The election is over and workers lost. Not that there was any chance of winning, with the whole election system rigged against any serious challenge to the existing order. No statewide candidate challenged the military-industrial complex, or talked of reining in Wall Street, or spoke up for people fleeing repressive regimes in their own countries, or seriously addressed global warming. 

We lost the election because except for a few Green Party or independent candidates running in local elections, no candidates truly represented working folks and our needs and desires. Where progressives ran as Democrats, they often found that big money and their own party campaigned against them.

Big money was able to defeat the few Statewide propositions that would have clearly benefited working class people. A few big operations that run dialysis clinics beat Proposition 8, thus safeguarding their profits; the big realtors beat Proposition 10, thus protecting them against strong rent control, and the ambulance companies won on Proposition 11, enabling them to deprive workers of their constitutionally protected breaks. 

But don’t give up on voting completely, it’s one of the few options - flawed though it is - we have for trying to bring about a better world. The Peace and Freedom Party runs candidates for change, and we use the electoral system to talk about our ideas to move our society forward. We actively lobby for proportional representation in our legislatures, the elimination of the undemocratic Top Two election system, getting money out of political campaigns, maximum citizen participation in elections, and many other progressive steps that California should take to improve things for everyone.
 
Please join us in this campaign for a better tomorrow for all workers.

--John Reiger
State Chair, Peace and Freedom Party