ARTICLE FOR THE PARTISAN/PEACE & FREEDOM PARTY
Statement by Peace & Freedom Party Candidate for Governor
By Gloria Estela La Riva
As Peace & Freedom Candidate for Governor, I am the only working
class candidate for governor. Peace and Freedom Party is the only ballot
status party to take a consistent progressive stand on all the issues. By
election time I will probably be on strike fighting anti-labor attacks at
the San Francisco daily newspapers. I am a member of the Bay Area
Typographical Union Local 21, which, along with seven other unions in the
Conference of Newspaper Unions, is fighting all-out union-busting by the
Hearsts, DeYoungs and Theriots who own the S.F. Examiner, S.F. Chronicle
and S.F. Newspaper Agency.
Union-busting is part and parcel of the war on the conditions of
the working class being conducted right now by the U.S. ruling class.
Some of the other components of this assault include the racist and
fascist immigrant-bashing Prop. 187, Prop. 184 "Three Strikes,
You're Out" and the current Crime Bill in the Congress, all of which
greatly increase the means of repression. These laws, if passed will put
more and more racist cops on the streets and build more Pelican Bay
prisons, where Black and Latino prisoners--mostly first-time drug
offenders--are maimed and brutalized. $30,000 is spent just to keep one
prisoner locked up for one year. This money should be spent for education
and to create jobs with decent wages!
We need jobs, not jails. If elected, I will use my office to
organize the unorganized, ban scabs, and throw open the illegal garment
sweat shops such as those run by contractors on behalf of companies like
Esprit and Jessica McClintock. I support the creation of a massive jobs
program. I will also use my office to enact universal health coverage for
everyone, regardless of legal status. The California Health Security Act
(Single Payer Initiative) Prop. 186 is an important first step toward
making healthcare a right.
This year you can see clearly that the Democratic Party
represents the same bosses and bankers as the Republican Party. At
Kathleen Brown's first press conference in June after she won the
Democratic nomination, she stated that Pete Wilson was "soft on crime!"
We stand for funding jobs and schools, not jails and defeating Prop. 184
(Three Strikes).
Poor and working people's interests will never be represented by
either party of big business. For instance, Clinton pulled out all the
stops to pass NAFTA, but didn't lift a finger to push the anti-scab bill
in Congress. He made deals with the health insurance companies and now
he's letting the employers off the hook. We don't need more broken
promises from the "lesser evil." We need to tax big business to pay for
jobs, education, housing and healthcare for all.
Some people think that electing Brown will be a victory for
women's rights. But Brown, born into a wealthy and well connected
family, doesn't know first hand the issues facing poor and working class
women: the need for jobs at decent wages, truly affordable
housing, access to healthcare and quality childcare. I have put my body
on the line defending women's health clinics against the anti-choice
terrorists, and I have been arrested protesting outside a phony pregnancy
"clinic" run by the right-wing. Senators Feinstein and Boxer are prime
examples of how reactionary women capitalist politicians can be.
The biggest threat today to the interests and lives of the
workers is the current assault on immigrant workers. The La Riva Campaign
has made fighting immigrant-bashing Prop.187 our top priority. Attacks on
immigrants increase their exploitation to inhuman levels and lower
conditions for all working people. Immigrant bashing is a weapon of the
bosses and intended to prevent working-class unity. The ruling class
knows that once the working class -- African American, Latino, white,
Native, Asian and Pacific Islander and Arab, men and women, lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and straight -- unites, the days of the haves will be
numbered. The great multi-national working class produces everything in
society and has the ability to run society without the bosses, and run it
far better.
Working people should share the wealth they produce; and we can
do it without destroying the environment. Ultimately we need socialism.
Until we throw off the death grip of the huge corporations, they will
continue to poison us at home and kill and maim us on the
job! My party, Workers World Party, has been active in these struggles
of workers and oppressed people for 35 years, and has been supportive of
Peace and Freedom Party since its inception.
Vote La Riva for Governor. Vote for the working class, not the
interests of the rich.
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