Socialist Contingent Will Join Oct 2nd March and Rally in Opposition to the Two-Party State

A press release from Dan Labotz, Socialist Party candidate for Senate in Ohio:

Dan La Botz, the Socialist Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, will join hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C. on October 2 in a rally for jobs, peace, and justice. The Cincinnati school teacher, however, will be marching to the rally with a Socialist Contingent sparked by his campaign and endorsed by other socialist organizations as well as prominent activists and intellectuals throughout the country.

La Botz’s call for his Ohio supporters to join him in Washington sparked the Socialist Contingent subsequently joined by many other groups and prominent individuals from around the country. Among the endorsers of the Socialist Contingent is Cindy Sheehan . . .

The Socialist Contingent, says La Botz, will be carrying signs calling upon Congress to create “Good Jobs for All,” “Tax the Rich,” “Fight the Right,” and “End the Wars: Out Now.” And, unlike the organizers of the rally, says La Botz, he and the others in the Socialist Contingent won’t be calling on people to vote for the Democratic Party on November 2. “The Democratic Party’s national, state and big-city leadership and its neoliberal policies have betrayed the Democratic Party rank and file,” said the longtime activist.

They Saved the Bankers—But Not Our Jobs

The October 2 rally, called “One Nation Working Together” was conceived by the leadership of 1199 SEIU, a health care workers union, and then joined by the AFL-CIO, the NAACP and other labor, civil rights, anti-war, gay and lesbian and environmental organizations. La Botz said that, “As a union member and an NAACP member, I want to be there and be part of this huge rally of working people for jobs, peace and justice.”

But says La Botz, he doesn’t agree with the strategy of the leaders of the labor and civil rights organizations. “Their strategy seems to be to try to win jobs, peace and justice by voting for the Democratic Party on November 2. “That won’t work,” says La Botz. “The Republican and Democratic parties have demonstrated that they have no interest and no ability to resolve the economic crisis in a way that will benefit American working people. Both the Republicans and Democrats represent the corporations, not the American people, you can see that in their record.”

“They saved the bankers, the CEOs of the auto companies, the insurance companies, and they’ve taken care of the oil companies—but they haven’t saved us. We are still losing our homes and our jobs. Young people can’t get that all-important first job and many can’t afford to go to college. We still face rising health insurance costs. We need a full-economy where everyone has a good job at a living wage. We need an alternative. The alternative is democratic socialism.”

One Nation? Or Two?

The October 2 Washington D.C. rally is called “One Nation.” “But we’re not one nation,” said La Botz. “We’re two nations: a nation of bankers, corporate executives, corporate lawyers and other bosses, and a nation of working people. Their nation has gotten rich while our nation has gotten poor.”

“We can’t continue to let small groups of men meeting in mahogany board rooms continue to make decisions that close down workplaces, that destroy our environment, and that push the United States into foreign wars,” said the 65-year old Spanish teacher and socialist organizer. “We need to end the domination of our economy, society and political system by the corporations. We need to bring those corporations under the control of the American people.”

“We need to end the anarchy of capitalism with its boom and bust cycle and every few years another recession,” said La Botz. “We as a people need to take control of our economic life, to democratically create a plan for our future, one where everyone has a job at a living wage, where we do not destroy the environment, and where we end the U.S. wars abroad.”