AthenaAwakened
Contributor
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2003
- Messages
- 5,369
- Location
- Right behind you so ... BOO!
- Basic Beliefs
- non-theist, anarcho-socialist
According to wiki
Kshama Sawant is a member of the Socialist Alternative party, the United States section of the British-based Trotskyist international organization the Committee for a Workers' International (CWI). She has referred to herself as a Marxist.[28][40] Sawant has stated that she does not advocate for any system like the "bureaucratic dictatorship" of the former Soviet Union, but for democratic socialism meaning "the society being run democratically in the interest of all working people on the planet, all children - everybody who has needs, and all that being done in an environmentally sustainable manner."[41]
Involvement with Occupy
Before running for office, Sawant received attention as an organizer in the local Occupy movement.[1][23] She praised Occupy for putting "class", "capitalism", and "socialism" into the political debate.[28] After Occupy Seattle protestors were removed from Westlake Park by order Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, Sawant helped bring them to the Capitol Hill campus of Seattle Central Community College, where they remained for two months.[14] Sawant has joined with other Occupy activists working with local organization to resist home evictions and foreclosures. She was arrested with several other Occupy activists including Dorli Rainey on July 31, 2012 for blocking King County Sheriff's Deputies from evicting a man from his home.[42]
Economic policies
Sawant called for large Seattle companies such as Starbucks and Amazon to be unionized in her most recent campaign.[30] In previous campaigns she has advocated the nationalization of large Washington State corporations such as Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon.com[31] and expressed a desire to see privately owned housing in "Millonaire's Row" in the Capitol Hill neighborhood turned into publically owned shared housing saying, "When things are exquisitely beautiful and rare, they shouldn't be privately owned."[43] During an election victory rally for her City Council campaign Sawant criticized Boeing for saying it would move jobs out of state if it couldn't get wage concessions and tax breaks. She called this "economic terrorism" and said in several speeches if Boeing moved jobs out of state that the workers should take over Boeing facilities and bring them into public ownership. She has said they could be converted into multiple uses, such as production for mass transit.[44][45] She is also a supporter of single-payer health care.[30] Sawant maintains that a socialist economy cannot exist in a single country and must be a global system just as capitalism today is a global system.[46]
Environment, education, and immigration
She opposed the construction of the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel calling it "environmentally destructive" and "something most people were against, most environmental groups were against".[14]
Sawant opposes the Measures of Academic Progress test in public schools and has supported the teachers' boycott of the standardized tests.[30] Sawant has called for a revolt against student debt saying that "the laws of the rich are unenforceable if the working class refuses to obey those laws."[28] She is an active member of the American Federation of Teachers union[40] and has been critical of American labor union leadership, saying the leadership, "...in the last 30 years has completely betrayed the working class. They are hand in glove with the Democratic Party, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into their campaigns, and they tell rank and file workers that you have to be happy with these crumbs…" Sawant believes the American Labor movement should break with the Democratic Party and run grassroots left-wing candidates.[28]
Sawant advocates for a moratorium on deportations of illegal immigrants from Seattle and granting unconditional citizenship for all persons currently in the United States without citizenship. She opposes the E-Verify system.[30][30][31][43]
Rejection of major political parties
Sawant said she rejects working within the Democratic and Republican two-party system, and says socialists should campaign as a third party:
“The job of socialists is to point the way forward, and we are not shy about it. We invite people to debate with us on ideas of socialism. But we are not shy and we have been proven, resoundingly correct, that we should not be shy, because there is no excuse for being shy or reticent when you are talking about such serious issues as fighting against the enormous misery that capitalism unleashes on us, all over the world. So let's be clear about it, let's not be shy. This is not a time for modesty; this is a time for boldness and courage.[28]”
Sawant has encouraged other left-wing groups, including Greens and trade unions, to use her campaign as a model to inspire a much broader movement in 2014:
“We need a movement to break the undemocratic power of big business and build a society that works for working people, not corporate profits - a democratic socialist society.[47]"
Not they most didn't deserve it though. 