Saturday, November 23, 2013

From the Archives: Marvin X on Chauncey Bailey, Rupert Murdoch, Media, Police and Politicians connected


Oakland Post Opinion by Marvin X

July 21, 2011 at 12:40pm
Opinion
Chauncey Bailey, Rupert Murdoch, Media, Police and Politicians connected
by MarvinX


The charges against media mogul Rupert Murdoch, the UK police and politicians has implications and parallels with the Oakland political establishment, the Chauncey Bailey Project and the Oakland Police Department.

The situation in the United Kingdom reveals the collusion of politicians, the Media and the police. Shall we say they had a symbiotic relationship or was it more sinister and synergistic, for allegedly Mr. Murdoch's newspaper paid the police to help them hack into the phones of murdered persons. And it has been asserted that Murdoch’s American media organizations may have hacked into the phones of 9/11 victims. Politicians served at the behest of Mr. Murdoch's media empire, seeking his support, Murdoch acknowledged that they slipped him into the back door of the Prime Minister’s residence.

The whistle-blowing journalist who worked for Murdoch and was investigating the corruption scandal was found dead 24 hours before Murdoch’s testimony before the Parliament. The Scotland Yard police said the death would not be considered “suspicious”. In 1987, another journalist, Daniel Morgan, was murdered because he, like Chauncey, was about to expose a drug conspiracy linked to police corruption. 

Shortly before Chauncey was murdered, a group of mothers wanted him to meet with them at an Oakland Church to intervene between them and the police because they said the police were shaking down their sons for money, drugs and jewelry, without arresting them, letting them go free, putting their lives in danger with dope dealers.

As with the British treatment of Murdoch, Oakland politicians sought the blessings of Dr. Yusef Bey, founder of Your Black Muslim Bakery, and father of the now convicted murderer of Chauncey Bailey. Politicians who lined up at Dr. Bey’s door included Barbara Lee, Sandre Swanson, Keith Carson, Don Perata and Jerry Brown.

Derwin Longmire, the officer in charge of the investigation, was the chief mentor of the bakery boys. They were finally convicted of three murders, including Chauncey Bailey. Under his mentorship, the bakery boys imagined themselves as police, purchasing a bus and cars equipped with police lights. They were arrested for impersonating police and kidnapping, after they stopped a woman on the freeway. Most importantly, why didn’t the OPD inform Chauncey that the bakery boys were planning to kill him, since they had informants at the bakery and had them under surveillance for two years with tracking devices and tapped phones.

The Chauncey Bailey Project was formed at the request of Paul Cobb, but when he asked that they pursue the angle of police corruption, they dismissed Cobb’s suggestion, especially the Oakland Tribune which had a longtime embedded reporter at the OPD.

Even though officer Longmire was charge of the crime scene, he refused to interview an eye witness, although he later made a personal visit to the eye witness while he was in jail, with his tape recorder, and tried to convince the witness that he didn't see what he actually saw. Why did he decide to interview the witness and how did he know the man was in jail? And he recorded the interview, something he neglected to do when he put the two murder suspects in a room together, after which one made a confession? As in the London reporter’s death, Longmire, too did not think his behavior was suspicious.
--Marvin X

Mythology Defined or Don't Say Pussy


Marvin X and Akhbar Muhammad

Mythology Defined

Myth is all there is, like air, without myth we cannot breathe, therefore we die. Myth is the essence of religion. There are no rituals without myth--myth is the story, the word, hence the foundation of ritual. We take the myth and create the drama as in the original Osirian drama of resurrection, first the story then the enactment of the story, followed by the absorption of myth into the social-psychology of a people. Myth then becomes the foundation of culture, the purpose of existence and the goal of after-life.
Yes, culture is all that we do but all that we do is based on the myths we live by. When we suggest transcending myth it is an awesome challenge to the psyche and thus to the society. What white person wants to give up the myth of white supremacy. It is the essence of their being. Shall they become black? But black is not simply a color, it is a culture that is bound by myth as well. When we suggest giving up myth, we realize the task is daunting, for what shall a person stand upon, what rock, what reality?

We want the schools to change but again it shall involve dismantling the American mythology, all the lies, stories, dreams, holidays, statues, images, symbols that abound the society--in short, a decolonialization must occur—or call it detoxification. The teachers cannot teach a different way because they are victims of myth as well, trapped in their madness which is the essence of all they have been taught and certified to teach.

The black American psychologists are grappling with the problem of myth as I write. At their last national conference in Oakland they spoke about casting out Eurocentric psychology and returning to the ancient African healing philosophy. They want to transcend European psychotherapy for a more holistic approach that will embrace the entire being of the spiritually ill person, for sure, the mental is related to the physical to the social to the political to the economic. But as with education, how shall the mental health workers get certified to teach African healing when they have been trained in Eurocentric psychology? And what is the mythological foundation of African healing?

Imagine throwing out white education, but the question is can they heal the black mind with white psychology? As much as we applaud the psychotherapeutic peer group approach, prescribed in my manual How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, even the peer group is not sufficient unless the group bonds together in a holistic manner to overcome the myriad ills due to oppression.

The myth of love is an example of how we are entrapped in mythology. Love becomes an ever changing illusion based on materialism and economic security, thus it is a physical thing that in the end causes us to cry, "What does love have to do with it?" But in reality love is all there is. God is Love! Yet we spend a lifetime seeking that which is our essence. Surely we must be on the wrong path or in the wrong house of love. And after a lifetime with the beloved, we wonder was it in vain, a waste of energy, a pitiful existence with a beloved who hated our guts, was jealous, envious, greedy, yet this was our mate, this was us.

And so detoxification is in order to begin our recovery from sick mythology. We resist and deny anything is amiss but we must summon the strength to make a change, to jump out the box toward a brighter day. We fight leaving the comfort zone for it is all we know, like the slaves upon emancipation: where shall we go, what shall we do without the master? He was our everything, our god, our lover, our enforcer, our rapist even. But deconstructing alien mythology is the only way out, just as the dope fiend must stop using dope upon the pain of death. Now some choose death, the die-hards who claim dope is the best thing that ever happened to them. So they are not satisfied until they fall into the pit. The society addicted to sick mythology is no better than the common dope fiend. It is determined to commit mass suicide. America is not alone in this manner. It is the same with Israel, North Korea, Iran and elsewhere. Mythology (call it ideology if you wish) will be the final determinant of the political actions in the above nations.

Will they transcend their mythology and live or persist in their inordinacy until they die? The sooner we get beyond myth into a progressive, radical and revolutionary state of mind, the better we shall all be. But it would be a step forward if we simply stopped believing in the superiority of myth. This notion of superiority is probably worse than the myth itself. The myth of white supremacy is no better or worse than other myths, but the problem is when whites want to spread their myth and force it upon others who have their own mythology.

As far as I am concerned, let the whites in the American south keep their confederate flag, just don’t subject it upon me and my people. Keep that shit in yo house, your church or wherever you dwell and I don’t. And if I fly the Star and Crescent, leave me the hell alone. But let’s go deeper into the world of myth for a story is composed of words, thus we must consider linguistics or language when attempting to transcend myth, for the devil is in the language. We may therefore find ourselves in need of a new language in order to transcend myth, for we speak a mythical language, and just as we do not understand the mythology, we do not understand the language. To have a common language suggests we have agreed upon definitions, but again, what do you mean by love, and are you prepared to love your enemy? Can you love yourself, and who or what is yourself? Who is the black self, what is it?

We grappled with this problem in the 60s in trying to define a black esthetic. What is beauty and truth to us? Suddenly the Negro was ugly and black was beautiful, and for a moment there was a consensus and a people moved forward. And then came the breakdown and the consensus was gone. The natural hair style was no longer en vogue. Ugly became beautiful. Ugly was freedom, although we never got a consensus on what freedom meant, nor do we have one today. What is freedom to you is not freedom to me. You say freedom is a job, and that’s the totality of your freedom. Other people fight for land, natural resources, self determination, but you say just give you a job and you are satisfied. So how can we unite?

You say freedom is having sex between persons of the same sex. Nothing else matters to you in life. But we ask what does sex have to do with it? Were you put aboard the slave ships so you could have sex with the same gender loving persons, is this why your ancestors suffered in the cotton and cane fields, was it for sexual freedom, or what is possibly something that went far beyond pussy and dick, getting a nut in the dark or in some alley, bathroom, park? Again, we need to define some terms before we can move forward into the new era. Let’s list some terms and define them—and how can we do this when terms are ever shifting, for language is dynamic and fluid, Negro, Colored, black, African, Bilalian, Moorish, et al. We are forever changing our identity because we cannot come to a consensus as a people. At least the white people know they are white, they may not know anything else, but they know they are white.

You don’t know if you are black or white, man or woman—for the sands are constantly shifting under your feet—the result of your insecurity, personal and communal. It is an identity crisis of the most profound degree imaginable. So myth is composed with language, from myth to ritual, from ritual to reality, but language is the foundation. The child’s world only becomes real when it takes command of its “mother tongue.” Within the mother tongue is myth which is composed of surface and deep structure terminology and meaning, the said and the unsaid, the seen and the unseen.

We are that child that has yet to master language, hence our world is chaos without solid, safe and secure definitions, leading us not to know what is real and unreal, a confusion of self and kind. We are not certain our brother is a friend or foe. We are not sure if our mate is friend or foe, lover or hater. In a moment of passion we may hear words we never thought was in the heart of our lover, or we may use such words ourselves. Now there is more doubt and insecurity in an already fragile relationship, that more than likely originated in lust rather than anything that can be called love. And so we see the task before us, a psycho-linguistic mythological conundrum that will take centuries to resolve since in the global village our mythology is bound with other mythological tribes and nations, some of which seek our life blood.

We may be forced out of our slumber to shed the old raggedy clothes of worn out mythology, whether religious or political, sexual or social. Elijah told us the wisdom of this world is exhausted—one need only look around and listen to the language, the babble blowing in the wind, in spite of all the technology, all the human advancement. Surely, in spite of it all, reverse evolution has set in, a kind of atrophy, a freezing of the mental apparatus, a paralysis of thought while the very hour challenges us with the need for grand vision to make that great leap forward into the new millennium.--Marvin X

Don't Say Pussy

Don’t say pussy
just beat your woman half to death
because you own her
she yo private property
don't say pussy
just gang rape from America to Africa
from the streets of Richmond to the DA's office
don't say pussy
that's a nasty word
just cut off clitoris
it's African tradition
and we african to the bone
don't say pussy
let AIDS infect the world
but don't say pussy
say vagina
cunt
anything but pussy
say cat
dog
boo
anything but pussy
nastiest word in creation
we presume
don't say pussy
just be a church ho
jezebel in the temple
don't say pussy
people might understand
it's a woman's body not man's
not his pussy but hers
24/7 she owns it
you don't have a pussy
you don't have a pussy
pussy man
get the concept baby boy
now you got 25 to life for rape
don't say pussy
say asshole from now on
don't say pussy
abuse yo wife cause she gave up some
to yo buddy
only after you fucked her best friend
but don't say pussy
cause you own it
paid for it
got it legal
not in the alley
in yo house
so abuse it accuse it
but don't say it
send yo woman to the hospital
two black eyes
why not kill her cause she gave it up
in a revenge fuck
you taught her to say
"You don't have no evidence
I gave it up"
you told her that many times
on yo pussy runs
but don't say pussy
in anger management class
court mandated
since you so warped
wanna beat her
why not beat the white man
beat yo boss
not yo woman, yo pussy
you love so much
but it's gone now
ain't coming back
you so crude and rude
don't say pussy
just think about it.
think about who taught you pussy was dirty, nasty
the church, the pope, the bishop fucking little boys
what he know bout pussy
ain't pussy God's mother
holy Mary mother of God
who taught you pussy was nasty, funky
was it religions of men
wanting control of women and the fruit of their womb
control of property
control of the world
who are these men
did they come from women
did women teach them this madness
was it her breast milk
her kindness
wiping their asses
snotty noses
was it mama's hands taught them this
yet they hate pussy
will beat it to death, throw it in the Bay, on the roadside, in the woods
in the backyard, in the wall
what kind of people are these
constructing a world to hate pussy
the very thing that gave them life
won't let it be free
want to cage it box it handcuff it tie it up in the closet
what manner of man is this
what beast what cave animal what dog
still cave acting in the modern world
actually hating that which he loves
some kind of schizophrenic devil

can't do without pussy for five minutes
he wants to cum
wants some head
wants some yeah pussy
wants some ass
wants wants wants
but hates hates hates pussy
a sick man really
go to the pussy doctor
not the gyno but the psycho
talk to him bout yo problem
why you so warped demented deranged
want to get violent over her pussy
that you can't own no matter what the papers say
no matter how much you pay on yo pussy bill
you can't own it dog
don't think you own it for a minute cause you don't you can't
it's not yours to own baby boy
get a life a real life in a hurry
before the end of the world
don't you see it coming
and you still stuck on stupid
go be dead in this life
dead in the hereafter
be careful
pussy gives life and pussy takes life
you can't beat it
too strong
you lose in the end
pussy always wins
pussy bad
better ax somebody.
go get a healing!

Parable of the Bitter Bitch





Parable of the Bitter Bitch

In Dr. Julia Hare’s recent book The Politically and Sexually Anorexic Black Woman, is described a personality devoid of sexual desire and political action, a person so traumatized she is of no use to herself or anyone else, although this person may seek escape in lesbianism to assuage the pain of sexual deprivation and the abuse of patriarchal domination.

But to her surprise, she may soon find herself under female domination on a level equal if not surpassing patriarchal domination. Yes, now she is a victim of the matriarchy, finding no escape except the temporary tenderness of her gender group’s gentle massaging of her wounds, which are healed with the feminine touch so missing in the rough masculine approach upon her psychosexuality.

But no matter what gender, persons in the Western world are prone to oppress and dominate in their interpersonal relations. Thus in homosexual relations, partner abuse and violence is equal if not more violent than traditional male/female partner abuse. We are aware of a young lesbian who is avoiding a confrontation with two lovers who want to “beat her up.”

And we recall the tragic case of choreographer Raymond Sawyer who was stabbed over fifty times by his lover or associates. In short, everybody wants to dominate in the spirit of white supremacy socialization. There is thus the need to detoxify from our addiction to white supremacy culture, including the psychosexuality inherent in such culture, no matter the gender of the participants.
The result is persons with the bitter bitch syndrome, exhibiting a hatred, jealousy and envy that is obvious in their aura upon approach. It can be seen in the evil vibe they give off, the sinister look in their eyes, especially when a heterosexual man approaches or interacts with a person in their homosexual gender group. People are generally insecure in their relationships, simply because their personalities are fragile, making them apprehensive and ultra sensitive to the approach of any person outside the group--thus the bitter bitch syndrome.

Now this syndrome transcends homosexuality because the heterosexual woman, who in Dr. Hare’s view is anorexic, is bitter as well against the male who ignores her for “foreign women,” in the manner of Samson and Delilah, especially those brothers sporting locks and spouting One Love, Iree, Jah Rastafari, although a true Rasta would not be seen with Babylon woman. Sisters long ago gave up attending Reggae concerts because brothers were so entwined with Babylon woman that it became useless to seek a man in such venues. More reason for the Bitter Bitch Syndrome. And it is the same with the Hip Hop generation who are edumakated in Kemetic science or Afrocentricism, but opts for foreign women to the detriment of the conscious sister who is left alone while her Kemetic brother again finds solace in the arms of women who caused his people’s downfall 6000 years ago in the Nile Valley culture.

But he is so absorbed in his intellectuality that history escapes him, robbing him of the experience of love and nurturing with his natural mate. The trials and tribulations of Hillary Clinton’s run for the presidential nomination revealed the white supremacy of her and her sisters, to say nothing of her racist husband, Billy boy, the first black president—so Obama is the second?

Alas, I must quote Fahizah who has informed us the white woman is the bearer of children who shall inherit the white supremacy world of her fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, and the Negro like the tragic Othello, yet is blind to their agenda, especially since he has no agenda of his own, but is free styling in a boat without a rudder, riding a bicycle without a kickstand.

In the Destruction of African Civilization, Chancellor Williams taught us how after cohabitating with foreign men, the African mothers raised children with misplaced loyalties that have persisted down to the present moment in the multiracial children. Are they black or white, shall they identify with the African mother or foreign father—the tragic mulatto syndrome that has morphed into the bitter bitch syndrome of today.

“Why does the black man hate me?” a so-called conscious sister asked me recently. Now I have written that often it is the woman’s mouth that turns off the black man so he is unable to desire her sexually. There is thus an urgent need for males and females to again learn the language of love; otherwise the anorexia will be an addiction of both genders.

Neither will have the desire to experience sexual love with each other. We think maybe it is time to have a great love fest in the community, a ritual to celebrate the spirituality of sexuality, making it a healing tool in our relations and thus bury the bitter bitch syndrome, no matter what gender.
--Marvin X
from The Wisdom of Plato Negro, parables/fables, BBP, 2012.

Friday, November 22, 2013

Seattle's new socialist council member on the End of U.S. Capitalism


Josh Eidelson
November 18, 2013
Salon
 
An interview with Seattle's new socialist councilmember, Kshama Sawant.
 
 

Kshama Sawant, Salon / AP/Ted S. Warren,
 
 
On November 5, Seattle voters made Occupy activist and economics professor Kshama Sawant the first avowed socialist city council member in their city’s history – and the country’s first big city socialist council member in decades. In an interview Thursday – one day before her vote count lead spurred her opponent to concede the race – Sawant slammed Obama economics, suggested she could live to see the end of U.S. capitalism, and offered a socialist vision for transforming Boeing. A condensed version of our conversation follows.

It appears you’re on the cusp of winning a major city’s council race as a socialist. How did that happen?

I think the basis for everything that’s happening in Seattle, and everywhere else, is the fallout of the economic crisis … In Seattle, we are seeing a city that is very wealthy but is very unequal, and has become unaffordable for the vast majority of people …

Along with our [state Legislature] campaign last year and [city council] this year, we’ve seen a movement towards $15 an hour through the fast food movement … workers have courageously gone out on one-day strikes … The workers of [nearby airport city] SeaTac and the labor movement, they put a $15 an hour minimum wage initiative on the ballot for SeaTac city, and that is now leading …
All of this is happening in the cauldron of the economic crisis and the burden placed on the shoulders of working people … The conditions that shape people’s consciousness in Seattle are not different from anywhere else. And in fact, there is a deep frustration and disgust with the political system … This is the background in which our campaign has had a resounding echo.

After the 2008 financial crash, were you disappointed that there wasn’t more of a left turn in U.S. policy at the national level?

I think it’s been it’s been demoralizing for the left for a while. But at the same time, I think what we’re seeing is a slow but steady change, and the Occupy movement was a really significant expression of the disenchantment from the system that we knew that everybody was feeling…
In the absence of movements, especially mass movements, people tend to feel atomized, and everybody is privately thinking that “the system is not working for me.” The Occupy movement, what it did was it ended that silence and people were more openly talking about the economic crisis, the fact that the banks got bailed out and the rest of us were left with unemployment, low-wage jobs, and an epidemic of foreclosures and evictions. So I think, contrary to what people thought…It’s really been a period where newer, small but new movements are starting to rise up. There’s been the Occupy Homes campaign in Minnesota, which has actually prevented several foreclosures…And there’s been sort of initial eruptions of the environmental movement.

…Now, what [the] Left has to do is to recognize that there is an opening here, there is a hunger among people in the United States, especially young people, young working people…In reality, what has become a dirty word is capitalism. Young people can see that the system does not offer any solutions. They can see that a two-party system is not working for them. But what is the alternative? We have to provide the alternative…

Boeing workers…rejected this contract that has been forced on them by Boeing executives [who are] holding the state hostage to their demands…Every few years Boeing demands a massive corporate giveaway from the state, and the state each time gives into it – and this is a Democratic governor of the state who was leading this effort. For Boeing workers, it’s very clear that neither of the two parties is going to stand by them. And so the signal that it sends to the labor movement is that we have to have our own political organization.

So what is the most likely path in your view to making the United States more socialist?
I wouldn’t call it “more socialist,” in the sense that it doesn’t make sense: It can be either capitalism or socialism. But what we can do, in the journey toward making the economy into something that works for everybody: We have to fight for major reforms under capitalism … We are going to be pushing forward for $15 an hour minimum wage in Seattle in 2014 …

The only way we can get that any of these demands to be fulfilled is if we have mass movements of workers and young people coming together in an organized way and demanding these reforms …
But we also have to be honest … That’s not going to be enough. Because the system itself is a system of crises … Capitalism does not have the ability to generate the kind of living wage jobs that will be necessary in order to sustain a decent standard of living for the majority … So we have to have a strategy where we not only fight for every reform that we can get, including single payer healthcare, but … It can’t be in isolation from also thinking about fundamental shift in society …

In all this discussion, we cannot ignore the questions about climate change that are looming large in terms of this. And capitalism has shown itself completely incapable of addressing this crisis. And in some ways that’s as compelling a reason as any to think about a fundamental shift.
Do you believe that capitalism can or will end in the United States in your lifetime?

I can’t give a definitive answer to that because it will depend on what role we play – you know, we as in working people, young people, older people, people who have a stake in changing society, you know – it’s in our hands … We have to point the way forward, and that is the responsibility of the left, and we’re trying to do that. But we need other forces to step in.

We need the labor movement to play a huge role in this. And you know, one of the things that the labor movement can do is it can join hands with the environmental movement … The other thing the labor movement needs to do is run their own candidates, independent of the two parties, independent of corporate money, and show that it’s possible.

I mean, our campaign has shown that you don’t have to obey the rules.
In the best case scenario for you, the day that capitalism ended in the United States — how would that happen, what form would that transition take?

It would be difficult for me to lay out a blueprint of that. But … we can think about what it will require …
Capitalism is a system where it’s extremely productive, and productivity rates are at an all-time high, but the gains of the productivity are delivered almost exclusively to a very tiny elite at the top …
Boeing has an enormous factory, [as well as] all the auto factories that are lying defunct right now in the U.S. — they all have enormous capacity for production. And there’s any number of workers with the skills, and people who have the potential of learning those skills. And instead we have a situation where, because we don’t have a say in the production, either the machines are lying idle, or the machines are being used to produce destructive machines like drones.

So what we need to do is to take the machines and the factories into democratic, say, democratic ownership — and the workers can contribute rail cars or buses, something like that, something that is beneficial to society. And that’s something that creates jobs — it will create living wage jobs …
That’s the kind of system that we need, where the decisions on what to do with resources, and what to produce, how much of it to produce, that is made in accordance with democratic principles, and in accordance with what human society needs, not because the Wal-Mart CEO needs to make 2 percentage points more profits this quarter.

Under that vision of socialism, would there still be a Seattle City Council?

Absolutely. There has to be elected representation. There would still be unions. There has to be accountability.

What will change is how democracy actually functions. I mean, today we have a certain level of democracy — I mean, when you look at the vote, that’s true. And we are running within the system. But it’s a very limited form of democracy. You know, in order to get your message across, if you are a campaign with loads of corporate money, it’s easier for you. If you’re going against the status quo, it’s harder … And voters themselves are disenfranchised in so many ways …

Democracy is nonetheless absolutely the bedrock of socialism. In fact, I would say that democracy is absolutely critical for this vision to come alive. And in fact democracy is antithetical in many ways to capitalism. And in fact this democracy that we have is something that allows us to do a little bit within the system, but that’s not what the capitalist class want. I mean, they do not want us to fight for $15 an hour, they don’t want to give that. But we’re able to fight for it within the system. But that’s despite capitalism, not because of capitalism.

President Obama told the Business Roundtable – speaking of “the capitalist class” – in his first term that he’s an “ardent believer in the free market,” and that he sees three roles for government: to create rules for a level playing field; to provide things that individuals can’t do for themselves; and to provide a social safety net. What do you make of that kind of politics?

First of all, I think Obama is being quite honest … he believes in capitalism. And so for people to have the faith that he is going to really fight against those ideas … there is no basis in reality for that …
I would say that the “free market” is basically free for the super-wealthy, and extremely un-free for the rest of us. Because they dictate the terms. And so this idea that the free market can generate conditions where social programs can thrive and a level playing field can be created — it is an oxymoron. Because what the capitalist market does – and that’s what they call the “free market” – is that if you are a big player, like one of the oil companies, then you are in the best position to consolidate your wealth even further … One of the systematic, statistical realities under capitalism is intergenerational transmission of wealth and intergenerational transmissions of poverty …

I often ask my students, “What do you think is the best way of making money under capitalism?” They often give me interesting answers, like maybe [creating] an app for an iPhone … I tell them, “Look, the best way of making money under capitalism is to have money in the first place” …
You also hear people saying, well, it’s “crony capitalism” or it’s “disaster capitalism” or some other capitalism. Well, the fact is, you know, they’re all dancing around [that] this is capitalism … It’s not built into the system that the goal is to ensure that socially responsible life is possible. The goal is to maximize profits for those who already have wealth …

The reality is that capitalism rewards the biggest corporations and it tends toward monopoly. That is what capitalism is.

If you end up on the city council, how different is your agenda on the council and your voting record going to be from the liberal Democrats on the Seattle City Council?
Most of them are typical, homogenous block of more pro-Big Business conservative advocates, although in name they’re all Democrats … Seattle, like most major cities of the United States, is ruled by the Democratic Party establishment. And all of the problems that we see here, you know, crisis of affordable housing, low-wage jobs and all of those things, lie at the doorstep of the Democratic Party …
One [example] was a vote on whether the city should allow regulated homeless encampments … a very necessary stopgap measure to protect families from the ravages of homelessness. And my opponent … was the fifth vote that crushed it …

Another example — this is also politically really instructive — is the paid sick leave for Seattle workers  … That was possible because rank-and-file workers and the labor movement took it on themselves — I mean, they were the ones who championed it. They were out on the streets demonstrating and demanding that the council pass a paid sick leave initiative … That, in combination with the fact that there are one or two more progressive voices on City Council who took that on and pushed for it, ensured that basically the issue was passed … My opponent [cast the] sole vote against it. That one thing should be enough for people to not elect him again, because that was a completely unconscionable thing to do…

When we launched our campaign, and it was early this year, no one else was talking about $15 an hour except for us and the fast food workers, and all the corporate candidates — including the mayoral candidates — were very, very carefully avoiding it … Ultimately, it was impossible for the corporate candidates to ignore, and toward the end of the campaign you had both of the mayoral candidates putting on paper that they support $15 an hour …

What I can do on the City Council as one socialist is really far more than what people imagine it to be. Because it won’t just be my voice … to talk to other council members, but it’s also going to be to continue to really encourage and to invite public pressure into it. Which is how this camp succeeded.
Are there countries that you look to as good examples of socialism?

There is no real full example … but there are elements of what we are talking about in our vision for a future society …

In the United States, the creation of the welfare program in the first place. The creation of Social Security. All the advances that have been made in women’s rights and LGBT rights — a lot of this is well within the vision of what I would consider a really humane society in the future, and what I consider socialism … The gains that we have today are very consistent with our vision for a socialist society, and also they came about because a lot of these movements were headed by socialists.
And there are elements of socialism or socialist society in many other countries as well. So if you look at Finland and the funding for public education, how strong the teachers’ unions are, the full funding for healthcare in Cuba, also education. These are all elements that we would want to see put in place in a future society.

But at the end of the day, it’s not possible to have socialism in one country … If resources are organized globally along capitalist lines, it’s just not possible to provide that really high standard of living that some people have to everybody else  …

[A] small section of the working class has attained a really good standard of living. But first of all, that was not delivered to the vast majority. And secondly, and more importantly, those kinds of living are starting to disappear … It’s a politics of austerity in Europe, and all of these programs are under major assault. And so that shows you that you can’t have socialism in one country, and you can’t stop at social democracy. You can’t stop at having reforms … We have to have a fundamental shift.
In the past few decades, has the United States been moving closer toward that ideal of socialism, or further away from it?

As far as what has been happening broadly in the economy, no, it hasn’t been moving closer to socialism. And in fact what’s been happening is that some of the gains of the post-Second World War era, the creation of the middle class, for example, the funding for public education, a lot of these things are under attack … You don’t have to be a socialist economist for someone to admit that the middle class is fast disappearing. You know, Paul Krugman talks about it. So that’s going in the wrong direction.

What it shows is that, you know, when there is a major crisis in capitalism, the people who are going to be squeezed are working people.

When did you become a socialist and what brought you to socialism?

Consciously, I became a socialist when I came to Seattle, and I just happened to attend a meeting where somebody from Socialist Alternative gave a speech. And for me, there was — that was exactly what I was looking for. And I haven’t looked back since then.

But I would say more accurately that I have always been a socialist, but less consciously. From my very childhood, it was just the experience of growing up in Mumbai, India, and seeing just the ocean of poverty and misery all around me. And for me, it was not simply a question of outrage or fellow-feeling. Of course that’s the starting point, but for me it’s a logical question as well. Which is: How is it possible that there is so much wealth in society, and you can see that there are so many wealthy people who are just wealthy beyond measure, and you have such unimaginable poverty and misery, and just absolute horrendous conditions that human beings are living in …

It just seemed very, just unacceptable to me logically that that situation was a natural one. I mean, I could see that it had nothing to do with resources or productivity. It was clearly a political obstacle to eliminating poverty.