.... Kshama Sawant, Seattles new socialist City Council member, bears little resemblance to the conventional image of a modern U.S. politician whose appearance and policies are often burnished by legions of advisers and focus groups. A small, whip-smart Indian-American woman in faded jeans with a makeup-free face, she holds a Ph.D. in economics and was an early participant in the Occupy protest movement. Sawant is not shy about her left-wing party affiliation — despite Americas modern habit of reacting with extreme hostility to the word socialism, which is freely demonized on the right and treated with extreme caution even in progressive circles. Yet Sawant is a clear exception. She told Al Jazeera that she was already going against convention by siding with the groups she sees as typically shut out of the political conversation — low-wage workers, women, immigrants and people of color — and so chose to identify her socialist affiliation to gain distance from a two-party system she sees as broken. Now, having won office with a surprise result that captured national headlines, she is triumphant in tone and feels that being a socialist in America is not necessarily a ticket to electoral disaster, as it has been so many times in the past. Weve shown that its possible to succeed in an openly socialist campaign, not taking any money from big business, not currying favor from the establishment and openly rejecting business as usual, said Sawant, speaking from a victory rally in Seattle that more closely resembled a religious revival than the glossy parties typically seen in modern politics. america.aljazeera/articles/2013/11/25/socialist-in-seattlenewcitycouncilorseesmorelikeher.html
Posted on: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 06:29:43 +0000
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