http://themilitant.com/2015/7930/793002.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 79/No. 30 August 24, 2015
(lead article)
‘Socialist Workers Party only
working-class voice’
BY MAGGIE TROWE
Osborne Hart and John Staggs, the Socialist Workers Party candidates for
mayor and City Council in Philadelphia, are on the ballot, campaign
director Chris Hoeppner announced Aug. 10.
“The SWP campaign is the only campaign in the U.S. that represents the
interests of working people and presents a revolutionary perspective,”
Staggs told the Militant. “The response our municipal campaign has
received shows the potential for the SWP presidential campaign.”
Fifteen months before the 2016 elections, the campaign of the capitalist
parties is heating up, with 17 Republicans vying for the nomination,
front-running Democrat Hillary Clinton’s campaign sputtering and Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a democratic socialist, running
second in the polls for the Democratic nomination and drawing big crowds.
While knocking on doors in working-class neighborhoods with petitions to
get on the ballot and at labor rallies and social actions, “SWP
campaigners talk about the need for a labor party based on the unions,”
Staggs said. “We need to break from the Democrats, the Republicans and
the ‘independents’ who propose Band-Aids to patch up the capitalist
system.”
Staggs and Hart are workers at Walmart who are involved in the fight for
$15 an hour, a union and full-time hours at the retail giant.
Crowds for Sanders growing
Sanders has been attracting crowds — some 28,000 in Portland, Oregon,
Aug. 9, and a similar number the next day in Los Angeles. His
favorability rating doubled from 12 percent in March to 24 percent in
late July, while Clinton’s dropped from 48 to 43 percent.
“As the crisis of the capitalist system grinds on, and attacks on
workers deepen, many are looking for something different in 2016,”
Staggs said.
“The interest in the Sanders campaign opens up a discussion,” he said.
“People ask, ‘Are you a socialist like Bernie Sanders?’ We explain that
Sanders proposes radical reforms to save capitalism.
“Sanders, in his ‘Reforming Wall Street’ plank, proposes breaking up the
six biggest banks and taxing financial transactions. We think workers
must end the dictatorship of capital and reorganize society based on
relations of human solidarity. And we don’t have an American nationalist
framework,” said Staggs. “We start with the world and what strengthens
the working class worldwide on the road to taking power.
“We point to the example of Fidel Castro and the July 26 Movement that
led workers and farmers to power in Cuba,” he said. “Like Lenin and the
Bolsheviks, who led workers and farmers to power in Russia.”
Sanders took some criticism from supporters of immigrant rights after
his comments during a July 28 Vox interview when journalist Ezra Klein
implied he supports “open borders.”
“Open borders?” Sanders exclaimed. “No, that’s a Koch brothers
proposal,” referring to Charles and David Koch, billionaire
manufacturers who contribute heavily to Republican campaigns and who
favor less restrictive immigration laws.
“You’re doing away with the concept of a nation state,” he continued.
“What right-wing people in this country would love is an open-border
policy. Bring in all kinds of people, work for $2 or $3 an hour, that
would be great for them.”
However, at the Los Angeles rally, Sanders had an immigrant rights
supporter speak and said, “Eleven million people cannot continue to live
in fear.”
Immigration policy has been prominent in the primary debate. In June
Donald Trump slandered Mexican immigrants, saying, “They’re bringing
drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, another Republican contender, defended Trump June
30, saying, “The American people are fed up” with illegal immigration.
Republican candidate Jeb Bush called Trump’s comments “vulgar” during a
July 27 interview in Spanish on Telemundo. Bush promotes an “immigration
reform” that includes a path to legal status, but not citizenship, for
some immigrants.
Clinton — following the San Francisco arrest of an undocumented worker
in a July 1 killing — denounced the city’s “sanctuary city” policy of
not turning people who lack immigration papers over to immigration
authorities.
“The SWP says no to deportations, no to E-Verify,” Staggs said. “The
labor movement must reject the rulers’ divide-and-conquer tactics and
stand with immigrants who insist, ‘We’re workers, not criminals.’”
Defending right to choose abortion
Trump gets a hearing because of his shoot-from-the-hip, iconoclastic
style, which has received more attention than his reactionary political
views. But his sexist comments about women have been met with outrage by
many.
During a Fox News debate reporter Megyn Kelly told Trump, “You’ve called
women you don’t like ‘fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.’”
After the debate, speaking to a CNN reporter, Trump said of Kelly, “You
could see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of
her wherever.” This remark drew widespread denunciation.
All the Republican candidates except former New York Gov. George Pataki
oppose a woman’s right to abortion.
“The Socialist Workers Party explains a woman has the right to control
her body and needs to be able to choose abortion if she wishes,” Staggs
said. “It’s a basic question of equal rights and critical to
strengthening the unity of the working class.”
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