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Vote Socialist & YES on Prop 61
On Sunday, the San Francisco Chronicle put an add on the top of the front page urging us all to vote "no" on Prop 61. The pharmaceutical industry has spent $109 million in their attempt to defeat this proposition, the most spent ever on a California proposition. As a result, the proposition has slid from 61% approval and 16% opposition to 47% in favor and 47% opposed. The Revolutionary Tendency is urging people to get out and vote in California cheaper prescription drugs Tuesday by voting for Prop 61 and to vote on all of the other 17 propositions on the California ballot. We also urge protest votes for the socialist candidates.
No Support For Capitalist Candidates, Vote Socialist
Proposition 61 (California) is Now in Trouble
Vote YES on Prop 61.
by Steven Argue
Massive spending by the pharmaceutical industry, the most ever spent on a California proposition, has filled the airwaves and newspapers with lies and brought Proposition 61 from a 61% majority favoring it and 16% being opposed to what is now a dead heat of 47% in favor and 47% opposed.
Representative Bernie Sanders is now touring the state with rallies urging people to vote for Proposition 61. While the Revolutionary Tendency stands far to the left of Bernie Sanders, including opposition to his endorsement of Hillary Clinton, we are in unity with him in the movement to get out the vote for Proposition 61.
A close vote on Proposition 61, unfortunately now makes it far easier for the establishment to rig the election through voter disenfranchisement and electronic voting machines, as they did to defeat Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton. For those who dismiss this as a so-called "conspiracy theory", Election Justice USA has compiled a useful in-depth 100-page report called “Democracy Lost” on how Hillary Clinton stole the primary election from Bernie Sanders precisely through voter suppression and rigged electronic voting machines. Here is that report:
Democracy Lost
http://www.election-justice-usa.org/
Some argue that even participating in such a corrupt process legitimizes it. Yet, non-participation, especially by the left, is exactly what the ruling capitalists are going for in the first place. The missing votes of those who boycott the elections are noticed by almost no one and have no real meaning. On the other hand, it is an extremely easy process to register and vote in many places, including California. This should be made easier with measures like same day registration as is found in some other states, but our point is that even if our votes are not counted, it is worth the small effort it takes to vote anyway.
If you are wrongly struck from the voter rolls and given a provisional ballot (which will not be counted), protest it. That does far more for the struggle for justice than sitting at home. Likewise, it is also worth the effort to speak out on other basic issues of democracy, for instance, demanding an end to easily rigged and corporate owned electronic voting machines. In the elections, electronic voting machines are the most expensive solution to a problem that never existed that has ever been devised. Unless, of course, the problem is democracy, as it has become more and more for the ruling capitalist class. International observers agree that the U.S. elections are not free and fair. Still, unless we are setting up an alternative government based on revolutionary workers’ councils, non-participation simply gives an easy pass to those who rig our elections.
We can potentially have an important impact on propositions. Some of the issues considered on Tuesday's ballot in California include abolishing the death penalty, legalizing marijuana, reducing the waste of plastic bags, and reducing the price of prescription drugs.
Here are the Revolutionary Tendency's voter recommendations on the California propositions:
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/11/04/18793096.php
The next major problem, however, is who to vote for. Both Trump and Clinton are puppets of the capitalist class and completely beholden to the interests of the wealthy capitalists who fund their campaigns. These include capitalists with interests in private insurance, oil, fracking, pharmaceuticals, wall street speculation, private prisons, the mass incarceration of the poor, military hardware, school privatization, banking, etc. Neither have a program to bring even the most minimal relief to the working class or a planet being destroyed by global warming.
Many agree that the mainstream candidates in the current election cycle are an insult to our intelligence. A majority of the people are naturally having an extremely difficult time with these choices, even people who generally have reconciled themselves to voting for one of the two supposed lesser evils in past elections. Many people will not even vote. Yet, rather than not vote, it is the position of the Revolutionary Tendency that it is far better to vote on propositions and register a protest vote by voting socialist.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are pure evil. They are racist war mongers who are puppets of the wealthy capitalists who back them. Don't believe the lie that Trump is funding his own campaign, any basic fact check of that pathological liar shows he is not..
Hillary Clinton, who has never seen a U.S. war she didn’t love, is proposing a “no fly zone” in Syria that will help bring the religious extremists of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other U.S. trained and armed al-Qaeda allies to power. This will be an escalation of U.S. efforts to overthrow Syria’s secular government by a rebel “opposition” that Amnesty International has declared to have a “shocking disregard for human life.” Clinton’s no fly zone, besides being disastrous for the Syrian people and the U.S. soldiers sent to fight, could also easily start a third world war with Russia.
Likewise, Clinton's emails, among other things, have revealed that she plans to destroy Social Security as well. Clinton, without evidence, claims Putin hacked and released her e-mails. These e-mails were more likely actual leaks or, if they were hacked, could have been hacked by anyone. Her false accusations are simply leveled to distract from Clinton's rampant corruption which is revealed by these e-mails. Meanwhile, the corporate media of the U.S. tells so many lies about Russia regarding Ukraine and Syria that she thinks she can smear Trump by associating him with Putin. Putin, however, really hasn't taken sides in the U.S. elections, stating instead, "Simply speaking, the candidates' programs, they look like they were cut from the same template". Despite Clinton's lies, neither Trump or Clinton are puppets of Putin. Both are instead puppets of the wealthy U.S. capitalist class. That is, in fact, something far worse.
Likewise, Clinton's neo-McCarthyite campaign has also tried to smear Julian Assange's journalism by accusing him of working for Putin as well. In the following interview, John Pilger and Julian Assange answer Hillary Clinton's lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4
As Clinton promises international warfare, the virulently racist campaign of Donald Trump could spark a race war at home. Trump is a man who has falsely claimed “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” Yet, he has also stated, “Laziness is a trait in blacks.” More recently, a Black man showed-up at one of his rallies. Trump accused him of being a paid protester and had him removed. Ironically, it turned out that the Black man was present only to support Donald Trump. Trump's support for stop and frisk and his support for the police murders of innocent Black people make his candidacy thoroughly disgusting. Likewise, Trump would deport millions of immigrants, largely from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, while also banning the immigration of Muslim people based on religion. For the peoples targeted by Trump's hatred, peoples already marginalized, super-exploited, and brutally oppressed by imperialism and the American capitalist system at home, the face of Trump, no matter how “anti-establishment”, offers nothing but a worsening of the racist status quo.
Yet, while being slightly more subtle, Clinton has a racist record as bad as Trump's. She supported Bill Clinton's 100,000 new cops on the streets, calling young Black men "super-predators" in the process. This policy was a major contribution to the current mass incarceration of the poor, disproportionately hurting Black and brown people. She was also part of the Obama administration which broke all records in mass deportations of immigrants. As part of that regime, she also called for the deportation of child refugees. Some of those child refugees were leaving Honduras, a country where a coup she directly sponsored as secretary of state overthrew the democratically elected government and brought back the death squads of the 1980's, making Honduras the murder capital of the world. In June 2014, she made her position on child refugees very clear, “We have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.”
No matter which one of those two capitalist candidates wins, the working class loses. This is, by and large, the nature of bourgeois elections. Besides calling for a vote for Proposition 61 in California, the Revolutionary Tendency is asking everyone to file a protest vote against the capitalist candidates by voting socialist.
Vote Gloria La Riva (PSL), on the Ballot in 8 States
In California and seven other states where she is on the ballot, we are giving critical support to the socialist candidacy of Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). In California, She is on the ballot under the Peace and Freedom Party ticket and easy to vote for. She is also on the ballot in 7 other states. Those states are Vermont, New Mexico, Washington state, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, and Louisiana. The Revolutionary Tendency, while standing to the left of Gloria La Riva on a few questions, gives critical support to Gloria La Riva’s campaign. In those states where she is on the ballot, we urge people to vote for her.
By critical support, however, the Revolutionary Tendency does not use this term like the always holier than thou Spartacist League does. They tend to make a brief statement of support followed by an entire article of criticism. With critical support, we say Gloria La Riva is one of us, she is a working-class candidate active in her union and other social movements calling for a full socialist transformation of society. We argue that she deserves your vote. While our criticisms of her are important, more important is our agreement.
The following is video of Gloria La Riva interviewed on Abby Martin’s new show on TeleSUR English called “Empire Files”. TeleSUR is an alternative television station headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela and sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia. In the interview, Gloria La Riva herself makes a good case for her candidacy:
Gloria La Riva (PSL) on Empire Files
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sntk8sDDtN4
Votes for Gloria La Riva, in addition to registering a protest, in California also help maintain the ballot access achieved for socialists through the Peace and Freedom Party having official ballot status.
In other states, it is worthwhile to vote for other socialist candidates where they are on the ballot. Candidates from the Workers World Party (WWP) and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) are also getting the Revolutionary Tendency's critical electoral support where they are on the ballot. Here is more information on them:
Vote Monica Moorehead (WWP) For President in Three States
Monica Moorehead is the presidential candidate of the Workers World Party. She will be on the ballot in New Jersey, Utah, and Wisconsin. Here is her rebuttal to one of the Trump versus Clinton debates:
Monica Moorehead Responds to Clinton and Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFoBqSzJlHI
Vote for Alyson Kennedy (SWP) in Two States
Alyson Kennedy is the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) Presidential Candidate. We give here critical support in the states of Minnesota and Tennessee. She is actually on the ballot in seven states, Utah, Louisiana, Colorado, Minnesota, Tennessee, Washington, and New Jersey. Yet, in all but two of those states, the better candidates of the Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation are also on the ballot so we only call for people to vote for her in Minnesota and Tennessee.
The SWP are a strange little political cult that has degenerated far from their beginnings when they led the Minneapolis General Strike in 1934 which played a major role in winning the new deal from the Roosevelt Administration. They have also degenerated far away from the central party they were in organizing U.S. resistance to the Vietnam War which contributed in a significant way to the success of the Vietnamese peoples’ victory in 1975. Yet, some elements of that original program remain in what they advocate, still making them superior to all of the capitalist candidates running. So, it is with extremely critical support, we urge a vote for Alyson Kennedy in the states of Minnesota and Tennessee where the PSL and WWP are absent, while at the same time pointing to the urgent need to rebuild a revolutionary party on the original program of the Socialist Workers Party. Here is an interview with Socialist Workers Party candidate Alyson Kennedy:
Interview with Alyson Kennedy (SWP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TWln4R8cZ8
Write-in Socialist Candidates in Other States
In addition to being on the ballot in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Utah, the campaign of Monica Moorehead for president and Lamont Lilly for vice president has official write-in status in many states. Write-in campaigns are generally ineffective, but they are necessitated by undemocratic state government laws. Write-ins do, however, register a protest and where a campaign has them officially recognized, they are supposed to be counted. The states where the WWP has official write-in campaigns and no other socialist candidate worthwhile are on the ballot are: Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Alaska. The Revolutionary Tendency urges people to write-in the names of Monica Moorehead and Lamont Lilly in these states.
Revolutionary Tendency Voter Recommendations on CA Propositions
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/11/04/18793096.php
Regarding Proposition 61, with the massive spending of the pharmaceutical industry, and it running tied with the "No" campaign, it needs as many votes as it can get. Here is the Revolutionary Tendency's take on that proposition, written before Prop 61 slipped in the polls:
Proposition 61
Price Controls Placed on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Vote YES. The Revolutionary Tendency stands with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, California Nurses Association, American Association of Retired Persons, California, California Association of Retired Americans, Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), Our Revolution, Social Security Works, Bernie Sanders, Al Sharpton, Peace and Freedom Party, Green Party of California, and Progressive Democrats of America in supporting Proposition 61.
Proposition 61 limits what the pharmaceutical industry can charge for drugs. It does this by limiting the price state agencies are allowed to buy prescription drugs. That limit will be set by the lowest price paid for that same drug by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. There will be some exceptions where this is prohibited by federal law as well as exceptions with MediCal managed care plans. The theory behind the Veterans Affairs benchmark is that the Department of Veterans Affairs negotiates better prices for drugs due to their large scale purchasing power.
While Proposition 61 will be a step forward in reducing the prices of drugs, what is truly needed is the nationalization of the pharmaceutical industry to produce drugs for human need rather than profit. Currently, for-profit pharmaceutical companies fail not just on their price gouging, but on many levels where they could do a far better job if they were socially owned.
One problem is a failure at innovation inherent in private capitalist ownership. Antibiotics are a good example. Due to the continuing evolution of microbes, new strains of bacteria that are resistant to the current antibiotics in use are constantly evolving. This is an urgent problem that kills more and more people every year. It could even spin completely out of control with people once again regularly dying of infections as they were before antibiotics were developed. New antibiotics can and should be developed. Yet, the development of these new antibiotics is not seen as profitable by the pharmaceutical industry, so they simply don’t do it. This is necessitated by capitalist ownership where any CEO who is not looking out for the profits of their investors will be immediately replaced. Social ownership of these companies would, however, mean that the drugs produced and developed would be done based on human needs rather than profit so that the development of new antibiotics would be a high priority.
Another major problem with having private pharmaceutical companies is that it undermines scientific medicine itself. When seeking approval for a new drug, the pharmaceutical industry can pick and choose which studies they want to submit to the FDA. Meanwhile, the FDA itself is run by industry insiders who move back and forth between their government post and working directly for the private industry. This is achieved, in part, through substantial contributions by the pharmaceutical industry to the politicians of the Democrat and Republican parties. In this manner, dangerous drugs as well as drugs that don’t work are often approved. The pharmaceutical companies often get sued later and are forced to end the distribution of dangerous drugs, but the profits they make still far surpass what they are forced to pay out in damages.
The lack of legitimate regulation of the pharmaceutical industry becomes especially horrifying when it comes to psychiatric medications where whether-or-not they work is difficult to objectively measure and largely a subjective call. This is heaven for the pharmaceutical snake-oil salesmen masquerading as promoters of science. Regarding the life-threatening dangers that these drugs often cause to mind and body, the pharmaceutical industry is repeatedly able to successfully argue in court that the psychiatric problem that was treated was worse than any problems that developed as result of the drug. So we are then subjected to absurd contradictions like dramatically increased occurrences of suicide by people being drugged for depression or the fact that Nigerians who are not drugged for schizophrenia have a far better recovery rate than Americans who are medicated for that same condition. Yet, the government rarely notices because it is bought off by a private for-profit industry. That will not change until the pharmaceutical industry is taken out of private capitalist hands. Of course, Proposition 61 only regulates drug prices and will not do the rest of that.
Still, many drugs are useful and needed while the pharmaceutical industry has been getting away with charging us far too much for all of them. Any regulation that forces those blood sucking capitalists to charge less for prescriptions is a step in the right direction.
Shame on the California Democrat Party and the California Republican Party for not standing in favor of Proposition 61. The state Republican Party is outright opposed to it, along with the Libertarian Party, while the California Democrat Party has not taken a position of support. This is because both ruling parties are highly funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, the “No on 61” campaign has outspent the campaign in favor of Prop 61 by seven to one. The top 10 donors of “No on 61” reads as a who’s who of the top pharmaceutical companies to the exclusion of everyone else. In fact, spending on opposition to this proposition has exceeded all other propositions in state history, perhaps world history, with over $109 million spent to defeat it. Still, despite all of the money spent to deceive the public and defeat Proposition 61, it leads in the polls with a 61% majority favoring it and 16% being opposed. This is one of many issues where the majority of the people already stand far to the left of the Democrat and Republican parties. The Revolutionary Tendency is proud to stand with that majority.
Yes to lower prescription prices. No to the blood sucking capitalists of the pharmaceutical industry. Vote YES on Proposition 61.
For our take on all 17 propositions, please see:
Revolutionary Tendency Voter Recommendations on CA Propositions
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/11/04/18793096.php
On Facebook: The Revolutionary Tendency
https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionaryTendency/
Also see:
Murderous Cops, Liberal Snake Oil, & Revolutionary Solutions
by Steven Argue
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/222482/index.php
Justice For Sean Arlt (Event Page)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1025101160932432/
Proposition 61 (California) is Now in Trouble
Vote YES on Prop 61.
by Steven Argue
Massive spending by the pharmaceutical industry, the most ever spent on a California proposition, has filled the airwaves and newspapers with lies and brought Proposition 61 from a 61% majority favoring it and 16% being opposed to what is now a dead heat of 47% in favor and 47% opposed.
Representative Bernie Sanders is now touring the state with rallies urging people to vote for Proposition 61. While the Revolutionary Tendency stands far to the left of Bernie Sanders, including opposition to his endorsement of Hillary Clinton, we are in unity with him in the movement to get out the vote for Proposition 61.
A close vote on Proposition 61, unfortunately now makes it far easier for the establishment to rig the election through voter disenfranchisement and electronic voting machines, as they did to defeat Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary Clinton. For those who dismiss this as a so-called "conspiracy theory", Election Justice USA has compiled a useful in-depth 100-page report called “Democracy Lost” on how Hillary Clinton stole the primary election from Bernie Sanders precisely through voter suppression and rigged electronic voting machines. Here is that report:
Democracy Lost
http://www.election-justice-usa.org/
Some argue that even participating in such a corrupt process legitimizes it. Yet, non-participation, especially by the left, is exactly what the ruling capitalists are going for in the first place. The missing votes of those who boycott the elections are noticed by almost no one and have no real meaning. On the other hand, it is an extremely easy process to register and vote in many places, including California. This should be made easier with measures like same day registration as is found in some other states, but our point is that even if our votes are not counted, it is worth the small effort it takes to vote anyway.
If you are wrongly struck from the voter rolls and given a provisional ballot (which will not be counted), protest it. That does far more for the struggle for justice than sitting at home. Likewise, it is also worth the effort to speak out on other basic issues of democracy, for instance, demanding an end to easily rigged and corporate owned electronic voting machines. In the elections, electronic voting machines are the most expensive solution to a problem that never existed that has ever been devised. Unless, of course, the problem is democracy, as it has become more and more for the ruling capitalist class. International observers agree that the U.S. elections are not free and fair. Still, unless we are setting up an alternative government based on revolutionary workers’ councils, non-participation simply gives an easy pass to those who rig our elections.
We can potentially have an important impact on propositions. Some of the issues considered on Tuesday's ballot in California include abolishing the death penalty, legalizing marijuana, reducing the waste of plastic bags, and reducing the price of prescription drugs.
Here are the Revolutionary Tendency's voter recommendations on the California propositions:
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/11/04/18793096.php
The next major problem, however, is who to vote for. Both Trump and Clinton are puppets of the capitalist class and completely beholden to the interests of the wealthy capitalists who fund their campaigns. These include capitalists with interests in private insurance, oil, fracking, pharmaceuticals, wall street speculation, private prisons, the mass incarceration of the poor, military hardware, school privatization, banking, etc. Neither have a program to bring even the most minimal relief to the working class or a planet being destroyed by global warming.
Many agree that the mainstream candidates in the current election cycle are an insult to our intelligence. A majority of the people are naturally having an extremely difficult time with these choices, even people who generally have reconciled themselves to voting for one of the two supposed lesser evils in past elections. Many people will not even vote. Yet, rather than not vote, it is the position of the Revolutionary Tendency that it is far better to vote on propositions and register a protest vote by voting socialist.
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are pure evil. They are racist war mongers who are puppets of the wealthy capitalists who back them. Don't believe the lie that Trump is funding his own campaign, any basic fact check of that pathological liar shows he is not..
Hillary Clinton, who has never seen a U.S. war she didn’t love, is proposing a “no fly zone” in Syria that will help bring the religious extremists of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and other U.S. trained and armed al-Qaeda allies to power. This will be an escalation of U.S. efforts to overthrow Syria’s secular government by a rebel “opposition” that Amnesty International has declared to have a “shocking disregard for human life.” Clinton’s no fly zone, besides being disastrous for the Syrian people and the U.S. soldiers sent to fight, could also easily start a third world war with Russia.
Likewise, Clinton's emails, among other things, have revealed that she plans to destroy Social Security as well. Clinton, without evidence, claims Putin hacked and released her e-mails. These e-mails were more likely actual leaks or, if they were hacked, could have been hacked by anyone. Her false accusations are simply leveled to distract from Clinton's rampant corruption which is revealed by these e-mails. Meanwhile, the corporate media of the U.S. tells so many lies about Russia regarding Ukraine and Syria that she thinks she can smear Trump by associating him with Putin. Putin, however, really hasn't taken sides in the U.S. elections, stating instead, "Simply speaking, the candidates' programs, they look like they were cut from the same template". Despite Clinton's lies, neither Trump or Clinton are puppets of Putin. Both are instead puppets of the wealthy U.S. capitalist class. That is, in fact, something far worse.
Likewise, Clinton's neo-McCarthyite campaign has also tried to smear Julian Assange's journalism by accusing him of working for Putin as well. In the following interview, John Pilger and Julian Assange answer Hillary Clinton's lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbT3_9dJY4
As Clinton promises international warfare, the virulently racist campaign of Donald Trump could spark a race war at home. Trump is a man who has falsely claimed “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.” Yet, he has also stated, “Laziness is a trait in blacks.” More recently, a Black man showed-up at one of his rallies. Trump accused him of being a paid protester and had him removed. Ironically, it turned out that the Black man was present only to support Donald Trump. Trump's support for stop and frisk and his support for the police murders of innocent Black people make his candidacy thoroughly disgusting. Likewise, Trump would deport millions of immigrants, largely from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America, while also banning the immigration of Muslim people based on religion. For the peoples targeted by Trump's hatred, peoples already marginalized, super-exploited, and brutally oppressed by imperialism and the American capitalist system at home, the face of Trump, no matter how “anti-establishment”, offers nothing but a worsening of the racist status quo.
Yet, while being slightly more subtle, Clinton has a racist record as bad as Trump's. She supported Bill Clinton's 100,000 new cops on the streets, calling young Black men "super-predators" in the process. This policy was a major contribution to the current mass incarceration of the poor, disproportionately hurting Black and brown people. She was also part of the Obama administration which broke all records in mass deportations of immigrants. As part of that regime, she also called for the deportation of child refugees. Some of those child refugees were leaving Honduras, a country where a coup she directly sponsored as secretary of state overthrew the democratically elected government and brought back the death squads of the 1980's, making Honduras the murder capital of the world. In June 2014, she made her position on child refugees very clear, “We have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay.”
No matter which one of those two capitalist candidates wins, the working class loses. This is, by and large, the nature of bourgeois elections. Besides calling for a vote for Proposition 61 in California, the Revolutionary Tendency is asking everyone to file a protest vote against the capitalist candidates by voting socialist.
Vote Gloria La Riva (PSL), on the Ballot in 8 States
In California and seven other states where she is on the ballot, we are giving critical support to the socialist candidacy of Gloria La Riva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). In California, She is on the ballot under the Peace and Freedom Party ticket and easy to vote for. She is also on the ballot in 7 other states. Those states are Vermont, New Mexico, Washington state, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, and Louisiana. The Revolutionary Tendency, while standing to the left of Gloria La Riva on a few questions, gives critical support to Gloria La Riva’s campaign. In those states where she is on the ballot, we urge people to vote for her.
By critical support, however, the Revolutionary Tendency does not use this term like the always holier than thou Spartacist League does. They tend to make a brief statement of support followed by an entire article of criticism. With critical support, we say Gloria La Riva is one of us, she is a working-class candidate active in her union and other social movements calling for a full socialist transformation of society. We argue that she deserves your vote. While our criticisms of her are important, more important is our agreement.
The following is video of Gloria La Riva interviewed on Abby Martin’s new show on TeleSUR English called “Empire Files”. TeleSUR is an alternative television station headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela and sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia. In the interview, Gloria La Riva herself makes a good case for her candidacy:
Gloria La Riva (PSL) on Empire Files
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sntk8sDDtN4
Votes for Gloria La Riva, in addition to registering a protest, in California also help maintain the ballot access achieved for socialists through the Peace and Freedom Party having official ballot status.
In other states, it is worthwhile to vote for other socialist candidates where they are on the ballot. Candidates from the Workers World Party (WWP) and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) are also getting the Revolutionary Tendency's critical electoral support where they are on the ballot. Here is more information on them:
Vote Monica Moorehead (WWP) For President in Three States
Monica Moorehead is the presidential candidate of the Workers World Party. She will be on the ballot in New Jersey, Utah, and Wisconsin. Here is her rebuttal to one of the Trump versus Clinton debates:
Monica Moorehead Responds to Clinton and Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFoBqSzJlHI
Vote for Alyson Kennedy (SWP) in Two States
Alyson Kennedy is the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) Presidential Candidate. We give here critical support in the states of Minnesota and Tennessee. She is actually on the ballot in seven states, Utah, Louisiana, Colorado, Minnesota, Tennessee, Washington, and New Jersey. Yet, in all but two of those states, the better candidates of the Workers World Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation are also on the ballot so we only call for people to vote for her in Minnesota and Tennessee.
The SWP are a strange little political cult that has degenerated far from their beginnings when they led the Minneapolis General Strike in 1934 which played a major role in winning the new deal from the Roosevelt Administration. They have also degenerated far away from the central party they were in organizing U.S. resistance to the Vietnam War which contributed in a significant way to the success of the Vietnamese peoples’ victory in 1975. Yet, some elements of that original program remain in what they advocate, still making them superior to all of the capitalist candidates running. So, it is with extremely critical support, we urge a vote for Alyson Kennedy in the states of Minnesota and Tennessee where the PSL and WWP are absent, while at the same time pointing to the urgent need to rebuild a revolutionary party on the original program of the Socialist Workers Party. Here is an interview with Socialist Workers Party candidate Alyson Kennedy:
Interview with Alyson Kennedy (SWP)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TWln4R8cZ8
Write-in Socialist Candidates in Other States
In addition to being on the ballot in New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Utah, the campaign of Monica Moorehead for president and Lamont Lilly for vice president has official write-in status in many states. Write-in campaigns are generally ineffective, but they are necessitated by undemocratic state government laws. Write-ins do, however, register a protest and where a campaign has them officially recognized, they are supposed to be counted. The states where the WWP has official write-in campaigns and no other socialist candidate worthwhile are on the ballot are: Arizona, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Maryland, Delaware, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Alaska. The Revolutionary Tendency urges people to write-in the names of Monica Moorehead and Lamont Lilly in these states.
Revolutionary Tendency Voter Recommendations on CA Propositions
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/11/04/18793096.php
Regarding Proposition 61, with the massive spending of the pharmaceutical industry, and it running tied with the "No" campaign, it needs as many votes as it can get. Here is the Revolutionary Tendency's take on that proposition, written before Prop 61 slipped in the polls:
Proposition 61
Price Controls Placed on the Pharmaceutical Industry
Vote YES. The Revolutionary Tendency stands with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, California Nurses Association, American Association of Retired Persons, California, California Association of Retired Americans, Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations (AAPCHO), Our Revolution, Social Security Works, Bernie Sanders, Al Sharpton, Peace and Freedom Party, Green Party of California, and Progressive Democrats of America in supporting Proposition 61.
Proposition 61 limits what the pharmaceutical industry can charge for drugs. It does this by limiting the price state agencies are allowed to buy prescription drugs. That limit will be set by the lowest price paid for that same drug by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. There will be some exceptions where this is prohibited by federal law as well as exceptions with MediCal managed care plans. The theory behind the Veterans Affairs benchmark is that the Department of Veterans Affairs negotiates better prices for drugs due to their large scale purchasing power.
While Proposition 61 will be a step forward in reducing the prices of drugs, what is truly needed is the nationalization of the pharmaceutical industry to produce drugs for human need rather than profit. Currently, for-profit pharmaceutical companies fail not just on their price gouging, but on many levels where they could do a far better job if they were socially owned.
One problem is a failure at innovation inherent in private capitalist ownership. Antibiotics are a good example. Due to the continuing evolution of microbes, new strains of bacteria that are resistant to the current antibiotics in use are constantly evolving. This is an urgent problem that kills more and more people every year. It could even spin completely out of control with people once again regularly dying of infections as they were before antibiotics were developed. New antibiotics can and should be developed. Yet, the development of these new antibiotics is not seen as profitable by the pharmaceutical industry, so they simply don’t do it. This is necessitated by capitalist ownership where any CEO who is not looking out for the profits of their investors will be immediately replaced. Social ownership of these companies would, however, mean that the drugs produced and developed would be done based on human needs rather than profit so that the development of new antibiotics would be a high priority.
Another major problem with having private pharmaceutical companies is that it undermines scientific medicine itself. When seeking approval for a new drug, the pharmaceutical industry can pick and choose which studies they want to submit to the FDA. Meanwhile, the FDA itself is run by industry insiders who move back and forth between their government post and working directly for the private industry. This is achieved, in part, through substantial contributions by the pharmaceutical industry to the politicians of the Democrat and Republican parties. In this manner, dangerous drugs as well as drugs that don’t work are often approved. The pharmaceutical companies often get sued later and are forced to end the distribution of dangerous drugs, but the profits they make still far surpass what they are forced to pay out in damages.
The lack of legitimate regulation of the pharmaceutical industry becomes especially horrifying when it comes to psychiatric medications where whether-or-not they work is difficult to objectively measure and largely a subjective call. This is heaven for the pharmaceutical snake-oil salesmen masquerading as promoters of science. Regarding the life-threatening dangers that these drugs often cause to mind and body, the pharmaceutical industry is repeatedly able to successfully argue in court that the psychiatric problem that was treated was worse than any problems that developed as result of the drug. So we are then subjected to absurd contradictions like dramatically increased occurrences of suicide by people being drugged for depression or the fact that Nigerians who are not drugged for schizophrenia have a far better recovery rate than Americans who are medicated for that same condition. Yet, the government rarely notices because it is bought off by a private for-profit industry. That will not change until the pharmaceutical industry is taken out of private capitalist hands. Of course, Proposition 61 only regulates drug prices and will not do the rest of that.
Still, many drugs are useful and needed while the pharmaceutical industry has been getting away with charging us far too much for all of them. Any regulation that forces those blood sucking capitalists to charge less for prescriptions is a step in the right direction.
Shame on the California Democrat Party and the California Republican Party for not standing in favor of Proposition 61. The state Republican Party is outright opposed to it, along with the Libertarian Party, while the California Democrat Party has not taken a position of support. This is because both ruling parties are highly funded by the pharmaceutical industry. Likewise, the “No on 61” campaign has outspent the campaign in favor of Prop 61 by seven to one. The top 10 donors of “No on 61” reads as a who’s who of the top pharmaceutical companies to the exclusion of everyone else. In fact, spending on opposition to this proposition has exceeded all other propositions in state history, perhaps world history, with over $109 million spent to defeat it. Still, despite all of the money spent to deceive the public and defeat Proposition 61, it leads in the polls with a 61% majority favoring it and 16% being opposed. This is one of many issues where the majority of the people already stand far to the left of the Democrat and Republican parties. The Revolutionary Tendency is proud to stand with that majority.
Yes to lower prescription prices. No to the blood sucking capitalists of the pharmaceutical industry. Vote YES on Proposition 61.
For our take on all 17 propositions, please see:
Revolutionary Tendency Voter Recommendations on CA Propositions
https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2016/11/04/18793096.php
On Facebook: The Revolutionary Tendency
https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionaryTendency/
Also see:
Murderous Cops, Liberal Snake Oil, & Revolutionary Solutions
by Steven Argue
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/222482/index.php
Justice For Sean Arlt (Event Page)
https://www.facebook.com/events/1025101160932432/
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