire, only to be murdered the following day.

The Israeli attack on Gaza also comes only hours after Jabari was handed the draft of a permanent truce agreement between Israel and Palestine. To Israel, the greatest threat of all is a Palestinian formulating a legitimate plan for peace. 

Since Wednesday, the death toll in this conflict has reached 40. 

-Alternative Information Center: Israeli Premeditated Offensive Against Gaza
-Israeli Occupation Archive: Hamas Leader Jabari Killed Amid Talks on Long-Term Truce

The Meaning of Israel's Attack on Gaza

Noam Chomsky on the Israeli attack on Gaza (Salem News)

"The incursion and bombardment of Gaza is not about destroying Hamas. It is not about stopping rocket fire into Israel, it is not about achieving peace.

The Israeli decision to rain death and destruction on Gaza, to use lethal weapons of the modern battlefield on a largely defenseless civilian population, is the final phase in a decades-long campaign to ethnically-cleanse Palestinians.

Israel uses sophisticated attack jets and naval vessels to bomb densely-crowded refugee camps, schools, apartment blocks, mosques, and slums to attack a population that has no air force, no air defense, no navy, no heavy weapons, no artillery units, no mechanized armor, no command in control, no army… and calls it a war. It is not a war, it is murder.

“When Israelis in the occupied territories now claim that they have to defend themselves, they are defending themselves in the sense that any military occupier has to defend itself against the population they are crushing. You can't defend yourself when you're militarily occupying someone else's land. That's not defense. Call it what you like, it's not defense.”

Palestinian Solidarity in Poughkeepsie 

Long before Israel's latest attack on Gaza, the End the New Jim Crow Action Network (ENJAN) planned two film screenings of "Hip Hop is Bigger than the Occupation," a film documenting the experiences of black American hip-hop artists performing in Palestine and standing in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. On Thursday, over 80 people turned out for a screening at Vassar College, while Friday saw a more modestly attended screening at the Family Partnership Center in Poughkeepsie.

The film exposed the inhumane conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live. One populous refugee camp fit every house, business, street, and even the cemetery within one square kilometer. The conditions of occupied Palestine recall both the horrors of Native American reservations and police-occupied inner-cities. These connections were lost to nobody watching the film. All were also acutely aware that Israel would not last for one day without the complete and unwavering support of the United States. 

The Palestinian Struggle is Our Struggle

As socialists, we must remember that Israel is nothing more than a puppet state of the U.S. We must remember that Zionism was never intended to empower Jews but was instead intended to give imperialists a stronghold in the Arab world. Finally, we must remember that a free Palestine is essential for the creation of a world free of imperialism. Every day that Palestine is occupied is another victory for capitalism, and another defeat for humanity. 

Just as white workers will never rise while their black sisters and brothers are oppressed, American (or Israeli) workers will never establish a successful workers' state while Palestinian land remains stolen. 

The liberation of one is essential to the liberation of all.

No Occupation! 

No Exploitation! 

FREE PALESTINE! 

For background on the history of Zionism and Left Anti-Zionism, this article posted by Ran Greenstein on the Israeli Occupation Archive is much recommended 

Stand in Solidarity with Socialists in Russia!

Russian socialists appeal for solidarity

(Reposted from AntiCapitalist Initiative)
An appeal from the Russian Socialist Movement (RSD), Autonomous Action, Left Front

Today we, the representatives of Russian leftist organisations, turn to our comrades all over the world with an appeal for solidarity. This call and your response to it are very important to us. Right now we are facing not just another instance of dubious sentencing by the Russian “justice” system or another case of a human life broken by the encounter with the state’s repressive apparatus. Today the authorities have launched against us a repressive campaign without precedent in the recent history of Russia, a campaign whose goal it is to extinguish the left as an organised political force. The recent arrests, threats, beatings, aggressive media attacks and moves towards declaring leftist groups illegal all point to the new general strategy on the part of the authorities, much more cruel and much less predictable than that of recent years.

The massive protest movement that began in December 2011 radically changed the atmosphere of political and social passivity established during the Putin years. Tens of thousands of young and middle-aged people, office workers and state employees, began to appear on the streets and to demand change. On December 10th and 24th 2011, and then on February 4th 2012, Moscow, Petersburg and other large cities became the sites of massive rallies, demonstrating a new level of politicisation of a significant part of society. The “managed democracy” model crafted by the ruling elite over many years went bankrupt in a matter of days. Political manipulations ceased working in the face of real politics, born from below. The movement, whose demands were initially limited to “honest elections,” quickly grew into a protest against the whole political system.

After the elections of March 4th 2012, at which Vladimir Putin, using a combination of massive administrative pressure on voters, massive falsifications and mendacious populist rhetoric, assured himself of another term, many thought that the potential for protest mobilisation had been exhausted. The naïve hopes of the thousands of opposition volunteers, taking on the role of election observers in the hope of putting an end to voter fraud, were crushed.

The next demonstration, in the success of which few believed, was scheduled for the centre of Moscow on May 6th, the day before Putin’s inauguration. And on this day, despite the skeptical predictions, more than 60,000 people showed up. When the march approached the square where the rally was to take place, the police organised a massive provocation, blocking the marchers’ path to the square. All those who attempted to circumvent the police cordon were subjected to beatings and arrests. The unprecedented police violence produced resistance on the part of some of the protestors who resisted arrests and refused to leave the square until everyone had been freed. The confrontation on May 6th lasted a few hours. In the end, over 650 people were arrested, some of whom spent the night in jail.

The next day, Putin’s motorised procession headed for his inauguration through an empty Moscow. Along with the protesters, the police had cleared the city of all pedestrians. The new protest movement had demonstrated its power and a new degree of radicalisation. The events of May 6th gave rise to the Occupy movement, which brought thousands of young people to the centre of Moscow and held strong until the end of May. Leftist groups, until then peripheral to the established liberal spokesman of the protest movement, were progressively playing a larger role.

Those events were a signal to the authorities: the movement had gone beyond what was permitted, elections were over, and it was time to show teeth. Almost immediately, a criminal investigation was launched into the “mass disturbances,” and on May 27th, the first arrest took place. 18-year-old anarchist Alexandra Dukhanina was accused of participating in the disturbances and for the use of violence against the police. The arrests continued over the next few days. The accused were drawn both from the ranks of seasoned political activists (mainly leftists) as well as from ordinary people, for whom the May 6th demonstrations were their first experience of street politics.

So far, nineteen people have been accused of participating in those “disturbances”; twelve of them are in jail in pre-trial confinement. Here are some of their stories:

• Vladimir Akimenkov, 25, communist and activist of the Left Front. Arrested on June 10th, 2012, he will be in detention until March 6th 2013. Vladimir was born with poor eyesight. In jail, it is getting even worse. In the last examination, he had 10% vision in one eye, and 20% in the other. This, however, was not a sufficient cause for the court to replace detention with house arrest. At the last court session of the court, the judge cynically commented that only total blindness would make him reconsider his decision.
• Michael Kosenko, 36, no political affiliation, arrested on June 8th. Kosenko, who suffers from psychological disorders, also asked for his stay in jail be replaced with house arrest. However, the court declared him “dangerous to society” and plans to send him for forced treatment.
• Stepan Zimin, 20, anarchist and antifascist, arrested on June 8th and placed under detention until March 6th 2013, after which date his arrest can be extended. Stepan supports his single mother, yet once again the court did not consider this sufficient cause to set him free under the obligation to remain with city limits.
• Nikolai Kavkazskii, 26, socialist, human rights activist and LGBT-activist. Detained on the 25th of July.

Investigators have no clear evidence proving the guilt of any one of these detainees. Nevertheless, they remain in jail and new suspects steadily join their ranks. Thus the last of the players in the “events of May 6th,” the 51-year-old liberal activist and scholar Sergei Krivov, was arrested quite recently, on October 18th. There is every indication that he will not be the last.

If the arrests of already nearly twenty ordinary demonstration participants were intended to inspire fear in the protest movement, then the hunt for the “organisers of massive disturbances” is meant to strike at its acknowledged leaders. According to the investigation, said “disturbances” were the result of a conspiracy, and all the arrested were receiving special assignments. This shows that we are dealing not only with a series of arrests, but with preparations for a large scale political process against the opposition.

On October 5th, NTV, one of the leading Russian television channels, aired a film in the genre of an “investigative documentary,” which leveled fantastical charges against the opposition and in particular, against the most famous representative of the left, Sergei Udaltsov. This mash-up, made in the tradition of Goebbels’ propaganda, informs of Udaltsov’s ties with foreign intelligence, and the activities of the “Left Front” that he heads are declared plots by foreign enemies of the state. By way of decisive proof, the film includes a recorded meeting between Sergei Udaltsov, Left Front activist Leonid Razvozhaev, Russian Socialist Movement member Konstantin Lebedev, and one of the closer advisors of the president of Georgia, Givi Targamadze. In particular, the conversation includes talk of money delivered by the Georgians for the “destabilisation” of Russia.

Despite the fact that the faces on the recording are practically indiscernible and that the sound is clearly edited and added separately to the video, within just two days the Investigative Committee of the Prosecutor General’s Office (the agency today playing the leading role in organizing repression) used it to launch a criminal case. On October 17th, Konstantin Lebedev was arrested and Sergei Udaltsov released after interrogation, after having signed an oath to remain within the limits of Moscow. On October 19th, a third participant in the new “affair,” Left Front activist Leonid Razvozhaev, tried to petition for refugee status with the Ukrainian delegation of the UN. As soon as he stepped outside of the delegation building, unknown parties violently forced him into a vehicle and illegally transported him across the Ukrainian border onto Russian territory. Once in an undisclosed location in Russia, he was subjected to torture and threats (including regarding the safety of his family) and compelled to sign a “voluntary submission of confession” and “statements of confession.” In these “statements,” Razvozhaev confessed to ties with foreign intelligence and to preparations for an armed insurgency, in which Konstantin Lebedev and Sergei Udaltsov were also involved. Afterwards, Razvozhaev was delivered to Moscow and placed in jail as a criminal defendant. At present, Razvozhaev has asserted in meetings with human rights activists that he disavows these confessions obtained under duress. However, he could not disavow their consequences. “Razvozhaev’s list,” beaten out of him by torture, has become notorious: it contains the names of people who will before long also become objects of persecution.

The scope of repression is spreading steadily. Quite recently the Investigative Committee announced the start of an inquiry into Sergei Udaltsov’s organization, the Left Front, the result of which may well be its prohibition as “extremist.” Pressure against the anti-fascist movement is likewise building. The well-known activists Aleksei Sutug, Aleksei Olesinov, Igor Harchenko, Irina Lipskaya, Alen Volikov have been detained on invented charges and are being held under guard in Moscow. Socialist and anti-fascist Filipp Dolbunov has been forced to undergo interrogation and threats on multiple occasions.

It is hardly accidental that the majority of the victims of this unprecedented wave of repression are involved in the leftist movement. At a threshold moment of preparations for austerity measures in Russia, for curtailment of labor rights and pension reforms, the Putin-Medvedev administration is more afraid than anything of an alliance between the existing general democratic movement and possible social protest. Today’s wave of repressions is the most important test for Russia’s new protest movement: either we hold strong or a new period of mass apathy and fear awaits us. It is precisely for this reason, in the face of unprecedented political pressure, that solidarity of our comrades in struggle in Europe, and in the entire world, is so crucial.

We turn to you with a plea to organize Days of Solidarity Against Political Repression on the 29 of November – 2 of December in front of the Russian Federation embassy or any other representative of the Russian government in your countries, demanding the immediate release of the illegally arrested and the termination of the shameful criminal actions and preparations for new “Moscow trials” based on torture and forgeries. We also ask that you use the most concrete information in your protests and demands, with the specific names and details that we provide in this appeal. This is crucial for every person behind bars today.

Please, send your reports on solidarity action and any other information or questions on this email: solidarityaction2012@gmail.com.Solidarity is our only weapon! United, we will never be defeated!

Nov. 6: Write-in Durham-López 2012!

The Hudson Valley Radical Election Special

VOTE SOCIALIST: Write in Stephen Durham for President and Christina López for Vice-President!

1. Intro
2. Thoughts on the Rally for Fair Elections and Workers' Power
3. Electoral Roulette: The One Percent Can't Lose
4. FSP Recommendations for the November 6th, 2012 General Election
5. Maloney's Nightmare
6. After 4 Years of Heartbreak, a Reason to Hope

Months ago, we began a collaboration with the Freedom Socialist Party's un-millionaire campaign of Stephen Durham for President and Christina López for Vice-President. Throughout the election cycle the candidates and their supporters have been criss-crossing the country, running an energetic write-in campaign. They have encouraged working people in all 50 states to break with the parties of the 1% and use their vote to protest the oppressive capitalist system. We have been proud to have played a role in this campaign and in building a stronger socialist force in this country. Tomorrow, we urge all working people to Vote Socialist and write-in Stephen Durham for President and Christina López for Vice-President. Onward!

Thoughts on the Rally for Fair Elections and Workers' Power
Schuyler Kempton

On Sunday, November 4th The Hudson Valley Radical, in collaboration with Occupy Poughkeepsie, Occupy Northern Dutchess, and the New Progressive Majority, organized a Rally for Fair Elections and Workers' Power at Hulme Park in Poughkeepsie. The rally was 20 strong, a good turnout for a chilly day in early November. Yet, support did not pour in from all quarters of the Hudson Valley activist community. Some community activists too tied into Two-Party politics failed to acknowledge the rally, instead devoting their energies toward electing "the lesser of two evils." The Occupiers, fracktivists, students, and workers gathered at Hulme Park were not impressed by this lack of solidarity.

We were pleased to welcome Stephen Durham, write-in candidate for President of the United States back to Poughkeepsie for the rally. He delivered the second speech of the afternoon on his campaign and the socialist alternative the capitalism. Below is the introductory speech I read that articulated the 5 main reasons why this rally was nessesary:

1. The right to vote in this election is being dramatically rolled back by a slew of voter ID laws that disproportionately affect blacks, Hispanics, the elderly, and young voters. For those who still can vote, your influence over this election is fading fast as Big Money takes every more control over the electoral process since the disastrous Citizens United decision.

2. Third Parties have been shut out of the political process yet again, while the two corporate candidates agree to disagree, papering over their clear consensus on keeping capitalism, imperialism, and discrimination in place.

3. Barack Obama, who won the presidency 4 years to this day amongst high hopes and record voter turnout has performed more like his predecessor than like anything we had all hoped for. While Obama promised a departure from the policies of trickle-down economics, for every dollar of growth in the U.S. economy during the Recession, 93 cents went into the pockets of the richest 1% while the rest of us lost our homes, our jobs, our healthcare, and our dignity.

4. As was asserted in “The Progressive Case Against Obama,” elections are like practice for times of crisis. During the financial meltdown 4 years ago, the economic and political elites essentially put a gun to the head of working people and asked us to give them unprecedented power. They told us that they would bailout the banks, re-enrich the rich, and hopefully help us out sometime down the road. Too afraid to say otherwise, we accepted that the powers that be would act in our interests and here we are today, still reeling from an economic recession caused by the capitalists and a recovery suited to their needs.

5. We must begin the process of building a strong, independent workers’ party to fight for our class in the political arena and both guide and support the struggle of workers in the industries and workplaces. We must build a party of, by, and for, the workers, seniors, and students. A party where everybody is free to contribute their input and participate in the democratic process within the organization. Finally, we must build a party where the injuries of one are treated as the injuries of all, and where all members stand in solidarity with each other in the struggle for a democratic and equitable world.

 

It is important to know that we do not blame any worker that votes for Barack Obama on November 6th out of fear. As someone with a mother who is uninsured, I understand that a Romney/Ryan White House would be disastrous.

However, I believe that it is our basic right as human beings to participate in our democratic process not out of fear but rather out of conviction. And it is because of my conviction that capitalism is inherently unjust, and because of my conviction that Barack Obama's term has also been, on the whole, disastrous for working people worldwide, that I urge you to cast a protest vote this election. Protest Obama. Protest war. Protest capitalism. And protest a system that survives because we continue to fear.

 

Electoral roulette: The 1 percent can’t lose

by Linda Averill              

Originally published in the October-November 2012 issue of the Freedom Socialist

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Jenn on VoteSocialism.com

While Mitt Romney and Barack Obama joust for the White House, the U.S. economy limps along, teetering between “recovery” and another downturn.

With competition for global markets and resources at a white heat, CEOs are watching the 2012 election impatiently. As Fortune magazine’s Sept. 3 cover blared, “Hey, Washington: Enough already!” The authors say neither candidate is talking about needed “hard choices” — like “fixing” Medicare by restricting end-of-life care and levying surcharges on “smokers and the ultra-fat.”

So each contender is working hard to convince Corporate America that he is the turnaround guy, while using fear to appeal to ordinary voters. For Romney, it’s fear of those who are poor and need society’s help; for Obama, fear of Romney; for both, fear of foreign threats.

The Standard and Poor’s 500 are hedging their bets, throwing money to both parties, as they usually do — and for good reason. Bipartisanship delivers the goods for the ruling class.

For example, by the time George W. Bush left office, he had signed 460 laws passed by a Democratic Congress, including the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. In 2009, when Obama took over, he defended the bailout against public furor and extended Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. Busy saving capitalism, his promises to labor withered on the vine, including the Employee Free Choice Act to reduce management sabotage of union drives.

With either Romney or Obama, the basic agenda of the bosses is safe. And what they are after this time around is austerity on steroids.

What bosses want. Four years of wage cuts, bank bailouts, and stimulus funding have transferred millions in wealth from the working class to the already rich. But as the Great Recession lingers, the 1 percent can’t stop now.

Everything working people have won is fair game, though methods of attack vary. To take one case, Republican Paul Ryan is a fan of privatizing Medicare by forcing it to compete in a health insurance “marketplace.” Democrat Obama’s preference, to starve Medicare through “efficiencies” of $716 billion, would lead less directly to a similar result. Funding cuts would force service cutbacks and fee hikes, opening the door for private industry to profit by filling gaps in care.

Mail delivery, schools, mass transit, garbage pickup: privatizers want it all.

Other goals are outlined by the Business Roundtable, a kind of Fortune 500 executive committee. Its policy aims include more free trade, rollback of government regulations for everything from clean water to consumer safety, and energy development — drilling on public lands and fracking. To keep world markets open to U.S. businesses, they push for more carrot (foreign aid) and more stick (war spending). They want foreign “guest workers” and a U.S. labor force with lower wages, fewer benefits, and scarcer pensions.

From Wall Street, pressure is mounting to balance the federal budget. The chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, Mark Zandi, is one of many who warn of a “catastrophic fiscal crisis” if action isn’t taken.

The blueprint for reducing the deficit and freeing up tax dollars for lucrative contracts and debt interest payments is provided by Obama’s bipartisan Simpson-Bowles committee. Cuts of $4 trillion in 10 years would be achieved primarily by slashing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Other proposals would raise the retirement age, hike Medicare premiums, and shrink the federal labor force by 10 percent.

In 2011, a firestorm of protest forced Congress to blink, and the Simpson-Bowles plans went on hold. But, as Obama pal, teachers’ union foe, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says, the two parties will “work it out because they have to.” The bosses see only one way to save their bottom lines: empty the pockets of the masses.

Implementing super-austerity will require political carnage as well — stripping away more civil liberties and attempting to make unions a historical footnote.

Spending money to make money. To advance this anti-working-class program, the corporate elite pays for the electoral shell game, ensuring that their interests are covered no matter which of the two parties wins.

This election, as of July, Obama led in contributions from individuals, with $348 million, mostly from large donors. Romney had taken in $192 million. The big contributors include Boeing, which wants lucrative Pentagon and Homeland Security contracts, and American Crystal Sugar, which has locked out its unionized workforce since May.

Walmart, Exxon, and Goldman Sachs favor Republicans and their shameless defense of Big Oil, union-busters, and banksters. Microsoft likes Obama’s ability to open new markets in Panama, Colombia, and South Korea. Labor-hater William Koch loves Romney. Tax-evader George Kaiser is betting on Obama.

But neither party has the working class sewn up. And so Super PACs, bankrolled by crooks like Dick Cheney, are flooding the airwaves with propaganda. TV ads and media talking heads are working overtime to persuade unconvinced voters that deficit reduction is the burning issue and that shredding the safety net is the only solution. The PACs are a pre-emptive strike aimed at the bosses’ worst nightmare — a militant mass movement challenging their rule. Heaven help the ruling class should Wisconsin meet Occupy and birth a movement that fights for anti-capitalist solutions to the economic crisis.

What bosses fear. The wild card is not who wins at the ballot box, but whether a radical movement develops in the streets and workplaces. This is what Greece has taught the world.

Glimmerings of such a movement are surfacing more often, from Chicago, where teachers struck to defend public education, to Washington state, where longshore workers threatened to blockade scab ships in a fight against a union-busting grain consortium.

As attacks on workers and the poor intensify, so will resistance. What’s urgent is the cultivation of leaders and organizations to give direction to protest and sustain it. And that’s what the Durham-López write-in campaign is all about: raising working-class solutions in the sprint for the White House while helping to develop working-class muscles in the marathon for fundamental change.

Contact Linda Averill at AvLinda587@gmail.com.

By Linda Averill

Freedom Socialist, October-November 2012, Volume 33, No. 5

FSP recommendations for the November 6, 2012 New York State General Election

Posted on October 22, 2012 by Jenn on VoteSocialism.com

If you’ve been watching the presidential debates, you know that media pundits are riveted by the contrasts between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney—their lapel pins, tone of voice and body language are studied to see who comes across more “presidential.” There’s been lots of squabbling over whose statistics are true, but little clarification of substantive political difference between the two—because frankly, there isn’t much. After all, it took a bipartisan effort to bail out Wall Street, deregulate banks, create the housing crisis, and make going to college a quick trip to the poor house.

It’s time to try something different. Millions have quit going to the polls because voting for the “lesser evil” is a dead end. But there is an alternative to sitting out the election.

Vote for the greater good—Write in Freedom Socialist candidates Stephen Durham and Christina
López for U.S. President and Vice President

When people encounter the Freedom Socialist Party campaign, they are energized by the candidates’ concrete solutions, happy to find a way to protest sham elections, and interested in understanding an anti-capitalist perspective. From anti-NATO protests and teacher picket lines in Chicago, to Washington state farm towns and Occupy Poughkeepsie, socialist feminist candidates Stephen Durham and Christina López have met great interest and a desire to discuss issues.

For five years, workers and the poor have been paying for an economic crisis they did not cause. The Durham-López platform calls for dismantling the Pentagon and taxing big business in order to provide adequate funds for education, medical care, and other human needs. It stands for ending unemployment with a massive program of public jobs; nationalizing banks and key industries under the management of workers’ committees; canceling student and consumer debt; establishing authoritative, elected civilian review boards over the police; ensuring reproductive rights; providing free mass transit for the good of people and the planet; and much more to improve the lives of those who survive paycheck to paycheck.

• Presidential candidate Stephen Durham is a lifelong fighter to end discrimination; he’s been a rank-and-file strike leader and a radical envoy to Latin American unionists and feminists. A gay rights pioneer, today he heads the Freedom Socialist Party branch in Harlem. Durham knows how to build bridges across the divides of race, gender, sexual orientation, and nationality.

• Vice-presidential candidate Christina López is a grassroots organizer for women’s rights, who co-founded Sisters Organize for Survival to fight social services cuts in Washington state. An Arizona native, she is passionate about immigrant rights and racial equality. López knows what it’s like to grow up poor in a barrio and is a strong advocate for quality public education for all.

It was clear from the outset that ballot obstacles precluded a traditional campaign at the national level. Thus, the unorthodox, un-millionaire campaign was born: a write-in effort to provide a voice for the working class and to protest the anti-democratic nature of the electoral process. Rather than spend time and resources jumping through bureaucratic hoops to qualify for each state’s ballot, the Durham-López team has prioritized hitting the streets and visiting campuses, neighborhoods and picketlines. This campaign is about building a movement for fundamental change. Visit www.VoteSocialism.com to find out how you can get involved in the remaining weeks. And on November 6, stop by Freedom Hall for the election night party!

The best option among third party presidential candidates

Writing in Stephen Durham and Christina López for President and Vice President is hands down the best choice. But when you open your ballot, you’ll find one other socialist option for president and vice president: Peta Lindsay/Yari Osorio, Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). FSP gave critical support to PSL candidates in past elections, despite their lackluster approach to feminism and our differences over international issues. We drew the line this year after their opportunistic maneuvering at the Peace and Freedom Party Convention in California, giving their support to Roseanne Barr, which resulted in not a single socialist appearing on that state’s presidential ballot.

Also on the NY ballot are the Green Party’s Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala for president/vice president, and several candidates for local offices. However, the Green Party is not anti-capitalist. They pledge only incremental change, instead of tackling the profit system head on.

The NJ senate race includes a clearly anti-capitalist alternative—Greg Pason, Socialist Party USA—and we urge NJ voters to cast their ballots for him.

Let’s get busy

Between now and November 6, join the Durham-López team in campaigning for real change and exposing the rigged electoral system and bipartisan austerity plans. Visit www.VoteSocialism.com or stop by campaign headquarters at Freedom Hall to find out how you can help get the word out, whether by canvassing, making phone calls, researching the issues, or making a donation—funds are still needed! Everyone’s skills and ideas are welcome!

In solidarity,
Susan Williams
NY FSP Organizer

How to write in your vote: New Yorkers will receive a paper ballot. At the end of the list of candidates for president, there is a space for write-in candidates. Fill in the oval next to the words “Write-In” and print:STEPHEN DURHAM for president and CHRISTINA LÓPEZ for vice president.


Maloney's Nightmare

Among the "progressive" candidates that are being promoted this November is Sean Patrick Maloney, who, as local activist Celeste Tesoriero points out, doesn't even meet the low standards of today's Democratic Party

 

Sean Patrick Maloney is a three-named, smooth talking lawyer with a killer smile, and a wardrobe of expensive tailored suits.  He’s Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, and we’re the hooker.  And just like Gere on the Boulevard, he’d rather be somewhere else.

Maloney grew up in a New Hampshire town where the median income is $100,000, and was educated at typical rich-kid schools like Georgetown and the University of Virginia.  He has gone from various token staffing positions to the corporate law world, and back again, each time trading political favors for a higher paycheck.  And now, this son of considerable privilege, through mischance and various political disappointments, finds himself relegated to running for Congress in a district with towns where the median income is $30,000.  Maloney can relate to a lot of people, and none of them are in the Hudson Valley. 

Most of Maloney’s resume hinges on the fact that he was White House Staff Secretary for one year, back in 1998.  And while Maloney’s campaign would have you believe that as Staff Secretary he was Bill Clinton’s right hand man, in reality he was more like Monica Lewinsky than Rahm Emmanuel.  After Staff Secretary, Maloney took a spin on the revolving door of corrupt wannabe politicians and corporate swindlers and ended up working as a high-paid compliance lawyer, until his delusional sense of self-importance landed him in the middle of a New York Attorney General race.  Fortunately for us, New Yorkers weren’t as easy a mark as Maloney had thought.  He came in a distant third to Andrew Cuomo, coming only four points ahead of a man who had dropped out weeks before.

He was able to parlay his embarrassing failure of a campaign into another low level staffing job, this time in the Spitzer office.  He was an assistant to an assistant to the Governor, or as he puts it, “I was number two in the Governor’s office.”  No, no that’s not true at all, Sean.  His only contribution of note was drafting an executive order creating a committee for privatization of New York.  

His efforts were well rewarded, and his lowly staffing position was parlayed into a high-paid job in infrastructure investment law.  Infrastructure investment is a fancy word for what is basically a con man.  It works like this: a company goes to a town’s mayor and council, usually when they’re having a hard time of it budget-wise and the public is starting to turn against them.  It says, hey, I’ll give $100 right now, and all you have to do is sign over something like the city’s parking meters, which only brings in $10 every year.  The mayor and council say, ‘hey, we’re not even gonna be in office in ten years when this deal starts to be incredibly bad for the town’, so they sign on.  The local politicians win.  The corporations win even bigger.  And you’re the schmuck living in the town 10 years later, stuffing old newspapers between the windows and screens of the courthouses trying to keep the cold out. 

The safeguard against this type of thievery is of course that it would take a really corrupt politician to sell their town like that.  Or, as the Pittsburgh city council put it, in response to a two-year privatization deal that Maloney was lead council on,  “A vote in favor of this bill is a vote to sell our soul.”  They defeated the bill, but I’m sure they’d be shocked to know the architect of that hateful bill is now running for congress in our fine district. 

Of course Maloney didn’t know that privatization of Medicare was going to be one of the “it” issues in the 2012 election.  Nor did he know that the Democratic Party was going to come out on the complete opposite side of his career experience.  Being a pro-privatization candidate on the Democratic ticket in this race has put Maloney in the compromising position of having to ask the electorate to ignore everything he’s done for the past 14 years and focus on a position he held for 1 year in 1998.  Not a good place for anyone to be. 

So if there’s any word of comfort I can offer Sean Maloney, it’s this; you running for Congress on the Democratic ticket in the Hudson Valley isn’t just a nightmare for you, it’s a nightmare for us too. 

 

 

After 4 Years of Heartbreak, a Reason to Hope

 

This election may seem pretty grim, but we musn't be depressed. Do not despair, Protest! In elections to come, we hope and work for a united workers' movement that can mount a real challenge at the ballot box, in the streets, and at the workplaces. Until this is the case, the most effective vote is one that challenges the capitalist system, and a write-in for Stephen Durham and Christina López is the ultimate protest vote.

Join the movement. Vote Durham-López!

Visit VoteSocialism.com for complete information about the Un-Millionaire Durham-López write-in campaign