Liberation News Voter Recommendations

Liberation News Voter Recommendations:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Liberation_News/
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

1. Recommendations for President

2. Recommendations on California Ballot Measures


PRESIDENT: With the two main corporate politicians being pro-war, we recommend that you vote against the war and for healthcare, jobs, and housing through socialism. Listed are the three socialist candidates that have taken the position of immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Liberation News is giving critical support to these campaigns. They are:

JOHN PARKER and TERESA GUITIERREZ of the WORKERS WORLD PARTY (WWP) are recommended in the states where they are on the ballot. These are Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The Workers World Party with International Answer has been in the leadership of organizing the largest protests against the U.S. war against Iraq.

BILL VAN AUKEN and JIM LAWRENCE of the SOCIALIST EQUALITY PARTY (SEP) are on the ballot in Colorado, Iowa, New Jersey, Minnesota, and Washington. They are recommended in those states.

ROGER COLERO and ARRIN HAWKINS of the SOCIALIST WORKERS PARTY (SWP), with the alternate SWP candidates of JAMES HARRIS and Arrin Hawkins, are also recommended in the states where they are on the ballot. They are on the ballot in Washington D.C., Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Utah, Washington, Minnesota, Nebraska, Vermont, and Wisconsin.

The nominally socialist Peace and Freedom Party (PFP) as well as the Socialist Party (SP) are also running candidates for president, but Liberation News is not giving them any support.

PFP candidate Leonard Peltier has taken the position in regards to Iraq of “US out, UN in.” Today the UN is occupying the Island of Haiti as part of a US coup against the democratically elected president. For the people of Haiti there is no advantage to being occupied by UN troops rather than US troops. The California State Chair of the Peace and Freedom Party defends this position claiming that sending the UN in doesn’t necessarily mean sending in troops and points out that the Peace and Freedom Party has no position against UN occupations.

Well, Liberation News does have a clear position against UN occupations. UN troops for military occupations, euphemistically called peacekeepers, are there to carry out the will of US imperialism and subvert national sovereignty. From the five million killed by the UN/US aggression against Korea in the 1950s to the 1.5 million Iraqis murdered by UN/US economic sanctions against Iraq, to the present UN/US subversion of democracy in Haiti, the UN is an imperialist tool used in the interest of the powerful capitalist countries around the world.

While Liberation News says that Leonard Peltier was framed and does not belong in prison, we do not support his campaign for president.

Liberation News also opposes the campaign of Socialist Party Candidate Walt Brown. Walt Brown stated in a recent interview, “Obviously, if anyone is going to come online with nuclear weapons, we need to be aggressive, but I would rule out a preemptive strike. You just do a blockade, like we did with Cuba during the Missile Crisis.”

A socialist understanding, however, begins with the right of nations to self-determination, which includes their right to defend their national sovereignty from U.S. imperialism. This is an important lesson of U.S. aggression in Iraq: had the Iraqis not been disarmed by the U.N. inspectors and starvation blockade that killed 1.5 million people there would be better chances that they would not be suffering the way they are now.

It is a further indication of the kind of anti-socialist thinking going on in the leadership of the Peace and Freedom Party that Walt Brown was the other candidate they put on the ballot in for the PFP’s primary elections, running statements by both Walt Brown and Leonard Peltier in their newspaper, the Partisan.

Liberation News also opposes the presidential candidacy of Ralph Nader on the basis that he does not call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq.

While Green Party Candidate David Cobb does call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq, the Green Party itself is a petty bourgeois capitalist party, incapable of ruling in the interests of the working class. This fact is painfully clear in places like Santa Cruz where they have been elected. In this City Green Party City Councilperson Tim Fitzmaurice and the Democrats that the Green Party supports administer over austerity against social programs while defending the police budget and voting for laws that call for police harassment of the homeless.

In states where there are no socialist candidates on the ballot Liberation News suggests writing in JOHN PARKER and TERESA GUITIERREZ of the WORKERS WORLD PARTY (WWP) for the leadership role they have played in the anti-war movement.


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Liberation News Voter Recommendations for the State of California

California Ballot Measures:

PROPOSITION 59: YES, This is a constitutional amendment for public access to government information.

PROPOSITION 60: YES, Candidates receiving most votes from in a party's primary election for state partisan offices cannot be denied placement on general election ballot.

PROPOSITION 60A: NO, This would require the state to earmark any revenues from the sale of surplus property to accelerate the repayment of some existing bonds.

PROPOSITION 61: NO, This is a bond measure for a good purpose, but Liberation News opposes bond measures as a massive rip off of taxpayers that line the pockets of the wealthy. The money from the bonds, however, would go for grants to eligible children's hospitals for construction, expansion, remodeling, renovation, furnishing and equipping children's hospitals.

PROPOSITION 62: NO, This open primary initiative would eliminate ballot access for third parties.

PROPOSITION 63: NO, This initiative would provide more funding for the forced drugging of people deemed mentally ill by the unscientific mental health industry. This would be a minus for people who are given drugs that shorten lives, debilitate mental capacity, and have no positive effect (besides profit). While the money for this initiative would come from taxing millionaires, the main beneficiaries would be the pharmaceutical industry.

PROPOSITION 64: NO, This proposition would limit enforcement against corporate crime.

PROPOSITION 65: NO, Requires voter approval of reductions to local revenues due to changes in the vehicle license fees, sales taxes, and proportionate shares of local property taxes. These are regressive taxes that should not be protected. Liberation News says tax the rich instead.

PROPOSITION 66: YES, This proposition would change the three strikes law by requiring second and third strikes be serious or violent felonies and by narrowing definitions of what crimes are "serious or violent" as well as when two convictions constitute separate strikes. This will all apply retroactively, thus reducing the long sentences some prisoners are now serving for petty crimes. Penalties for some sex crimes against children would also be increased. While Liberation News stands in favor of completely abolishing the three strikes laws, passing this proposition would be a step forward.

PROPOSITION 67: NO, This proposition would raise telephone taxes to pay for emergency medical services. While Liberation News thinks these services should be properly funded, we do not agree with it being done by another regressive tax against the finances of the working class.

PROPOSITION 68: NO, If compacted tribes don't unanimously accept required amendments within 90 days, or if determined unlawful, this authorizes sixteen specified non-tribal racetracks and gambling establishments to operate 30,000 slot machines/gaming devices. Liberation News does not support this blackmail against Indian gaming and sovereignty.

PROPOSITION 69: NO, This would allow forced DNA samples from anyone the police charge with a felony, regardless of if the case is even prosecuted.

PROPOSITION 70: YES, This proposition would recognize the sovereignty of California Indian tribes and give tribal casinos on reservation lands a monopoly on casino gambling in California. This will be in exchange for financial contributions to the state government.

PROPOSITION 71: YES, This proposition would fund stem cell research. While being funded with bonds, something that Liberation News opposes, the defeat of this measure would be seen as a victory for the far right and their crusade against research that is very promising for saving lives as well as bettering the lives of the disabled.

PROPOSITION 72: YES, For healthcare. This proposition forces some employers to pay 80% of healthcare costs. While Liberation News calls for full public coverage through nationalized healthcare, forcing the bosses to pay for more healthcare than they do presently would be a step forward.

PROPOSITION 1A: NO: This is a multi-faceted compromise between Schwarzenegger and the legislature regarding proposition 65 and the impact state changes in regressive taxes have on local treasuries. Liberation News counter-poses 1A to the need for taxes on the rich as well as cuts to war, police, and prison budgets to meet human needs. This proposition will only shuffle some of the bureaucratic control over expenditures.