Socialism Conference

Keli Carender was invited to present the tea party side at this event. I went to support her efforts. She did a wonderful job

But first I had to endure an hour with Cindy Sheehan

I had a brief talk with her before her event, I even offered to buy lunch, but that ended quickly when I told her my stand on the issues.

So I walked around campus. I wanted to spend a few moments at the Intended Consequences display in the art building but no one was there to open it at 1:30 so I took a few photos from outside :)

At 2:00 Cindy began her panel with Richard Curtis, an “independent” candidate for the Senate Seat held by Patty Murray and one of the Socialist Alternative leaders and an editorial board member for Socialist Alternative’s newspaper, “Justice” that is often passed out at anti-war rallies, Philip Locker.

I did take notes, I will try to translate:

According to S.A. Capitalism causes problems that lead to social struggle.

Capitalist are redundant, we don’t really need them.

True democracies are formed from the struggle of communities up to a national form of government.

Is Cindy Sheehan Racist? She didn’t refer To President Obama as “President” I’ve been call such for less!

Cindy complained about how critics used her “motherhood” as a way to attack her position on the war, but wasn’t it her “motherhood” that she claimed as the foundation for her position?

Cindy referred to marriage has slavery i.e. she said she was a slave in her marriage, is that racist? To equate marriage to the crime of slavery. And is it degrading to the millions of families who are happy in their loving marriages? Also that line of reasoning is a key tenet within the Communist Manifesto.

Cindy plugged her book “Myth (no lisp) America” and her movie? “Revolution: A love story” claimed the title as her ideal. There was a mention of another movie “The Revolution will not be televised”

Panelist Richard Curtis pulled a Godwin when he mentioned that the Republican party was “turning fascist over the last 25 years”

The Tea Party will lead to a backlash towards the right…. No Mr. Curtis it is the backlash from the right.

and in the same vein of thought… More right thinking = Leftist activism.

One of the questioners noticed the “whiteness of the group” (must of been the tea partiers) said White people need to “Avoid looking like racist to be taken seriously”

a rumor that Patty Murray may drop out of the race?

Keli’s event started at around 4:30, we had so many show up they moved to a (slightly) larger venue. It was still standing room only.

Notes from the Debate… they’re a little less cohesive because I was recording, standing, and actually enjoying the event.

Ramy Khali Was the representative from S.A. who also led the WTO Riots protest in 1999. His stand was simple, all capitalism is bad in all forms and must be replaced by seizing all industry to be run by the people in a “democratic way” with all revenue being retuned to the people state

Ramy repeats the lie that 44 thousand people die every year from lack of insurance, the number of uninsured is now 47 million. That the WHO (an unbiased, yea I laughed too, organization of the UN) rates the US at 37th of all nations in health care.

Ramy insist that we end fossil fuels so I asked in the Q and A part about the use of land for such massive solar and wind farms needed to fill that need, he said that the deserts and farm lands could be used but neglected to address the inconvenient part about the loss of habitat in the fragile deserts ecosystem or the risk already documented to birds and other flying and migratory animals.

A constant theme was the need to seize the industries of Capitalism to allow for the wealth to be used for the people in the form of jobs and “livable wages” insisting that corporations who refused to hire or who laid off when the work was not available did so only out of greed and a disregard for the rights of the workers. That it was only by taking these jobs out of the hands of the wealthy could a fair system then guarantee workers rights. This could only be done with a complete disregard for the Constitution of the United States of America, something Ramy made no mention of.

I spent most of the 10 gigs of memory I had for my camera (two 4 gig cards and a 2 gig) on video so the photos are a little on the light side for this event, not much to take pictures of anyway just a bunch of people sitting around and listening to other people. I did however take a few other photos that I’ll post on flickr too.

Ok That’s it for now I have video to edit and I’ll post them here when they are done. The photos are up on flickr now

Update: It’s 11:50pm and the first video is done, the rest will have to wait until I’ve had some rest. (remember to give it a few minutes to process)

Update: Please forgive the typo in the opening title, I really do know how to spell “Seattle” Did I mention it’s almost midnight?

Ok here come the rest of the movies:

First question…

Many Tea Partiers have denounced Barack Obama and the democrats’ health care reform has socialist, Do you agree that the health care reform is actually Socialist and how do you think our healthcare system should be changed.

Questions two…

The financial crisis that began in 2007 since then millions of workers have been thrown out of work with the highest unemployment in decades and millions more live in fear of being thrown out of work and being unemployed. So how would Tea Party activist and how would socialist propose to deal with the unemployment crisis what concrete solutions do you advocate

Questions Three and Four

The new Arizona law is against undocumented workers, So I want to ask what the panelist think about this bill and how do you think immigration system should be reformed are you against Arizona law, do you support it. And what is your overall solution.

And

About the bailouts and capitalism. The 14 trillion dollar in taxpayer bailouts or various guaranties for the banks and financial system and that provoked an enormous political uproar in US society, one of the greatest actually in many decades, of popular anger and outrage at that bailout. So the question to both Kelli and Romy is does this show the capitalist free market, what happened in 2008 and that this economic crisis and the bailout of wall street, does this that the capitalist free market system failed?

This post is getting too long so I’ll place the Cindy Sheehan videos in a new one, she deserves her own place in hell …umm I mean here anyway.

Update: I had noticed that some people were spelling Keli's name differently then I had on this post, I did a little research and discovered that I was the one doing it wrong so I've made the necessary corrections, That will not be possible on the videos however. Sorry Keli, but in my defense I spelled it the way it appeared on the posters.

Another update: Here is a report from the other side, they lie!

The Tea Party movement, supported by Fox News and other corporate backers, has gotten an echo for their ideas amongst a significant minority of Americans particularly because of their opposition to the bailout of Wall Street. For this reason, Socialist Alternative members felt the Tea Party cannot simply be ignored or dismissed, and they proposed the debate to challenge their arguments in a public forum.

Last Update: The Cindy Sheehan post is done… And all the videos are mercifully short.