VotePSL -- Frances Villar for Mayor of New York!

[Kassad]

http://www.washingtoninformer.com/wi-web/images/stories/front-page/09-03-26/A1-Photo---War-Protest---Khlaid-600x400.jpg
Frances Villar, the Party for Socialism and Liberation's candidate for Mayor of New York City, protesting at the March 21st March on the Pentagon. (I'm pretty sure that's my PSL sign behind her, but I must've been blocked. -- Kassad)

What the Frances Villar for Mayor (PSL) 2009 Campaign Stands For

The billionaires are going to pay for this crisis! They created the crisis—now they should be the ones to pay for it. Tax Wall Street and the big landlords.


People before banks! The city currently pays $5 billion every year to the banks in debt payments—before it ever makes it to the city budget. We are calling for the city to put the banks at the back of the line.


Every New Yorker has a right to a job!


New York City should be an eviction-free zone. No foreclosures or evictions in the city.


Education is a right. Make sure every child in the city has a safe and modern classroom. Raise the salary for every public school teacher in the city, and make parents have a real say in their children’s curriculum. CUNY should be free.
Student and mother will challenge billionaire Bloomberg for mayor


Frances Villar, a 26-year-old mother of two and City University of New York student, will challenge New York City’s richest man in the 2009 New York City mayoral race. Villar will run on the Socialism and Liberation ticket.

"In the middle of the worst economic crisis our country has seen in decades, New York City deserves a candidate that speaks in the name of poor and working people, not for the billionaires,” Villar announced.

“My campaign will put the issues of unemployment, evictions, education and police brutality as the first order of business for the city to tackle—not the interests of the banks and billionaires,” she continued. “We live in the richest city in the country, but you would never know it by walking through the communities where most of us live.”

Villar is a student leader who has worked tirelessly against the city's and state’s efforts to make CUNY students pay for the budget crisis. She is the president of her building’s tenants association. She has organized against the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and against the occupation of Palestine.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation was formed in 2004. The PSL fielded presidential candidates Gloria La Riva and Eugene Puryear in the 2008 elections, and were on the ballot in 12 states, including New York.

Villar formally announced her campaign at a Saturday, May 23 PSL Public Conference under the banner, “Billionaires, your time is up—and we don’t just mean Bloomberg."

www.VotePSL.org (http://www.votepsl.org/)

[Lolshevik]

This is great news. The campaign of Carlos Alvarez in L.A. went great; I'm sure Villar will have just as much (if not more) success conducting socialist agitation in New York, where IMO the class struggles are more open and acute.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Message from Gloria La Riva about the PSL mayoral campaign:
http://peppsl.convio.net/site/TellAFriend?msgId=16041.0&devId=18961



Dear PSL supporter,

I am writing to tell you some very exciting news about the prospects for socialism and to ask for your help. We hope you will read this brief letter and make an urgently needed donation (http://www.pslweb.org/votepsldonate).


http://peppsl.convio.net/images/content/pagebuilder/57425.png
Frances Villar on the cover of El Diario, NYC's largest Spanish-language newspaper. Click this link to donate to the campaign. (http://www.pslweb.org/votepsldonate) Here is the most exciting news: A new socialist political campaign In New York City has gained widespread media attention and is fast achieving mass visibility and support. More than 14,000 people, in just two week’s time, signed up to place Frances Villar's name on the ballot for Mayor in the upcoming November election. I hope you will help support this campaign.

The widespread enthusiasm and support for Frances Villar's campaign is especially noteworthy given the fact that New York is emblematic for a country that has been plunged head first into the deepest capitalist economic crisis in decades.

On Wall Street the same criminal bankers who destroyed millions of jobs are raking in record bonuses again. In the same city, by contrast, more than 1.8 million people are forced to get food charity each month so that their families don't starve. Unemployment in New York is deep. In some communities the real number of unemployment hovers around 50%.

People are hurting and they are also angry and looking for answers and for a way to fight back.

Frances Villar is a perfect candidate to give voice to New York City's vast working class.

Her campaign has been featured on the front page of El Diario with a readership of 300,000. In the last week she has appeared on local and national television news programs.

Frances is a true leader. She is a well recognized force among working class students in the public colleges of New York. She is also a young mother of two from the Bronx. She is also the president of her building's tenants association. Frances is running as a candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL.) She is running for Mayor of New York City against the richest man in the city and the 17th wealthiest man on the planet Michael Bloomberg.

This is a David vs. Goliath battle. And yet it couldn't be a better way to popularize socialism and socialist ideas among the working people and youth of New York City.

At a time when the city has been hit hard with unemployment, foreclosures, evictions and cutbacks, Bloomberg a ruling class member actually increased his wealth from 12 billion to an astonishing 17 billion dollars. To date, the billionaire has spent $37 million on his campaign for a third term in office he strong-armed the City Council to allow him to do.

http://peppsl.convio.net/images/content/pagebuilder/57491.jpg (http://www.pslweb.org/votepsldonate)
And while Bloomberg gets richer and richer, he cuts funding for schools, housing, children’s services, and other desperately needed social programs.

By contrast, our campaign, aided by the tremendous efforts of many volunteers, not only met our petitioning target, it has been reaching out to communities throughout the city with a message of hope and struggle. This is already bearing fruit on many fronts.

Frances, a Black Latina woman, has become a centerpiece of the political coverage in the Spanish language press.

This massive media coverage, along with our posters, leaflets, street meetings have raised the awareness of a fighting working class candidate that raises the issues that matter to them.

We have begun to get calls from people seeking support and willing to join the campaign. Our members are now going to meet many of the people who have called to seek advice and support on building tenants associations and fighting the landlord, fighting police brutality in their neighborhood, demanding more financial assistance for the elderly, and many, many more.

In essence, our Mayoral campaign has the potential to grow into a movement of poor and working people in the city.

We must fight. The people have shown us that they are willing to fight in the calls we receive, in the conversations we have on the street. We have the vehicle to galvanize this movement.

The only thing we lack are funds.

You can be a BIG part of this effort by contributing as much as possible to this heroic struggle. Your contribution is essential to moving a mayoral campaign into a movement.

Please take a moment to make an urgently needed donation through our secure online server. (http://www.pslweb.org/votepsldonate) We have volunteers working very hard to challenge the billionaires. You can take part by helping sustain our efforts.

Sincerely,

Gloria La Riva,
PSL's 2008 Presidential Candidate