 For more videos on people's struggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Hello and welcome to People's Dispatch. Today we're joined by Gloria Laliba, the presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The Party for Socialism and Liberation is on the ballot in 15 states and you can write in for their candidates in under the 12 states. They have been talking about socialism, the need for a socialist candidate, the need for a completely radical look and radical perspective on politics in the United States for many years now. Thank you so much, Gloria, for joining us. Thank you Prashat for the invitation. Gloria, we'll go to some of the key news aspects. That's the debates, the party program of course and the larger wave of protests that has been happening over the past few months. But first of all, I wanted to ask a slightly different question. You have been a candidate for vice president or president for decades now from the mid-80s onwards to those difficult times in the 90s where everyone was declaring socialism was no longer going to happen to the 2000s where the US had launched so many wars, the later part of the decade when hope and change were being thrown about is solutions to everything. So first to just begin with, what has given you the strength? How has it been talking about socialism all these decades? Every four years you've been on the roads continuously, you've been on the streets continuously for the past few months right now. How has it been over the past few decades? Well, first I have been a lifelong dedicated communist and I believe very much that it requires a lifelong struggle. But this year is amazing to see first at least a curiosity about what socialism is because most people in the United States have no idea and more and more an acceptance that it's a legitimate philosophy. And then there's many people who are realizing that capitalism is destroying their lives. So people are very, very open. I, as you say, I have been in many political campaigns supporting others as well. And in the 70s, 80s, people were, could be very hostile and think that it was a threat to the American way of life. But today, the American way of life is one of the greatest gap between the rich and the poor in the Indian industrial country of the highest record number of deaths. 225,000 people and the figures are rising and there is no national plan. People are left to their own devices. They're left alone. If you are one of tens of millions in the United States, at least 50 million people without any healthcare plan, then if you become ill with COVID, which makes you more likely because you tend to be poor, black, Latino, indigenous, poor, white, and you go to the hospital at the last minute. If you are hospitalized for even a week, 10 days a month, you end up with a million dollar bill. And then people feel compelled to pay it. They lose their home. Then you have the problem of the unemployment. 60 million people were laid off in the pandemic. A number have gotten their jobs back, but they lost their healthcare. And people have accumulated, it's up to, estimated up to 50% of the people of the country cannot pay their rent. And if you're late several days, you can be evicted. Now, there's a temporary moratorium on evictions, but it's another element to the crisis that is looming. So, especially for youth, youth are saying to us, and many, many youth who are joining the party, I ask them, what made you become a socialist? And they say, because capitalism isn't working. And in this context, of course, that is yesterday, that is October 22nd, we saw the second presidential debate. And there were just two candidates, of course, making it seem like the political choice of the country was only between the Republicans and the Democrats. There was, as expected, a lot of personal insults thrown about, even the media focused largely on those kind of issues. According to you, what were the key topics that they did not talk about, which, in your campaigns, you've seen people most concerned about? The two candidates did not talk about the most urgent need in terms of a solution on the issue of health. Joe Biden is against a national health plan. He says we will improve Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. It has great limitations. There were some benefits to it. But we are talking about the richest country in the world with the greatest productive capacity that could provide free healthcare for everyone, quality healthcare, without the insurance companies, without the pharmaceuticals making billions on our illness. And, of course, Trump just lies. He says he will make a better healthcare. He's never provided a plan. But I think also that they don't talk about how to create employment or to guarantee an income. It's a lot of very vague ideas. But what they do agree on is military spending. What they do agree on, and they don't necessarily say it, but everyone understands that the Senate and the House, Republican and Democrat, always vote for an increase in the military budget. A military budget which is more than the $780 billion dollars being used because the nuclear weapons industry and the building of nuclear weapons is not included in the Defense Department budget. I don't know if people know that. It's in the Department of Energy. So it's more like a trillion dollars. What is the U.S. using a trillion dollars for every year except to build new weapons system, new jet bombers, and sell them worldwide to their so-called allies to carry out war, for example, in Yemen by the Saudi Arabian regime? Exactly. Right. And in this context, I just quickly wanted, before we get into some of the issues, to look at the PSL program, you have a 10-point agenda which you've listed in terms of some of the most important issues that need to be addressed immediately. So could you maybe take us quickly through some of the key points that you have been talking about in your campaign, in your on the streets while talking to me? Yes. We really highlight the issue of the need to fight racism and the white supremacy structure of the United States, the corporations. There has been a great awakening. This is an advantage to the political movement of the left is that the uprising after George Floyd's murder on May 25 has really awakened the consciousness of many, many people who never thought about the issue of police brutality. Certainly Black, Latino, Indigenous people understand the issue of racism. And for us, that's very primary. We say jail killer cops. It's a simple slogan, because since Mike Brown, another youth who was very well known for being murdered in 2014, there have been more than 6,500 murders. And the people in the community feel this. They feel the terror. The other is the issue of cancelling rents and cancelling the mortgages of people who are buying the home. We're all captive to the landlords and to the banks. We also call for the cancellation of rent for small business and small landlords. Why? Because the petty bourgeoisie is also facing ruin. And either they become captive to the ideas of the bourgeoisie, the big bourgeoisie, the capitalist class, or they can align with us to help fight the system. But socialism will benefit everybody. Yesterday it was reported on the U.S. news that 266,000 small restaurants have closed and probably will not reopen. This means that stores or restaurants like McDonald's, Starbucks, they are growing ever greater. Small stores of all kinds of items that people rely on in their neighborhood and employ the working class, they are being ruined. And Amazon is this behemoth that not only makes hundreds of billions of dollars literally along with Google, Facebook, Twitter, Uber, they're all making hundreds of billions in the pandemic. But Amazon paid no taxes last year. So this indicates that the more powerful they become, the more powerful economically, the more political power they have to just push away all regulations on even minimal taxation. And not only that, but Amazon, which is the largest employer in the United States and maybe the world, Amazon in the workplace of the factories, the distribution centers, these giants, did you know that you are not allowed to have your telephone at all on the floor? And if they catch you with it, you have to sign a form before your employment agreeing that they can have access to all the information on your phone because they don't want you to organize a union because the capitalists are never satisfied with their profit or their rate of profit. They must always expand the rate of profit and therefore to them unions are death to their existence. But the real death for those corporations, ability to exploit and super exploit in the world is socialism. And it means life for the working class. It means life for all people really. Absolutely, right. And one of the key aspects that the program also focuses on is the question of reparations as well. And especially for our audience, international audience, I'd like you to maybe take us through what exactly you mean and how exactly you visualize it. Yes, the right wing and the capitalists who oppose reparations for black and indigenous people, they often try to portray it like that white people or people who are not African American will have to pay and create this attempt to create a division. But we say it's the capitalists that have to pay. It's the government that supported all the policies after the end of slavery that denied any kind of restitution to black people who created the wealth of this country in addition to the the theft and genocide of native land. But for for black people who all these decades were denied equal opportunity and employment. In fact, Woodrow Wilson, the imperialist who touted self determination, but really self determination for the imperialist, when he was president, he was responsible and directed that black workers of which there were many in government offices of Washington DC, they were fired. Their employment was eliminated. So that was just one tiny aspect, the black code laws that created apartheid in the south. The great, great working class benefits like social security of 1935, or the GI bill that guaranteed education, college education for the working class after World War II. White workers benefited, but black workers were did not really benefit for many years. Discrimination and hiring. So we say there's ample ample reason to have reparations for black people on the native reservations. There are an estimated maybe 6.5 million indigenous people of 560 separate nations in the United States, from the Dine Navajo to Turkey to the Lakota. They have had more than 370 treaties that they signed with the United States after U.S. aggression and theft of their land. All those treaties have been violated. And in one state alone, South Dakota, which the U.S. agreed to the Great Sioux Nation, half the state, in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. Six years later, gold was discovered, and they were reduced to small, small areas of land, which their land is only 5% arable, only 5% arable in agriculture. While on that same land that has been stolen, the Black Hills are a great source of gold mining and uranium mining for U.S. and Canadian corporations. This is why we say reparations for native people means honoring the treaties, returning that land, and providing reparations. There is an enormous need for a major injection in health care for black indigenous people, really for the whole population, but especially concentrating, because half of the deaths in many states were of black people in the COVID virus. And also regarding the program, the other key aspect I wanted to talk about was also U.S. foreign policy. And of course, like you said, militarism is something neither the candidates talk about or is not really talked about in Congress or in the Senate as well. And we also have hybrid wars for instance. We have the Pentagon and the State Department, the CIA, all of them creating this massive web across the world. So how does the PSL see U.S. foreign policy and what are the demands? We are anti-imperialists to the core. Some people say they're anti-imperialists, but then they fall for a U.S. myth about another country that needs U.S. intervention. We've seen nothing progressive about U.S. intervention anywhere in the world. We call for the closing of all U.S. bases abroad, more than 800, and many we don't even know about. For example, removing all the troops from South Korea so that the people of Korea who have been divided since 1945 can reunite once again. To remove all the troops in the Middle East which have and end all aid to Israel so that the Palestinian people can have the chance to win their sovereignty and homeland and have the right to return because we respect the right. We defend the right of all the Palestinian people to return home. The ending of all U.S. sanctions. There are 70 countries sanctioned by the United States, especially Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, Syria, Nicaragua, any country that is striving to keep their independence. The Cuban blockade is horrendous and especially the blockade of Cuba is more than just banning trade. It's saying that no country in the world can trade with Cuba without risking fines and pressure from the United States. The theft of Venezuela's gold and oil is horrendous and I have been to Venezuela many times. It is remarkable what the government has done to provide food for people on a regular basis, so cheap, so inexpensive, so that nobody goes hungry because of lack of money. The fact that the oil has been used to create more than 3.2 million homes and yet Cuba's sending of doctors around the world to fight the COVID virus is precisely the reason that the U.S. is attacking the Cuban doctors, pressuring countries from accepting those doctors because it's an example. If people knew of all these facts about the countries that are socialists, that are striving for socialism, the progressive countries, then they would start to question, why can't we have the things that people need in the richest country in the world, rich only in terms of the capitalist wealth? Absolutely, right. And in this context, I also wanted to ask a question regarding the classic argument that you definitely must have faced many times in your campaign and interviews. There's always the question of the lesser evil. And this is especially pronounced, of course, in this election when you have a candidate like Trump, but it was there last time. It's there every single time. People always ask, okay, why vote for a candidate who's not seemingly the more progressive or who's seemingly the more liberal candidate, so to speak. So what is the answer you give to a question like that? Well, not many people are saying that anymore. But I think that it tends to be more a question or a challenge to us people saying, you know, how can you run and risk the chance that Trump will win? They tend to be white middle class liberal because they still have a stake. They still feel that there is something that can, there's something to rescue in the Democratic Party. That's not true in the poor sectors of the working class, lower income, working class people. It's amazing to see the response from people. But a friend of mine in New Mexico, when we had our rally there, he's a professor and he said, it's not the lesser of two evils. They're different evils. He said one, you know, he pointed out that, that the Democrats tend to be more for aggression against China, for example, although certainly the Republicans, they're really just two pillars of the Pentagon, the two pillars of the foreign policy establishment. But really when you think about it and look at the Democrats policies and Biden declaring that Russia and Iran, which he claims because of the intelligence agency saying that Iran and Russia are influencing the elections. It's such a bogus idea. But last night, Biden said, those countries will pay a price. We will not let them and if they do, they will pay a price. It's absolutely ridiculous. And I don't think it resonates with people either. But at this point, because of what the ruling class, sections of the ruling class consider Trump to be rather unstable, when he said he would pull the US troops out of Syria, the Democrats howl and the foreign policy establishment prefers Biden at this point. It will enable imperialism to continue on their forward march against other countries. You know, it's important to remind ourselves what President Barack Obama did, that he promised in his first election campaign that all options were on the table in defending Israel, that he said that in his words, Hugo Chavez would no longer be able to continue with his checkbook diplomacy, meaning solidarity of Venezuela's resources with the people of Latin America and the Caribbean and even the United States in exchange for this cooperation, economic cooperation. And what happened in his first six months, President Menzelaya Avonduras, who was joining the Alba Latin American Progressive Alliance, who had promised a non-binding referendum on the question of a new constitution, he was overthrown under the Obama administration and helped lead to the dismantling, the unraveling of the progressive governments in Latin America. Fortunately, the mass party of Evo Morales won a decided victory in Bolivia. In other words, the US aims at crushing progress in the world cannot be, they cannot be victorious entirely. They can cause great misery and death. They can cause all kinds of problems for the world, but the people of the US are tired of war. They're tired of seeing no improvement in their lives, a worsening of their lives than this claim that the US must defend democracy abroad. Of course, the role of our party and the role of the progressive people in the US is to give clarity to these myths and lies of the imperialists. We must give clarity that fighting for democracy, the US fighting for democracy is really crushing people's dreams abroad and that they are our brothers and sisters. This, you will not hear from the Democrats or the Republicans. Absolutely. And Rorya, finally, one last question. Like you said, especially since me, when the protests broke out, there has been this upsurge of popular anger, popular mobilization, but also, like you said, a hope of building, of trying to and want to build something new, something different. And these sentiments which have always been there, of course, have been much more accentuated. The youth, of course, in the forefront of many of this, but also people of all ages, of all races, all working together. So maybe could you finally, what would you, where do you see hope, especially in the coming months? The mainstream media is, of course, again, talking about elections in a very narrow perspective. It's all about, say, the electoral college, the numbers, games, that's really all the discussion is about. But maybe on a slightly longer perspective, where do you see hope? You know, it's very tragic what is happening in the United States. And there is great fear among the vast majority of people of the US. Fear of if they're employed the possibility they will not have their job again. Many industries, already the airlines are going to lay off thousands. There is fear of what the future holds, the fear of losing your housing. And in that, people are opening their eyes. You know, it's amazing that Bernie Sanders could reach tens of thousands of people on a day's notice in his rallies. No other candidate could do that. None of the Democrats certainly. And then they conspired to shut him down before the Super Tuesday's primary of March 3rd. In other words, at that point when Biden could not even finish third in the primaries, they were willing to coalesce together to dismiss Sanders in favor of Biden and give a better opportunity for Trump to win over Biden. They would rather have that than raise the expectations of the people. And yet with this situation we are facing, we do have optimism. Because the Black Lives Matter struggle was the largest number of demonstrations and the biggest movement ever in the United States. Even described by the New York Times. And I said last night here in we were in Alabama last night, Birmingham, Alabama, which is the south of the US. I said that many more millions of people of all the nationalities of the US of all the working class sectors and even, you know, the middle class that they see this movement, they also see themselves in this movement because they see it challenging more than the this necessary need to fight racism, but also that they know it means something is happening in the United States. The way the civil rights movement of Black people in the south in the 60s also engendered the indigenous struggle of the American Indian movement and other groups of the Latino, the Chicano movement, the Puerto Rican movement, the women's, the lesbian gay, by trans and queer community of the working class. There was so much movement at that time because people were inspired by the Black struggle. And this time I think the movement will be deeper and larger and more successful. We must bring the ideas of socialism to fight for socialism. We have an idea that we are talking about is not an idea, it's a reality. The actuality of revolution, the actuality of socialism in the United States. We are part of the worldwide working class in which nothing that the people consume, clothing, transport, food, housing, healthcare, nothing is produced except by millions of workers, hundreds of thousands of workers together in social coordinated collective labor. The problem and the contradiction, as you know, is the private ownership. And once you describe it to people that no owner can build a home, it's the workers. They understand. We can do away with all of that. Capitalism and save the planet as well. The environmental destruction, killing millions already by the growing heat. We know about the heat in India. We're familiar with the fires in California, the hurricanes, the typhoons. This is the urgency of socialism. And you know, I cannot imagine us not having had an election campaign struggle this year to bring those ideas to the working class. We're very happy about our campaign. I can say one thing. Our members across the country worked so hard to get us on the ballot in 15 states, which is quite remarkable in the middle of the pandemic. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Gloria, for speaking to us again. And we'll be in touch with you as in the following weeks as well. Thank you. Thank you, Prashant. Thank you very much. That's all we have time for today. Keep watching People's Dispatch.