i received this pamphlet today near my job. a couple people were walking down the street trying to get signatures on a petition for these people to be put on the ballet for the presidential election. that's all i really have to say about it. i don't have a scanner so i will type up the pamplet word for word (complete with any spelling/grammatical/etc mistakes)
Party for Socialism and Liberation Candidates Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear Stand for:
U.S OUT OF IRAQ
End the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan. Bring all the troops home now.
Stop U.S. blockades & sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Korea, Sudan and everywhere.
End U.S. aid to Israel-Support the Palestinian people's right to self-determination.
Free Puerto Rico.
International friendship and solidarity, not imperialist domination.
FIGHT THE CORPORATE BOSSES
Full employment-decent jobs for all. Job training for youth & the unemployed.
Raise the minimum wage to $15/hour now.
Free, quality healthcare for all.
Expand and guarantee social security for all retired workers, disabled and unemployed people.
Stop union-busting, expand the right to organize, including card-check recognition.
Free, high quality education from pre-school through college.
Housing is a right-End foreclosures and evictions.
Stop environmental destruction-Make the polluters pay.
Rebuild New Orleans-Right of return for all survivors.
EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL
Fight racism and the racist criminal "justice" system.
Defend women's reproductive rights, including the right to choose.
Full rights for all immigrants.
Reparations now for the African American community.
Eliminate anti-LGBT laws-Equal marriage rights for all.
Equality for disabled people.
Stop police brutality and mass incarceration.
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, the Cuban 5, Angola 3, S.F. 8 and all political prisoners.
SOCIALISM
End the rule of the billionaires, bankers and militarists-fight for workers' democracy.
We need a sustainable economy based on meeting people's needs, not making the rich richer.
We need socialism!
UNLIKE the corporate-funded candidates who say the way in Iraq will end "some day" in the distant future, Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear, running on the presidential ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), have been building a movement of millions of people to demand the U.S. out of Iraq NOW! They have helped organize the biggest demonstrations against the Iraq war in the last few years.
This is a rich man's war. It is a war to dominate the oil-rich Middle East. Only the banks, corporations and oil monopolies benefit. It is the sons and daughters of the working class who are sent to kill and be killed. Those who started this war and continue to fund it should stand trial for crimes against the people.
Bush gets a pass every day from the two-faces Democrats in Congress even though he is responsible for send hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to their graves with tens of thousands of U.S. troops also killed or horribly maimed.
The politicians and corporate bosses have a message for working people: salute the flag, stop thinking and send our loved ones to fight in imperialist wars. They proclaim we "are one nation" when they want to drag workers into the next war.
But these same capitalists and political opportunists will turn around and shut down factories, lay off tens of thousands of workers and slash health care benefits and pensions if they believe it will add to the super-profits for the corporate elites and bankers.
In the last 20 years, unions have been attacked by the bosses, industries shut down and workers' wages have plummeted. The cost of living has skyrocketed while wages and income have dropped. Landlords, banks and real-estate speculators have turned cities and towns into places where it is impossible to live, with rent and the cost of buying a house beyong the reach of more and more people.
What can change this situation? If we look back at the history of the United States, it is when the people, both workers and the poor, joined together to fight injustice and abuse, that real change has come about.
The bosses and politicians try to whip up racism as a way to keep the working class divided. The divide-and-conquer tactic has been used since the founding of this country. Slavery, the genocide against the original peoples of the Americas, brutal colonialism and the super-expolitation of immigrant labor was the source of wealth for the white, racist capitalist ruling class in the United States.
The only way the could keep their power, their fortunes and incredible privilege is to get one set of workers fighting another. This is the historic function of racism as a key element of growth of modern day capitalism in the United States. The use of racism as a key divid-and-conquer strategy explains the virulent attack on immigrants and immigrant rights.
Although the civil rights movement ended legal apartheid in the U.S., racism today is just as vicious as ever. The La Riva/Puryear campaign is part of a larger struggle to unite all workers against our real enemies.
The African American community and other people of color won rights throught the great civil rights movement. Workers and the unemployed, who organized and struggles for the right to a union, and better wages and working conditions, won social security, unemployment benefits and other social programs in the 1930s. Women and lesbian/gay/transgender people achieved great gains through struggle.
But these changes can be rolled back as the bosses go on the offensive to increase profits and increase exploitation.
Every person in this country could have the right to free education, free healthcare, affordable housing and a decent paying job with full benefits. But to realize these simple demands will require a true revolution.
The Part for Socialism and Liberation is a working-class party organized by and for working people. We are socialists active in every struggle the affects working and poor people at home and abroad. We believe that an organized and militant people's movement can achieve great changes-necessary changes-that improve the lives of working and oppressed people.
As socialists, we fight for a different kind of society. We fight for a society where people's needs are no longer a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. We fight for a society where housing, healthcare, education and a job are a right. We fight for socialism.
The PSL is running candidates in 2008: Gloria La Riva for president and Eugene Puryear for vice president and local candidates in several states.
Get involved in a campaign that puts people first, not profits. Contact us to find out more.
The pamphlet then goes on to tell what else their candidates have done in the past as well as contact details and even a little cut-out if you'd like to donate/volunteer. Please-discuss.
