Upstream - [UNLOCKED] Voting for Socialism w/ Claudia De La Cruz & Karina Garcia

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

There’s that saying that you’ve probably heard a million times: doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is a sign of psychosis. Whether or not that’s something you might find in the DSM-5 manual, it certainly has a strong ring of truth to it. And it’s also something that rings profoundly true when we think about much of the broader left and liberal left strategy when it comes to presidential elections in the United States: just keep voting for the lesser of two evils and eventually things will sort themselves out. But all it takes is one brief look at our current conditions to understand that that attitude is, well, not exactly aligned with reality. When we survey either our current political, economic, ecological—really, any landscape, it’s beyond doubt that conditions have deteriorated—drastically. The far right, the hegemony of capitalism and imperialism, and the forces of reaction have all continued to grow in strength as we continue to acquiesce to the Democratic Party’s insistence that they are the bulwark against these forces and that by voting for the Democrats, we’re assuring that our democracy stays in tact. So we keep voting for them, and they keep breaking their promises—in fact, they don’t even really bother to promise much anymore because they know they’ve got us cornered—there’s nowhere else to go. But what if we could break this cycle? What if there was somewhere else to go? In this Patreon episode, we’re exploring an alternative to the two-party duopoly, an alternative to the two factions of capital that call themselves the Democrats and the Republicans. Claudia De la Cruz and Karina Garcia are running for President and Vice President with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, or PSL. In this conversion, we explore why Claudia and Karina are running, what platform they’re running on and what policies they’re proposing, and why it’s more important than ever for the working class to start building power and building its own party as an instrument for not just participating in electoral politics, but for building class consciousness, getting folks involved in organizing, and in providing a platform for political education that presents a clear alternative to the dismal and defeatist messages coming from the two corporate parties that rule over us on behalf of capital. Further Resources: Claudia and Karina 2024  Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) Upstream: A Marxist Perspective on Elections with August Nimtz  Thank you to Karla Reyes of the Claudia and Karina 2024 campaign and Carolyn Raider for this episode's cover art. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert Raymond. This episode of Upstream was made possible with support from listeners like you. Upstream is a labor of love — we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support If your organization wants to sponsor one of our upcoming documentaries, we have a number of sponsorship packages available. Find out more at  upstreampodcast.org/sponsorship For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Bluesky

A quick note before we jump into this Patreon episode. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making Upstream possible. We genuinely couldn't do this without you. Your support allows us to create bonus content like this, and it also allows us to provide most of our content for free so we can continue to provide political education media to the public and build our movement. Thank you, comrades. We hope you enjoy this conversation. provide political education media to the public and build our movement. Thank you comrades, we hope you enjoy this conversation. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, and ultimately they're safeguarding the same project. The only way we can actually get out of this cycle,

which is a murderous cycle, is building our own political instruments where we have participation in our interest as working class people are represented and at the heart of the work that is being done and the policies that are being developed. If we continue to do what the ruling class expects us to do, then we will never do what we urgently need to do as a class. And so this narrative of the lesser

of two evils splitting the vote, democracies on the ballot, again, this is all a narrative that has been developed by the ruling class, by our enemies, by our class enemies, to continue to engage us in this choosing poison, packaged differently,ison in red or poison in blue. And whether you pick one or the next, you're going to die anyway. And so we need to choose life. We need to choose other ways of doing things. You are listening to upstream upstream upstream upstream upstream. A podcast of documentaries and conversations that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics.

I'm Della Duncan. And I'm Robert Rehm. There's a saying that you've probably heard a million times, that doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results is a sign of psychosis. Whether or not that's something we'd actually find in the DSM-5 manual, it certainly has a strong ring of truth to it. And it's also something that rings profoundly true when we think about much of the broader left and liberal left strategy when it comes to the presidential elections of the United States. Just keep voting for the lesser of two evils and eventually things will sort themselves out. But it just takes one brief look at our current conditions to understand that that attitude

is, well, not exactly aligned with reality. When we survey either our current political, economic, ecological, or really any landscape, it's beyond a doubt that conditions have deteriorated drastically. The far right, the hegemony of capitalism and imperialism, and the forces of reaction, have all continued to grow in strength as we continue to acquiesce to the Democratic Party's insistence that they are the bulwark against these forces, and that by voting for the Democrats, we are assuring that our democracy stays intact. So we keep voting for them, and they keep breaking their promises. In fact, they don't even really bother to promise much anymore because they know they've

got us cornered. There's nowhere else to go. But what if we could break this cycle? What if there was somewhere else to go? In this Patreon episode, we're exploring an alternative to the two party duopoly, an alternative to the two factions of capital that call themselves the Democrats and the Republicans.

Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia are running for president and vice president with the party for socialism and Vice President with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, or PSL. In this conversation, we explore why Claudia and Karina are running, what platform they're running on and what policies they're proposing, and why it's more important than ever for the working class to start building power and building its own party as an instrument for not just participating in electoral politics, but for building class consciousness, getting folks

involved in organizing, and in providing a platform for political education that presents a clear alternative to the dismal and defeatist messages coming from the two corporate parties that rule over us on behalf of Capital. And now, here's Robert in conversation with Claudia de la Cruz and Karina, it's really a genuine pleasure to have both of you on the show. And I'm wondering if you could both maybe start by introducing yourselves for our listeners and talking maybe a little bit about how you came to do the work that you're doing. Well, thank you, Robert, for having us. It's a pleasure to be here. I come from a working-class family. My dad was a construction worker. My mother was an educator for 30-plus years in the New York City Department of Education.

And I started doing organizing and popular education work at the age of 13. I was a very curious person and I was mostly curious about the conditions in my community. I was born in the South Bronx and I lived there for a good chunk of my life and the South Bronx is one of the poorest congressional districts in the United States. I entered socialist politics through the church, and I was active and politically formed in a church that was grounded in the philosophy of liberation theology. And there I found many organizers, educators,

and some political exiles from Colombia, El Salvador, and other countries where U.S. intervention has completely destabilized economies and just society as a whole. And these folks participated in social movements and political parties in and outside of the United States. Most of them were atheists, which is really interesting and extremely committed to doing the good work to advance people's struggles.

I found a lot of the answers that I had in relationship to poverty and how was it possible that my parents working the amount of hours that they did couldn't afford to make ends meet. And I developed new questions, right? Like, if they're not poor because they're deficient, then who creates poverty? And how is it possible that some folks have more

than others and what about racial oppression and why are there political prisoners? And my consciousness was sharpened by being part of this community, being part of this collective of people who had the same vision of the world. I found a lot of the answers we could build in struggle. And some of the campaigns that I came into as a teenager were campaigns to free the Puerto Rican political prisoners. So I wanted to learn more about the colonial question in Puerto Rico.

I started doing that work with an organization called Pro Libertad in the 1990s, which is the same decade in which some of the Puerto Rican political prisoners that had been in prison for almost 25, 30 years were pardoned and only Oscar Lopez Rivera and another comrade stayed behind. Then there came the campaigns around the Fremomía of Bujammal and other political prisoners doing work with the Fremomia Coalition and the New York City Jericho movement and doing work around police brutality with the Mothers Against Police brutality specifically around the cases of Amadou Diallo and Anthony

Baez and others and again became more and more politicized through the struggle and through the connection and engagement with several of these communities. I worked really closely and continue to do a lot of work on solidarity with Cuba and Venezuela and internationalist work, understanding that socialism is something that we aspire and we work towards at an international level to be able to defend and build revolution all around the world. I co-founded an organization that did leadership development with young women in Washington Heights and the Bronx and did a lot of work around political education with cultural workers

in the Bronx as well to deepen the consciousness around the connection of working class movement building and the work of the artist drawing from people like Paul Robeson and Nina Simone and others, Claudia Jones. And that all culminated, I think, in some ways in co-founding the People's Forum, which is pretty much a reflection of the struggles that I have come out of and other comrades who co-founded the organization have also experienced. And I've been doing this work for almost 30 years. I've been part and accountable to organizations all my life. And so this electoral process is a new challenge, but it's part of a larger commitment to struggle.

And I've been doing this for 30 years before this electoral year, and I'll continue to do it after the electoral year. And it's my part of contributing to uprooting capitalism and building the movement that will make a socialist revolution happen in this country. Incredible. Thank you so much for that. And how about you, Karina? Yeah. Thank you so much for that. And how about you, Karina? Yeah, thank you for

having us. So I'm a Chicana from Southern California. My family are Mexican immigrants. My dad came to this country when he was 16 years old. He was undocumented. He worked his entire life in metals and manufacturing and big warehouses. And then now he's in his sixties and he's a roofer. big warehouses and then now he's in his 60s and he's a roofer. One of the most dangerous jobs. But yeah, so my whole family has similar stories of working, you know, 30, 40 years in this country and basically staying in the same place and that's not really unique to us. We know that that's actually the situation for millions of working class

families who no matter how hard they work are unable to really retire, unable to access basic dental care, honestly. Like, my family's a little bit lucky, some of them, because they can, like, you know, travel to Mexico, but that's not the case for everybody. So that's kind of like what my family background is. And then when I was 18 years old, I was very fortunate. I was able to get like a full financial aid

to be able to go to college. And so I moved to New York and I went to Columbia when I was 18 years old. And that's really where like my organizing really took hold, I guess, of my life. It started off sort of like, you know, I was really grateful that I was able to go to college. I knew how difficult it was for somebody from my class background

to be able to go to college. So I was real grateful. And then once I started to learn more about capitalism, then that humility started to turn more into a kind of humiliation, you know, because I started to realize that all of the suffering that my family was going through was unnecessary, was completely unnecessary and actually very cruel, because we do live in the richest country in the world and they know exactly why we came to this country. It's a consequence of US imperialism and the consequence of US corporations exploiting imperialism and the consequence of US corporations exploiting the resources, the labor, and the land of the entire globe. But I really learned that through being in the party.

I joined the party for socialism and liberation when I was 20. I was already doing a lot of activism around sweatshops and student labor solidarity campaigns with the United Tunisian sweatshops. But the party really brought together all of the different struggles that I was involved in, including at that point in 2006, the mega marches for immigrant rights. So, you know, those were the biggest demonstrations at that point in US history from the people that everybody said were too afraid to organize, too afraid to stand up for themselves,

undocumented people, and the party was involved in that struggle and it was involved in every other struggle, even though it was small at that time. And, you know, since then, when I graduated, I became a high school math teacher, and we were organizing a high school event against budget cuts, framerator rides. You know, this is a time when Trayvon Martin was killed. We were bringing students out against budget cuts, framerator rides. You know this is a time when Trayvon Martin was killed, we were bringing students out against police brutality and then after working as a teacher for a few years I worked for a national reproductive justice organization that focused around Latinas and I was basically for the last 10 years I was traveling around the country in southern states,

particularly in Texas and Florida but all over the country really southern states, particularly in Texas and Florida, but all over the country really, and organizing around reproductive justice, which brings together women's rights as workers, as people who can be pregnant in this country, who need child care, who need everything basically. So yeah, those are the struggles that I was involved in. So I'm wondering if you could maybe both talk a little bit about the process that led you both to run as president and vice president with the party for socialism and liberation, which you mentioned, PSL. And maybe in the same question, I'd

love it if you could talk a little bit about PSL, just for folks who might not be familiar. Yes, we're part of the PSL, which is the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and we're both in the leadership of the party. The party has been running candidates for years, and it was agreed in our last Congress that we would do it again this year.

And Karina and I were asked to take on the task and then voted in to be candidates. It's an organization that has been around for 20 years. I joined the PSL in 2020 but have been doing a lot of the work that I shared in my intro along the side of PSL for a good part of 19 years. And I think the process of joining this challenge and embarking in this process of election year as candidates was something that Karina and I didn't plan for.

I could speak for myself, but I'm pretty sure. I kind of feel the same way. We didn't plan for it. We didn't come to it as a desire to be in any type of limelight or to build a political career. It happens with politicians in this bourgeois system. It was taken up as a task, as a responsibility on behalf of the PSL, on behalf of the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

Understanding that democracy in this country is a sham, understanding that when we're talking about the duopoly, the ruling class parties, we're talking about parties that respond to Wall Street, to corporations that advance ruling class interest. And so in the tradition of socialist parties, we understood that it was necessary to intervene in the discussions around the electoral process, to intervene running candidates that would put a poll, put a flag up and say, we are socialists proudly. And it's highly significant to do that in a context where we know the majority of the people in this country don't see themselves represented in that duopoly,

and yet are forced to and fear-mongered into participating and legitimizing the ruling class parties. And so for us, it was really important to take up the task, understanding that we're doing this to build a political instrument of the working class, that we're doing this to build a political instrument of the working class, that we're doing this to contribute in building an independent movement of working class people in this country, in a context where the gaze has been lifted from a lot of people and people understand that bourgeois democracy doesn't work for them, that it doesn't respond to them, at the local level and at the national level. And decisions are made every day so-called on behalf of the people, but do not benefit the people of this country or the people of the world for that matter. And so for us intervening in this electoral campaign is a way of building the strength of working class people,

accumulating the forces of working class people, to create the political instrument that will allow us to make the transformation that is necessary in this country for working class people. And we understand that all achievements and advancements we have gained as working class people have been as that all achievements and advancements we have gained as working class people have been as a result of movement.

And so this campaign is part of a larger strategy of movement building. It's part of a larger strategy of building political instruments of working class people. There has been nothing that has been given by the ruling class politicians out of benevolence. It has all been as a result of struggle. So we can continue to legitimize them. And in doing so, the prospects of us becoming free and actually having a people's democracy seems further. And so we understand as a party and we understand as candidates that

this is the time to intervene because we don't have time to waste and people's consciousness are actually awakened. People are understanding that again the ruling class, duopoly, just doesn't work for us. It hasn't never worked for us really. And Karina, was there anything that you'd like to add to this same question? Yeah, I mean I could say that, you know, like what attracted me and I think what has attracted a lot of others into the party is that we're not just like a bunch of know-it-alls on the sidelines. Like the party is made up of fighters, people who actually take up all of the different

issues that working class people are facing, and we're working class ourselves. And so there's something very hopeful, and I don't wanna say even hopeful, because it's built, like our confidence is built on our organizing. And it's built on our experiences of struggling alongside each other. And we have our own organization,

we have our own politics, like we build our own spaces. Like we're not dependent on some corporations or some rich family to like come and sponsor us, and if they don't sponsor us, then we're not going to do anything like no, we have our own politics, our own party, our own organization. And so there's a lot of pride that comes with that too, in that we're told by these liberal NGOs in such a paternalistic way that our people can't talk about international issues. We don't care about that stuff. It's all bread and butter. And we know that's not true because we've seen it.

We've experienced it. We know that our people can understand, analyze every issue, right? We don't have to talk about Palestine in a vacuum as if it doesn't relate to the displacement, to the violence that working-class people in this country also face. At a different level, of course, but nonetheless, it's like a class instinct that we experience,

that we know instinctively when we see it, that that's our fight. Those are our people. And so there's nothing really like that in the Democratic Party. And people have to go through their own experiences, but what I like about the Party is that the Party was involved in all of these struggles, in the streets with the people. And I think that that makes a big difference in terms of what you believe is possible in society and what you can contribute to in your lifetime. I mean, I think in terms of like why the PSL, right?

Like, because there's other parties too, but I think that the PSL as a multinational, intergenerational working class party like Karina says, allows us to see what is possible. And like I mentioned before, I had a relationship and had worked very closely with the party for 19 years. The party is going to be 20 years old this year. And wherever there was struggle, there was the party. Whether it was housing rights, women's rights, LGBTQ rights against imperialist war, against police brutality, I mean, you name it. All struggles that I have ever been engaged in

in the last 19 years, the party has been there. And it is a solid example of what ideology, values, consistency, and principle are when you're building an organization. And for me, in terms of like, why the PSL, it was the same reason why I joined, decided to join the PSL because it was the same reason why I joined, decided to join the PSL because it was the synthesizing of all of these struggles. It was the bringing together of all the things that I believed in terms of the society

that I wanted to build, but also the things that I stood against. So it's anti-imperialist, it's anti-capitalist. In its structure, it places as a priority the leadership development of women and historically marginalized people, be them black, trans. I mean, I saw that and there was no way in my experience that I thought of a party as a Marxist-Leninist. Like, if you are a Marxist-Leninist, that's your ideology, then there's no reason why you shouldn't be under a Marxist-Leninist. Like, if you are a Marxist-Leninist, that's your ideology, then there's no reason why you shouldn't be under a Marxist-Leninist discipline.

And so when I decided to become part of a party, it just made the whole entire sense of becoming part of the party for socialism and liberation, because there wasn't, again, just based on ideology, vision, and program, the work that is done day in and day out by working class comrades that sometimes meet after work and weekends to be able to make a contribution to the advancement of our struggles. Like, there was no way that I saw myself not necessarily joining the PSL.

And it's, again, one of the institutions, and I've seen a lot of institutions, Robert, kind of implode and go away and disappear. And it's been one of the left socialist institutions that have withstood a lot of issues in the movement. And so for me, it just made sense to become part of the PSL. Yeah, thank you both so much for that. And yeah, I just want to say, you know, my personal experience with the PSL is, has been nothing but positive as, you know, an outsider looking in. And you know, I've seen PSL representing at all of the Palestine demonstrations that I've

been to from San Jose in the South Bay to San Francisco and the East Bay of the Bay Area. And next week, we're actually going to have our episode with Jody Dean and Kai Heron. And Jody Dean is a PSL member and she was talking about PSL quite a bit in our interview. And also, the last connection to that I have is the really incredible book by Richard Becker, Palestine, Israel, and the US Empire, which I read early on and just found it really, really valuable. So yeah, definitely very impressed and appreciate the work the PSL does quite a bit. And so, okay, let's move on here to probably the most annoying question of the interview, which hopefully we can just kind of get that one out of the way. But I'm really, I'm really excited to hear your, your responses to this one.

And that is the question that when people say that this is the most important election of our lifetimes, that voting third party is a vote for Trump, and that whether we like it or not, we have to hold our noses and vote for Biden, because, quote, democracy is on the ballot. And so I'm sure you've heard that. I've heard it a lot, and I'm wondering how you would respond to that. Well, I'm 43. I think I've heard that all my life. I think I've heard the argument this is the most important election of our time all the time. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. And you know those who are saying democracy is on the ballot then they should question whose democracy is on the ballot.

Is it really the people's democracy, working class people's democracy, because that hasn't necessarily been created in this country. Everything and anything that we've achieved has been through organizing, it has been through movement building. It has not been, again, given to us by the benevolence of any of these politicians from the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. And this argument and the argument of the lesser of two evils. God gracious. They have really proven to be lies. They are lies that have been imposed on us by the ruling class, their media outlets, their politicians, you name it,

every institution that they have a hold of are responsible for spreading this lie and imposing this lie on the working class. If we think about what it means to defeat Trump and the far right, electing Biden is the furthest thing to fight the far right. And we have been able to see, you know, genocide Joe is the result of us engaging in a strategy

which is a losing strategy of the lesser of two evils. It didn't turn out to be any better. We saw an increase in police budgets all across the country. We saw a continuous attack on unionizing. We saw the rolling back of civil rights that have been bled and fought and won by movements. And Trump is back. Trump is back. And so he is back not because the left, not because the third parties have done anything. He's back because the Democrats have done nothing,

nothing to earn or keep people's votes. The third parties do not in any way split the votes or make the Democrats loose over Republicans. They do these things on their own to themselves. The Democrats have betrayed the working class at every turn all across sectors. While Trump is definitely a threat because he is a serious threat and we've been the PSL has been saying this. So it's the moment he got elected. Even before he got elected, we were talking about how much of a threat this man is. But the reality is, is that the far right is not a new threat. It's always been a threat. The far right has been here. The lesser of two evils again is a losing strategy. Both Trump and Biden are a result of capitalism and they are accountable to the same capitalist and imperialist project. That's why there could be a bipartisan bill that has passed with 95.3 billion dollars to support the proxy war in Ukraine, to support the continuous genocide in Palestine and the war

towards China. Because ultimately, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, they are there to preserve and promote US capitalism and US empire. And so Biden or the neoliberal Democrats won't defeat the far right or Trump, because they will always need. Democrats will always need a reason to scare people into voting.

And ultimately, again, they're safeguarding the same project. The only way we can actually get out of this cycle, which is a murderous cycle, is building our own political instruments, where we have participation and our interest as working class people are represented and at the heart of the work that is being done and the policies that are being developed. If we continue to do what the ruling class expects us to do, then we will never do what we urgently need to do as a class. And so this narrative of the lesser of two evils splitting the vote,

democracy is on the ballot, again, this is all a narrative that has been developed by the ruling class, by our enemies, by our class enemies, to continue to engage us in this choosing poison, packaged differently, poison in red or poison in blue. And whether you pick one or the next, you're going to die anyway. And so we need to choose life. We need to choose other ways of doing things. Yeah, I mean, it's so true. It's like every four years, from bad to worse, they just keep doing the same thing, switching places between the two of them.

And it's been on every issue, on every issue. It's not just like on one. It's like when you look at immigrant rights, the betrayal of the Democratic Party, when you look at reproductive rights, they could have passed the Women's Health Protection Act over and over again. They've had so many opportunities to do it but it's actually their strategy. It was their whole midterm election strategy is that they would use this to be able to raise money, to be able to win in the midterm. When they saw what was going to happen when the writing was on the wall about Ro,

they decided to just wait it out. And this is what they do. And every single thing, like Lalia said earlier, there's been one for working class people, poor people in this country. It's always been one by our movements. And so the Democrats do a good job of standing in front of the people and coming in to do a victory lap.

But they're not actually the ones who drive anything. They just come in at the end to demobilize things and to take credit for their minuscule mediocre proposals that they have. We don't have time for breadcrumbs. You know, like we have big problems. My climate crisis is a big problem. We need major shifts on that. We actually cannot afford to waste another day, honestly, if we're not building up our own forces. Because it's true that Trump is a threat, but you can only defeat a threat with a bigger, more organized force. And Biden is not that. Like the working class people of this country can put them back in their place. We can put them back in their place. This is what's happened over and over again.

But the Democratic Party is not about that life because they benefit from it. And so they like it and things are going well for them. The people are seeing it now. There really isn't worse than genocide and we're so sick of it. It really is time for us to build our own stuff and it's like, it's urgent.

It's urgent for us to mobilize our people because we don't want them to just be dragged into the 1800s Making excuses for a party that couldn't care less about them. Hmm. And that sense of urgency I think is so important too because I mean what I hear a lot is is people say like People will agree. They'll be so close to agreeing all the way But they'll stop at that place where it's like, okay, so you agree that the Democrats suck and they're not doing what we need them to do

in any of the different realms that we're talking about from climate change to reproductive rights, all of the above, but you're still afraid to vote third party because it's just been so ingrained to you that you have to vote for either one of the two parties. And they think that it's irresponsible maybe to put your vote towards a third party, knowing perhaps, you know, the likelihood of that party winning, the likelihood of those candidates winning is so low. I think it's the other way around.

I think it's irresponsible to continue to do what we've been doing for the past many, many decades. Like that's irresponsible because we can look back and we can see that conditions have just continued to deteriorate every time we do this. And for me, it was during the Bernie campaign, like I really realized that that strategy of voting for the Democrats or regardless of who's running for the party, it's just a losing strategy and it's never going to work out in the way that you imagine that it's going to work out. And a final thing I'll say on this point is I really think that the

premise of the question, like, democracy is on the ballot, so you have to vote for this candidate, it really demonstrates how hollow that democracy is, right? Like, so you have to vote for this candidate. It really demonstrates how hollow that democracy is, right? Like if you have to vote for a certain candidate, is that democracy in the first place, you know? The two worst people in America. That's right. Who nobody respects or wants to follow.

Just like, it's horrible. I mean, and at the same time, again, it shows just how, how, how low and how, how much of a hypocrisy the so-called democracy is in this country. Like you are basically given two options that are not picked by the people because the electoral college does the picking. And it's not one person, one vote. Like, and there's actually so many

obstacles for people to actually go and vote. It's crazy. The amount of people that have been stripped of the right of voting, whether it is because they've been incarcerated, whether it is because of many different reasons, because they can't access the spaces, because there are spaces that are that are closed when they're supposed to be going into vote. Like, all these different things are real. Voter suppression is a real thing in this country. And so to think that somehow this is a democracy is ludicrous when you have a president that has had streets all across the country filled with, demanding that the U.S. stop funding a genocide,

and he decides to bypass Congress to continue to fund genocide. Like, where are we living? What type of democracy are we talking about? And how much more of that can we take? How much of this quote unquote lesser of two evils can we take how much of this quote-unquote lesser of two evils Can we take when when both of these sides are demonic? They're just disgusting and so we need to you know We say in Spanish we say avispar nos like we need to wake up do something different Because if we keep doing the same thing as insanity it truly is insanity And we will create a generation of insane people. We don't want that. We don't want a generation of insane people. We want people that are healthy,

people that are critical thinkers, the attacks on critical race theory and all these. This is coming again in 2023 during the Democrats' watch. The increase at record high of police brutality and killings of black and brown youth during a Democrat's presidency. Is it really the lesser of two peoples like when you really need to question this? And we can't continue to adopt this language and this narrative that we as a people cannot build our own things.

If we produce all the wealth in this world, if we produce all the mechanisms, if we give all our intelligence, all our creativity, all of our energy for capitalism to thrive, why can't we do it for ourselves? And it shows, you know, he'll bypass Congress for genocide, but he won't bypass Congress for the millions of families in this country that are in poverty, in poverty in the richest country in the world. He won't bypass Congress for that. Like we have to remember, you know, all of these things that we've been told are so

impossible can never happen. Like a lot of things happened during the pandemic that they've said were impossible. You know, for years after the 2008 economic crisis when, you know, millions of people were foreclosed on because the biggest banks and corporations decided to play with people's lives the way they did. We're the ones who ended up paying that bill. And we used to say there should be a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures. Nobody should be kicked out of their homes. Housing is a human right. And that's like in 2011, that was impossible. Laughed that by the Democrats. And that's like in 2011 that was impossible, laughed at by the Democrats, right?

And then what happened during the pandemic? A moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, like the things that they said were impossible could never happen, could happen immediately. And they happened when it wasn't a huge organized movement, they did that in anticipation. Before we even had organized and got our shit together, they already knew what time it was, and they anticipated and themselves passed all kinds of things. We were in many cities, there was free transportation, there was free wifi,

all these things didn't happen immediately and everywhere, but there was a lot of programs that happened during the pandemic that supposedly weren't impossible, that actually weren't. And that now have been overturned by the Democrats themselves. And so we know it's not a question of money. It's not a question of resources. It's a question of priorities.

They put all of our money to fund genocide awards all around the world. But they cannot use a single dollar for the millions of families and children in this country who are poor for no reason other than to enrich a tiny little click of billionaires who made so much profits during the pandemic that they'll never be able to spend it in their whole lifetime. So these are the realities that we have to share with people and talk about. We want to remind people, and we've been reminding people as we've been going to these different cities. Like what did Jeff Bezos do during the pandemic?

You know, like with all the money, all the millions of dollars that he was able to take for himself from all of the work, from all of the workers in Amazon and all of the labor, right? He made his own personal spaceship. Like that's capitalism, a system that legalizes that kind of injustice at a time when millions of people are sick, millions of people are suffering like this individual is able to use the wealth that was created by a process that involves millions of people for his own vanity projects. This is a system that we have to overturn or it's going to actually end us. I think we all feel this so deeply in our bones right now.

It's always nice to hear people talk about this in a way that makes sense and clicks, after all of the propaganda and just the doublespeak that we get from a lot of figureheads and decision-makers. So I really appreciate you both laying it all out like just so accurately and passionately. And I want to talk a little bit about your campaign now. So on your campaign program on your website, it states that, quote, on your website, it states that, quote, every issue dealt with in this program and every injustice working people experience in society boils down to the question of who has power.

Under the current capitalist system, a tiny click of rich bankers and CEOs have the power and will do anything to maintain it. We stand for socialism, a system where poor and working people hold political and economic power and use it to meet the needs of all people and to preserve the planet. So I love that and I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about your platform. So maybe some of the issues that are most important and some of the conversations

that you're hoping to start with your campaign. Sure. So we just came back from California and it was a really, really rich exchange with folks and communities in California. And I think the platform allowed for getting at the root of things, which is basically what we want to be able to do, but not only getting to the root of things, but also providing solutions to those.

And for us, that socialism, socialism provides a solution to a lot of our most urgent issues. And I think it's important to look at the platform holistically, because some folks will say, well, how do you, what policies will you engage in developing in this part? And what policy will you engage in developing in the next part?

And if we think about this holistically as a strategy in uprooting the capitalist system, we think about the fact that our lives aren't compartmentalized, they're not fragmented into different sections, the economy, the environmental crisis, militarism and war, all of these issues impact our daily lives. There are decisions that are made by a small few of people that have severe consequences in our day to day lives. Like who gets together and decides what minimum wage is gonna be? Who gets together and decides

what the rate of unemployment should be? Like these are people that we don't elect. These are people that we don't have conversations with. These are decisions that we don't have conversations with. These are decisions that we don't partake in. And so when we think about the platform, we need to think about the platform as a program, again, to uproot the very system that creates all of the conditions imposed on us by the economic and political system that we know as capitalism. The first point is we have to seize the top 100 corporations. But then there's also a point that talks about cutting the military budget by 90%.

Why is that necessary? It goes back to what Karina was saying in terms of priorities. If we prioritize the lives of people in this country and in turn also prioritize living beings across the planet, then we need money to be able to develop programs and projects that are life-giving. So we need to expropriate the wealth that has been socially produced and that has been privatized and stolen by a few to prioritize their luxury lifestyles and war. The solution doesn't come by taxing billionaires more.

Billionaires should just not exist. They shouldn't exist because what they do is leech off working class people, which are the majority of people in the world, not only in this country. How do they get to steal the wealth of people who work in deplorable conditions to buy spaceships and yachts? In one of the most horrendous moments in human history, which was the COVID pandemic, which continues to be there and continues to cause suffering in our communities, how do they get to do that in a moment of economic crisis for the majority of people? Where inflation and relationship to housing has increased 6%.

Five people own more than the majority of people in this world. That is criminal. And so our campaign is proposing again that we use the wealth that has been collectively produced by workers, for workers, not for the luxury of a few billionaires. And in doing so, we can help stop the acceleration of this environmental crisis that produces migration, because that is happening. Instead of blaming the immigrants for coming. How about we don't intervene as a country

in their politics, in their economy, and allow people to develop their political and economic projects in sovereignty, in their country. Which means that then we would have to have a foreign policy that's based on collaboration and solidarity with other nations, not launching war to be able to advance our E.U.S. imperialist interest. And so we can't see any of these parts of the platform without understanding how connected

they are. How connected are these corporations to the war on Black America, indigenous people, who benefits from mass incarceration, who benefits from policing? These are all again things that are very tied to the hip. And sometimes we think in the construct of what the bourgeois system, bourgeois politics, bourgeois democracy has taught us to think, which is that all of

these issues are somehow fragmented from each other. And the reality is that our condition as working class people is rooted in the illness of capitalism. So we need to defeat the illness and stop dealing with the symptoms and stop making fragments out of our whole lives which are impacted by all of these different issues that again are not disconnected from each other. I'm like the whole campaign you know we're talking about power. We are talking about power. We should not run away from power. Like they have power.

They just have all the power, right? Like the truth is if we are to tax them, then the next year they'll just untax themselves. And the reality is we all know it. These people, this like top, you know, point zero one, they have not paid taxes. Jeff Bezos has not paid taxes in years, right? So it's not just about taxing them. Like they should not, we want them out of power entirely.

They should not be able to decide. They should not be able to decide. They should not be able to decide that during a pandemic they're gonna use the wealth that's been created by millions of people for their vanity projects. No, that should just not be allowed. And just as an example to show people like what's possible, like we actually,

just to give a sense, you know, we say, let's start with the top 100, right? In order for us to have health care, education, good quality housing, you know, free child care, like all the basic things that we actually can have, we actually need to take back our resources. So there's 1.7 million corporations. Let's say we leave 1,699,900 corporations in place and the working class just had control over the top 100. Can you imagine what we could actually do? You know I'm talking Walmart, Amazon, ExxonMobil, Apple, United

Health Group. Like these people have been, this has gone on far and long enough. You know they shouldn't be able to decide a few people, 700 billionaires should not be able to decide the future of humanity. It has to stop. It has to stop but if we don't actually talk about it then it's not, then it's not going to. Then we're gonna stay in their little band-aid solutions going around in circles between the republic and the Democrats. And we're not doing what we actually need to do, which is actually take control. So a few months ago, we had Professor August Nims on the show to talk about electoralism

more broadly and also from the perspective of Marx and Lenin during the lead-up to the Bolshevik Revolution. And he did a beautiful job in his book as well, the ballot, the streets, or both demonstrating how the Bolsheviks used the electoral space as a tool for organizing and to propagandize and to agitate. And I'm wondering why the electoral path for you both and for PSL, like, can you talk a bit about the benefits and the advantages? And this question is really meant for some of those comrades on the left who think that we need to just completely abstain from voting and reject the entire electoral process

altogether. So what about this process of being on the campaign and running for vice president and president? What are the advantages of that? And why are you doing that? I think this is a great question. And I actually appreciated your episode with August Nims. I thought it was really an excellent episode

because it speaks to the social strategy of occupying all spaces because we really do have a need to occupy all spaces. And we also need to be where people are ideologically, politically, it is true that while some people don't participate in the electoral process, a lot of our working class people are engaged in discussing the electoral process.

And for us as an opportunity to again uplift the demands of working class people to uncover the farce of this bourgeois democracy. We know that we cannot bring about a revolution through a bourgeois election or a capital C. But that doesn't mean that we should not intervene in the process and let people know that we need to build our own instruments. And I think that this particular moment in history is of great significance because there has been a resurgence of socialist thought. There has been a resurgence of movement building precisely because of how horrible conditions are and because people are witnessing in real time just how horrible the corporate duapoleous. And if we stand and just witness and not participate we can't guarantee that

we're strengthening political instruments like the party. We can't guarantee that we're strengthening political instruments like the party. We can't guarantee that we are contributing to fortifying a movement in this country. What we do guarantee is that our people will continue to be misled by the ruling class, specifically speaking about the liberal forces of the ruling class. One great example is the George Floyd rebellions

that were happening. One of the most historic rebellions that we've seen in the US history, where you had millions of people take the street standing against police brutality, but also rebelling against the conditions in which people were at that time. And then you have the everybody get behind Biden so that Trump doesn't come back

and all of that energy is directed, misguided, to electoral politics of the ruling class. And I think a lot about the parallels of that 2020 moment to what's happening now with all of this that 2020 moment to what's happening now with all of this people, this masses of people that are in the streets against genocide, pro-Palestine that are deepening their consciousness, that are not abandoning the streets. How will this ruling class, tool party system, direct that energy if we don't intervene.

And that's our task, to be able to intervene and to be able to give people the mechanism by which they can continue to organize when there's a down, because there's always ebbs and flows, you know, there's always a down moment where mobilizations aren't there. How will all people organize when mobilizations dwindle? And that's what we need to look into. That is our responsibility as working class organizations to be able to provide a space for our people to get organized and become stronger

for the next stage of struggle. And so I would say to those folks that are on the left that say, well, that's a waste of time. It is more of a waste of time not to participate in processes that our people are participating in. So I'm curious what the process has been like for you both running as third party candidates. What are some of the challenges that you faced? This whole process is certainly rigged against you. And so I'm wondering if you can share what it's been like,

for example, getting on the ballots in different states and in terms of getting your voices out there. And I guess I'm also curious too, is PSL running candidates down ballot and in local races as well? Well, we actually believe we can get on at least 23 states. California, New Jersey, Washington, Florida, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Louisiana, Wisconsin,

Minnesota, Utah, New Mexico, Florida, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Louisiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Utah, New Mexico, Vermont, Hawaii, Mississippi, Idaho, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Delaware, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, Kentucky, and Virginia. So we actually have a path to victory. But we know it's not an easy path. And to speak about the barriers, it's a shit show path and to speak about like the barriers, right? It's a shit show. Every state is different. It's all definitely set up to prevent people from being able to access, to get enough ballots, to be able to get enough

signatures in the states. It's absolutely rigged, you know, for that billionaire class. And at the same time, we know it's not impossible either because we actually have people, if you have the people on your side, you have people who are dedicated, who are willing, right, willing, then that makes all the difference. And so the barriers are definitely there, but we've also been very excited by,

and I don't know, I don't want to say I'm surprised by, but like we've been socialists for a long time and you know the context for socialists has changed a lot and it's really not that difficult to be a socialist these days and it's been really exciting to see how much energy and enthusiasm that we've received around the campaign like we've got thousands of volunteers in a very short amount of time. And there's all these young people that despite all of the propaganda, despite that the capitalists have control over the media,

over the schools, like the reality of living under capitalism is undeniable. And they've still lost the youth vote. So yeah, we're trying to meet those people and organize those people. And we're going beyond this electoral season, right? We want people to become organizers and leaders for the working class. And so this is an entry point. It's an entry point for a lot of people who are interested in politics, who are angry and upset about what's

happening. And this is a political project that is not about what you do every two or four years, it's about what you do every day. And so every part of this process is going to develop their leadership, is going to develop the organization of the working class by you having to figure out, okay, how many petitions do I need in my state? Okay, so how many petitions can a single person get in a day? Okay, so how many days do we need to petition? Okay, so how are we gonna get these people all together?

You know, you gotta get out there and table, you gotta set up your literature, you gotta talk to people. You know, you gotta put up with some rejection too, you know? And you gotta defend your ideas and come back stronger. And you learn a lot through the process of actually doing this. You learn how to talk to other people. You learn about yourself, you challenge, you realize there's a lot through the process of actually doing this. You learn how to talk to other people.

You learn about yourself, you challenge, you realize there's a lot of things that you didn't think there were possible that you're able to do now because there's a necessity for it. So many of us don't want to do public speaking and are nervous about those things. But at the same time, we're sort of forced into it sometimes because we actually have to be the ones to defend our ideas, to defend what we're fighting for, to defend our communities. And so that situation of a struggle

de fortalecer, it strengthens you. It takes your organizing to another level. And that's the most important thing is that we're going to leave from this whole experience with stronger leaders. We're going to meet more leaders and we want to recruit them. We want to recruit them to the movement. That's going to be beyond this electoral cycle but that is really about building power for the working class. You also asked the question Robert about like local elections. We are actually running a socialist campaign in California. We were just with our comrade Eduardo Lalo Vargas who's running for district 14 city council in Los Angeles. And like Karina said, I think,

you know, a lot of folks have asked the question, why socialism? Like, why are you using socialism? That scares people. And I think people are stuck in what we've been taught that socialism or communism is. And the working class is not that fearful. The working class is not that fearful. When you start to talk about the society that people want, people want a society where they don't have to incur

in debt to go to school. People want a society where they don't have to deal in debt to go to school. People want a society where they don't have to deal with health insurance companies to have access to healthcare. People want a society where they could have housing and have it not be 70% of their income worth and rent. They want to be able to have a home and not deal with banks that are basically

enslaving you again to debt for 30 and 40 years. People want that society and I think we need to start talking with our people from that material reality and introducing them to what socialism is which is ultimately eliminating. Eliminating all of the obstacles that capitalism has placed for us for us to be able to live dignified lives. And so some people will ask, you know, well, I know TikTok has been huge. This is a new world for me.

But there are folks that are making, you know, sorts of videos saying, well, you know, it's just a bad brand. And they don't get that socialism is a political and economic project that it has been actually tried and it has worked. And that's the reason why US imperialism has attacked it so harshly. That in the United States, there is a deep root of socialist tradition

that goes back centuries, it goes back many years. And so we need to do better in trying to understand what socialism is and the solutions that it provides for us. We can't be afraid of it because ultimately when you talk about socialism, the rich already have it. They don't have to worry about where they're gonna get money to pay for anything that human beings need. And what we're saying is that it's impossible.

It is ludicrous. It is disgusting that a handful of people have the access that billions of people across the world need. And that we need to break that to be able to make socialism for everyone. And so for us and the campaign, the folks that are running the local campaign in California, Eduardo Lalo Vargas and the comrades over there,

for us doing this national campaign for the presidential and vice presidential seat, it is important for us to clarify that our enemy should not be the one telling us who our enemy is because they're lying. And so people should, you know, really do their best. And I think that we are in a moment like Karina said, where people are really looking into what is socialism and what are some of the socialist projects and experiments that have happened and that have advanced despite the US imperialist force. We have Cuba and we have Venezuela. They've sanctioned countries. Cuba was sanctioned and was able

to develop five vaccines during COVID, vaccines that didn't hoard, that it actually shared with the rest of the global cell. It has been able to deploy brigades of doctors all across the globe. Why is it that the wealthiest country in the world has had the inability to do such things with all of the abundance that it has? You know, and so we are also aiming through this campaign to not only

undo the damage that capitalism has done to us ideologically, politically, and economically, but also proposing socialism and engaging people in having conversations about what socialism is and what it would mean to have a social society in the United States, which is not a copy and paste from any other country because we are not a country that has been embargoed. We are not a country that has had the experience of Cuba, which had colonization and then it had US imperialism. That is not our reality. This is a country of abundance with misaligned priorities. That's where we are. And so we need to be able to, again, raise the flag of socialism as we deconstruct what capitalism is,

not only ideologically, but also materially. Just to underscore one of the points that you made, you mentioned how rent is like 70% of income, at least in some places. I learned recently that in the Soviet Union, it was 2% to 3% of the average person's income. And not to glorify the USSR, and even having to say not to glorify the USSR is a concession to Cold War propaganda. But just to say that, if they were able to do that and they were being bombarded by many different countries that had invaded them

after the revolution and they went through a civil war and they were cut out from the global economy, if they could do 2 to 3% for people living there, there's really no reason whatsoever that the richest country in the world, in the history of the world, can't do that. So that just popped into my mind and I wanted to underscore that and also just thank you for bringing up that really important point. Like, I think so many on the left think that, yeah, like you said, we need to rebrand whatever leftism, quote unquote, that we're fighting for in this movement. But I also completely disagree. I think we need to own socialism and communism even, like socialism

and using the word, I'm a communist, right? Like that needs to be renormalized because a hundred years ago, that's what people called themselves. And they're part of the same working class struggle against the capitalist class and against the same contradictions that we're experiencing today, the very exact same contradictions that we're in many cases experiencing today. So thank you so much for that super important point and I don't think we should let Cold War propaganda continue to dictate the terms that we have these conversations. And so we covered I think think, a lot of really rich ground during this conversation, and we've touched on many really

important points. And I'm wondering to close out, if you can share a little bit about how people can get involved, if they want to, in your campaign, and sort of, yeah, what people can do to get involved in organizing more generally as we move forward. So I would invite folks to go on to VoteSocialist2024.com and look at the platform and read on our our journey, read on the party, go on to PSL website as well.

And it's an invitation to be part of movement building. And so if folks are willing to be part of movement building, they could volunteer and get to know the different comrades that are all across the country doing amazing work in different campaigns that are local but are also anti-imperialist so against the wars that the United States launches across the country, and get to know what we are about as a party and get to know how do we contribute to movement building in this country. What we've been telling people that we want for folks to take and to really take seriously is the need for political organization. The need to be part of a political organization that takes seriously cadre development, that takes seriously the connection and the

commitment to the working class, so working within communities to advance community struggles, and also doesn't lose the sight that our reality in this country is connected to the reality of the working class internationally. We want folks to become active. There's a lot of people in this particular moment that are seeking. They're seeking political orientation. They're seeking the history of socialist movements. Continue to do that, but don't do that in isolation, because it's very easy to become demoralized

when things don't turn out the way that we expect them to. When we live in a country where we're being told that individualism supersedes collective processes, become part of an organization to become stronger politically, to be able to contribute to society in a stronger way along the side of other people. That is the only way that we make change happen. So yes, volunteer to the campaign, yes, check out the PSL website,

and join an organization. Yeah, well, I say fight for what you want, fight for what you actually deserve. Why waste your time and energy with an organization that doesn't respect you, that doesn't respect your community, that doesn't respect your family? Why would we waste our time and energy on people with such a narrow, selfish, uncreative vision of what the future can be? Why would we waste our time and energy on that? Some people think that it's all about lobbying and putting your energy

to these elected officials. I say that you want to do that, do that, but like for me, that's the waste of time. For me, I don't think that any minute that I spend with working class people who are organizing, that's not a waste of time because that's where the real power lies. That's where the real power lies. So for me trying to convince a group of people who are benefiting from my exploitation to do something different, that doesn't seem worthwhile to me. Whereas like being part of an organization where you are actually fighting for the things that you know, you know in your gut that you deserve, that's everything. That's everything. You've been listening to an upstream Patreon episode with Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia, who are running

for President and Vice President of the United States with the Party for Socialism and Liberation, or PSL. Please check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. Upstream theme music was composed by Robert. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making Upstream possible. We genuinely couldn't do this without you. Your support allows us to create bonus content like this, and it allows us to provide most of our content for free so we can continue to provide political education media to the public and build our movement. For more from us, visit upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Blue

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