Protest positively, vote socialist!

Mal etwas Konstruktives zu den kommenden Wahlen in den USA: Der Aufruf der Freedom Socialist Party (FSP):

Sick of the two-party hard sell? Despair not! There are alternatives on the ballot, though most mainstream news outlets ignore their campaigns. Three socialist parties offer presidential tickets, and the chance to register protest against war, poverty, and the for-profit system that spawns them. Unabashedly pro-worker, none of these candidates are beholden to corporate donors! Their programs are refreshingly concrete in confronting the issues of the people who are suffering most. For more info about ballot issues in your area, contact the Freedom Socialist Party branch nearest you.

Socialist Party. In states where more than one socialist party appears on the ballot, the Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) recommends a vote for the Socialist Party (SP) ticket of Brian Moore and Stewart Alexander. Where there are no socialist parties on the ballot (as in Oregon and California), the FSP also urges that you write in their ticket.

Presidential nominee Moore is a healthcare professional who lives in Florida. Alexander, for vice president, is a civil rights activist from California.

The SP works cooperatively with other socialists in the electoral arena, including on ballot access issues. The SP also has a solid program that calls for the radical transformation of society. It is the only party to explicitly include the important feminist demands for free legalized abortion and childcare.

On labor, it calls for a guaranteed annual income and turning for-profit corporations into nonprofit ones, run under the control of workers. SP also calls for nationalization of the oil, pharmaceutical, airline, banking and insurance industries.

The SP favors a socialized system of medical care. And, like the other contenders below, it identifies one huge method to fund such care — by cutting the military budget, ending U.S. aid to Israel, and immediatelywithdrawing all U.S. troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Socialist Workers Party. Where the SP is not an option, FSP favors the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) slate of Róger Calero for president and Alyson Kennedy for VP. Both are union organizers and persistent defenders of immigrant rights.

While the SWP program is weak on gay rights, it does include strong measures for labor, such as a shortened workweek with no cut in take-home pay to spread the work. The SWP also demands an unspecified raise in the federal minimum wage, coupled with a mass jobs program at union-scale wages to rebuild infrastructure. It advocates „guaranteed lifetime“ healthcare and repeal of the Patriot Act.

And the SWP also sometimes collaborates with other socialists in the electoral arena.

Party for Socialism and Liberation. The FSP recommends as a third choice the candidates of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear. Presidential nominee La Riva is president of a section within the Communications Workers of America. Puryear is a student and community organizer.

The PSL, a Workers World Party spinoff, inherits that party’s opportunist and anti-democratic tendencies. This extends to electoral work.

Still, PSL’s program champions socialism and embraces crucial demands, such as a halt to home foreclosures. PSL calls for full rights for immigrants and an hourly minimum wage of $15. It campaigns on ending the wars and police brutality while defending civil liberties and affirmative action.

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Some socialists are supporting Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez or the Green Party ticket of Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente. The FSP doesn’t endorse these slates, for the simple but key reason that they do not challenge capitalism as the root cause of social, economic, and environmental ills.

Socialists are often accused of being dreamers, but it’s the promise of peace, equality and justice within the profit framework that is a mirage. To register a demand for real change, vote socialist in 2008 — and then hit the streets to make it so!