Peta Lindsay is a representative of the Party for Socialism and Liberation and is gearing up for the 2012 presidential election as she enters the terse political campaign climate as a candidate. Lindsay sat down with The Badger Herald to highlight her platform and beliefs that the system needs a change only she can give.
BH: With the chances so low of a third-party candidate winning the election, why are you running?
PL: We don’t have any illusions about the electoral system, and part of the reason we are running is to expose what a sham it is. It’s a rigged game. It’s of, by and for the rich. We entered with a 10-point program demanding the things that working people need. Our number one point is to make a job a constitutional right. Unemployment is one of the biggest crises we are facing right now. Youth unemployment is the highest it’s been since the government began recording those statistics. We are activists and organizers, so we believe that the organization of the people is what makes change. A lot of people go to the elections looking for change, but they are going to be disappointed. We went with this program to give them an option, to direct them to where real change is made, to draw them into the struggle, to connect with activists and organizers and to connect with working people who are struggling and say, “Yes. We are demanding jobs as well and we are going to organize and fight for it.”
Badger Herald: Give your best pitch to students.
Peta Lindsay: Education is a right, and it should be a right. This is the richest country in the world, so we can afford to send people to school. We are one of the only developed nations that don’t. I’m from California, where tuition has risen 316 percent in just 10 years. California was one of the best public systems in the country, and it’s because students were organized and fought to make public schooling accessible. The extent to which we stopped fighting is the extent to which they’re going to keep coming down on us. They’ve used the excuse of the economic crisis, but we didn’t create this crisis. When they raise our tuition in response, they’re trying to make us pay for it. We’re saying the government should make the banks pay, make the wealthy pay, make the people who torpedoed our economy pay, not the students or working class families.
BH: How do you differ from Green Party candidate Jill Stein?
PL: I like Jill Stein, and I want to say there’s a lot of unity for progressive third-party candidates. We get along, and what she’s saying is cool, but for us, it’s about changing the system. The Greens want to reform the system; they say if they can get a better president in office, they can change everything. We say no matter who’s in office, it’s the capitalist system — the system that allows a handful of billionaires to control all the wealth and has working people fighting for their crumbs — it’s the system that creates these problems. It’s the system that’s got to go.
Lindsay has worked as a progressive organizer since age 12. She will appear on the ballot Nov. 6 with running mate Yari Osorio in 13 states, including Wisconsin.
