There’s No Alternative?

The People will never vote for a Government that truly represents their own interests, they will always be conned into electing the choices of the Banksters and Corporateers. Right? No, that is a Myth. See what THE GUARDIAN had to say in its issue on the 19th of February 2013.

Ever since the crash of 2008 exposed the rotten core of a failed economic model, we’ve been told there are no viable alternatives. As Europe sinks deeper into austerity, governing parties of whatever stripe are routinely rejected by disillusioned voters – only to be replaced by others delivering more welfare cuts, privatisation and inequality.

So what should we make of a part of the world where governments have resolutely turned their back on that model, slashed poverty and inequality, taken back industries and resources from corporate control, massively expanded public services and democratic participation – and keep getting re-elected in fiercely contested elections?

That is what has been happening in Latin America for a decade. The latest political leader to underline the trend is the radical economist Rafael Correa, re-elected as president of Ecuador at the weekend with an increased 57% share of the vote, while Correa’s party won an outright majority in parliament.

But Ecuador is now part of a well-established pattern. Last October the much reviled but hugely popular Hugo Chávez, who returned home on Monday after two months of cancer treatment in Cuba, was re-elected president of Venezuela with 55% of the vote after 14 years in power in a ballot far more fraud-proof than those in Britain or the US. That followed the re-election of Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Latin America’s first indigenous president, in 2009; the election of Lula’s nominated successor Dilma Rousseff in Brazil in 2010; and of Cristina Fernandez in Argentina in 2011.

Despite their differences, it’s not hard to see why. Latin America was the first to experience the disastrous impact of neoliberal dogma and the first to revolt against it. Correa was originally elected in the wake of an economic collapse so devastating that one in 10 left the country. Since then his “citizen’s revolution” has cut poverty by nearly a third and extreme poverty by 45%. Unemployment has been slashed, while social security, free health and education have been rapidly expanded – including free higher education, now a constitutional right – while outsourcing has been outlawed.

And that has been achieved not only by using Ecuador’s limited oil wealth to benefit the majority, but by making corporations and the well-off pay their taxes (receipts have almost tripled in six years), raising public investment to 15% of national income, extending public ownership, tough renegotiation of oil contracts and re-regulating the banking system to support development.

Many of the things, in fact, that conventional “free market” orthodoxy insists will lead to ruin, but have instead delivered rapid growth and social progress. Correa’s government has also closed the US military base at Manta (he’d reconsider, he said, if the US “let us put a military base in Miami”), expanded gay, disability and indigenous rights and adopted some of the most radical environmental policies in the world. Those include the Yasuni initiative, under which Ecuador waives its right to exploit oil in a uniquely biodiverse part of the Amazon in return for international contributions to renewable energy projects.

But what is happening in Ecuador is only part of a progressive tide that has swept Latin America, as social democratic and radical socialist governments have attacked social and racial inequality, challenged US domination and begun to create genuine regional integration and independence for the first time in 500 years. And given what’s already been delivered to the majority, it’s hardly surprising they keep getting re-elected.

It says more about the western media (and their elite Latin American counterparts) than governments such as Ecuador’s and Venezuela’s that they are routinely portrayed as dictatorial. Part of that canard is about US hostility. In the case of Ecuador, it’s also been fuelled by fury at Correa’s decision to give asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who faces sexual assault allegations in Sweden, over the threat of onward extradition to the US. In reality, the real anti-democratic menace comes from the US’s own allies, who launched abortive coups against both Chávez and Correa – and successful ones in Honduras in 2009 and Paraguay last year.

— Excerpt from THE GUARDIAN (Feb 19,2013) as reported by Seuma Milne

Can This Be Called Democracy?

Katrina van den Heuvel – Excerpt from The Nation (October 26, 2012)
We’ve seen the future, and its name is Rex.

The New York Times recently profiled Rex Sinquefield, a
money-management millionaire who, with little fanfare,
has become Missouri’s top political donor. As the
Times’s Nicholas Confessore notes in his must-read
piece, Sinquefield may well be the most influential
private citizen in the state. Not for the power of his
ideas, or the strength of his organizing, but because
his money won’t shut up.

Like many in the 1 percent, Sinquefield’s top priority
is slashing his income taxes (he also fights teacher
tenure and police oversight). Missouri is one of four
states with no limits—you read that right—on donations
for state races. Sinquefield has taken full advantage
of the opportunity, spending more than $20 million on
Missouri campaigns over the past four years. This year,
he’s submitted twenty-two separate ballot referendums
to tax sales rather than income.

It was just a matter of time before Sinquefield, in his
zeal for his favored policy, would shell out for a more
favorable process as well. Sinquefield didn’t like the
ballot summary that Missouri Secretary of State Robin
Carnahan wrote for one of his referenda to abolish
income taxes. So since primary season, Sinquefield’s
been spending big on Shane Schoeller, who’s now the GOP
nominee in the open seat race to replace Carnahan. As
you may have guessed, Schoeller supports dumping the
income tax. He’s also proposed creating a bipartisan
committee of appointees that could chuck and replace
the secretary of state’s ballot summaries if supporters
take issue with them.

Whether or not you agree with him, it’s clear that
Sinquefield is well on his way to reshaping Missouri’s
legislature, its tax code, and its political process in
his own image—all by virtue of his wealth alone. As
Confessore writes, if the groups that backed Citizens
United get their way, and Congress or the Court ends
federal contribution caps, “The no-limits giving that
has let him do it might soon be coming to a campaign
near you.”

Already, the current election offers a tour de force of
big money politics. If anyone still believes that our
current system rewards a focus on small donors, a new
report from the Brennan Center for Justice offers a
rude awakening. Through the end of September, in the
country’s twenty-five closest House races, Republicans
raised only 18.3 percent of their funds from donations
of less than 200 dollars; Democrats, just 12.5 percent.
And that GOP figure is skewed by Allen West’s re-
election race, which apparently inspired an upsurge of
right-wing small donor giving. In the remaining twenty-
four top races, small donors brought in just 7.6
percent of the Republicans’ cash.

This month has also brought a wave of much-needed
attention to another awful impact of Citizens United:
the legalization of political coercion at work. Mike
Elk and Mark Ames warned of this trend in a prescient
Nation cover story last year about the Koch brothers’
heavy-handed pressure on their employees to vote
Republican. As George Zornick and Lee Fang reported for
us, the trend is epidemic. It’s an affront to human
rights, and another way that the Citizens United regime
perpetuates itself, rewarding the politicians least
likely to help restore our democracy.

Rex Sinquefield offers a stark illustration of the
future that awaits us if money is treated as speech,
elections as bidding wars, and corporations as people.

Socialist Party Re-enters the Political Arena

The DISSENTING DEMOCRAT endorsed Jill Stein of the GREEN PARTY for the Presidency in the 2012 Election but we also encouraged the campaigns of the JUSTICE PARTY and the SOCIALIST PARTY. 

The Socialist Party has a long and noble history in American politics. Unfortunately, due to many factors it gravitated away from participation in U.S. elections. The Socialist Party USA, one of three heirs of the original Socialist Party of America*, has been moving back into the electoral fray. The following report from the SPUSA’s house organ, The Socialist, provides a briefing on campaigns around the country.

Hidden beneath the public relations concocted roar and corporate funded thunder of the Obama and Romney campaigns were the little people. This election cycle, more than just a few voters decided to strike out and make a bold statement about what they want for their future. They decided to vote Socialist. A few thousand sought out our Presidential ticket of Stewart
Alexander and Alex Mendoza, and many others focused their support on local efforts. This time, doing so wasn’t just a way to register a vague
protest against the system. It got someone elected. The current batch of socialist electoral campaigns was built on other recent campaigning that brought a more serious edge to efforts to reach voters. The campaigns of Dan LaBotz for US Senate in Ohio and Brandon Collins for City Council in Charlottesville, Virginia, both garnered significant media attention and had features of full-fledged attempts at running for office. Both candidates effectively used their scarce resources in outreach efforts that included face-to-face campaigning and creative virtual efforts via free platforms such as YouTube. The pair has certainly paved a way for others. What is most remarkable about the 2012 socialist candidates is the not the overall vote

total, but the sheer number of people willing to present themselves as candidates. In past years, our party has struggled to identify candidates.
Being a socialist was a quiet thing – an identity you were proud of but only selectively revealed. A combination of the 2008 economic crisis, the
previously mentioned electoral efforts and the political space created by both the radicalism of Occupy Wall Street and the drift of the Democratic Party far to the right have made being a socialist a very public position to promote.
Pat Noble, a member from New Jersey, was the most successful in doing so. Noble gained 1,033 votes and was elected to the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education. He was joined on the Socialist ticket in the hurricane-ravaged state by Greg Pason, who contested for a seat in the US Senate. With the support of so many voters in the area, Noble will now have
to take the next step in Socialist electoralism – moving from running an opposition campaign to creating concrete policies that exhibit socialist
values. This exciting development was paralleled by a plucky Michigan State Board of Education campaign waged by another Socialist, Dwain
Reynolds. Reynolds has orchestrated a number of these campaigns in the past. He has created a dynamic strategy that targets the youth vote and seeks out a coalition with the Green Party. This time, he received an impressive 66,021 votes. His efforts offer lessons about the need to build broader coalitions and tap into rising dissent among young voters.

Such tactical electoral coalitions continue to be a staple of Red Electoralism. In Texas, Angela Sarlay and the national Vice-Presidential candidate Alex Mendoza teamed with the Green Party of Texas to present their campaigns. Doing so allowed the pair to gain ballot access and present “watermelon” politics – green on the outside, red on the inside. This is a critical combination
since the Socialist critique of the political economy needs the environmental critique of the Greens and vice-versa. Sarlay’s campaign is of particular note,
since it linked up with another waged by SP-USA member John Strinka in Indiana. Both contested elections as the only candidates running against a
far-right Republican candidate. In both cases, the Democrats had totally abandoned local voters. Absent the socialists, the far-right agenda would
have gone totally unopposed. Sarlay received 6,739 votes and Strinka 2,862.
There were others. People like Ron Haldeman who ran for State Senate in Indiana and received 750 votes. Troy Thompson who ran to become mayor of Floodwood, Minnesota. Mal Herbert, Jane Newton, Jerry Levy, and Peter
Diamondstone in Vermont who ran on the Liberty Union Party line with Herbert picking up an impressive 25,749 votes. John Longhurst in Michigan and Jeff Peres in New York City also ran on the Green Party line as socialists. All told, Socialist Party USA candidates, including our presidential candidate
Stewart Alexander, received 123,393 votes. Local campaigning is no easy gig. Funds are scarce as are, often times, supporters. Candidates can often feel isolated – like a modern-day Don Quixote outgunned and running down capitalist windmills. Yet, it is through stepping back and looking at things through the lens of a national effort that people can see the vitally important impact that can be made through running electoral campaigns as socialists.
Red electoralism provides voters with choices – an essential component of any system that seeks to portray itself as democratic. Deeper than that, socialist candidates offer poor and working-class people a vision of themselves as
candidates. We are not professional candidates. We have no handlers, no public relations consultants and no corporate funders who will pull our
strings after the election. We offer independent fresh voices for equality for all through our demands of jobs, peace and freedom.

In the coming years, especially as the efforts by the Democrats and Republicans to impose austerity develop, electoral campaigns will offer
fertile ground to present a fresh vision of democratic socialism for the 21st century. Independent electoral action can become one of the ways in
which poor and working class people fight back and carve out new political possibilities for themselves and their communities.

FFI: THE SOCIALIST at http://socialistparty-usa.org/socialist/2012/dec12/GreenShootsofRedElectoralism.pdf

_________________________________________________

* As a consequence of the debate over American participation in the War in Vietnam, the old “Socialist Party of America” divided into the “Democratic Socialists of America”, “Social Democrats USA” and the “Socialist Party USA”

A Strategy of Lies, More Lies, & Bigger Lies

Hightower recounts the ostracism experienced by two pundits who honestly reported that the Republican campaign strategy in 2012 was based on telling lies, more lies and bigger lies —

Jim Hightower (excerpt from TheNationOfChange.org):

Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein now know that lonely feeling. This teamed-up pair of political partisan observers have long been esteemed peers of the Washington punditry class. Cautious, middle-of-the-road, think-tank conservatives, they were popular on the insider talk-show circuit as reliable voices of conventional thinking. Until they went rogue.

In assessing the 2012 election, Mann and Ornstein have charged that the elite media deliberately failed to cover the biggest story of all — namely that the Republican Party and its nominees were flagrantly running a campaign of lies.

The duo was surprisingly blunt, noting that the GOP was not just practicing politics as usual, with a fib here and a prevarication there, but an orchestrated strategy of dumping bald-faced fabrications wholesale on the voting public.

“It’s the great unreported big story of American politics,” said Ornstein.

While the Democrats, too, tossed out some falsehoods, there was no comparison between them and the Republicans’ intentional, ideologically extreme perversion “of facts, evidence and science.” Yet reporters and their bosses, so fearful of being accused of taking sides, failed to make a distinction — which, after all, is their job.

“They’re so timid,” Mann said — and a timid press is a weak one. “You’re failing in your fundamental responsibility,” Ornstein said of them, asking the obvious question: “What are you there for? Your obvious job is to report the truth.”

For daring to tell the truth about the media’s abject failure, Mann and Ornstein have been blackballed. They’re no longer invited to talk on the inside-politics shows, nor have those shows even mentioned the media’s pusillanimous role in abetting the Big Lies of 2012.

A Stat Out of the Hat

The vote totals for the minor parties were not a major concern for the networks. We had hoped for more and do believe that JILL STEIN ran a fine campaign. Here are some of the results:

LIBERTARIAN           Gary Johnson      1,265,000

GREEN                         Jill Stein                  458,411

CONSTITUTION        Virgil Goode           119,281

PEACE & FREEDOM Roseanne Barr         64, 620

JUSTICE                       Rocky Anderson      41, 204

SOCIALIST                   Stewart Alexander    4, 168

Florida Republicans Engaged in Voter Shenanigans

From the Yahoo News!

Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer has been claiming for months that state party members engineered a new law to suppress voter turnout, falsely touting voter fraud concerns to advance their mission. Now, other former Republicans and consultants are backing Greer up, The Palm Beach Post reports.

Greer, who is under indictment and accused of funneling campaign funds from the Republican Party, has been claiming that state Republicans supported a law (HB 1355)—which, in part, curtailed early voting—simply as a means to stymie the Democratic vote.

Staff and consultants “never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue,” Greer told the newspaper. “It’s all a marketing ploy.”

Read the article at http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/ex-republicans-claim-fla-gop-suppressed-democratic-vote-194121956–election.html

Montana Corrals Wild Corporateers

Election evening news focuses on the Presidency with a few minutes left for Senators and Governors. Nevertheless, lower ballot measures have proved comforting. One of which comes from the State of Montana where voters decided 3 to 1 that Corporations are NOT People.

This rejection of the Supreme Court’s preposterous holding in the Citizens United case would apparently give the Montana Legislature the power to regulate and restrict munificent donations from fatcats to politicos on the make.

What will the Repugnant Party and the Teasers make of this? Most assuredly, if they believe what they say they believe, they will defend it as an example of States’ Rights. Doubtful. The Tenthers only find the States have rights when they act to thwart human rights or fulfill corporate desires. When a State asserts a “right” to serve its people or restrain corporate interests, the dittos generally bleat in unison support of Federal pre-emption.

For example, during Bush’s reign some States asserted their right to refuse permits to power plants. The Busheviks pounced all over these would-be Jeffersonians to deny such States’ Rights and insist that only the Feds (Damn Yankees) could decide where power was generated, or waste discharged.

Likewise, States which have had the temerity to legalize marijuana for medical use have witnessed Federal Prosecutors who believed they were the Law. Licensed regulated marijuana dispensers in full compliance with State law have been spirited away by Feds who cared not a whit for the Tenth Amendment.

We hope that Montanans will have started the parade which other States will join: “Citizens United” can be overturned by United Citizens.

Socialists Re-Enter the Electoral Arena

Billy Wharton

Hidden beneath the public relations concocted roar and corporate funded thunder of the Obama and Romney campaigns were the little people.  This election cycle, more than just a few voters decided to strike out and make a bold statement about what they want for their future. They decided to vote Socialist. A few thousand sought out our Presidential ticket of Stewart Alexander and Alex Mendoza, and many others focused their support on local efforts.  This time, doing so wasn’t just a way to register a vague protest against the system.  It got someone elected.

The current batch of socialist electoral campaigns was built on other recent campaigning that brought a more serious edge to efforts to reach voters.  The campaigns of Dan Labotz for US Senate in Ohio and Brandon Collins for City Council in Charlottesville, Virginia both garnered significant media attention and had features of full-fledged attempts at running for office.  Both candidates effectively used their scarce resources in outreach efforts that included face-to-face campaigning and creative virtual efforts via free platforms such as YouTube.  The pair has certainly paved a way for others.

What is most remarkable about the 2012 socialist candidates is the not the overall vote total, but the sheer number of people willing to present themselves as candidates.  In past years, our party has struggled to identify candidates.  Being a socialist was a quiet thing – an identity you were proud of but only selectively revealed.  A combination of the 2008 economic crisis, the previously mentioned electoral efforts and the political space created by both the radicalism of Occupy Wall Street and the drift of the Democratic Party far to the right have made being a socialist a very public position to promote.

, Pat Noble, a member from New Jersey, was the most successful in doing so.  Noble gained 1,033 votes and was elected to the Red Bank Regional High School Board of Education.  He was joined on the Socialist ticket in the hurricane-ravaged state by Greg Pason, who contested for a seat in the US Senate.  With the support of so many voters in the area, Noble will now have to take the next step in Socialist electoralism – moving from running an opposition campaign to creating concrete policies that exhibit socialist values.

This exciting development was paralleled by a plucky Michigan State Board of Education campaign waged by another Socialist,  Dwain Reynolds.Reynolds has orchestrated a number of these campaigns in the past.  He has created a dynamic strategy that targets the youth vote and seeks out a coalition with the Green Party.  This time, he received an impressive 66,021 votes.  His efforts offer lessons about the need to build broader coalitions and tap into rising dissent among young voters.

Such tactical electoral coalitions continue to be a staple of Red Electoralism.  In Texas, Angela Sarlay and the national Vice-Presidential candidate Alex Mendoza teamed with the Green Party of Texas to present their campaigns.  Doing so allowed the pair to gain ballot access and present “watermelon” politics – green on the outside, red on the inside.  This is a critical combination since the Socialist critique of the political economy needs the environmental critique of the Greens and vice-versa.

Sarlay’s campaign is of particular note, since it linked up with another waged by SP-USA member John Strinka in Indiana.  Both contested elections as the only candidates running against a far-right Republican candidate.  In both cases, the Democrats had totally abandoned local voters.  Absent the socialists, the far-right agenda would have gone totally unopposed.  Sarlay received 6,739 votes and Strinka 2,862.

There were others.  People like Ron Haldeman who ran for State Senate in Indiana and received 750 votes.  Troy Thompson who ran to become mayor of Floodwood, Minnesota. Mal Herbert, Jane Newton, Jerry Levy and Peter Diamondstone in Vermont who ran on the Liberty Union Party line with Herbert picking up an impressive 25,749 votes.  John Longhurst in Michigan and Jeff Peres in New York City also ran on the Green Party line as socialists.  All told, Socialist Party USA candidates, including our presidential candidate Stewart Alexander, received 123,393 votes.

Local campaigning is no easy gig.  Funds are scarce as are, often times, supporters. Candidates can often feel isolated – like a modern day Don Quixote outgunned and running down capitalist windmills.  Yet, it is through stepping back and looking at things through the lens of a national effort that people can see the vitally important impact that can be made through running electoral campaigns as socialists.

Red electoralism provides voters with choices – an essential component of any system that seeks to portray itself as democratic.  Deeper than that, socialist candidates offer poor and working class people a vision of themselves as candidates.  We are not professional candidates.  We have no handlers, no public relations consultants and no corporate funders who will pull our strings after the election.  We offer independent fresh voices for equality for all through our demands of jobs, peace and freedom.

In the coming years, especially as the efforts by the Democrats and Republicans to impose austerity develop, electoral campaigns will offer fertile ground to present a fresh vision of democratic socialism for the 21st century.  Independent electoral action can become one of the ways in which poor and working class people fight back and carve out new political possibilities for themselves and their communities.

From the Socialist Webzine

Billy Wharton is writer and Co-Chair of the Socialist Party USA. Billy’s report is notable for the revelation that the Socialist Party has once again entered into electoral contests. The SP once won about a million votes when Eugene Victor Debs ran for President. Hundreds of local Socialists were elected as Mayors and City Councillors and a few as state legislators. Many Socialists were persuaded by the Harrington-Shachtman strategy of working from within the Democratic Party and gave up independent electoral work. It appears that everything old is new again.

How Hot Is That?

No, seriously, how hot is the fact that ARIZONA has elected the nation’s very first Bisexual Congressperson to the U.S. House of Representatives.

KYRSTEN SINEMA (D-ARIZONA)

Arizona did its best to keep its Latino, African-American and Native American communities from voting on November 6. Many were forced to cast “provisional ballots” which then the authorities proposed to discard. Nevertheless, the votes came in and their disposal avoided resulting in piles of uncounted votes left over. The State is now in the process of counting these ballots. One of the beneficiaries has been Kyrsten Sinema who came from behind to win. Sinema had previously served in the Arizona Legislature, worked with her MSW as a social worker, and then as a defense attorney with her JD and then tied it up with a PhD. Good looking and smart . . . how hot is that!

I Didn’t (Wrong State) But I Wish I Could Have