Alyson Kennedy hits most of the critical nails squarely on the head.
But there is no way that her platform could make even a small dent in
the programs being carried out by the American Corporate Empire(ACE).
It seems to me that there is a growing number of working class
Americans coming to realize that we need a major change in our
leadership. But far too many still believe that it can somehow be
done within the existing system. Evidence the numbers who are urging
Sanders to, "heal the Democratic Party by endorsing Clinton". For me,
that would make everything Sanders claimed to be concerned with, a lie
of the most immense proportions.
Bernie might wish Hillary good success, but release his supporters and
his delegates to vote their conscience. Or he might urge them to
organize a true Working Class Political Party, and begin organizing
for the 2020 election. It will take all of that time to become
registered in all 50 states. But 2020 is a symbolic year, a year of
Vision(20/20) But trying to work within the "Two Headed One Party"
system would be like Henny Penny sitting down with Foxy Loxy to plan
the future of the hen house.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/9/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8023/802350.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 23 June 13, 2016
‘A voice for the excluded’
Cuban youth paper interviews Socialist Workers Party candidate
The following interview appeared in the May 8 issue of Juventud Rebelde,
the newspaper of the Union of Young Communists of Cuba, under the
headline, “Alyson Kennedy: A Voice for the Excluded.” Translation is by
the Militant.
❖
Most people think that only two parties participate in the U.S.
presidential elections, the Democrats and Republicans. But others
persist in raising a different class viewpoint, despite the system
rendering them invisible.
BY JUANA CARRASCO MARTÍN
The U.S. election campaign is reaching its climax with the two major
parties selecting their candidates. Hidden behind this show is a system
that defends a single set of interests — those of big capital, the world
of finance, the arms industry, the polluters of the earth’s climate, the
exploiters of workers in [their] backyard and of the wealth and goods
produced by professionals, workers, and peasants in much of the world,
where the imperialist multinationals plunder and intervene.
However, though buried by the media, which has its own part to play in
this show, there are small parties — often persecuted, sidelined, and
excluded — that bring to the streets and, when possible, into the
election booths, the real interests of working people.
A small woman with an easy smile, plainspoken, convincing, and firm, she
presents the other side, though not of the same coin. On the contrary,
she exposes and condemns what is actually taking place across the United
States in 2016.
Alyson Kennedy is the Socialist Workers Party candidate for president.
She is joined by Osborne Hart on the SWP’s presidential ticket, which
was announced February 12.
On May 1, Kennedy marched with the Cuban people in the International
Workers Day Parade along Havana’s Avenida Paseo. She participated as
part of a delegation of mothers and relatives of victims of police
violence in the United States. She took advantage of an exchange with
Juventud Rebelde to speak about what’s taking place in her country and
her impressions of her first trip to Cuba.
You are the Socialist Workers Party candidate in the November 8 general
elections, but all we hear about are the Republican and Democratic Party
campaigns.
“The main thing the U.S. elections are revealing is the deep crisis
within the bourgeois Republican and Democratic political parties. We
have seen how candidates Donald Trump (Republican) and Bernie Sanders
(Democrat) are receiving substantial support because they present
themselves as being different from the other politicians. They portray
themselves as if they aren’t part of the political machine. That’s why
they are getting a lot of support, including from many workers who take
part in their rallies.
“There are reasons for this. We must remember the deep worldwide
economic crisis and how it is felt in the United States as well. The
government says there is an economic recovery, but unemployment remains
high. It’s higher than we’ve seen in years, because there are workers
who aren’t included in the statistics.
“While campaigning I’ve met workers who’ve told me they haven’t found
jobs since the 2008 economic downturn,” says Alyson, who has supported
the strike this year by 40,000 workers at Verizon, the
telecommunications company, the largest work stoppage in the United
States in many years. The workers have had no contract since August,
while Verizon is seeking to cut pensions and to allow the outsourcing of
work. Verizon says it has trained thousands of nonunion employees to
replace striking workers.
Kennedy says that for all U.S. workers, “wages continue to stagnate.
Forty percent of the U.S. workforce earn less than $15 an hour, which is
not enough for a family to live on. This has led many workers to begin
to question what is happening in the United States and to have less
confidence in what the Democratic and Republican parties are doing in
relation to this crisis.”
But these candidates talk about change.
“That is what’s behind the support Trump and Sanders are receiving. But
no matter who is elected, there will be no changes that improve the
situation of working people.
“All significant change in the United States — such as the fight against
racial segregation, the struggle for unionization in the 1930s, the
anti–Vietnam War struggle, the struggles of women for the right to
abortion — has been won through demonstrations in the streets. That’s
also true for the struggles we’ve seen recently, like the fight for
unions, to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and against police
violence.”
This resolute statement by the political activist is based on her long
personal experience as a worker and union organizer. Alyson Kennedy, who
joined the socialist movement in 1973, was a coal miner in Alabama,
Colorado, Utah, and West Virginia. She joined the United Mine Workers of
America (UMWA) in 1981 and was one of the leaders of a strike in Utah in
2004.
She was part of the first wave of women who entered the mines in the
United States in order to break down divisions based on sex and to
strengthen working-class solidarity. She joined the Coal Employment
Project, an organization that defended the right of women to work in the
mines and fought against workplace harassment.
She’s familiar with the struggles carried out by the UMWA in the 1960s
and 1970s for job safety. Those strikes, which shook the country, won
the right to refuse to work under unsafe conditions. She recognizes,
however, that the movement has been eroded and that today the majority
of U.S. mines don’t have unions. This is what Alyson talks to U.S.
workers about.
She doesn’t do so from the outside or from a theoretical view of the
class struggle. Today Alyson Kennedy works in Chicago at a Walmart, the
largest chain of retail stores in the world, condemned in many countries
for the exploitative conditions it imposes on its workers and employees.
“That’s why I, as a candidate of the Socialist Workers Party, and my
running mate Osborne Hart, as well as our other candidates for Senate
and other offices, get a good reception from workers, because they are
open to discussing a revolutionary perspective,” she says.
“Workers know they’re being exploited, they know what’s happening in the
country and in the world,” says Alyson Kennedy, who emphasizes that one
of the issues that this campaign addresses is opposition to U.S.
involvement in the Mideast. “And many workers are also willing to hear
about the Cuban revolution,” she adds.
You mentioned Cuba. What brings you to our country, at the time of the
May Day celebration?
“I’ve come to Cuba as part of a delegation of working-class women who
are fighting against police brutality, of which there are many victims
in the city where I live, Chicago.
“This is my first visit to Cuba, although I know a good deal about the
island. Through the party’s activity we educate about Cuba and worked
for years for the release of the Cuban Five, and we educate about the
need to end the embargo (blockade).
“In spite of the short time I’ve been here, I’ve been able to see the
country first hand, and this will greatly help me explain to workers
there why Cuba is an example for us. If Cuba was able to make a
revolution and create a society that addresses workers’ needs, we can do
it in the United States, too,” the socialist leader emphasizes.
She explains why she thinks this is clearly and certainly possible: “We
have a long history of struggle in the United States, as well. Workers
in the United States must become aware of what they’ve won through
struggle. We have to realize the power we have and our own worth.”
She concludes her words for the readers of Juventud Rebelde with a pledge:
“I want you to know that when we return we’ll redouble our efforts in
the fight against the blockade and for the return of the territory
occupied in Guantánamo, which belongs to Cuba. Having been here helps us
realize why it’s important to continue to fight for our rights.”
Related articles:
Join SWP in campaigning for working-class program
Militant fund over the top!
Militant Fighting Fund April 2- May 24 (Final)
Join the Socialist Workers Party campaign in 2016!
Active Workers Conference--Classes
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