Kshama Sawant Calls for a New Political Party of "Working People"

On Saturday evening, September 20, on the eve of the People's Climate March and before an overflow audience at All Souls Church in New York City, Kshama Sawant, the recently elected Seattle city council member, spoke to an audience full of lefties.

According to Jerry Kann, in her speech, she called for the following:

1) Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders (who was seated beside her on the dais) to run for President as an independent, not as a Democrat.

2) Nationalization (her phrase was "public ownership") of the U.S.-based fossil fuel corporations.

3) The formation of "a new party" dedicated to representing the interests of working people.

How lefty was the crowd? Kann informs:

When Sawant declared that we need public ownership of energy resources, another roar went up from the crowd, and I was roaring right along with them. Not that many years ago, I might have smiled at such a declaration--not because I would have disagreed with the idea of nationalization but because I wouldn't have taken it seriously as something we could achieve. But coming from the woman who got the $15-an-hour minimum wage law passed in Seattle, "public ownership" sounded like more than just a slogan. It sounded like an attainable goal. She stated it so simply--without bombast, without equivocation--that I immediately thought, Yes, she's right. 

He's right that a call for nationalization of the energy sector by Sawant is a significant event. I don't think it will occur anytime soon, but Sawant is a very savvy political leader, with her ear to the ground. She knows what hot buttons to push.

Of course, she is clueless about economics and the disaster that a nationalized energy sector would be, but she will keep her followers excited with such insane talk. She will move the national conversation so that it includes talk about the energy sector and she will start nibbling away by calling for more energy taxes etc.

Most significant, nationalization of the oil sector would, as it has in other countries where oil has been nationalized, result in less production, more inefficiencies and higher prices, which is the last thing "working people" need.

If she starts a new party. Sawant should call it the Mayhem and Destruction Party. That's what her proposals will bring.