IRSCNA: Our Position on the US Presidential Election -- The Irish Voice

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Date Posted: Wednesday, October 24, 4:28:16
Author: IRSCNA
Subject: IRSCNA: Our Position on the US Presidential Election

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

24 October 2012
Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America

Our Position on the US Presidential Election

As the 2012 presidential election in the United States approaches, we
in the Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America wish to
state our position for the record.

Simply put, the presidential election, like all bourgeois elections,
is a sham. Workers are asked to vote on which representative of the
ruling class should lead the capitalist state's government for the
next four years. No matter which major party candidate wins, the
ruling class wins, while the working class, our class, continues to
lose.

It's certainly true that there are policy differences between Mitt
Romney and incumbent Barack Obama, but both candidates are part of
the capitalist status quo and fully endorse that status quo. Neither
man is a friend to the working class, no matter how much they may
pander to sections of it.

We certainly understand why some workers choose to vote for the least
conservative of the major candidates, if only because they think that
candidate will be slightly less harmful and may enact some reforms,
or even just to keep the most conservative one out of office. We
can't condemn any member of the working class who votes on that
basis, but we think it would be better to protest the capitalist
status quo by voting for an alternative candidate and then trying to
create real change through class struggle.

If there's a revolutionary socialist candidate on the ballot in your
state, vote for them instead of the "least conservative" major party
candidate, and if there isn't, write one in. While socialism won't be
built through bourgeois elections, we think a vote for a
revolutionary socialist alternative is a worthy one. It demonstrates
that we don't want the status quo and that we do have an alternative
vision.

In particular, if you live in one of the eleven states where their
campaign is on the ballot, we suggest voting for the Party for
Socialism and Liberation ticket of Peta Lindsay and Yari Osorio for
President and Vice-President of the United States. The revolutionary
politics of working class women and men like Lindsay and Osorio
represent a real alternative to the status quo.

Their campaign website with further information can be found here:
<a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.votepsl.org/">http://www.votepsl.org/</a>

However, ultimately it's the working class organizing and exercising
our collective will through solidarity and mass struggle that will
transform society.

The fundamental cause of working class misery is the ownership of the
means of production, distribution, and exchange concentrated in the
hands of the capitalist class, a tiny minority. As long as the
working class, including the higher paid members of the class who
falsely see themselves as a middle class, are forced to sell their
labor power to a small, parasitical class, it will continue to
suffer.

As the ongoing financial crisis once again proves, capitalism is an
inherently unstable system that places private profit above the
public good. The stock market is a casino for capitalists and
aspiring capitalists, where an entire economy can be destroyed in the
pursuit of profit. Capitalism cannot be reformed. Reformists have
been trying to do so for over two hundred years without success
because reformism cannot address the root cause of exploitation and
alienation, which is the existence of the capitalist system itself.

Only the working class can put an end to the exploitation and
alienation caused by capitalism by organizing and fighting for the
alternative of socialism, where the working class will own the means
of production, distribution, and exchange, administered
democratically through new institutions created by the working class
for its own purposes.

Socialism cannot be built by a minority, no matter how class
conscious it may be. It can only be built by the masses as they
liberate themselves from capitalist ideology, an ideology that is
promoted on a daily basis through educational institutions and the
mass media. We view Peta Lindsay and Yari Osorio as comrades in the
struggle to build a revolutionary socialist alternative to
capitalism, both in the United States and worldwide.

Since 1984, the Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North
America have existed to support the revolutionary, anti-imperialist
Irish Republican Socialist Party in its struggle to liberate Ireland
from capitalism and imperialist occupation, and as North Americans
we also support socialist revolutions in our own countries.

The power to bring about real change resides in the hearts and minds
of every working class man or woman. We have the power. Don't give
away your power by voting for a capitalist politician. We can create
real change. In fighting for a better future for our class, we must
take every opportunity to support fellow revolutionaries. It's long
past time to build a revolutionary workers' movement right in the
heart of world imperialism.

Onward to victory!

###

Irish Republican Socialist Committees of North America
PO Box 5174
Champaign IL 61825
USA
irscna@irsm.org
<a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.irscna.org/">http://www.irscna.org/</a>
<a rel=nofollow target=_blank href="http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html">http://www.irsp.ie/irscna.html</a>

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