KSHAMA SAWANT, SEATTLE CITY COUNCIL MEMBER IS FASCINATING NEW KIND OF EDUCATED POLITICAL LEADER TO LEAD AMERICA IN 21st CENTURY

SAWANT = END CORPORATE-WALL STREET STRANGLE HOLD ON TWO PARTY SYSTEM WITH A NEW PARTY FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

Kshama Sawant, Seattle City Council Member – Break the TWO-Party Corporate Controlled System – First socialist to win a city-wide election in Seattle since 1916. A fascinating new kind of POLITICAL LEADER in Seattle.

Kshama Sawant information begins at 3:00 Mark in this Video

Abby Martin reports on the latest violence in Gaza, and speaks with Seattle city council member Kshama Sawant about her letter to the Obama administration denouncing Israel’s ongoing siege and blockade of Gaza.

FAR MORE INFORMATION ON FASCINATING KSHAMA SAWANT:

Click for Source information on Kshama Sawant from Wikipedia

Kshama Sawant marched from SeaTac to Seattle for a $15/hour MIN wage.

Kshama Sawant = North Carolina State University (Ph.D.), University of Mumbai (B.Sc) = Former software engineer in India

Kshama Sawant = Socialist activist + Part-time economics professor at Seattle University + Was a visiting assistant professor at Washington and Lee University.

Sawant shaped her ideas by seeing the crippling poverty in India due to the Indian caste system

Sawant decided to abandon the computer engineering field and studied economics to understand “questions of economic inequality” at NC State University. Her dissertation was titled “Elderly Labor Supply in a Rural, Less Developed Economy.”

Sawant moved to Seattle in 2006 and after hearing a speech by a Socialist Alternative organizer, became a socialist and became a United States citizen in 2010.

Sawant successfully sued the Washington secretary of state for the right to list her party preference, Socialist Alternative, on the November ballot.

Sawant = Criticized the raiding of Occupy Wall Street activists’ homes by the Seattle Police Department’s SWAT team. + She advocated on LGBT issues, women’s issues, people of color issues and opposed cuts to education and other social programs. + She gave a all-night course at Seattle Central Community College.

Sawant won her Seattle City Council seat as a Socialist Alternative = First socialist to advance to a general election in Seattle since 1991. + First socialist to win a city-wide election in Seattle since 1916. + First socialist on the City Council since 1877.

Sawant in May 2014 with Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced an increase in the minimum wage to $15 = Cornerstone of her campaign for City Council, but she was disappointed when large corporations were allowed a few years to phase in the wage hike. “We did this. Workers did this. Today’s first major victory for 15 will inspire people all over the nation.”

Sawant also wants an income tax on wealthy Seattleites + Rent control “something everyone supports, except real estate developers + supports expanding public transit and bikeways + Want end to corporate welfare +End to racial profiling + Reducing taxes on small businesses and homeowners + Protecting public sector unions from layoffs + Living wage union jobs + Improved social services = She compares her fight to equality for same-sex marriage, and the legalization of marijuana in USA, which she supports.

Sawant’s campaign for $15/hour MIN wage is credited with bringing it into the mainstream and support nationwide. = “If making sure that workers get out of poverty would severely impact the economy, then maybe we don’t need this economy,” says the PdD in Economics.

Sawant proposed a millionaire’s tax to expanding both bus and light rail capacity in what she calls “transit justice” to eliminate user fares and greater access for the poor shifting from providing more transit options to communities who “can afford other options” until that happens.

Sawant = Donate the portion of her salary as a City Council person which exceeds the average salary in Seattle = $40,000 of her $117,000 salary with the rest into a self-administered political fund which she uses for selected social justice campaigns.

Kshama Sawant = Member of the Socialist Alternative party = USA’s version of British-based Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). She has referred to herself as a Marxist against “bureaucratic dictatorship”

Kshama Sawant = “the society being run democratically in the interest of all working people on the planet, all children – everybody who has needs, and all that being done in an environmentally sustainable manner.”

Kshama Sawant = Was an organizer in the local Occupy movement calling saying it put “class”, “capitalism”, and “socialism” into the political debate. Sawant has joined with other Occupy activists working with local organization to resist home evictions and foreclosures. She was arrested with other Occupy activists in 2012 for blocking Sheriff’s Deputies from evicting a man from his home.

Sawant = Called for Starbucks and Amazon to be unionized + Nationalization of Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon.com + Supports privately owned housing in “Millonaire’s Row” in the Capitol Hill neighborhood turned into publically owned shared housing saying. = “When things are exquisitely beautiful and rare, they shouldn’t be privately owned.”

Kshama Sawant = Criticized Boeing for saying it would move jobs out of state if it couldn’t get wage concessions and tax breaks. = “Economic Terrorism” = Boeing moving jobs out of state = Workers should take over Boeing facilities and bring them into public ownership = Converted into multiple uses, such as production for mass transit.

Kshama Sawant = Supports single-payer health care.

Kshama Sawant = Maintains that a socialist economy cannot exist in a single country and must be a global system just as capitalism today is a global system.

Kshama Sawant = Opposed construction of the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel calling it “environmentally destructive” and “something most people were against, most environmental groups were against”.

Kshama Sawant = Opposes the Measures of Academic Progress test in public schools and has supported the teachers’ boycott of the standardized tests.

Kshama Sawant = Called for a revolt against student debt saying that “the laws of the rich are unenforceable if the working class refuses to obey those laws.”

Kshama Sawant = Active member of the American Federation of Teachers union but is critical of American labor union leadership, saying the leadership, “…in the last 30 years has completely betrayed the working class. They are hand in glove with the Democratic Party, pouring hundreds of thousands of dollars into their campaigns, and they tell rank and file workers that you have to be happy with these crumbs…”

Kshama Sawant = Says the American Labor movement should break with the Democratic Party and run grassroots progressive candidates.

Kshama Sawant = Advocates for a moratorium on deportations of illegal immigrants + granting of unconditional citizenship for all persons currently in the United States without citizenship + Opposes the E-Verify system as unnecessary if all are citizens.

Kshama Sawant = Rejects the TWO-PARTY SYSTEM = She wants a PARTY FOR THE PEOPLE as a third party = “The job of socialists is to point the way forward, and we are not shy about it. We invite people to debate with us on ideas of socialism. But we are not shy and we have been proven, resoundingly correct, that we should not be shy, because there is no excuse for being shy or reticent when you are talking about such serious issues as fighting against the enormous misery that capitalism unleashes on us, all over the world. So let’s be clear about it, let’s not be shy. This is not a time for modesty; this is a time for boldness and courage.[30] ”

Kshama Sawant = Aligns with the Greens and trade unions, to use adopt similar policies in 2014 campaigns and beyond = “We need a movement to break the undemocratic power of big business and build a society that works for working people, not corporate profits – a democratic socialist society.”

Kshama Sawant = Urged the Seattle City Council to denounce the Israeli attacks on Gaza and to urge President Obama and Congress to condemn the attacks and cut off all military assistance to Israel. = SICK Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer calling for Sawant to retract the statement despite 2,040+ MURDERS OF PALESTINIANS including 500+ CHILDREN.

Socialist in Seattle: Kshama Sawant’s Revolution, The Indigenous Fight Against Keystone XL

youtube.com/watch?v=IqCuVBg0FXo