Carlos Alvarez, PSL candidate for Mayor of Los Angeles, delivered this statement to a crowd of 400 at a forum at Holman United Methodist Church in South Los Angeles on Feb. 7.
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My campaign is a bit different from others because I am a socialist. I have a socialist perspective. I believe that the vast wealth of society should be enjoyed by the people who create it—the people who work for a living each day. My campaign calls for every person in L.A. to have a job, food, decent housing, access to free, quality healthcare and education, and a clean environment.
Every worker should have the right to be in a union. The minimum wage should be $15 per hour. I believe these are not privileges, but fundamental human rights. As mayor, I would fight tooth and nail to make these demands a reality.
For me, running for mayor is not just an exercise. I see glaring problems throughout the city of Los Angeles—from South Los Angeles to the San Fernando Valley and beyond.
Los Angeles is one of the richest cities in the richest country in the world. Even in the midst of this deep economic recession, the super-wealthy are doing well. Giant banks and developers are profiting. The rich are getting richer, while most people find it harder to get by. Thousands are living in their cars or on the streets; their children wake up hungry each day. And workers, once gainfully employed, are being thrust into a world of unemployment, homelessness, hunger and poverty. In Los Angeles alone, there are over 80,000 people living without a roof over their head each night.
This is a crime. It is a crisis for all of us. We need a planned economy based on meeting people’s needs: socialism. To get there, Los Angeles must confront the issues that we all face daily.
Jobs, housing, education and health care
Everyone in the city of Los Angeles should have adequate shelter. My campaign calls for an immediate end to all foreclosures and evictions. No one should be homeless while luxury lofts sit empty downtown. People can only survive if they have a job, a place to live and the dignity they deserve.
Because of Mayor Villaraigosa’s bad policies, the scourge of gentrification has sped up, swept through and destroyed whole neighborhoods, making the city unaffordable for so many, especially people of color.
Our seniors, who live on fixed incomes, are being pushed out of their homes and apartments.
The mayor has torn down more affordable housing units than it has built; and doled out endless tax breaks and city funds to rich developers. The developers build cheap, ugly condos that are sitting empty because no one can afford them.
The mayor also has given a blank check to greedy, predatory landlords, who have taken over the politics of the city, to ensure high profits are made off the misery of others. This now-standard policy of rewarding developers and landlords, while sticking it to working people, the poor, and the elderly must end. I would end it.
L.A.’s neighborhoods should be thriving, although right now they are not. Communities all over the city are stagnant. This can be reversed if the outlook of city government shifts toward meeting people’s needs, instead of only functioning to build wealth for a few.
I would build more affordable housing; deny permits to shoddy developers who bleed the city of funds, and lower rents throughout the city to keep the vitality of both new and older neighborhoods intact.
I would also create jobs. Unemployment in Los Angeles is over 10 percent. This is among the highest of any city in the country. Mayor Villaraigosa should be ashamed that this has happened on his watch, while he considers more layoffs. Instead of cutting jobs, I would create jobs in the public sector. Our roads, bridges, schools and other infrastructure are constantly in need of repair. We need libraries and parks open and accessible, and we need workers to staff them.
As mayor, I would upend the status quo of billion-dollar giveaways to corporate developers by taxing them heavily. The people of this city should have a say in how it is run.
My campaign also calls for schools to be fully funded. More teachers should be hired, not fired. Tuition fees for community college and university must be cut in half, and we must move toward providing everyone free education through college.
And there must be free, quality health care for all. Public hospitals throughout the city should provide preventive, emergency and long-term health care services to everyone.
Equality: not racism, bigotry and repression
I am from right here in South Los Angeles. I grew up just miles from this church. As the son of immigrants from El Salvador, I understand what racism is all about. You can see it every day.
But contrary to what the media would have us believe, racism comes from the top. It comes from the government, the rich and everyone who would like to see the working-class, especially people of color, divided.
My campaign is squarely against all forms of racism and bigotry. I deplore the police brutality, anti-gang injunctions, and the mass incarceration of African American, Latino, Asian and all working-class people. The Los Angeles Police Department is a feared and hated institution by so many workers in this city.
The LAPD has a long and sordid history of racism, killings and brutality against working-class people of color. People are rounded up and arrested daily in this neighborhood and others without cause or concern.
The recent $12.85 million dollar payout awarded to the victims of police violence at a 2007 May Day immigrant rights rally was a victory for all of us. It was a small, but important step toward ending police brutality in this city. But so much more must be done. And instead of promising 1,000 more police, as Mayor Villaraigosa has done, my campaign calls for community control over the police, with the creation of an all-elected civilian control board.
I also believe that the LAPD’s seemingly limitless stream of funding should be cut. The LAPD already gets nearly 50 percent of the city’s budget. This is an outrage. That money should go toward creating jobs, affordable housing, better schools and free health care for all. With a record of racism and violence, the LAPD should not get another dime.
My campaign also demands full rights for all immigrants and an immediate end to the racist ICE raids that terrorize Los Angeles. As mayor, I would make Los Angeles into a sanctuary city. Immigrants deserve dignity and equality, just like anyone else.
Standing with working-class and oppressed people is central to my campaign. My campaign defends women’s reproductive rights, calls for free, safe abortion on demand, and seeks to repeal the anti-gay Proposition 8. Full equality for everyone can be a reality, and we can make it happen.
Make the corporations pay
Another fundamental demand of my campaign is creating a livable and sustainable environment. For me, this is not just lip service. Our city is choking on traffic and smog. I will fund mass transit that is clean, efficient, free and accessible to all. This will create thousands of jobs and make L.A. more livable.
The current mayor and City Council kow-tow to the big corporations because they believe that catering to the super-rich will somehow trickle down to the working class. It is the working class—both documented and undocumented—that produces all the wealth of our city.
The trickle-down notion is a big lie. We must make the corporate elite of our city pay their share in taxes to finance housing, education, health care and all social services. Flat taxes, like the garbage tax, the increased sales tax, and others should be cut.
And since Los Angeles is not an island isolated from the world, but connected to the whole U.S. capitalist economy, my campaign has a strong and developed position on foreign policy. As you might have noticed, so does the current mayor. But, unlike Mayor Villaraigosa, my campaign is against funding the Pentagon war machine. Hundreds of billions of federal dollars are spent on the war machine each year while cities are allowed to go broke. I am against the financing of wars on innocent people abroad.
Rather than acting as a cheerleader for U.S.-financed military action, such as the recent massacre in Gaza, which is what Villaraigosa has done, as mayor, I would vehemently oppose military funding. I would demand money for jobs and schools, not for war, occupation and mass killing.
As long as there are people without homes, jobs, health care and quality education in this city, I will struggle to make these necessities a reality for everyone. As long as there is injustice here or abroad, I will speak out against it. That is what my campaign is all about.
I am the only candidate who is already fighting in your interests. Let’s empower the people. If we build a fighting movement, we can win what is truly ours!
