Friday, July 1, 2016

Three reasons to vote 1 Socialist Alliance - your strongest progressive vote!


Socialist Alliance needs your NUMBER 1 vote in order to make an impact! If you want to see progressive change, this is the strongest vote you can make.

The establishment always tries to pressure people to vote for what they think is "realistic" - instead of what is needed. However legendary US socialist Eugene V Debs used to argue that "it is better to vote for what you want and not get it, than to vote for what you don't want, and get it". The successes achieved by Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders in the US show also that millions of people can be convinced that socialist change is perfectly reasonable and feasible.

Here are three reasons to vote 1 Socialist Alliance.

1 Socialist Alliance has the strongest progressive policies

Socialist Alliance supports a transition to 100% renewable energy in a decade. This is perfectly feasible but the Greens and Labor refuse to match it.

We support the abolition of all anti-union laws - not just some of them. We have an unambiguous position against mandatory detention and offshore processing of refugees and in favour of Aboriginal sovereignty.

Our policies are aimed at breaking the power of the big corporations and bringing about genuine democratic reform so that power can be in the hands of the people.

Unlike the Greens and Labor, Socialist Alliance parliamentarians would not have voted for the supply bills in Abbott's 2014 horror budget (which resulted in cuts to the ABC, SBS, CSIRO and more).

No other party can make all of these claims.

2 Voting Socialist Alliance puts left wing pressure on other parties

Historically the ALP has always been at its most progressive when it has faced strong pressure to its left. Their natural direction is to the right. Today even the Greens are drifting in more pragmatic direction. If you want to see a genuine, principled and consistent progressive change, giving your number 1 vote to Socialist Alliance is the strongest way to use your vote (even if our chances of being elected are slim at this point).

Using the preference system to preference Greens before Labor and Labor before Liberal means your vote will be passed on at full value if we're not elected.

3 Voting Socialist Alliance puts us in a better position to build grassroots protest movements against whichever government is elected

We all know that regardless of whether Labor or Liberal form government, we'll need to fight hard to stand up for our rights. A big vote for Socialist Alliance will help energise the social movements that are the foundation stone for a progressive people's power alternative. If elected, we will use the resources and the platform that come with parliamentary office to directly build and promote people's power.

P.S. You're welcome to come to the Socialist Alliance election night party