If anyone would like a copy of C-SPAN's coverage of McReynold's speech, feel free to e-mail.
We are engaged in a struggle in defining the future. Is the planet for sale to the highest bidder? Is the profit motive to determine who lives in squalor and who lives in wealth beyond the dreams of Solomon? What shall our great great grandchildren inherit? Dust and sterile wind, slums dotted with palaces owned by Donald Trump? We cannot win this election in terms of votes. As an African American woman said in one of the early meetings where Jesse Jackson was being discussed and all the analysts were telling her that Jesse could not win and gave her all the reasons and she kept on saying "Jesse is going to win, Jesse is going to win" and finally in exasperation they said "Could you tell us in the name of God, how Jesse Jackson is going to win?" She said "you folks don't understand, every time a black man appears on television without a basketball in his hand, we've won". Now, in that sense, when we are able to speak the message of socialism we 've won, we've won.
Foreign policy is briefly stated, but I'll just make these points because they are not going to be heard from the major parties. And Eric Chester yesterday called for immediate cuts of 50% in the military budget. And, you know, the Center for Defense Information, which is not a radical organization has the same figure as a starting point. And I think it's a good starting point. An end, a total and unconditional end of all further arms sales by this country.Immediate abolition of the Central Intelligence Agency, which is one of the greatest mischief makers of our times, the corrupter of our democracy. And as I noted earlier, it's an abolition even Sen.Moynihan has called for, so it's not even a radical position, it's just a long over due one that no one is prepared to speak to. An immediate end of sanctions on Cuba, Libyia, North Korea, Iraq, and anywhere else we have introduced the concept of sanctions as a weapon to force change. Withdrawal,immediately from all foreign bases, beginning with the withdrawal from Guatanamo, which is a sovereign territory of Cuba. Dissolution of all military alliances, beginning with NATO. These alliances have subverted the possible role of the United Nations in resolving disputes, they are a subsitute for international cooperation. So abolition of all military alliances. Find ways through the United Nations, not unilateral, to provide economic aid, medical help and food to nations in need.
Domestically, the greatest problems is the racial divisions in this country. And we cannot easily or quickly resolve a problem which in the case of those Americans who were brought here as slaves had their languages and religious beliefs destroyed. And they have a unique history. All those in this country, all of us, who except Native Americans came from abroad, they alone share that special problem. We know in a matter of three or four decades, Caucasians are going to be a minority in this country. Now I can see and you can see by looking at the convention, our own isolation from those great movements of Latinos Asians, and African-Americans, and Native Americans. We know that problem. And I don't have a quick solution for it except as an addition to trying to recruit and to build alliances and coalitions with those communities of color and to do it as a high priority, we must reach out, not only through recruiting, but also through the coalition work on the basic need of that which concerns me: the persistent underclass, which is out of the economy. It's not even counted in the economy.
I suggest not only full employment, but a maximum wage. And a maximum wage instead of a minimum wage means that the maximum wage that you can earn is going to be four times the lowest wage paid to anyone in the country. And I know it may sound foolish, but why not? I'd be happy to work for four times the lowest wage and I'm tired of watching people walk away with one million dollar salaries. If the maximum wage was four times the lowest wage, boy would they rush to raise the minimum wage. So I say let's have a four times maximum wage. We need a decent low income housing program, so if there is a single person in this country living in the streets it is because they have a sense of adventure. We need a national health care program so that every single person living in this country, and any tourist, has the right to full and adequate medical are. One of the great things under the Labour Party when it came to power in Britian, was that anyone who was in England and fell ill was taken care of automatically. No one asked for their blue cross card.
Defend full civil liberties, and we know that and that's an old story. And that includes the problems of defending the Klan and defending black extremists such as Khalid, who are anti-semitic. But it also means a persistent, forceful tarteging of those, whose under the guise of anti-terrorist bills, are curbing our freedom. For our nation has truly become a garrison state in ways it was not when I was young. You cannot get access to the White House, it has been barricaded off from you. You cannot even walk into city hall in Manhatten anymore because that crazy man, Guiliani, has got that blocked off. We cannot travel in the air without having everything in our bagagge checked through, because we are now living in a state of fear, and our job is to oppose that effort to make this a nation living in fear. Let it live without the fear we have created.
We now have the largest prison population in the world. There was much rage about the Soviet gulags. We have the gulag now. We talked a bit about slave labor, which is in itself bad, but I want the slaves released.We must release those men and women whose only crime was a non-violent offense. The prisons are overflowing with people who ought not to be there. Mothers are separated from their children. Fathers are separated from their children. And I know that crime is a crime. But prison is also a crime. And it is time for us, as socialists, to demand a fundamental reform of the prison system in this country. And if we don't do it, no one else will because they haveno votes and no money. We are going to have to speak for them. We need to recognize the complete failure of the War on Drugs. We have to move to decriminalize marijuana, to use medical rather than legal approaches to addictive drugs such as heroin. And to recognize that we have two highly addictive drugs now legally available: alcohol and tobacco. And I don't favor banning those, but I tell you I sure would the day after we took office, I certainly would nationalize without a moments hesitation the tobacco industry and maybe make it available on prescription.
We need to care for the environment. Socialists always have. I don't think there is a single thing the Greens are going to say about the environment that we're not going to subscribe to.
Let me close by saying what is specific about the Socialist Party because the tragedy is, through all the points I've mentioned, there is not a single point thus far that could not in fact be advocated by George Bush. That's the tragedy in this country. Not a single position he couldn't advocate. There is not a radical point in that bunch. Not a socialist position in the list of points I have named. What a shame that this country now is unwilling to speak about the poor. We've become embarrased, there's no voice any longer for the poor. There's only a voice about the middle class. Well, what about the working poor and what about those who have no job? That's what we are for. To speak for the working poor and those who have no voice. These are the things which capitalism cannot deal with. The reason we have a bad foreign policy is not because we have evil men in the White House, in fact we have got to stop demonizing those people. They are as trapped by our corporate system as anyone else is. There is nothing else Bill Clinton could do. He wouldn't be allowed to do anything else. So, let's stop demonizing our leadership and recognize, the burden is on us to change the framework so that we can behave differently and in a decent way. Our present foreign policy does not reflect evil, it reflects the nature of capitalism to exploit the world.
Finally, we believe and this is what makes us different from other groups, we believe and favor the social ownership and democratic control of the basic means of production. We believe in the inherent right of the people, not the corporate structure to determine how our funds are invested, what products are needed, how they should be distributed and to whom. In the words of Kenneth Patchen, and forgive the sexism of this line, "No man can own what belongs to all". This country belongs to us all. It does not belong to the fortune 500. And it will never truly belong to us all unill we have taken action to take ownership of the basic means of production. Our society, as Eric pointed out so very well, is run by a handfull of the rich and powerful while the multitudes are silenced. Who else has the money to own a television network? Look at the slop we get on television, how it silences us, and how many times have you heard in all this wonderful democracy that we have, how many times have you heard Noam Chomsky interviewed on a talkshow? We have a very limited democracy. Our job, as the Socialist Party, is to expand that democracy. To bring the voice of radical change to the people of this country and to give it a human face. Socialism is not for limiting democracy. We will never see a society free and full and humane if money is consolidated at the hands of the fortune 500.
Our task and our goal as socialists is to educate and to build for the future for our great grand children, a future we won't live in but they might live in so that the earth might be one of meadows and farmlands and clean streets and safe cities and people who are safe in there concern about medical care, people who are free and healthy. That is the society we are working for. That the goal we have in mind. Get me on your campus, get Mary Cal on your campus and now. And now that speech is over, I want to say, I want to really thank those, aside from blaming, this man here, Shaun whose responsible for the Draft McReynolds committee. I want now to just say we all owe a vote of thanks to Greg Pason, and we all owe a vote of thanks to Eric Shuster, but these two guys among many many others, but they bore the frunt of sending the word out through the magazine, getting the party organized, getting this convention together, and they are young, they are the future, and I think we really owe them a vote of thanks and confidence.