Vote PSL in 2008!

Unlike the corporate-funded candidates who say the war in Iraq will end “some day” in the distant future, Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear, running on the presidential ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), have been building a movement of millions of people to demand U.S. out of Iraq NOW! They have helped organize the biggest demonstrations against the Iraq war in the last few years.

This is a rich man’s war. It is a war to dominate the oil-rich Middle East. Only the banks, corporations and oil monoplies benefit. It is the sons and daughters of the working class who are sent to kill and be killed. Those who started this war and continue to fund it should stand trial for crimes against the people.

Bush gets a pass every day from the two-faced Democrats in Congress even though he is responsible for sending hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to their graves with tens of thousands of U.S. GIs also killed or horribly maimed.

The politicians and corporate bosses have a message for working people: salute the flag, stop thinking, and send our loved ones to fight in imperialist wars. They proclaim we “are one nation” when they want to drag workers into the next war of aggression.

But these same capitalists and political opportunists will turn around and shut down factories, lay off tens of thousands of workers, and slash healthcare benefits and pensions if they believe it will add to the super-profits for the corporate elites and bankers.

In the last 20 years, unions have been attacked by the bosses, industries have shut down, and workers’ wages have plummeted. The cost of living has skyrocketed while wages and incomes have dropped. Landlords, banks and real-estate speculators have turned cities and towns into places where it is impossible to live, with rent and the cost of buying a house beyond the reach of more and more people.

What can change this situation? If we look back at the history of the United States, it is when the people, both workers and the poor, joined together to fight injustice and abuse, that real change has come about.

The bosses and politicians try to whip up racism as a way to keep the working class divided. This divide-and-conquer tactic has been used since the founding of this country. Slavery, the genocide against the original peoples of the Americas, brutal colonialism, and the super-exploitation of immigrant labor were the sources of wealth for the white racist capitalist ruling class in the United States.

The only way they could keep their power, their fortunes and incredible privilege is to get one set of workers fighting another. This is the historic function of racism as a key element in the growth of modern-day capitalism in the United States. The use of racism as a key divide-and-conquer strategy explains the virulent attack on immigrants and immigrant rights.

Although the civil rights movement ended legal apartheid in the United States, racism today is just as vicious as ever. The La Riva/Puryear campaign is part of a larger struggle to unite all workers against our real enemies.

The African American community and other people of color won rights through the great civil rights movement. Workers and the unemployed, who organized and struggled for the right to a union and for better wages and working conditions, won Social Security, unemployment benefits, and other social programs in the 1930s. Women and lesbian/gay/bi/transgender people achieved great gains through struggle.

But these changes can be rolled back as the bosses go on the offensive to increase profits and increase exploitation.

Every person in this country could have the right to free education, free health care, affordable housing, and a decent-paying job with full benefits.  But to realize these simple demands will require a true revolution.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a working-class party organized by and for working people. We are socialists active in every struggle that affects working and poor people at home and abroad. We believe that an organized and militant people’s movement can achieve great changes—necessary changes—that improve the lives of working and oppressed people.

As socialists, we fight for a different kind of society. We fight for a society where people’s needs are no longer a commodity to be sold to the highest bidder. We fight for a society where housing, health care, education and a job are a right. We fight for socialism.

The PSL is running candidates in 2008, Gloria La Riva for president and Eugene Puryear for vice president and local candidates in several states.

Get involved in a campaign that puts people first, not profits. Contact us to find out more.