Sections

Pres. candidate running for 'poor working' people

With an election platform that rails against an "oppressive national capitalist system," Monica Moorehead, the Workers World Party candidate for U.S. president, said she knows she can't win the election this year.

"I'm running for president, along with my running mate, Gloria La Riva, for vice president, because we feel that we're the only candidates who are running in the interests of poor working people in this country," Moorehead said yesterday in an interview with The Michigan Daily. "We're not running because we feel we're going to win the elections. We have no illusions on that."

On the first leg of her campaign in Michigan, Moorehead described some of the party's history.

The Workers World Party was founded in 1959 in Buffalo, N.Y., and has been on Michigan's ballot since 1990. The party has spearheaded many protests for social change, Moorehead said, fighting against the far-reaching impact of American corporations.

The combined ticket of Moorehead, an African American woman, and La Riva, a Latina woman, marks the first time in U.S. history that two women have run together for the highest national office.

"It would be a progessive step forward if a woman of color was in the White House," Moorehead said. "It would shake up the whole country. It would really excite people."

Moorehead said her candidacy will focus on ideals of equality in employment and socialism. Foremost, she proposes tripling the current minimum wage, to a standard of at least $13 per hour of work.

"It's an important demand that will impact on all social and economic issues in this country," she said. "It is inhumane. It is illegal. It's a crime for people to be forced to work for $4.25 an hour."

Moorehead said a higher minimum wage would raise the standard of living to benefit all U.S. citizens. "(There are) more people being put in prisons today ... in order to be forced to work for slave wages. You have people in prison making license plates, ladies' undergarments, all for, like, 90 cents an hour."

"The reason they are in prison is that there are no jobs out here," she said. "You have more corporations investing in prisons right now, because it's profitable."

The Workers Party calls for expansion of affirmative action programs, restoring cuts to federal welfare and education programs and dismantling both the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.

"In other words, what we're saying is that we need to put people's needs first before corporate greed," Moorehead said.

The theoretical panacea of a nationwide flat-tax, touted in the Republican primary by Malcolm "Steve" Forbes Jr., would not solve the problem of economic disparity within the country, she said, because only the rich would benefit.

"If you tax the corporations, if you take away the subsidies that the corporations get, you could, you really could elevate the minimum wage in this country," Moorehead said.

Moorehead blasted President Clinton's inactivity at helping the lower classes.

"If he was really serious, he would sign an executive order today, demanding that the minimum wage be tripled," she said. "If the corporations didn't like it, and of course, they wouldn't, (Clinton) could call press conferences and town meetings all over the country ... and have people come to Washington, D.C., and support his legislation for this."

Working to get on the ballot in 26 states, Moorehead said the party wants to publicize its ideals to all Americans.

"Elections don't change conditions. Mass movements change conditions," she said. "We want to see a restoration of mass struggle in this country as was done in the 1930s and the 1960s with the civil rights movement.