Socialist Elected

Socialist elected to City Council in Seattle

Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alternative, has defeated a long-standing Democratic member of the Seattle City Council, Richard Conlin.

Some of her issues: a $15-an-hour minimum wage in Seattle, and a “millionaires’ tax” to pay for better city services.

Sawant is a leading figure in Occupy! Seattle - remember my recent Post, Who Says "Occupy!" Went Away?

Here's a quote from there, just so I can say "told you so" -

"Just like "All the Hippies Became Yuppies", which is one of the crazy-making lies that was never challenged, and which led me to start work on my Book Proposal, "The War On The 60s", we have grown used to hearing claims that "Occupy!" was just a flash in the pan, a movement with no program that vanished into thin air at the first crack of a cop's baton."

The estimable Mitch Jesarich had excellent coverage of the Election and its meaning today in "Letters and Politics", with an interview with the brilliant Nation political writer John Nichols, author of "The "S" Word", a history of Socialism in the USA. (You'd be amazed just how much of the stuff there has been, though you wouldn't think it to hear the mainstream media talk.)

Mitch then played a slightly scratchy interview with Kshama Sawant, followed by one of her election speeches, laying out her proposals for the future. Fascinating stuff. You can hear it on the Archive, here.