EDITORIAL
The Working Class Needs Its Own Voice

Oct 3, 2016

There are only two parties whose candidates have much chance to be elected this year.

But that doesn’t mean that either party represents the majority of people in this country, working people.

In fact, both parties represent only one class: the capitalist class. One class, two parties. Often, the same bankers, same corporate big wigs, same financial speculators give to both parties. And that small wealthy class of people calls the tune that both parties dance to. Both parties opened the door to real estate speculators and mortgage scams. Both parties drained the money supposed to go to public schools, giving it to “developers.” Both parties carried out the wars that have torn up several generations of young Americans forced by the economy to join the army, while laying waste to large parts of the globe. Both parties presided over an economy that concentrated lavish amounts of wealth at one end, and destitution for a very large number at the other end. Both parties poisoned the water Flint drinks. And both parties imprisoned generations of young people instead of providing jobs for them.

And so, is this what we are supposed to go on living with? These two parties that represent a class which is our enemy? Well, no!

* * * * *

In Michigan this year, there is a new party on the ballot, the Working Class Party. Some dozens of people spent hundreds of hours looking for people who agreed they are fed up with this two-party system.

But the people who worked to get this new party on the ballot insisted that something more was needed: a party that recognizes the power working people have when they organize to fight, a party that believes the working class can impose its own answers to the problems capitalist society has created.

They said they wanted what did not exist–a party of the working class.

Fifty-thousand people agreed enough to sign petitions so that this new party, Working Class Party, could appear on the ballot in Michigan in November.

That doesn’t mean that the two-party hold on the election process has been broken. Not in the least. It doesn’t mean that this new party will even be heard all through the state. After all, to be heard all through the state, money is needed, lots of money. Access to the media is needed. But the media is owned by that same capitalist class that owns the two parties: newspapers, TV, radio and even a great deal of what appears on the internet is directly controlled by that capitalist class.

And it certainly doesn’t mean that a real mass working class party, the kind of party which is needed, will come into existence just like that. A real working class party will be built by working people in the process of carrying out struggles, just like working people built their unions almost a century ago by carrying out fights around the problems they faced.

Nonetheless, something significant happened in Michigan this year–a party that openly declares its working class allegiance was put on the ballot. Its name says it: Working Class Party. That name on the ballot can be a rallying point.

All those workers who want to see a party of their own class can say what they want by voting for the candidates of the Working Class Party.

Everyone, anywhere in the state, can vote for Mary Anne Hering, for State Board of Education. People in parts of Washtenaw and Wayne counties can vote for Gary Walkowicz in Michigan’s 12^th Congressional district. People in other parts of Wayne County, including part of Detroit, can vote for Sam Johnson in Michigan’s 13^th Congressional district.

Vote and get others to vote. The capitalist media may ignore the Working Class Party, but ordinary people can spread the word.

Some dozens of people worked to get those signatures putting Working Class Party on the ballot. Hundreds can work now to make sure that Working Class Party continues to exist.