The label "pro-corporate" is such a simplistic cop-out. Speak to issues please, not jingoisms.

#2 Do you suggest a better term than "pro-corporate" to describe politicians or parties that rely on business and exec backing to win elections? Often this is far more meaningful than the formal platform of politicians running in left-leaning districts since it's easy to say you support policies, but entirely another to fight for them especially when that means biting the corporate hands that feed your campaigns. Is it too much to ask for politicians who refuse money from big business interests, whose political agenda and economic interests are typically diametrically opposed to the majority or working and middle class people?

> decries opponents for personal attacks

> attacks opponents personally

Read Nicole's letter that Kshama is responding to. It is so over-the-top one wonders if it was drug induced. Kshama takes the high road, and she chalks up a 'W.'

I love how Sawant leaves herself completely blameless for a bunch of things which developed while she's been in office.

"The responsibility for the affordable housing crisis, weak labor law enforcement, underfunded public transit and social services, police brutality, a $210 million new youth jail, and a proposed $160 million new police bunker lies squarely at the door step of the Democratic Party establishment that has long run Seattle."

Its probably worth pointing out that the youth detention center was approved by voters in 2012

Jon Grant and Nikkita Oliver are the only two sane individuals running for office in the upcoming elections. Kshama is dead-on: Unions keep supporting corporatists and wonder why things are screwed-up for working people.

#8. Go visit the rust belt where corporations have left or gone under en mass. The "working people" there aren't doing so well. Corporations get coddled because they can provide jobs and have lots of options in terms of labor and location.

I'm from the rust belt. I'm perfectly aware of what both Republicans and Democrats have done in giving huge handouts to corporations while taking away from social safety nets and programs for the working class.

But go on, keep kissing that boot and one day you'll own it.

@6

I just read that letter on your recommendation. I agree, I don't think it's something that can be taken seriously.

So Kshama's cool with exploiting workers? Because Jon Grant's campaign pays its staffers less than $15 an hour.

Kshama's also cool with shitting on indigenous people and threatening clean water? Because Jon Grant still banks with Wells Fargo and UBS despite lecturing others to close their accounts.

Kshama's also cool with displacing immigrant widows? Because that's what Jon Grant did when he got his dad to buy him his foreclosed house.

I guess Kshama doesn't really care about people's actions as long as they say the right things and put the word Socialist behind their name. It sure seems like Jon Grant isn't the only phony and hypocrite in this story.

@*: Go look at who has endorsed Sawant

Nicole Grant started the mud-slinging. Here are some questions about Teresa's professional background (as opposed to Nicole's attacks on Jon Grant's identities):

1. Nicole Grant and Teresa Mosqueda are close personal friends. How likely is it that Teresa's campaign did not know about Nicole's post? Even if she didn't know, why hasn't Teresa issued a statement condemning Nicole's attack after the fact?

2. Has Teresa ever done the hard work of organizing unorganized employees at a nonunion shop into a labor union? Has she ever represented members' grievances as a steward or staff? Has she ever negotiated a collective bargaining agreement? Has she ever organized co-workers or union members to give up pay or risk being fired by going out on strike? What has Teresa done for the labor movement other than being a polished, but top-down lobbyist to pro-corporate Democrat politicians???

3. Teresa's campaign hired Christian Sinderman as a communications and strategy consultant. What does this say about Teresa's campaign if she is hiring Seattle's leading establishment spin master?

At least Jon Grant's professional resume is grounded in a volunteer housing justice nonprofit run on a shoestring budget, without generous bureaucratic funding like the labor council...

@12

You're just slinging the same mud from Nicole's letter. Are we supposed to reject Mosqueda's candidacy because her campaign banks with KeyBank, infamous for refusing to cancel the debt of dead students? Of course not.

Between this and the shitfest at the dnc between the progressive and thirdwaayers it's going to be hilarious when Republicans win next year's midterms

Look at me...look at me...look at me...

Sawant's entire platform.

Kshama is revolting.

Sawant serves her ideology, not her constituents.

@15 I'm not slinging mud, I'm citing facts and asking questions (albeit rhetorical). And I'm fairly certain that Nicole Grant's letter didn't call out Jon Grant for paying less than $15 an hour (that story was broken by Erica Barnett yesterday) or his hypocrisy of continuing to use Wells Fargo and UBS for his personal banking. Maybe she'll include that information if she responds to Kshama's editorial.

If Jon Grant doesn't want people asking questions about his abhorrent behavior then he should try to be a better person. At the very least, he should refrain from telling people what they should do in their lives while he does the exact opposite in his. "Do what I say, not what I do" is not the attitude that I want in a leader.

You're welcome to reject Mosqueda's candidacy for whatever reason you like, although it's pretty clear who you already support. Myself, I'm leaning towards Shelley Secrest, but I'm keeping an open mind.

Isn't this the same woman that was recently encouraging her allies to play in traffic?
...
Yes, yes it was.

All I know is that Sawant doesn't play well with others for the greater good. I now don't trust her or anybody who chooses to run under her party's name. She throws people into snake pit and then wrings her hands about there being a snake pit. She's a "disaster socialist."

Jesus you guys just repeat the same anti-Kshama memes that failed to stop her from beating Richard Conlin in 2013 and (just to prove it wasn't a fluke) failed again in 2015. A lot of the reasons you haters hate her are the reasons why people vote for her. Much of your loathing is founded on the premise that she is the most powerful, most important politician in Seattle. How's that line of attack working out for you?

Sawant is going to stay on the Council as long as she cares to, if you guys have anything to say about it. Sad!

Kshamefully self-centered

Sawant lays out the very same logic that led her to urge voters to back the Russian agent Jill Stein for president rather than "settle for" Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump.

@28 Yes, and Grant is offering $10.42/hour assuming a 60 hour work week (which by all accounts is less than staffers actually work during the heat of a campaign). If he truly believed in workers rights and paying a livable wage he would have hired on an hourly wage. Instead, he's trying to get away with paying a monthly salary for a short term gig. Not illegal, but absolutely worker unfriendly and very scummy and hypocritical for someone who claims to stand for workers rights.

It's part of a pattern that backs up Nicole Grant's claims that he's a hypocrite and a poser. I had hope that Kshama would see through Jon Grant's phoniness. I'm disappointed that she hasn't and continues to defend him. It makes me question her commitment to the causes that she claims to support.

@29: A 60-hour work week? Didn't see that in the ad.

Excellent response to our Trump-supporting councilmember's fact-free sneering here:

https://medium.com/@elisacatrina/washing…

"I feel like the chief export of Seattle right now is Kshama Sawant editorials."

!!!

No. No. Seattle's chief export is not Kshama Sawant or her editorials. She's a minority party politician. She does not set Seattle's agenda. She does not get ordinances passed. She is just one council member.

The reason she has influence is because the other 8 council members and the mayor *choose* to let her be influential. They choose to avoid the spotlight, and avoid credit or blame for whatever happens. They like pretending that Kshama runs the city. The real story isn't Sawant. The story is *why* these 9 Democrats let things play out this way. It raises serious questions, whether it's Machiavellian intent or gross incompetence. What is UP, Seattle Democrats?

But pretend is just pretend. If you think Kshama Sawant is Seattle's chief export, you need to get out more. Maybe notice the massive national impact of the actions of AG Bob Ferguson, a Seattle native and long time Seattle politician. Also notable: Steve Ballmer, Jeff Bezos.

I think Sawant is important *because of how much influence the other council members cede to her*. But take that away? What have you got? A Socialist with aspirations to increase her party's elected officials by 100%, by electing one more Socialist.

Jon Grant called for Mayor Murray to resign because some anti-gay attorney from Tacoma had found some sad, middle-aged men to claim Ed Murray had molested them, a long long time ago.

It's time to teach Jon Grant the lesson that we Seattle voters, not out-of-town anti-gay activists, get to choose our elected officials, and that we respect due process and the presumption of innocence.

Grant gave his employees a raise to add the equivalent of 2 weeks (80 hours) paid vacation.

As for the "omg Sawant is just trying to get attention"

did anyone read the article? she was saying we need to come together for workers.

apparently all the local Democrats thought was "I'm the most important person in the world and Kshama is talking specifically about me personally being pro-corporate and that makes me angry!"

A splendid exposition of fighting perspectives by Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant — as expected from a stellar teacher, leader, fighter!

Teresa Mosqueda is a member of the capitalist class’s Democrat Party, so endorsing her run for any public position would be treason against our class — the working class, the 99 Per Cent.

Jus like when Jon Grant ran in 2015 as a dirty Democrat for Seattle city council, it would have been treason to endorse him.

Whereas now in 2017, with Jon Grant having left the ruling enemy’s Democrat Party and self-declared as an independent socialist, one who rejects corporate cash contributions, it would be treason to NOT endorse his Seattle city council run given that he’s the strongest independent left challenger.

Similarly with Nikkita Oliver’s independent left run for Seattle mayor.

( Unlike the previous Seattle mayoral contest in 2013, where the strongest independent leftwing challenger was the silly, sectarian and ineffective “Socialist Workers’ Party’”s Mary Martin — even sillier now, in 2017. )

And, for that matter, similarly with the petit-bourgeois Green Party’s Jill Stein’s 2016 presidential run.

In an electoral contest for any public position in the capitalist state — city councillor, mayor, president, dog-catcher — it would be treason to vote for any member of any capitalist party, whether Republican or Democrat.

Whereas a contest for a trade union position is entirely different, given that a trade union is already a working-class organization (even if it might be led by pro-capitalist traitors).
So in a run for a trade union position, as opposed to a public position, the most effective contender — the one whom we the socialists would appeal for a vote for — could possibly be a dirty Republican or dirty Democrat (such as Teresa Mosqueda).

How much better it would be if, instead of continuing to grovel on all fours before the capitalist enemy’s Democrat and Republican party leaderships, the opportunist labor movement “leaders” were to call for an independent mass political party of the 99 Per Cent.
That would transform the political situation virtually overnight, empowering us to chase out of government the misogynist, racist, anti-worker Trump and his brood of bigoted billionaire brigands.
Hence our struggle as socialists to transform the trade unions into mass community-supported organizations democratically controlled by their rank-and-file, with all leaders paid only the average wage of those they represent (plus auditable expenses).

Dump the Elephant, Dump the Ass! Build a Party of the Working-Class!

http://gingerjentzen.org/

http://socialiststudents.net/

https://www.socialistalternative.org/

Sawant and her ilk are a joke, the other side of the coin from Donald Trump's rabid supporters. Do you really want to give her or her acolytes any actual responsibility? She would be fired from any real job that involves producing something of value.

She was an engineer for Microsoft and a professor at Seattle Community College. Not ever fired. But ok.