Voice of Revolution

No Votes for Pro-War Parties

Salute the Efforts of Third Party and Independent Anti-war Candidates

Voice of Revolution salutes the efforts of the third party and independent anti-war candidates running for president and Congress. Voting for these candidates represents an opportunity to break open the closed electoral system — closed to the people, closed to their anti-war stand, closed to their demand for empowerment. It is an electoral system that from top to bottom systematically excludes the people from their right to elect and be elected and to do so on an equal basis. A strong showing from the combined votes of all those refusing to vote for the war parties will act as a wedge against the gatekeepers of this closed system, the Republicans and Democrats.

The unequal and closed character of the set up is readily apparent in the brutal conditions imposed on third party and independent candidates simply to get on the ballot. The Democratic and Republican parties are automatically on the ballot and their candidates at most have to gather 2,000 signatures. For third party and independent candidates to run for president or Congress, each state has different rules, different deadlines and different requirements for ballot access. This itself means the right to vote, to elect and be elected, is not equal nationwide. Most states require collecting thousands of signatures, usually more than 10,000 in larger states. The signatures must be collected within a certain time period (commonly 3-4 months or less) during the election year. This prevents candidates from using the period between elections to travel throughout the state, or throughout the country, to secure signatures. Some states, like Pennsylvania, require more than 65,000 signatures.

As well, only signatures of registered voters, not eligible voters, are accepted. They must be collected by a registered voter, with a registered voter witnessing at the time of signing. And given that the lists of registered voters are constantly changing, usually 10-20 percent more signatures are required to overcome challenges, commonly brought by the Democratic Party. Each state also has different rules, different deadlines and different requirements for what constitutes a political party and getting the party a ballot line.

It requires disciplined organization and work by a sizeable number of people, either statewide for Congress or nationwide for president, to get on the ballot. Voice of Revolution salutes the various campaigns for getting on the ballot. The Nader-Gonzalez campaign, for example, is on the ballot in 45 states, and Nader visited all 50 states as part of his campaign. The Green Party’s McKinney-Clemente campaign is on the ballot in 32 states, the LaRiva-Puryear in 14. The Libertarian’s Bob Barr is on in 44.

We vigorously condemn this whole electoral set up as unequal, unfair and disempowering to the polity as a whole. A vote for the independent and third party candidates is a vote for empowerment! It is a vote against the dictate of the Democrats and Republicans and their pro-war, anti-people programs. Voting against them is a vote to restrict their power, to challenge it and demand that independents, third party and all interested in electing their fellow workers, have an equal place and equal vote in the election process. Now is the time to strengthen organizing efforts to support anti-war candidates from among the workers, women and youth and all the fighters for rights!

Vote Independent and Third Party
Anti-War Candidates!

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For the Equal Right to Elect and Be Elected

One of the things that stands out about U.S. elections is the very unequal conditions imposed on the polity as a whole. The electoral set up is essentially closed to all but the Republicans and Democrats. It is a very complex arrangement where each state determines such vital matters as voting districts, ballot access for candidates and voter registration requirements. The requirements are different in each state, which immediately renders the right to right to vote unequal. All three measures are used to keep the Democrats and Republicans in power, while keeping candidates from the workers and anti-war and rights movements out. All the rules are decided exclusively by the Republicans and Democrats. This means all other parties and independent candidates are in an unequal position from the start. And despite these obstacles, third party and independent candidates have succeeded this year at a level greater than 2000 or 2004. This is an indication of the anger of the electorate with in inequality they face and their desire to have alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans.

The right to elect and be elected, including the right to vote, is supposed to exist as an equal right, independent of the party affiliation or independent status of the voter or the candidate. Yet in the U.S., unlike most other countries, in order to register, party affiliation must be given. A person is not registered simply as an eligible voter — with your views and support for a party, or not, safeguarded as matter of your right to conscience. Instead, as part of keeping the system closed to Democrats and Republicans only, party affiliation is mandated. And party privileges are provided. In many states you cannot participate in the primaries unless you are a registered Democrat or Republican. In others independents can participate, but only in the primaries of Democrats and Republicans. There is no such thing as a primary where all those running have an equal place and all those voting can vote the candidate of their choice.

Securing the equal right to elect and be elected requires modernizing the existing electoral set up so that the people themselves come to power, not the parties. It requires depriving the Democrats and Republicans of the power to make all the rules and dictate to the polity, while increasing the power of the people themselves to run for office and elect their peers.

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Candidates Ralph Nader & Cynthia McKinney On the Bail Out and Voter Repression

Democracy Now, October 16, 2008

Senators Barack Obama and John McCain met last night for the final debate before the November 4 presidential election, sparring over the economy, tax policy, negative campaigning, trade agreements, abortion and the educational system. As with the other debates, third-party candidates were not invited to participate. We break the sound barrier and hear from Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney and independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. We invited Libertarian Party presidential nominee Bob Barr and Constitution Party nominee Chuck Baldwin, but they could not join us.

Democracy Now’s JUAN GONZALEZ: Senators Barack Obama and John McCain met last night for the final debate before the November 4 presidential election. It was held at Hofstra University on Long Island in New York.

Prior to the ninety-minute face-off, police arrested fifteen protesters in a peaceful demonstration outside the university led by Iraq Veterans Against the War. One veteran, Nick Morgan, was hospitalized after being trampled by a police horse. The arrests took place less than an hour before Barack Obama and John McCain took the stage.

During the debate, the Iraq war was barely mentioned. The war in Afghanistan never came up. Instead, the two candidates sparred over the government’s plans to rescue the financial system, tax policy, negative campaigning, trade agreements, abortion and the educational system.

So, Nader and McKinney will answer questions similar to those put to Obama and McCain. Cynthia McKinney, Green Party presidential nominee, you have two minutes to give us your view of the financial crisis and why your plan would be better.

CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Thank you very much. I have put together a fourteen-point plan, which is available on our website runcynthiarun.org. And those fourteen points include an elimination of adjustable rate mortgages, predatory lending, and any of the discriminatory practices that helped to fuel the crisis that we’re experiencing. In addition to that, I also call for the elimination of derivatives trading, which is one of the major problems.

I also call for David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the United States, to oversee all of the entities that have received taxpayer funding. He is the one who was in charge of auditing the United States government and basically left in disgust because people in the Congress and in the White House were not listening to his admonitions.

I also call for the nationalization of the Federal Reserve and the establishment of a banking system, a nationalized banking system, that really responds to the needs of people and our country. Our country needs investment in infrastructure, in manufacturing and in greening our economy, and that could be accomplished through such a banking system that belongs to the American people.

And then I would also just like to say I agree that U.S. corporations should not receive tax subsidies for moving jobs overseas, and that’s a piece of legislation that I actually introduced when I was in the Congress.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, independent presidential candidate, your solution for the economic crisis?

RALPH NADER: Well, first of all, Washington had Wall Street over a barrel, and they didn’t enact legislation in that $700-plus billion bailout to prevent this from happening again. So there should be in the future, very near future, a comprehensive re-regulation of financial services industry. It was deregulation that opened the doors under Clinton for this wild orgy of excess, as Richard Fisher of the Federal Reserve in Dallas called it.

We need to provide more power to the shareholders — mutual funds, worker pension funds and others — to control the companies that they own and control the bosses so that this doesn’t happen again.

We need widespread criminal -prosecution of these corporate crooks and swindlers. There were lots of deceptive practices, cover-ups and conflicts of interest involved in selling this phony paper around the country and the world.

And we need, if there’s going to be taxpayer injection in these financial institutions, the taxpayers should not only have ownership, proportional ownership, but should have representatives on the board. Right now, it’s a very porous and very ineffective provision in the bill.

But above all, we need to make the speculators pay for their own bailout. And that can be done by a one-tenth of one percent tax on derivatives transactions, which this year will be $500 trillion worth. So, one-tenth of one percent will produce $500 billion; two-tenths of one percent will produce a trillion dollars. And that is only fair. So, what’s important here is there’s nothing spectacularly new about a derivatives tax. The stock tax transaction helped to fund the Civil War. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used it. Some European countries have it now. People in New York and elsewhere go into a store and pay six, seven percent sales tax for necessities of life. But someone today on Wall Street will buy $100 million of Exxon derivatives and pay nothing.

We also need a major public works program to stem the slide into a deeper recession, to rebuild America.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Cynthia McKinney, two minutes on your views on the tone of the campaign and some of the exchange between Senator McCain and Senator Obama about John Lewis?

CYNTHIA McKINNEY: Well, I would rather give my impressions of what differentiates the campaigns of independent and third-party candidates, and that is, I believe that we talk about the issues. Former Comptroller General David Walker said that now is a time that this country needs leadership, not lagship. But unfortunately, we’re getting more lagship than leadership.

For example, the issues that I’ve been talking about as I’ve gone around this country have been the tremendous impact that the Bush tax cuts have had on income inequality in our country. The sad fact of the matter is that we are experiencing the kind of income inequality not experienced since the Great Depression.

In addition to that, I’ve been talking about the need to repeal the PATRIOT Acts, so that we can safeguard our civil liberties, protect the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

I’ve also been talking about the death penalty, because, of course, in the state in which I was born, [Georgia] we have a young man for whom a death date has been set, and he’s had seven witnesses to recant their testimony at trial. I’m talking about the case of Troy Davis. We need to talk about justice in this country. We need to talk about the administration of the death penalty.

It’s interesting that, categorically, I support single-payer healthcare, and I believe that Ralph Nader does, as well. We make no bones about our support for a single-payer healthcare system in this country. And just last week, 5,000 physicians wrote a letter, and they said that it was the only morally responsible, as well as fiscally responsible solution to the healthcare problems that face our country.

AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader, your response?

RALPH NADER: Well, first of all, the reason why the press covers the lowest common denominator of gaffes or tactics or horse races or what someone said in a crowd is because Obama and McCain do not open up in their discussion day after day to significant issues such as Cynthia McKinney just alluded to. You know, they say the same thing day after day after day, and so the press has to have a cheap lead, and they go with these gaffes or these diversions. If McCain and Obama really opened up all the huge variety of redirections and reforms and what’s going on in the country and allied themselves with local citizen groups who are fighting for justice, there would be news every day, and the reporters would not be as inclined to headline these gaffes or these so-called smears from different supporters of Obama and McCain. So it’s a combined responsibility of the candidates who open up this kind of foolishness and silly coverage, because they’re so redundant, they’re so ditto heads on the campaign trail.

And when Nader-Gonzalez campaigns all over the country in, there are all kinds of issues in Florida, in Washington state, in Hawaii, in Colorado, people struggling for clean environment, civic accountability, people going after toxic waste dumps and lack of a living wage. That’s where I would stand. And there needs to be many, many more debates, not these silly parallel interviews by a debate commission that is controlled by the two parties and keeps competition off the stage, in terms of third-party independent candidates. More and more debates will provide more substance, and more and more candidates on those stages who have been qualified on many state ballots.

AMY GOODMAN: For the first time in the debate last night, Senator McCain raised the issue of Senator Barack Obama’s connection to Bill Ayers, the University of Illinois professor, former member of the Weather Underground.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Ralph Nader, one minute, on Ayers and as to whether there’s voter fraud or voter suppression going on in this election, including your reference to the issue of ACORN. [The question references John McCain’s statement during the debate that, “We need to know the full extent of Senator Obama’s relationship with ACORN, who is now on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country.]

RALPH NADER: First of all, ACORN has done tremendously good work over the years with low-income people in city after city. When they go into big-time voter registration, things happen. Some people may get enthusiastic. They don’t control some of the new people they hire. And this happens. It should not besmirch the overwhelmingly good work on economic justice and voice to low-income people.

Second, on the Bill Ayers thing, who was a lapsed small-time saboteur with the Weather Underground many years ago, what should have been said was the big-time terrorists, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, these are clinically verifiable mass terrorists who have killed innocent civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere in their criminal wars of aggression. These are criminal wars of aggression. These are war crimes. These are war criminals. They have killed over a million Iraqi civilians as a result of that criminal invasion. That’s where the discussion should have focused. The big-time terrorists, the state terrorists in the White House who have violated our Constitution, our statutes and our international treaties, and have been condemned even by the American Bar Association for continual violence against our Constitution.

AMY GOODMAN: Cynthia McKinney your views?

CYNTHIA McKINNEY: First of all, I think I should say that I believe that the people in this country need a political party and a movement that places our values on the political agenda. Obviously, with that exchange, that’s not the case.

There’s something else that’s a bit more troubling. I’ve also been talking about election integrity as I’ve gone across this country. But, you know, I really don’t like the idea that the face of election fraud, given the past two presidential elections, is now a face of color and one of poor people.

In 2000, when people went to the polls, when the voters went to the polls, they were met with confusing ballots, manipulation of the voter lists, electronic voting machines that didn’t work, inappropriately or ineffectively or poorly trained officials who weren’t familiar with the workings of those machines, and we know what the problems with those machines have been and are. We still have those problems that have been with us since 2000.

In 2004, they added to these problems with the electronic poll books, the sleepovers that were discovered, where the machines weren’t even secured, even intensifying the failures of the machines with the vote flipping, and usually in only one direction. The battery freezes in the midst of voters actually trying to cast their votes.

And now we’ve got voter ID laws across the country, and we’ve got voter caging, which is a fancy way of purging people from the voter files. So, now, what kind of election is it when neither of the political parties is addressing the issue, the fundamental issue, of whether or not our votes are even going to be counted.

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La Riva/Puryear PSL Presidential Campaign on the Ballot in 12 States

The La Riva/Puryear Party of Socialism and Liberation (PSL) Presidential Campaign is proud to announce that we have achieved ballot status in Rhode Island! We are now on the ballot in a total of 12 states — Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Over the past eight months, our volunteers have collected more than 45,000 signatures while petitioning all over the country at every place imaginable. We have recruited more than one hundred electors and held state conventions. We have fought blizzards, tornadoes and hurricanes to get on the ballot in some states. We have done all this for the purpose of getting on the ballot in as many states as possible so that the message of socialism will reach tens of millions of working-class people.

Rhode Island was the final stop on our pursuit for ballot access. PSL volunteers collected over 1,750 signatures in several weeks. Volunteers from across the country convened in this tiny state to hit bus depots, festivals and shopping malls to collect petition signatures.

Although it is the smallest U.S. state, the effects of poverty and racism in Rhode Island are striking. Working-class people in Rhode Island suffer from one of the highest poverty rates in New England, with 12 percent of the population living below the poverty line. The poverty rate in neighboring New Hampshire is seven percent. Nearly 20 percent of jobs in Rhode Island pay poverty level wages. Nearly one in five children in the state are growing up in poverty.

Rhode Island’s communities of color bear the brunt of economic oppression, with over one in five African Americans living in poverty, and nearly one in three Latinos living in poverty.

Our campaign hopes to inspire and build a fightback movement in these communities.

As the economic crisis grows, workers are being attacked in every facet of their lives. The need for revolutionary change has become all the more urgent. Millions of people are losing their homes, being laid off and losing their life savings. Millions more will not be able to afford vital necessities such food, quality education and transportation.

While the government continues to bail out one multi-billion-dollar corporation after another, the vast majority of people are left to fend for themselves. Who will bail us out? Socialism is the only solution to this economic crisis. It is a system that justly turns capitalism on its head—it puts people over profits. This is the message that our campaign will be taking to every corner of this country.

Our campaign is about building a movement

Our campaign will speak to workers in every corner of this country. In this first-ever election campaign by the PSL, our strategy has included gaining ballot status in every major region of the country. We will be on the ballot in New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont in the Northeast; Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana in the South; Iowa and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and Colorado, Utah and Washington in the West.

Unlike the capitalist candidates, who will say anything to win the votes, our goal is to build a movement. We are not a party of professional politicians. We are a party of revolutionary activists, organizers and leaders.

The La Riva/Puryear PSL Presidential Campaign will raise the banner of socialism everywhere we go. We will champion the cause of the working class.

We will get into the debates, go door to door, and hold rallies, speak outs, protests and sit-ins to be heard. The PSL’s campaign will reach out to workers and the oppressed with a message of hope and real struggle.

We have already begun to campaign all over the country. People who had never thought about socialism before are subscribing to our publications and eagerly learning about the inherent contradictions of capitalism. Our volunteers have been thanked by workers who are sick of being attacked by a system that cares only about profits. They are excited to know that a militant party is on the streets fighting for our class’s liberation.

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Support Cindy Sheehan’s Campaign for Congress

“Peace Mom” Cindy Sheehan is running for Congress in California, opposing Democrat Nancy Pelosi. She has run on an anti-war, pro-people platform and mobilized people to discuss the content of her campaign and participate in popularizing it. Cindy for Congress has established an office in the Mission district, home to a diverse population, including many Latinos. Her campaign has decided to maintain her office, win or lose, as a convergence space for organizing by all concerned. Cindy for Congress recently called on supporters nationwide to assist in phone banking, and making financial contributions to get an ad on TV. As the cindyforcongress.org webpage states: “We have established a national phone bank for Cindy Sheehan’s Congressional Campaign in which anyone, anywhere can participate. If you feel you owe it to yourself, your family, friends and children to act now for peace, then contact us immediately: Jackson@cindyforcongress.org or 415-621-5027.

Voice of Revolution supports the Cindy for Congress campaign and calls on our readers to investigate the campaign and lend a hand. We reprint below portions of an interview done with Cindy at the start of her campaign, conducted by Matt Gonzalez, current vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with Ralph Nader. Gonzalez is also a former president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, the city’s elected governance board.

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Florida Congressional Race

Anti-war Vet Michael Prysner Defends Rights

Anti-war candidates are coming forward in different states to run for Congress. Below we report on one representative example, Michael Prysner, running in Florida.

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Michael Prysner, an Iraq war veteran, is running as an anti-war candidate for Florida’s 22nd congressional district. Prysner is active in Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). He has addressed several local and national anti-war protests and conferences over the past year, including demonstrations at the Republican and Democratic national conventions, and the IVAW’s Winter Soldier event sponsored by Iraq Veterans Against the War. At the DNC, he participated in a march to demand freedom for all political prisoners, helping to carry a banner calling for freedom for the Cuban Five — five Cuban men held in U.S. prisons for monitoring the activities of right-wing Miami terrorists. At the RNC, Prysner spoke to tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators, asking them to join the struggle not just against the Republican Party, but against the twin parties of imperialism.

He is running as a candidate for the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). Dozens of lawn signs promoting Prysner’s campaign, the PSL and the slogan “End the War Now” have been distributed throughout the working-class areas of his district.

Prysner is running against incumbent Ron Klein (D) and former Army officer Allen West (R). West served in the same unit as Prysner during their 2003 Iraq tour before being discharged for torturing an Iraqi during an interrogation. Both Klein and West advocate racist Zionism and defend the continued colonial occupation of Palestine. Prysner takes an uncompromising position in defense of the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland. Most recently, Prysner spoke at protests in Miami against the continual siege of Gaza by the U.S.-backed Israeli government, declaring that he and other PSL members “will continue to fight until every inch of Palestine is free.”

When West planned a hostile rally and press conference outside a banquet for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Prysner for Congress campaign and others turned out in mass to challenge the racist attacks. That day, the anti-Arab right wing in south Florida, accustomed to a political climate in which they could attack the Arab and Muslim community unopposed, learned that a new political leadership was ready to stand in their way. West and his crew were forced to abandon their plans, fleeing the site without getting out a single racist word to the press.

A campaign of struggle

Prysner’s grassroots campaign has fought shoulder to shoulder with working people in South Florida. On September 26, Prysner participated in a delegation of union and community activists demanding that the Isle Casino reinstate three workers who had been unjustly fired. The casino gave the workers the pink slip in an attempt to intimidate their newly formed union during contract negotiations. When meeting with the casino management, Prysner said, “We are committed to stand and fight with the workers who were illegally fired until they are reinstated, and to ensure that all workers at the casino get a fair contract.”

On September 2, the Prysner for Congress campaign joined with other progressive forces in a successful campaign to support the creation of a workers’ resource center to be voted on at the Lake Worth City Commission meeting. The center will play an important role in coordinating day laborers’ employment, providing important social services to community members, and serving as a key center for the immigrant rights movement in South Florida.

In the months leading up to the city commission meeting, illegal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids grew more frequent. Prysner helped organize a know-your-rights workshop, and went door to door in the terrorized communities to encourage migrant workers to attend the workshop and organize against the attacks. Hundreds of immigrants turned out to the workshop.

Prysner joined roughly 15 other candidates at a forum organized by the Haitian Citizen United Task Force in his district, which is home to a large Haitian immigrant population. Prysner was the only candidate who demanded full rights for all immigrants, including guaranteed access to jobs, health care and quality education.

Professional politicians have spent months courting voters at public events and in the media, but for Prysner, campaigning has not been about scoring votes. It is about organizing among the workers and defending rights.

(Source: Party for Liberation and Socialism)