[For a fundraising party at a prominent feminist's house in a couple of weeks]
[For out of staters, Stanley is the Green candiate for governor of New York]
A LETTER TO FEMINISTS FROM STANLEY ARONOWITZ
Dear Friends,
In running for governor on the Green Party ticket, my purpose is twofold. First, I mean to counter the alarming lack of genuine public debate. There can be no such thing as democracy without active, public opposition to the status quo; yet.the major party candidates bicker over small differences and refuse to acknowledge or engage fundamental issues about our economy, our society, and our government. I will relentlessly raise those issues.
I also see this campaign as a vehicle for building a grass-roots, radical democratic politics. By this I mean a politics that combines opposition to corporate power and the plutocratic corruption of government with commitment to a sustainable environment, racial equality, feminism, gay liberation, and individual freedom: a politics that transcends the false dichotomies of economic versus cultural issues, class versus race and sex, that have crippled the left. To preserve the Green Party's ballot status, I need at least 50,000 votes. But I expect to do much better by reaching out to a wide range of constituencies, from the labor and environmental movements to black, feminist, gay and lesbian activists.
My support for women's concerns is explicit, vocal, and based on listening to what women have to say. My ticket includes two women: Jennifer Daniels, a physician and health and community activist who is running for lieutenant governor, and Mary Jo Long, the nominee for attorney general, a lawyer with expertise in domestic relations, anti-discrimination, and workers' compensation law. This will not be the kind of campaign where words like "abortion" and "child care" and "domestic partners" are buried in fine print on the candidate's web site.
These are some themes of my campaign:
--Tax and Spend. A high level of public goods and services is essential to a civilized society in the 21st century. That means high-quality schools and free tuition at top-flight public universities. It means state-funded health insurance that pays for the full range of women's medical needs including birth control, abortion, and infertility treatments. It means universal public child care and after-school programs. To afford these and other necessary social benefits we must revive progressive taxation while ending corporate welfare and tax giveaways to the rich.
--A Guaranteed Income must replace our bankrupt welfare system. Single mothers need economic independence, not pressure to get married.
--Cut Working Hours to 6 hours a day, 30 a week, and mandate paid sabbaticals. Let's stop working ourselves to death. Ease the conflict between paid work and the "second shift."
--Repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws, whose draconian sentences have decimated black and Latino communities. Thousands of women, most of them mothers, have been imprisoned for years for low-level nonviolent drug offenses. Legalize marijuana and decriminalize the use of other drugs.
--Support Reproductive Freedom. Require employers' health insurance plans to cover abortion as well as contraception. Prohibit the merging of secular hospitals with religious institutions that won't offer women full reproductive health services.
--Outlaw Anti-Gay Discrimination. Amend the New York State civil rights law to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Recognize the right to marry regardless of gender as well as equal domestic partnership and parental benefits for those, homosexual or heterosexual, who choose not to marry.
--Close Indian Point. Nuclear power plants are ecologically unsound as well as a target for terrorists. Reorient energy policy toward conservation and renewable energy sources. Avoid California's mistakes: reregulate the utility companies.
--Mandate Responsible Land Use. Regulate development; subsidize affordable housing; protect the watershed; grant tax credits for organic farming to revitalize local economies.
--Democratize State Government, now an autocracy run by the governor and two legislative leaders. Institute public financing of all political campaigns and instant runoffs to increase the viability and influence of minor parties.
--Support Democracy Post-September 11. Oppose the invocation of national security as an excuse to impose austerity, increase corporate welfare, curtail civil liberties, discriminate against immigrants, and mobilize a permanent war machine. Fear of terrorism cannot be allowed to subvert democracy. In these dangerous times, it is all the more important that we stand unequivocally for economic and social equality, freedom, and democratic government.
Many of you are familiar with my 40-year record of labor, civil rights, anti-war, community and educational activism. For those who are not, I include a biography as an attachment to this message.
I hope very much to see you on July 1; and whether or not you can come, I hope you will make a donation to my campaign. Please make checks payable to Aronowitz for Governor 2002 and send them to 1 Washington Square Village #10F, New York, NY 10012. With your help, energy, and ideas, we can give radical democracy a voice in New York State.
In solidarity,
Stanley Aronowitz