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"As a worker, a union leader who represents workers who are losing their jobs left and right, my run for the presidency is against the corporations, the banks and big money—the pillars of the ‘American plutocracy,’ declared Gloria La Riva in her election campaign blog, larivaforpresident.blogspot.com.

"Our election campaign is a dynamic, fighting campaign that will reach to every community in large cities, small towns

La Riva and Eugene Puryear, a Howard University student, are running for president and vice president in the 2008 elections. They expect to attain ballot status in 17 to 20 states.

La Riva said, "That Hillary Clinton can donate $5 million of her own money without blinking an eye—as reported in the media today—shows that the candidates of the two main capitalist parties view politics through the filter of the plutocrats. This election is all about millionaires’ and billionaires’ money determining the election outcome.

"Whether it is Mitt Romney investing $35 million of his personal fortune, or the Clinton campaign dipping into her fortune and Bill Clinton’s post-presidential million-dollar booty to come up with $5 million more, this election is about money and the real power behind that money," said La Riva.

"Every one of the Democratic and Republican candidates fully intends to protect the profits of the capitalists if they are elected. It is interesting that the Democrats, both Obama and Clinton, are now the larger recipients of corporate donations than the Republicans. The corporations see no real difference, and their donations are assurance that whoever becomes president will sit comfortably in their pockets and do their bidding," La Riva said.

She continued, "I represent workers in the newspaper industry. This industry and the workers in it have been devastated by mass layoffs, outsourcing and media consolidation. Many are about to run out of unemployment benefits, and this is true for millions more unemployment workers.

"Yet today in the House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans agreed not to extend unemployment benefits by 13 weeks as part of the bipartisan ‘economic rescue’ package. Their ‘rescue’ is a pittance for workers, which is really intended to boost spending for the benefit of big business. It provides no real solutions for millions of working and poor people who are in crisis."

Corporate newspaper owners have cut thousands of jobs in recent months, with major layoffs recently at the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times. Cuts have also plagued newspaper workers in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and may hit Minneapolis and Philadelphia hard in the coming months. All of these cuts disregard workers’ needs and support the corporations’ bottom line—increasing profits.

La Riva noted, "Overall, in the coming year unemployment will rapidly grow. As millions of people lose their homes from foreclosures, hundreds of thousands of workers in construction will be laid off. That is fine for the banking and corporate plutocrats, their political representatives, and stock holdings, but it is a catastrophe for millions of working people."

The Party for Socialism and Liberation is running Gloria La Riva for president and Eugene Puryear for vice president to fight on behalf of working people; not the multi-millionaires and corporate thieves who back the major capitalist candidates. Whichever candidate of capitalism wins the election, working people lose.

"This is the richest country in the world," commented La Riva. "The PSL is putting people’s needs first. A job should be a legal right that cannot be taken away by any capitalist. The property rights of the capitalists are considered sacred—no one is legally entitled to take the property of the capitalist owners. We are demanding that a workers job be vested with the same legal entitlement as any other property right. The PSL candidates are for enshrining a 'Job as a Legal Right' into the constitution of the United States," said La Riva.

"If you can spend millions to win elected office you won't lose sleep over the unemployment crisis in the United States. The La Riva/Puryear campaign represents the interests of the tens of millions of workers who have no cushion, who are worried about their jobs and holding onto their homes, who are driven into bankruptcy by lack of healthcare. Our campaign represents the forces in society who looking for deep, profound and radical change—not as an empty campaign slogan but in the day-in and day-out struggle of the that gets to vote every four years but which is never represented in the White House, Congress or the Supreme Court."

// posted by Alice @ Friday, February 08, 2008