Category: June 2012 Election

Stewart Alexander’s Voter Guide Statement

Each candidate for President is entitled to submit a statement of up to 250 words to the Secretary of State, who publishes them on her website. This is Stewart Alexander’s statement (click here for the original).

I am Stewart Alexander, candidate for President of the United States. The 2012 election, to elect the next president of the United States, will be the most consequential election within the past 200 years of this nation. So much is at stake to include world peace. With the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling giving corporations the same rights as people has taken the U.S. government from a police state, to a military state, to corporate ownership. Today, the American people are without leadership; the three branches of government in Washington DC only represent Wall Street, corporate America and billionaires. This has occurred at a time when working people are most vulnerable. The nation is in the worse recession ever; poverty and homelessness is on the increase, wages are declining at a rapid pace and working people are living from check to check. Today, we do not have the financial resources to fight for our freedoms; we only have solidarity and determination. Against all the odds, we must send a message to Washington DC and Wall Street that working people will not surrender our Constitution and freedoms to the 1 percent minority in this society. This is why I am asking working people to give me your support in 2012, to be a voice for working people, to protect labor, our human rights and freedoms. Election 2012, Vote Stewart Alexander for President.

Peta Lindsay’s Voter Guide Statement

Each candidate for President is entitled to submit a statement of up to 250 words to the Secretary of State, who publishes them on her website. Because Peta Lindsay is being excluded from the primary election ballot (see these articles for details), her statement is the one she would have submitted if she could have.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Lindsay/Osorio 2012 presidential campaign stands for socialism. Capitalism is a corrupt, bankrupt system that only benefits the super-rich, the 1%.
This is the richest country in history. Working people create all of the wealth, but we do not get to enjoy it. Instead, our tax money funds the U.S. war machine, bank bailouts and huge tax breaks for the corporations.

A socialist government would institute programs to eliminate poverty and homelessness, ensure jobs with a real living wage, free education, free health care and day care and access to healthy food as rights. It would make the highest priority eliminating institutionalized racism, bigotry and inequalities. Police brutality and mass incarcerations would be ended. Citizenship would automatically be granted to all people living in the United States. Access to contraception and abortion would be guaranteed. Equality would be realized for women and LGBT people.

The Pentagon and all U.S. military bases would be dismantled. Relations with the peoples of the world would be established on the basis of solidarity and friendship.

Socialism can only be achieved by a mass people’s movement that ends the dictatorship of Wall Street. Join us in building that movement!

www.votepsl.org

Rocky Anderson Responds to Questions

This documented can also be downloaded as a pdf.

I. INTRODUCTION

What is your occupation?

I practiced law for 21 years in the areas of antitrust, securities fraud, professional negligence, and civil rights litigation. I served two terms as the Mayor of Salt Lake City from 2000-2008. I was the founder and served as Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights from 2008-2011.

Where are you from?

Salt Lake City, Utah

Briefly describe your educational background, any past political campaigns, and any work you’ve done as an activist.

Education: I received a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy from the University of Utah, graduating magna cum laude. In 1978 I graduated, with honors, from George Washington University, attaining a J.D. degree.

(more…)

Stephen Durham Responds to Questions

This documented can also be downloaded as a pdf.

INTRODUCTION

The Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) decided to launch a campaign for president and vice president because the austerity program that is the establishment’s answer to the economic crisis demands a bold anti-capitalist and feminist challenge.

Poverty is growing. Millions are without jobs and healthcare. Young Black men, Latino immigrants, and Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. face official and unofficial harassment and persecution. Women are losing their reproductive rights. As the FSP organizer in New York City, where our headquarters is based in Harlem, on a daily basis I see people just struggling to survive. I am running to offer working-class solutions to the hardships caused by the one percent.

Unprecedented international protest in 2011 reverberated in the U.S. with militant labor protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere and with the Occupy movement. I and my vice presidential running mate, Christina López, believe the time is right to provide an electoral vehicle for working, unemployed, and retired voters to reject business as usual in the White House and Congress. Socialist solutions are desperately needed and people are ready to consider them. They are sick to death with the ongoing capitalist agenda of imperialist war, cutbacks, racist and phony wars on drugs and terror, and the consequent erosion of civil liberties.

(more…)

Peta Lindsay Responds to Questions

This documented can also be downloaded as a pdf.

I. INTRODUCTION

What is your occupation? Where are you from?

I was born in Virginia and moved at a young age to Philadelphia.

I spent much of my childhood living in North Philadelphia, in a Black working class neighborhood that suffered from extreme poverty and police repression. As a middle school student, I became an organizer with the Philadelphia Student Union, a citywide group struggling against racism and for increased funding for Philadelphia public schools.

After moving to Washington, D.C., I graduated from School Without Walls High School (class of 2002) and then Howard University (class of 2008).

I currently live in Los Angeles where I am pursuing a master’s degree in teaching from the University of Southern California with the goal of becoming a public school teacher.

(more…)

Stewart Alexander Responds to Questions

This documented can also be downloaded as a pdf.

I. INTRODUCTION

I currently work as an automobile sales consultant.  This work has brought me into direct contact with the public, has provided me with an insider’s look into problems with our financial system and has taught me many lessons about the hazards of consumer debt.

I was born in Newport News, Virginia; however, I have lived in California since I was a child. My earliest political memory was meeting Malcolm X with my father. Malcolm came to a local mosque in Watts and my father brought me along to hear him speak. I don’t remember anything particular about what he said, but I do remember how seriously he took his task. I intend to employ an equal amount of seriousness with this Presidential campaign.

I graduated from George Washington High in Los Angeles in 1970 and attended college for a year and a half at Los Angeles Trade Technical College and the California State University at Dominguez Hills California. In the U.S. Air Force, I was trained as an air passenger specialist, air cargo specialist, and packing and crating specialist.

(more…)

Alameda County Central Committee

The following information was provided by the Alameda County Central Committee.

Under the State Elections Code the Peace and Freedom Party is governed by its State Central Committee and County Central Committees. A new State Central Committee is formed in August every two years after the June Primary Election, in even-numbered years, at a convention meeting of the Peace and Freedom Party. This year, the State Central Committee will select the Peace and Freedom Party candidate for President of the United States at our Convention on August 4th and 5th in Southern California.

The Central Committee is elected by County, and by Supervisory District within Alameda County. You are in the Fifth District, where there are eight candidates for six seats, so you should vote for no more than six of the candidates listed below. The existing Central Committee has endorsed all of the candidates and has requested campaign statements from each. Their statements are listed in the order received:

Fifth District Candidate for Central Committee

Marsha Feinland: I am a retired public school teacher and union activist. I was elected to the Berkeley Rent Board in 1994 with the mission of stopping rent increases. I have been active in P&F since 1988. Find my positions at www.feinlandforsenate.org.

Eugene Ruyle: Retired professor of Anthropology (and Marxism), Cal State Long Beach. PFP Candidate for Congress, 1982, 2008, & 2010. Will work to make PFP more open, democratic, and effective. Write in Candidate for 15th Assembly District, 2012. More background into at:
www.cuyleruyle.com.

John Comly: Support Peace and Freedom Party’s Platform! I support anti-capitalism worldwide, opposing US/UN/NATO military and economic warfare. Foreign, forward-basing installations: close them! Troops home! Military-industrial complex: quickly dismantled. P&F should continue special struggles against racism, sexism and anti-LGBT bigotry and violence. For full employment at best union scale wages and benefits.

Norma Harrison: It is enormously satisfying to affirm with people via this conventional venue, their deep desire to build the struggle for socialism communism toward anarchism. It offers people a work to do that is about the entire issue with which we engage. Claim our stolen commons; Occupy the electoral arena.

Edith Hallberg: Retired substitute teacher with 27 years of service, Berkeley resident since 1966, registered P&F in 1968. A just society is possible only if we fight for it by building a movement of many diverse groups. I support the P&F platform and will fight for it until we achieve our goals.

Bob Evans. Peace and Freedom central committee member since 1973. Delegate to the 1974 convention which first adopted an expressly socialist platform. Committed to preserving PFP as the only voice of the working class on California’s ballot. Eviction defense lawyer and former elected member of the Berkeley Rent Board.

Stan Woods. Born and raised in a working class family in West Virginia, long time PFP activist, lifelong labor, Antiwar/Anti-Imperialist, and Anti-Police Brutality activist, Former Elected member of KPFA Local Station Board. Played a role within Occupy Oakland with Shut the West Coast Ports and the Labor Solidarity Committees.

Gerald Sanders. No statement received to date, but Gerald is well known as a long time PFP activist, active in Occupy Oakland and other activities.

In the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Districts, since there are fewer candidates for Central Committee of the Peace and Freedom Party than seats available, the following candidates, who are running unopposed, have been declared elected by the Registrar of Voters:

Second and First Districts (no candidates)

Third District

Albert Dragstedt, Professor of Philosophy: A Socialist Party is now indispensable in order to point to the need to reform the mode of production from one based upon private ownership of what society needs for a viable relation to nature to one which can bring mindfulness to man’s metabolism with nature.

Eric Bergman: Incumbent State Central Committee member. Involved in the struggle for social justice in a variety of ways. This includes prisoners, war, sexism, and unions.

Fourth District

Amy Gray-Schlink. Oakland resident, queer mom, public utility plumber, and unionist, is active with the Freedom Socialist Party, Radical Women, and Sisters United Front for Survival. Openly socialist and feminist, Amy advocates a Peace & Freedom Party that is fully democratic and diverse. She strongly supports united left electoral slates.