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Socialist Party USA: Recent Statements
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Obama’s
State of the Union - Too Little Too
Late
by Stewart Alexander, 2012 Socialist Party
USA Presidential Candidate
The phrase that came to mind immediately upon hearing President Barack
Obama’s State of the Union speech is “too little, too late.” After
spending the last few years coddling the banks and the richest 1%,
Obama has the nerve to now call for “economic fairness.” To him, this
means tweaking payroll taxes and making a rhetorical call to reverse
the Bush tax cuts for the rich. For working people in America real
fairness means the right to a job, a guarantee of healthcare for all
and an end to the Military Industrial Complex. Obama won’t deliver
this. That’s why I am running for President against him.
Job creation has been and will continue to be the most obvious way that
Obama has sold out working people throughout America. These decisions
were made early on in his administration when he made the conscious
decision to pour billions of dollars into the Banks that had funded his
campaign instead of using those funds to create an emergency employment
program to put people back to work. The result is that Americans have
experienced nearly three consecutive years of more than 9% unemployment
and nearly double that when those workers who given up looking for jobs
are counted. This has meant real human suffering for millions of people.
Although Obama has hailed the recent decline in these same unemployment
rates, a closer look at the numbers reveal the hollowness of his
claims. Economist Doug Henwood has paged through the Unemployment
report and
discovered that much of the reduction is due to the effects of holiday
seasonal employment and, in particular, a shift to online purchasing
for Christmas gifts. Of the 200,000 jobs created in December, some
42,000, or over 1/5, came from the hiring of extra couriers and
messengers. Bars, restaurants and healthcare companies picked up the
bulk of the rest of the new hires. Hardly the manner in which we want
to grow the economy.
The jobs program that the Alexander/Mendoza 2012 campaign is proposing
calls for the creation of a Full Employment economy. We have a
three-pronged approach. First, we want to create an Emergency Jobs
Program
that will put millions of workers back to work immediately in fields
like environmental cleanup, infrastructure creation and maintenance,
and education. Second, we support proposals to publicly fund a worker
owned and managed cooperative sector. This will serve to not only put
people back to work, but to re-build the manufacturing capacity of our
country. Finally, we want to fund job training programs that lead to
job sharing or job splitting, where workers will work less yet retain
the same amount of pay and benefits.
A serious restructuring of the tax code that allows us to take back the
wealth created by our work and accumulated by the 1% is key to funding
our job creation plan. We want more than Obama’s proposed payroll tax
cut. We deserve more than just reversing Bush’s economically suicidal
tax breaks for the rich. We need a radical restructuring of the way in
which we think about wealth. The great riches of this society need to
be put to use to help us all – to make life better for the 99% and
create new opportunities for work, relaxation and community.
This is why we propose creating a progressive tax structure where the
rich pay far more than the average working person. In a democratic
socialist society neither Obama nor Romney would be allowed to pay an
effective tax rate of 26% and 17% respectively. Corporate taxation,
financial gains taxes and personal income taxes will be modernized –
all loopholes will be closed and the rich will pay a steep tax on their
income. This is what economic fairness looks like to a socialist.
If Obama’s proposals for “Economic Fairness” are hard to believe, his
attempt to present his Presidency as one of peace is simply a farce.
The hands of the Obama administration are dripping with blood. He has
approved a brutal Drone war on the people of Pakistan that has resulted
in massive civilian casualties. He has accelerated the war in
Afghanistan, which has increased casualties among soldiers and
terrorized the civilian population driving them into the political arms
of the Taliban. And Obama has continued to take an aggressive political
stance on Iran thereby moving the country closer to another war.
All this, plus a clear continuation of the Bush era security state
policies. Obama’s approval of the National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA) annihilates centuries of civil rights protections. The President
now has the right to indefinitely jail any citizen in the America
without having to work within the protections of habeas corpus. Added
to the NDAA is the fact that, as I write this, Bradley Manning is
rotting in a jail cell. Manning is Obama’s prisoner – a moral testament
to the President’s commitment to continue the job of restricting civil
liberties.
My campaign is staunchly anti-militarist. This means that I commit to
bringing the troops home now through the elimination of all foreign
occupations and the closing of all foreign military bases and I aim to
dismantle the Military Industrial Complex. My campaign calls for an
immediate 50% reduction in military spending. We think that democratic
socialism offers the best hope for the creation of a world based on
peace and solidarity. Eliminating the security state will move us a
long way in that direction. America should be a model for civil
liberties not a test case for how many rights can be restricted.
I am writing this also to encourage voters to take a serious look at my
campaign. They will find that socialist politics are clearly distinct
from the politics of the 1% peddled by politicians such as Obama,
Romney, Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul. Under their leadership, the State
of the Union is neutered – reduced to an exercise in cheerleading for
the politicians that have faithfully towed the line for their corporate
benefactors. The proposals of the Alexander/Mendoza campaign are made
in the interest of the 99%. We think Americans deserve a clear choice
come November. We will be working hard to make that possible. Join us
in making a demand for
jobs, peace and freedom in 2012!
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