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On the eve of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia where thousands gathered to nominate Hillary Clinton for president, the well-known Socialist from Seattle, Kshama Sawant, attacked the policies and accomplishments of the Democratic Party.
The Seattle City Councillor was visiting the city July 24, to help spur a local movement against the building of a football stadium. Her words took on significance in light of the unresolved split among Democrats between supporters of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders whose campaign called for a political revolution and was supported by Sawant and her Alternative Socialist Party, and those behind Clinton’s candidacy. Despite Sanders’ endorsement of Clinton after bitter infighting, those “feeling the Bern” left the convention angry almost to a man.
“Our power does not come and will never come from currying favor with the Democratic Party,” Sawant declared at a community meeting in North Philadelphia, where activists and residents are opposing a plan by Temple University to build a football stadium in the low-income but gentrifying neighborhood and many derided Democrats, Salon.com reported.
“It’s a fight over a stadium that socialists hope might also function as a springboard to challenge Democrats’ 64-year hold on city government,” the magazine reported. Sawant is recognized for leading the victory to get the $15 minimum wage approved in Seattle in 20 13 and making it a law in 2014.
She hosted Sanders for a fundraiser and rallied Socialists in Washington to his side. But when he endorsed Clinton around mid-July, Sawant lashed out at him for “abandoning” the revolution.
“Bernie Sanders’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton has hugely disappointed millions of his supporters,” Sawant said in an opinion piece in the magazine Counterpunch, July 13. “Many of those inspired by his call for a political revolution had held out hope, even until now, that he would refuse to endorse Wall Street’s favored candidate,” she said, “But those hopes have come crashing down.”
Socialist policies would never succeed by supporting what she called “establishment politicians” like Clinton, calling the first woman presidential candidate a “chief representative” of “brutal big business policies” of the political establishment. “The strategy of lesser evilism has been an utter disaster for the 99%,” Sawant said in her commentary. She has described President Obama and his “pro-corporate” policies in similar terms.
The post Don’t Curry Favor With Democrats: Socialist From Seattle Tells Philadelphia appeared first on News India Times.
