Moving into the final stretch before the elections, the Nathalie Hrizi, PSL member and Peace and Freedom congressional candidate in California’s 12th District, continues to build momentum.
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On Saturday, Sept. 27, upwards of 50 people gathered in San Francisco to attend a campaign barbeque fundraiser and hear Hrizi speak. Hrizi explained to attendees the importance of socialist intervention in the electoral process. The goal is not electoral victory—which, in itself, cannot lead to socialism—but rather to use the elections a platform in which she and the other socialist candidates can reach a working-class audience they otherwise might not be able to speak to.
Gloria La Riva, the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s presidential candidate, spoke out against the government’s multi-billion-dollar bank bailout plan to be funded by taxpayers while working people are left to struggle against tremendous financial hardships. La Riva emphasized the need to place the wealth of this country in the hands of those who generate it—the working class.
Marko Matillano, campaign coordinator for San Francisco’s “No on Proposition V” campaign, spoke against the Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps—the Pentagon’s key military recruitment tool in public high schools. Proposition V, which, if passed, will allow JROTC to remain in San Francisco’s public high schools beyond the 2008-2009 school year.
The bipartisan, big-money nature of the electoral process in the United States is exclusive and oppressive, designed deliberately to keep those without millions of dollars in campaign funds from getting their voices out. Hrizi and other socialist candidates have fought long and hard to gain access to debates and other mainstream campaign forums and, in the process, have shown along the way the true power of a people’s movement.
To read more about Hrizi’s campaign, click here. To read more about other PSL candidates running in national and local elections, click here.
