22 October 2019
A statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Showing posts with label Campaign Statements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Campaign Statements. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 22, 2019
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
SP Kalamazoo City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on A Just Cannabis Economy
15 October 2019
A statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Wednesday, September 25, 2019
SP Kalamazoo City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on Women's Rights and LBGTQIA Rights
25 September 2019
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
SP Kalamazoo City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on Access to Mental Health Services
17 September 2019
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party Candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party Candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
SP Kalamazoo City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on Raising the Minimum Wage and Full Employment
11 September 2019
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party Candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party Candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Tuesday, September 3, 2019
Kalamazoo City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on Housing for All and Opposing Gentrification
3 September 2019
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party Candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party Candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
SP City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on Preparing Kalamazoo for the Climate Crisis
27 August 2019
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
SP Kalamazoo City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on International Solidarity
20 August 2019
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
SP Kalamazoo City Commission Candidate Livestream Video on Building a Working Class Movement
13 August 2019
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
A Statement by Andy Argo, Socialist Party candidate for Kalamazoo City Commission
Click here to view the livestream video.
Sunday, September 2, 2018
Why challenge America's most popular progressive politician?
2 September 2018
A Statement by Reid Kane Kotlas, 2018 Socialist Party Candidate for U.S. Senate (Vermont)
I was recently asked, "At a time when progressive ideas are just now breaking into mainstream political discourse, why challenge America's most popular politician from his left?
I am challenging Sanders because progress cannot come from the politicians, however noble their intentions. It can only come from the people organizing themselves.
For Sanders, progress means the state playing a more active role in mitigating the dysfunctions of capitalism. That is not a new idea.
A Statement by Reid Kane Kotlas, 2018 Socialist Party Candidate for U.S. Senate (Vermont)
I was recently asked, "At a time when progressive ideas are just now breaking into mainstream political discourse, why challenge America's most popular politician from his left?
I am challenging Sanders because progress cannot come from the politicians, however noble their intentions. It can only come from the people organizing themselves.
For Sanders, progress means the state playing a more active role in mitigating the dysfunctions of capitalism. That is not a new idea.
The state already plays a massive role in organizing capitalist
society. The important question is not what policies the state will
adopt in doing so, but who controls the state, and to what ultimate end?
Socialists differ from progressives in that we seek to organize the working people to take state power into their own hands, in order to overcome the division of society into owners and workers, and to establish a society based upon universal ownership and self-employment.
Sanders, and all progressives, seek to use the state to preserve the social order in which working people are dependent and subservient upon owners of capital.
The conservative desire to preserve social order is natural and understandable. But we have outgrown the capitalist social order, and suffer for not having progressed beyond it.
True progress would be progress beyond capitalism to socialism. That would require working people organizing themselves to take responsibility for their society, to take ownership of the world on which they depend, including the power of the state.
Socialists differ from progressives in that we seek to organize the working people to take state power into their own hands, in order to overcome the division of society into owners and workers, and to establish a society based upon universal ownership and self-employment.
Sanders, and all progressives, seek to use the state to preserve the social order in which working people are dependent and subservient upon owners of capital.
The conservative desire to preserve social order is natural and understandable. But we have outgrown the capitalist social order, and suffer for not having progressed beyond it.
True progress would be progress beyond capitalism to socialism. That would require working people organizing themselves to take responsibility for their society, to take ownership of the world on which they depend, including the power of the state.
Progressivism as a political ideology
does not simply mean the desire for social betterment. Conservatives
also want society to improve, but they have a different conception of
what that would mean. Likewise with socialists.
Progressivism is the belief that for capitalism to progress, the state must take a more active role in managing the affairs of society and supplementing or correcting the limitations of commerce and private enterprise.
Progressivism first emerged in response to and as an explicit rejection of the socialist position. The socialists believed that capitalism could no longer progress, but had already progressed as far as it could, and had, since the mid-19th century, become a fetter on social progress.
Progressivism is the belief that for capitalism to progress, the state must take a more active role in managing the affairs of society and supplementing or correcting the limitations of commerce and private enterprise.
Progressivism first emerged in response to and as an explicit rejection of the socialist position. The socialists believed that capitalism could no longer progress, but had already progressed as far as it could, and had, since the mid-19th century, become a fetter on social progress.
Socialists did not seek more state control over the economy, but to
change who controlled both the state and the accumulated capital of
society, to use both to fundamentally different ends.
Rather than preserving a social order defined by the division of society into workers and owners by making it "better", socialists sought to overcome that division, and to thereby inaugurate a new social order and a new epoch of human history.
The socialists, in that sense, sought not progress in capitalism, but progress beyond capitalism, and they sought this not by way of demanding improvements to capitalism, but by organizing and rendering explicit the conflict within capitalism that made further progress impossible.
It's not that it is impossible for people's lives to get better in capitalism. Of course that is possible. But such improvement is never unambiguous, never secure, never adequate, and never universal. Improvement is always tainted by its opposite.
Progressivism means seeking betterment in and through the status quo. Socialists must also work within the status quo, but do not do so in order to improve upon it. They seek, rather, to overcome the status quo, to overcome the tainted character of progress in capitalism.
Overcoming the status quo means, above all, organizing the masses who are currently dependent upon and subservient to those with political and social power to take that power into their own hands. Not seeking aid from our present rulers, but overthrowing and replacing them.
Socialism would mean overcoming a social order in which the masses are subservient and dependent, and replacing it with a society in which all are responsible for their destiny, and take that destiny into their own hands.
Read More
Rather than preserving a social order defined by the division of society into workers and owners by making it "better", socialists sought to overcome that division, and to thereby inaugurate a new social order and a new epoch of human history.
The socialists, in that sense, sought not progress in capitalism, but progress beyond capitalism, and they sought this not by way of demanding improvements to capitalism, but by organizing and rendering explicit the conflict within capitalism that made further progress impossible.
It's not that it is impossible for people's lives to get better in capitalism. Of course that is possible. But such improvement is never unambiguous, never secure, never adequate, and never universal. Improvement is always tainted by its opposite.
Progressivism means seeking betterment in and through the status quo. Socialists must also work within the status quo, but do not do so in order to improve upon it. They seek, rather, to overcome the status quo, to overcome the tainted character of progress in capitalism.
Overcoming the status quo means, above all, organizing the masses who are currently dependent upon and subservient to those with political and social power to take that power into their own hands. Not seeking aid from our present rulers, but overthrowing and replacing them.
Socialism would mean overcoming a social order in which the masses are subservient and dependent, and replacing it with a society in which all are responsible for their destiny, and take that destiny into their own hands.
Read More
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Equal Rights Washington Endorses Socialist Party City Council Candidate Chelsea Rustad
14 September 2017
Chelsea Rustad for Tumwater City Council
http://chelsearustad.eventfulhorizon.com/
Friends, I am excited to announce that my campaign for Tumwater City Council position 5 has been endorsed by Equal Rights Washington!
From their website:
From the ERW endorsement page:
Chelsea Rustad for Tumwater City Council
http://chelsearustad.eventfulhorizon.com/
Friends, I am excited to announce that my campaign for Tumwater City Council position 5 has been endorsed by Equal Rights Washington!
From their website:
"Equal Rights Washington (ERW) is Washington's statewide lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) advocacy and community outreach organization. ERW's mission is to ensure and promote dignity, safety, and equality for all lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Washingtonians."
From the ERW endorsement page:
"Equal Rights Washington (c4) plays a role in elevating LGBTQ-related issues to the forefront during an election cycle. ERW’s non-partisan endorsement committee uses a specific set of carefully developed criteria in making our endorsements. We back candidates who have a track record of support for LGBTQ equality in a number of areas, and who advocate on behalf of the issues we support, such as trans justice, gender and racial equity, anti-bullying and banning conversion therapy for minors."I am so proud and honored to have earned the endorsement of this incredible organization. Together, we will fight to protect the rights of every LGBTQ individual in Washington state, and I will ensure that LGBTQ voices in the city of Tumwater are centered and represented always. Thank you for the important work you do!
Friday, July 28, 2017
Chelsea Rustad, Socialist Party Candidate for Tumwater City Council (WA), Speaks at Candidates Forum
28 July 2017
Rustad Begins at 41:18 in Video Below
Rustad Begins at 41:18 in Video Below
Monday, May 8, 2017
The Closing Argument
8 May 2017
A Statement by Chris DiLoreto, Socialist Party Candidate for Peterborough Library Trustee (New Hampshire)
A Statement by Chris DiLoreto, Socialist Party Candidate for Peterborough Library Trustee (New Hampshire)
Friday, April 14, 2017
Who is Chris DiLoreto and why is he running for Library Trustee?
14 April 2017
A Statement by Chris DiLoreto, Socialist Party Candidate for Peterborough Library Trustee (New Hampshire)
A Statement by Chris DiLoreto, Socialist Party Candidate for Peterborough Library Trustee (New Hampshire)
Monday, September 26, 2016
Oppose Felony Restrictions on MI State Food & Financial Assistance
26 September 2016
A Statement by 2016 SP State House Candidate Michael Anderson (MI-70th district)
A Statement by 2016 SP State House Candidate Michael Anderson (MI-70th district)
Friday, September 2, 2016
Environment and Capitalism
2 September 2016
A Statement by 2016 SP State House Candidate Michael Anderson (MI-70th District)
A Statement by 2016 SP State House Candidate Michael Anderson (MI-70th District)
Sunday, August 7, 2016
Socialist Party Presidential Ticket Will Be on MI Ballot
The Presidential Ticket Will Also Be Joined by Socialist Party State House Candidate Michael Anderson (70th district)
For Immediate Release
August 7, 2016
Official Presidential Campaign Website: www.rev16.us
LANSING – The 2016 Socialist Party USA presidential campaign of Emidio “Mimi” Soltysik and vice presidential running mate Angela Nicole Walker will be included among the six presidential tickets appearing on Michigan’s ballot this November. The ticket was officially added to the Michigan Secretary of State’s November general candidate listing this week, along with a clickable hyperlink to its campaign website (rev16.us).
Due to the Socialist Party’s longstanding exclusion from direct access to the Michigan ballot, its Michigan state party branch has, for the past two decades, relied on qualifying its nominees through combinations of independent candidate petitions, dual party nominations, and write-in campaigns. Accordingly, the Soltysik / Walker ticket will be ballot-listed with the label of Michigan’s Natural Law Party, which has independently retained its state ballot status since its national affiliate’s 2004 disbandment.
The 2016 election will be the first to include the Socialist Party’s presidential nominees on Michigan’s ballot since 2004. In the last two presidential elections of 2012 and 2008, the Socialist Party’s ticket was limited to certified write-in status in this state, amid the Michigan NLP’s nominations having then gone to the independent campaigns headed respectively by Rocky Anderson and Ralph Nader.
Citing recent national poll findings that two-thirds of U.S. voters want “radical change,” Socialist Party of Michigan State Chair Matt Erard noted that the Soltysik / Walker ticket represents the only presidential campaign confronting the capitalist system as the root social force driving ever-expanding inequality, political plutocracy, environmental devastation, police and foreign-policy aggression, debt strangulation, and austerity. Uprooting capitalism, he contends, depends most critically on the working class asserting its political independence.
“The Democratic Party is this nation’s premier apparatus for restraining working people from fighting back in the class struggle.” Erard said. “If the choice must be between ‘wasting one’s vote’ or perpetuating the corporate oligarchy, which is the real lesser evil?”
In reference to the victory of nominal ‘socialist’ Bernie Sanders in Michigan’s presidential primary, Erard noted that every Michigan voter who sought to cast her vote against the Wall Street overclass last March is now assured a choice for political expression in November. At the same time, he argued that Sanders’ recent realignment of his ‘political revolution’ behind the neoliberal banner is a direct reflection of the Democratic Party’s essential class character.
The Socialist Party’s presidential ticket will also be joined on Michigan’s November ballot by Socialist Party State House candidate Michael Anderson (www.anderson2016.spmichigan.org), who will be challenging Republican Jim Lower and Democrat Ken Hart in the 70th district—covering portions of the central region counties of Montcalm and Gratiot. In contrast to the Socialist Party’s presidential nominees, Anderson’s name will be listed on the ballot with the label of Michigan’s Green Party.
The Socialist Party’s National Platform, as fully shared by its presidential and Michigan State House candidates, calls for a democratically planned economy, centered on worker- and community control of all major industrial firms and financial institutions, with production tailored to use and sustainability, rather than private profit. Other policy priorities include:
Contact:
Matt Erard
Chair, Socialist Party of Michigan
313.437.2865
mserard [at] gmail.com
Mimi Soltysik
SPUSA Presidential candidate
310.***.****
info [at] rev16.us
Angela Nicole Walker
SPUSA Vice Presidential Candidate
414.***.****
feistybutterfly19 [at] hotmail.com
Michael Anderson
SPMI State House Candidate
989.***.****
contactmichaelanderson [at] gmail.com
###
For Immediate Release
August 7, 2016
Official Presidential Campaign Website: www.rev16.us
LANSING – The 2016 Socialist Party USA presidential campaign of Emidio “Mimi” Soltysik and vice presidential running mate Angela Nicole Walker will be included among the six presidential tickets appearing on Michigan’s ballot this November. The ticket was officially added to the Michigan Secretary of State’s November general candidate listing this week, along with a clickable hyperlink to its campaign website (rev16.us).
Due to the Socialist Party’s longstanding exclusion from direct access to the Michigan ballot, its Michigan state party branch has, for the past two decades, relied on qualifying its nominees through combinations of independent candidate petitions, dual party nominations, and write-in campaigns. Accordingly, the Soltysik / Walker ticket will be ballot-listed with the label of Michigan’s Natural Law Party, which has independently retained its state ballot status since its national affiliate’s 2004 disbandment.
The 2016 election will be the first to include the Socialist Party’s presidential nominees on Michigan’s ballot since 2004. In the last two presidential elections of 2012 and 2008, the Socialist Party’s ticket was limited to certified write-in status in this state, amid the Michigan NLP’s nominations having then gone to the independent campaigns headed respectively by Rocky Anderson and Ralph Nader.
Citing recent national poll findings that two-thirds of U.S. voters want “radical change,” Socialist Party of Michigan State Chair Matt Erard noted that the Soltysik / Walker ticket represents the only presidential campaign confronting the capitalist system as the root social force driving ever-expanding inequality, political plutocracy, environmental devastation, police and foreign-policy aggression, debt strangulation, and austerity. Uprooting capitalism, he contends, depends most critically on the working class asserting its political independence.
“The Democratic Party is this nation’s premier apparatus for restraining working people from fighting back in the class struggle.” Erard said. “If the choice must be between ‘wasting one’s vote’ or perpetuating the corporate oligarchy, which is the real lesser evil?”
In reference to the victory of nominal ‘socialist’ Bernie Sanders in Michigan’s presidential primary, Erard noted that every Michigan voter who sought to cast her vote against the Wall Street overclass last March is now assured a choice for political expression in November. At the same time, he argued that Sanders’ recent realignment of his ‘political revolution’ behind the neoliberal banner is a direct reflection of the Democratic Party’s essential class character.
The Socialist Party’s presidential ticket will also be joined on Michigan’s November ballot by Socialist Party State House candidate Michael Anderson (www.anderson2016.spmichigan.org), who will be challenging Republican Jim Lower and Democrat Ken Hart in the 70th district—covering portions of the central region counties of Montcalm and Gratiot. In contrast to the Socialist Party’s presidential nominees, Anderson’s name will be listed on the ballot with the label of Michigan’s Green Party.
The Socialist Party’s National Platform, as fully shared by its presidential and Michigan State House candidates, calls for a democratically planned economy, centered on worker- and community control of all major industrial firms and financial institutions, with production tailored to use and sustainability, rather than private profit. Other policy priorities include:
- An immediate 50% in the U.S. military budget, followed by further rapid cuts to less than 10% of its current funding level; Withdrawal of all U.S. troops stationed overseas and closure of all overseas bases; Abolition of the CIA; Prohibition on the manufacturing and use of weaponized and surveillance drones; Withdrawal from NATO; Support for a constitutional amendment requiring a binding vote of the people on all issues of war and military intervention; Cessation of all U.S. aid to Israel; Elimination of all U.S. military aid and arms sales; Forgiveness of all Third World debt; Withdrawal from the IMF, World Bank, WTO, and NAFTA.
- A maximum wage of ten times the minimum wage; Comprehensive single-payer health care for all; Tuition-free college/university education; Forgiveness of all outstanding student loan debt; Full-funding for quality childcare facilities; A 30-hour work week with no loss of pay or benefits, and six weeks annual paid vacation; 16-months paid new-parent leave; A steeply graduated income and estate tax and abolition of regressive payroll taxes; Right of retirement at age 55 with minimum 25k/yr benefits; Rent control for all existing rental units; A sliding-scale utility-fees index to ensure affordable access; A national moratorium on home foreclosures, Automatic union recognition based on card-check; Elimination of all anti-labor legislation, including restrictions on public-sector strikes, hot cargo agreements, and secondary strikes and boycotts.
- Publically elected and fully-empowered police oversight councils, and structural overhaul of the contemporary police force model; Decriminalization of drug-use, and amnesty for all non-violent offenders; Abolition of for-profit prisons; Abrogation of all three strikes laws; A moratorium on new prison construction; Demilitarization of U.S. borders; Full-citizenship rights upon demonstrating six-months residency; Abolition of the NSA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security; Repeal of the USA PATRIOT and Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty acts.
- Free abortion on demand; A federal ban on all forms of job discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity; Vigorous affirmative action programs; Federal reparations for slavery, and for genocide of Native American populations; Abolition of the death penalty; Publicly financed elections; Free and equal access to mass media for all candidates; Uniform ballot-access laws for all states.
- Public ownership of all natural resources and energy plants; Strict carbon emission limits, and ratification of the Kyoto Protocol; Development of solar, geothermal, wind, hydropower, and biomass energy sources; Phasing out of all nuclear plants and waste incinerators; Elimination of open-pit mining, Protection of minority communities from targeting for harmful waste disposal sites and operations.
Contact:
Matt Erard
Chair, Socialist Party of Michigan
313.437.2865
mserard [at] gmail.com
Mimi Soltysik
SPUSA Presidential candidate
310.***.****
info [at] rev16.us
Angela Nicole Walker
SPUSA Vice Presidential Candidate
414.***.****
feistybutterfly19 [at] hotmail.com
Michael Anderson
SPMI State House Candidate
989.***.****
contactmichaelanderson [at] gmail.com
###
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Greetings from the Socialist Party USA's Soltysik/Walker Campaign
22 October 2015
A Statement by 2016 SPUSA Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates Mimi Soltysik and Angela Walker
"Love is an action, never simply a feeling.” bell hooks
On Saturday, October 17th in Milwaukee, WI, the delegates of the Socialist Party USA National Convention put their faith in us to represent the organization and its principles as its Presidential candidates. We are humbled with gratitude and will work hard to deserve that trust. It is with great love and fire that we forge ahead in this campaign.
The campaign's focus throughout the upcoming year will not be on the candidates. The campaign's focus will be on you. You are the mother, the father, the student, the worker. You are the community - the community that fights for the breath of dignity as the boot of oppression digs its heel into your throat - and you are the sacred, essential ingredient necessary for liberation. Capitalism and its defenders tremble when contemplating your power. That fear makes us smile, as we are seeing the dawn of a new era of equality, peace, and justice peeking over the horizon. Its light heals our collective wounds. It is the light of socialism....
Read More
A Statement by 2016 SPUSA Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates Mimi Soltysik and Angela Walker
"Love is an action, never simply a feeling.” bell hooks
On Saturday, October 17th in Milwaukee, WI, the delegates of the Socialist Party USA National Convention put their faith in us to represent the organization and its principles as its Presidential candidates. We are humbled with gratitude and will work hard to deserve that trust. It is with great love and fire that we forge ahead in this campaign.
The campaign's focus throughout the upcoming year will not be on the candidates. The campaign's focus will be on you. You are the mother, the father, the student, the worker. You are the community - the community that fights for the breath of dignity as the boot of oppression digs its heel into your throat - and you are the sacred, essential ingredient necessary for liberation. Capitalism and its defenders tremble when contemplating your power. That fear makes us smile, as we are seeing the dawn of a new era of equality, peace, and justice peeking over the horizon. Its light heals our collective wounds. It is the light of socialism....
Read More
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Vote No on Proposal 1: Socialist Party Statement on Michigan’s May 5, 2015 Special Election Ballot Proposal
3 May 2015
Statement by the Socialist Party of Michigan
"The Socialist Party of Michigan encourages all working class voters of our state to reject the proposed new road-maintenance funding scheme in the May 5, 2015 statewide Special Election (Proposal 15-1). In response to rising corporate investment concerns over the crumbling state of Michigan’s road conditions, the state legislature’s Proposal asks voters to approve a constitutional amendment to authorize raising the state sales tax from six to seven percent, as well as an additional net increase in motor fuel taxes.
Without even considering any rollback to the state’s 86% corporate income tax cut, let alone any reduction to the 20% of general fund dollars allocated to the state’s prison system; the legislature has crafted Proposal 1 with the intent of further saddling the state’s working class and poor with an even greater disparate share of the state’s tax burden. According to current figures from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the average cost of sales and excise taxes already amounts to 5.1% of household income for Michigan families in the lowest three-fifths of the income range — and 6.2% of household income for families with incomes in the bottom one-fifth. By contrast, the average percentage of household income paid in sales and excise taxes by Michigan families in the top one-percent of the income range amounts to a mere 0.8%...."
Read More
Statement by the Socialist Party of Michigan
"The Socialist Party of Michigan encourages all working class voters of our state to reject the proposed new road-maintenance funding scheme in the May 5, 2015 statewide Special Election (Proposal 15-1). In response to rising corporate investment concerns over the crumbling state of Michigan’s road conditions, the state legislature’s Proposal asks voters to approve a constitutional amendment to authorize raising the state sales tax from six to seven percent, as well as an additional net increase in motor fuel taxes.
Without even considering any rollback to the state’s 86% corporate income tax cut, let alone any reduction to the 20% of general fund dollars allocated to the state’s prison system; the legislature has crafted Proposal 1 with the intent of further saddling the state’s working class and poor with an even greater disparate share of the state’s tax burden. According to current figures from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, the average cost of sales and excise taxes already amounts to 5.1% of household income for Michigan families in the lowest three-fifths of the income range — and 6.2% of household income for families with incomes in the bottom one-fifth. By contrast, the average percentage of household income paid in sales and excise taxes by Michigan families in the top one-percent of the income range amounts to a mere 0.8%...."
Read More
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Socialists and the Living Wage Issue
25 February 2015
A Statement by Greg Pason 2015 Socialist Party Candidate for New Jersey State Assembly (34th District)
"The current left and progressive labor movement’s call for a $15 minimum wage poses the need for immediate improvements in compensation of the lowest-paid workers. But it falls short in some ways, and I believe democratic socialists can both strengthen the campaign and use the current focus on a $15 and hour minimum wage to put forward a democratic socialist vision.
The Socialist Party’s Statement of Principles puts forward a vision on how we want to address both “reform” and 'revolutionary' ideas: 'While a minority, we fight for progressive changes compatible with a socialist future. When a majority we will rapidly introduce those changes, which constitute socialism, with priority to the elimination of the power of big business through public ownership and workers’ control … socialists can support movements of working people and make improvements that illustrate the potential of public ownership.'
When the Party advocates for issues like a living wage or an increased minimum wage, we do so with three objectives: 1) To fight for immediate improvements in the lives of working people; 2) To illustrate the need to break from a system which cannot satisfy human needs even in the best of conditions; 3) To put forward democratic socialist alternatives.
When we organize around wage and labor issues, we need to connect that work to a vision of the type of economy we are fighting for. The focus is not just to get a higher wage but also to challenge an economic model (i.e., capitalism) that takes power from the workers who provide the labor power and the communities affected by the decisions of business...."
Read More
A Statement by Greg Pason 2015 Socialist Party Candidate for New Jersey State Assembly (34th District)
"The current left and progressive labor movement’s call for a $15 minimum wage poses the need for immediate improvements in compensation of the lowest-paid workers. But it falls short in some ways, and I believe democratic socialists can both strengthen the campaign and use the current focus on a $15 and hour minimum wage to put forward a democratic socialist vision.
The Socialist Party’s Statement of Principles puts forward a vision on how we want to address both “reform” and 'revolutionary' ideas: 'While a minority, we fight for progressive changes compatible with a socialist future. When a majority we will rapidly introduce those changes, which constitute socialism, with priority to the elimination of the power of big business through public ownership and workers’ control … socialists can support movements of working people and make improvements that illustrate the potential of public ownership.'
When the Party advocates for issues like a living wage or an increased minimum wage, we do so with three objectives: 1) To fight for immediate improvements in the lives of working people; 2) To illustrate the need to break from a system which cannot satisfy human needs even in the best of conditions; 3) To put forward democratic socialist alternatives.
When we organize around wage and labor issues, we need to connect that work to a vision of the type of economy we are fighting for. The focus is not just to get a higher wage but also to challenge an economic model (i.e., capitalism) that takes power from the workers who provide the labor power and the communities affected by the decisions of business...."
Read More
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