The Peace & Freedom Party describes itself as “California’s feminist socialist political party.” They nominated Ralph Nader for President in the 2008 elections.
from Ballot Access News
Peace & Freedom Party Plans National Organizing Conference
The Peace & Freedom Party is hosting a Conference in San Francisco on Saturday, August 1, to advance its hopes of building a nationwide political party. The conference is at the State Building at 455 Golden Gate Ave. See here for more information.
Feminism has nothing to do with women being superior to men. Feminism mean tearing down the hierarchical structures of society and replace them with a more flat structure. and Socialism is not a political structure but an economic structure. Capitalism is economic dictatorship. Workers do make the decisions, the boss does. Socialism moves democracy into the work place so that working people at the work place will have input on how to run the work place democraticly.
a little bit of capitalism is like what it used to be like to have gotten pregnant before Roe v Wade; A little bit meant you’d bear the baby – no choice – except back alley or far-away hugely expensive travel – (Italy was doing them free when I got there in 1965 – not for that, but for another reason – and got pregnant again, meanwhile).
A little bit of capitalism is the same as what’s going on today. This is just what capitalism is, becomes. It’s its nature.
Thanks for clearing that up.
it’s not a feminist socialist party. It’s a feminist, socialist party – that is working to build socialist struggle.
The last thing the Peace and Freedom party stands for is peace and freedom.
@16 – I don’t think that’s true at all. Maybe that’s true of the most radical feminists, but I don’t think that’s true of all of them.
@18 – I really agree with that, but I don’t think I know enough to say what the root cause of our problems really is.
MDH
Interesting argument and position. I may not agree but your give me pause for thought.
Well put, old bean. Well put.
Erm, except you’re wrong. Corporatism has led us to this collapse, not capitalism. Capitalism does not exist in the US and has not in over 100 years. A true free market capitalist economy never has. The problem is not “un-regulation” (a silly term given how much regulation there is!) but an overabundance of it, quashing small business and destroying the possibility for competition.
While socialists will often admit that government is owned by large corporations, for some reason they often fail to make the logical leap that those large corporations then use government regulation to their advantage. To create barriers for entry into a given market, for example, etc. The largest corporations want more regulations because those regulations are much much more of a burden on smaller competitors than on the mega-corps.
@16. I’m sure one could find someone who calls themselves a feminist and who favors women as superior to men, but then, I know for a fact that it’s not hard to find so-called Libertarians who hold private property as being superior to human needs.
And comrade, mdh, I have a much clearer historical understanding of both socialism (which you smear by applying to the Democrats and Republicans), and feminism, which you seem to fear.
As to “free markets”; let’s just go with a more technical term; neo-liberal classical capitalist economics. What ever your preferred, terminology – un-regulated capitalism has led to an economic, not to mention environmental disaster for the whole planet.
Capitalism on a small scale (small holder businesses) works well, but once a capitalist enterprise begins to impact the society and environment on a larger scale it has through out history ended badly for everyone but the ruling class.
#13 – There’s never been a free market in the US. That’s a myth started by the socialist parties (the Republicans and Democrats).
As far as feminism being about equality, that hasn’t been true since the early 20th century. Deran obviously has no idea what he or she is talking about on that subject. Feminism nowadays is about creating a special privilege class.
Sometimes feminists actually want women to be superior to men, which is just ridiculous. Equality means equality, not putting the previously oppressed group somehow ahead of the former oppressors.
Deran, if you think a nation where the FDA bans natural Vitamin B6 and Cheerios as “drugs” is a free market, then you must be on some pretty powerful stuff for that trip, because anyone with half a brain knows we aren’t in a free market.
Actually, “socialist’feminism” has a fairly long history in the US.
A political party with feminist analysis is a political party that critiques the standardized roles of men and women, and supports equality for women and men. Something I know is a bit threatening to the macho socalled “libertarian” capitalists.
I think this is a promising event. The US is ripe for a political vehicle that allows its citizens to organize to overcome the failed “free market” capitalism that has ruined this country over the last 30 years or so.
I think that because “free marketeerism” has been so disaterous for the US, people are potentially more interested in alternatives. Of course, when you get more than one socialist in a room together (and one of them are bound to be a Leninist) you end up with something not unlike the cat-fighting so prevalent in the LP. :=))
I won’t be able to get to SF, but I hope this national conference leads to state and regional conferences of socialists that will focus on building a new national political vehicle.
I think every word is appropriate on IPR. We have very free speech here!
Technically there is no such thing as feminist socialism, but if there were such a thing, it would be similar to Anarcha-feminism.
Is a word like that really appropriate on IPR?
And what’s the point of a feminist political party, anyways? To elect candidates who will enact policies that create special privilege classes for people with vaginas?
Peace and Freedom – things I love!
Feminism and socialism – things I dislike strongly!
Funny, that. Seems like false advertising to me.
Anyone can be a feminist.
Ralph Nader is a feminist?
I think that they meant feminist and socialist political party.
Thanks for posting this. I contacted the P&F Party and may just attend this. If I am able.
What the heck does “feminist socialism” mean, anyway? That the state will confiscate and redistribute bras to burn? 🙂
And I wonder what kind of a base feminist socialism will have outside of California…
Thanks for posting this. I was going to but haven’t gotten around to it.