Socialist VP Candidate on C-Span

[debsianben]

Should any one be interetsed, the Socialist Party's Vice-Presidential candidate (Mary-Alice Herbert) is supposed to be on C-Span at 7:30 tonight.

[Mika]

1. I've had it with the two party system..

.. well .. http://www.Walt-Brown-For-President.org/

[Disturbed]

3. Two Party System- Capitalist Straight Jacket

Hope Lies in Realizing Hopelessness

"There is no hope for the Democratic Party. When Jesse Jackson ran for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party in 1984, he believed in the hope of the Democratic Party. However, his arguments are against his thesis. It is for the very reasons he highlights that the Democratic Party always was and always will be inherently flawed in platform, scope and aim. Jackson lays out how leadership, justice, hope, unity, respecting diversity, ending war and extending uplifting programs to eliminate poverty will democratize the Democratic Party. It is exactly for all those reasons that the Democratic Party can never be democratic, because it can never embrace the program and vision of Jesse Jackson. In this way, Jackson holds false hope in the Democratic Party.

In Jackson’s 1984 Address to the Democratic National Convention, he evokes the passion of a Reverend and takes moral authority to plot out his vision for the Democratic Party. He begins by talking about how his constituency is “damned, disinherited and despised” (p 734). He goes on to say that the Democratic Party must not let their people down. However, often the Democratic Party does indeed let its people down. The Democratic Party’s interests are in promising minorities rights, jobs, and access but ultimately denying them. This is because the Democratic Party is a capitalist party that is beholden to transnational corporations. Above all else Jackson’s beloved Democratic Party is sold to the highest bidder. Minorities don’t have the money to truly influence what the Democratic Party does in the ways of true reform, and further- fundamental change.

Jackson’s hope is in the leadership of the Democratic Party to bring fundamental changes to America. Jackson asserts, that leadership “can choose to make the age in which it born an age of enlightenment-an age of jobs, and peace and justice”
(p 734). Unfortunately, those same leaders are bought and sold by corporate interests, lobbyers, and PACs, which pour in money into the campaigns and projects of candidates so as to influence them. The common people have no real voice. It is arrogant of Jackson to act as if it is leadership of candidates for office that the people need. The corporations need leaders like these. The people need themselves. The people are the leaders they seek. It is the people themselves who should direct the nation, not any one leader. This can only happen if money is taken out of politics. America needs clean campaigns. America needs publicly financed campaigns, equal airtime, and proportional representation so that all people are truly represented and the Democratic and Republican Party’s no longer hold people hostage.

Jackson is one such hostage of the Democratic Party. Despite the evidence to the contrary he forges on and tries to make a case for moving on. He heeds that “we must forgive each other, redeem each other, regroup and move on” (p 735). However, we should not just forgive and forget and move on. The Democratic Party has a history of going back on its word to minorities. Jackson goes into great detail about what he would like to see the Democratic Party do, knowing full well what they have done through out their history, yet still continues to argue that the Democratic Party can be trusted? This is the greatest of all hypocrisies, but Jackson seems too naive to see it. Maybe he is just too blinded by the winner takes all system that confines him to searching for justice through a Party that is a pawn of the ruling class.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

Tina Phillips- Socialist Party-USA

[H2O Man]

6. This mentions Native Americans.

I'd note that socialist countries have had equally poor records of dealing with Native Peoples. Just one example: Nicaragua's Sandinista government treated the Miskito Indians just as badly as any current North, Central, or South American government. In the late 1980s, the Haudenosaunee (6 Nations Iroquois Confederacy) sent a delegation to meet with leaders of several governments in that area. The socialists were just as brutal as any of them. The Sandinistas lied, of course, and said the Miskitos were allied with the contras. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Traditional Native Americans recognize socialists as no different than capitalists or communists: they lie, steal, and commit acts of violence just as often.

[debsianben]

10. Since when were the Sandanistas socialists?

Last I checked, Nicaragua in the 80s had plenty of private economic ownership.

"Socialism" as understood in the great american tradition of Eugene Debs, Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Hellen Keller, etc., is well described here:
http://www.sp-usa.org/about/principles.html

[H2O Man]

11. Since when?

From day one on. Unless, of course, socialism is to be understood as only a theory, never to be put into practice ..... something dreamed of, spoken of in reverent awe, but never quite achieved. Almost the Second Coming. Actually, socialism has occured, and the Sandinistas (note correct spelling) were by every definition socialist. I would also point out a very shallow understanding of socialism is evidenced by referring to it as "the great american tradition."

[debsianben]

13. Huh?

Again, under what definition of "socialism" were the Sandanistas socialists? It boggles my mind that so many people have a double standard that any one who calls themselves a socialist is considered a socialist no matter how distant their actual policies from the historical meaning of the word, whereas (for example) nobody has the same standard for the word "democracy." North Korea is officially called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea",. but no one automatically considers it to be a genuine democracy based on the same kind of self-designation. Democracy involves things like civil liberties, multi-party elections, etc. Even if you make a big point of calling yourself a "democrat," if your policies don't jive with the establishment of those kinds of institutions, you aren't one. Similarly, socialism (as defined in the great American tradition referenced earlier, and in Europe by folks like Marx, Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, etc.) means the extension of democracy from politics to economics by abolishing private ownership of economic enterprises. Similarly to "democrat", if your policies when you are in power don't fit with that, it doesn't matter what you call themselves. Hell, the Sandanistas never even claimed to be moving towards that kind of society, any ocassional dropping of the "s" word aside.

Democratic socialism is a "great American tradition" in the sense that lots of great Americans subscribed to it--Gene Debs, Big Bill Haywood, Mother Jones, Elizabeth Gurley Flinn, Hellen Keller, Jack London, Martin Luther King, Jr., etc. all come to mind.

[demdave]

2. I am looking at c-span right now at 7:30 PM EST and it is not her.

Unless she is an army soldier telling her Iraq story. Cspan2 is Howard Blum.

[debsianben]

4. Sorry, my bad

I misread "7:30 AM" as "7:30 PM". I suppose it was too much too expect that give her prime viewing time in the evening. However, the video is available on their web-site:

http://www.c-span.org/videoarchives.asp?CatCodePairs=,&ArchiveDays=100

[burrowowl]

5. Thanks for the heads up

even with a 12 hour difference.
You redeemed yourself with a link.

[Leilani]

7. I saw her on Washington Journal this AM

C-Span is covering 3rd party conventions, & giving candidates air time.

And C-Span is the ONLY TV news outlet that covers everyone.

[JanMichael]

8. Missed her. Was Brown there too?

Still can't get passed his abortion crap...That and the sense that Kerry probably falls to the Left of him on the whole.

[debsianben]

9. No, he wasn't

I agree with you that Walt Brown is a candidate who doesn't represent the party well, and I voted for the recall effort, but let's not exaggerate vis a vis Kerry. Kerry supports "staying the course in Iraq," while Brown supports Kucinich's "US out, UN in" plan. Kerry says that corporations have a "right" to move wherever they want, Brown supports the socialization of the economy. Abortion aside, name a position of Brown's, and without exception Kerry's position is either the same of way to the right of it, e.g. Kerry voted for NAFTA, GATT and the WTO, Brown wants the US to withdrawal from all of them. Kerry has never supported living wage efforts, Brown supports a universal $12/hr. living wage. Brown is definitely proof that the party doesn't have a good enough candidate vetting procedure, but he is continents to the left of Kerry. Even on the abortion issue, let's not exaggerate: Kerry said he would "consider" appointing anti-abortion judges, while Brown has said vaguely that he'd uphold the SP's pro-reproductive rights stance. Brown has some bad paternalistic aitttudes on social issues, but Kerry is generally worse in that regard as well. In general, DLCer Kerry is a bought off, pro-war Corporate McCandidate, while Brown is sort of a tepid statist social democrat who shouldn't never have been the candidate but isn't even in the same league as the duopoly candidates.

Anyway, Mel doesn't think any more highly of Brown that you or I do, and they pretty much never appear together campaigning.

[JanMichael]

12. Gotta say I agree with what you said.

I was just in a foul mood when I reponded earlier because "tepid statist social democrat who shouldn't never have been the candidate" is exactly how I feel.