Socialists afraid to claim to be such, got second fewest presidential votes ever
Posted on November 13th, 2008 at 8:08pm by bile Tags: America, Atlanta, Atlanta Journal, California, David Arguello, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Election Commission, Georgia, Hazleton, Hormel Meats Corporation, Lindsey Frank, Lisa Potash, Michael Krinsky, Norman Thomas, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Pennsylvania, San Diego, Socialist Labor Party, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers National Campaign Committee, U.S. government, United States, United States CongressThe Socialist Workers National Campaign Committee filed a request with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) October 30 for a renewal of its exemption from requirements to report the names of financial contributors.
The party’s exemption request is part of the fight of workers, farmers, and their organizations to be able to engage in political activity, including election campaigns, free from government, boss, and right-wing spying and harassment.
The request was filed on the party’s behalf by attorneys Michael Krinsky and Lindsey Frank of the internationally renowned law firm Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky & Lieberman.
The FEC has continuously granted six-year exemptions to the SWP’s campaign committees since 1979, most recently in 2003.
In this year’s request to the FEC, 62 incidents of harassment from 2002 until 2008 are documented, including “physical attacks on SWP campaign supporters and offices, threatening mail and telephone calls, job firings and discrimination, and harassment of SWP supporters and campaign efforts by federal and local law enforcement as well as private individuals.”
Among the incidents:
- The Sept. 11, 2004, firebombing of the SWP campaign offices in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. A brick wrapped in incendiary material was thrown into the display window featuring campaign materials and political books, setting the headquarters on fire and threatening the lives of people living in the apartment upstairs.
- On May 16, 2007, two FBI agents arrived unannounced at the home of David Arguello, the 2006 SWP candidate for U.S. Congress in San Diego, California, on the pretense that they had information from an anonymous source that he advocated violence against the U.S government. The FBI agents interrogated Arguello about his political views and activities and his interest in unionizing his workplace.
- In October 2005, Lisa Potash, Socialist Workers candidate for president of the city council in Atlanta, Georgia, was fired from her job at Hormel Meats Corporation after her campaign was widely publicized in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
If their community has news sites called The Militant its not entirely surprising that one of their candidates was approached about advocating violence.
It seems odd to me that anyone would care that there were self described socialists. I’d think “capitalists” are hated moreso right now and you don’t hear of their homes being firebombed. Especially considering the president elect is practically a Fabian.
http://www.ballot-access.org/…
In every presidential election starting in 1888, at least one socialist party has participated. The Socialist Labor Party ran a slate of unpledged presidential electors in 1888 in New York state.
If one adds together the presidential vote of all the parties with these words in their party name: “Socialist”, “Communist”, “Socialism” and “Workers”, and calculates the percentage of the vote cast for such parties for president, one finds that the lowest percentage in history was in 2000, when such parties polled less than .02% of the vote. 2008 appears likely to be the second such presidential election. The combined vote in 2008 for the Socialist Workers, Socialist, and Party for Socialism and Liberation presidential candidates appears to be just barely under .02% (specifically, .019%). The worst year for such parties for president was 2000, when it was only .017%. In 2004 the percentage was .021%.
That’s because the major parties adopted the palatable parts of their platform.
“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”
– Norman Thomas
