Maybe you’re unfamiliar with the platform of Claudia de la Cruz and Karina Garcia, the Peace and Freedom Party’s endorsed presidential ticket in the 2024 general election – not surprising, given the lack of media coverage and other exposure to which alternative political parties have access. No matter, below runs the De La Cruz-Garcia platofrm in its entirety. And thank you for voting Socialist in Election 2024!
Seize the Biggest 100 Corporations, Create A New Economy for the People
The 100 largest corporations in America should be seized from their billionaire owners and turned into public property – owned by the working class that created their vast wealth in the first place. This could serve as the foundation for a total reorganization of the economy in a way that guarantees that everyone in society will have their basic needs met, massively rebuild urban and rural infrastructure, and bring down prices and rents.
Quality healthcare, education through college and beyond, free childcare, decent housing and a living wage with union representation would become constitutional rights. A form of “card check” unionization would be enacted that certifies a union immediately after a majority of employees in a given workplace express their desire to do so. Immigrant workers – who are fleeing horrific conditions caused largely by U.S. corporations and politicians – should be given legal status and brought into unions so that solidarity prevails instead of a “race to the bottom” in wages.
With the hospitals and pharmaceutical companies under the control of the people, they would provide care for free. Evictions would be banned, and rent capped at no more than 10% of a person’s income. Inflation would be eliminated with an across-the-board price freeze. All income and assets over ten million dollars would be subject to a 100% tax – with no exceptions or loopholes – as would all offshore corporate profits. All debt from student loans, bail bonds, medical and utility bills would be canceled.
Overthrow the Dictatorship of the Rich — Build a Democracy That Serves the Working Class
The United States needs a new system of government to replace the current one designed to maintain the dictatorship of the billionaires over everyone else. The main tools the ultra-rich use to enforce this dictatorship would be abolished. This includes the Supreme Court, the Senate, and the banker-controlled Federal Reserve. Behind the fig leaf of democracy in America, there is an enormous apparatus of violence and surveillance aimed at repressing the people. The FBI and NSA would be disbanded, and mass incarceration would be replaced by a justice system aimed at rehabilitation and reintegration into the community.
The median income for a person in the United States is $31,000, but there is currently not a single member of Congress who has to experience this reality. Workers are fully capable of making the decisions and running the government – workers already run everything else! With workers in charge, the rights of all people will finally be respected. We demand full equality for LGBTQ people in all areas of society and national legislation banning discrimination at the workplace and in all public and private institutions. Native sovereignty and self-determination should be fully recognized and treaty rights should be honored.
We want to turn the social order upside down and topple those who have all the money and power but do none of the work!
The new, socialist system of government would be based on the direct exercise of power by workers. A true democracy encourages the proliferation of many types of organizations -- youth climate corps, neighborhood associations, student groups, unions, civic organizations -- and views organizations as instruments for people to identify problems and take action together.
End the Rule of Money and Lock Up the Corrupt Elite
Bribery in America is a legal, recognized industry called corporate lobbying. This practice must be outlawed, and all politicians should be subject to a ban on serving on any corporate board or holding an executive position of any type at a private company after leaving office. All Wall Street bailouts would end immediately. Similarly, millionaires and billionaires should no longer be allowed to buy elections through lavish donations. All campaigning should be publicly financed, and the different loopholes like Super PACs that billionaires use to get around donation limits should be immediately closed.
Under a democracy by the workers, war criminals and Wall Street con men would be locked up – finally brought to justice for their monstrous crimes against the people. Corruption is a bipartisan issue for the U.S. ruling class. People like Hunter Biden and Jared Kushner alike abuse their positions of power to secure lucrative sources of income and flout the law. Some members of the ultra-rich grow even wealthier by facilitating the crimes of others, like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, whose bank counted Jeffrey Epstein among its clients. The wrong people are in jail. Instead of incarcerating millions of poor people caught in desperate situations, the ones who should be held to account are the corrupt capitalists.
End All U.S. Aid to Apartheid Israel. End the Genocide and Free Palestine
Our campaign is fully committed to the Palestinian people's fight for freedom and an end to the genocide in Gaza. Claudia, Karina and countless campaign volunteers are proud to have taken to the streets as part of the massive people's movement that has emerged in the United States since October 7 as an expression of their long-standing commitment to the struggle for Palestinian liberation.
We stand for the immediate end of all aid to Israel. Our tax dollars should be used to meet people's needs -- not pay for the bullets, bombs and missiles used in the massacre in Gaza. Likewise, all U.S. diplomatic support to help Israel conceal its crimes, like use of the U.S. veto power in the United Nations, must stop. We stand for the repeal of all anti-BDS laws and demand an end to the repression and intimidation of pro-Palestine protesters.
The Palestinian people have been heroically resisting genocide and occupation for over 76 years. We are in solidarity with their struggle for freedom from the river to the sea!
Cut the Military Budget by 90% — Peace, Not War with China & Russia!
The world is headed towards a catastrophic, unprecedented conflict because of the unmitigated aggressiveness and recklessness of the politicians and Pentagon generals. The new Cold War against China and Russia must end, along with associated aggression like the proxy war in Ukraine, massive military shipments to Taiwan, or any and all military build up against any targeted nation. The vast network of military bases the Pentagon maintains in other countries should be immediately closed. We demand the abolition of the NATO military alliance and AFRICOM. Cruel economic sanctions imposed on countries around the world – including Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Eritrea, North Korea and Iran – must be lifted. All U.S. aid to apartheid Israel must immediately end. The CIA should be abolished, and its secrets exposed so the world knows the true extent of this agency’s crimes.
The approximately $1 trillion that the U.S. taxpayers spend every year on war should instead be spent to address the dire crises facing working people. The price of key goods, especially gas, could be dramatically lowered if the suffocating economic sanctions the U.S. government imposes on countries around the world were lifted. Humanity needs a world order based on cooperation and peace, not domination and war.
End the War on Black America!
The struggle for Black freedom brought millions of people into the streets in 2020 in the most massive social movement in U.S. history. This enormous uprising was an outraged response to the fact that a war has been waged on Black America from the very foundation of the country – from slavery to segregation to systemic racism, including decades of neoliberalism and mass incarceration that have left the country even more unequal and segregated. Reparations and the rebuilding of Black communities are essential to fully address the consequences of this war. The seizure of the 100 largest corporations – many of which historically profited from slavery – will provide ample resources for cash payments along with huge investments in services and infrastructure.
Along with reparations, we stand for a wide range of measures to comprehensively uproot the oppression of Black people. Affirmative action programs should be expanded, not shredded by unelected judges. Cops responsible for racist brutality should be given long prison sentences as an unmistakable signal that the era of impunity is over. We want to stop the white-washing of U.S. history under the guise of bans on “critical race theory” – all young people should understand the horrors of white supremacy and develop an appreciation for why racism must be eradicated from society. The transformation of the country’s healthcare system must include as a top priority sweeping action to eliminate the huge disparity in maternal mortality rates for Black women.
Defend Women’s Rights, Full Equality for LGBTQ People
Abortion should be available without restrictions and provided for free so that women and all people have the right to control their own bodies. The Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision was a historic blow to equal rights, but the court could not have done it without the help of decades of passivity on the part of the Democratic Party. The Democrats refused to take any of the many opportunities they had – including the period between the 2020 and 2022 elections – to pass a law at the federal level legalizing abortion. We need such legislation immediately, along with other measures to ensure abortion services are available on demand regardless of income.
The epidemic of violence against women must be addressed as a top priority of society. This can only be achieved through a comprehensive approach involving programs to help women leave abusive situations, an end to impunity for crimes committed against women, and cultural campaigns to uproot sexist attitudes. The constitution must finally include a provision guaranteeing equal rights for women.
We demand full equality for LGBTQ people in all areas of society and we demand to stop the right-wing scapegoating against LGBTQ people. We call to enact national legislation banning discrimination against LGBTQ people at the workplace and in all public and private institutions.
Save the Planet from Capitalism
To deal with the disastrous effects of the climate crisis, society must urgently transform the way we produce energy, grow food and move around the world. The main obstacle standing in our way is private profit, and the system that values quarterly revenue over the survival of human civilization. We can only take action at the scale and speed necessary to save the planet if the unplanned, capitalist economic system is replaced by socialist economic planning.
Fossil fuel corporations should immediately be taken over by the public and repurposed to generate renewable energy. Capitalist agriculture is enormously wasteful, especially when it comes to water resources. The vast landholdings and technological resources available to the agribusiness corporations would be seized and turned over to farmers, who would implement a democratically-determined plan to reorganize food production on a sustainable basis. Public transportation will be massively expanded with a fleet consisting entirely of electric vehicles, and the huge scale of this undertaking will ensure that no autoworker will lose their job. Massive infrastructure projects need to begin immediately to make society more resilient to the changing climate while creating millions of good-payi