Kshama Sawant has an interview on the widely read salon.com. It can be found here. In it she makes some excellent points.

She is asked if she believes the U.S. is moving closer to socialism. She replies: “I wouldn’t call (the United States) “more socialist,” in the sense that it doesn’t make sense: It can be either capitalism or socialism.” She is perfectly correct and she shows that some “mixed economy” is not her ultimate goal.

A long time ago, President Lincoln said that a “house divided cannot long stand.” This meant that a country that was half slave economy and half capitalist could not survive; it had to be one or the other. The same goes for capitalism and socialism – especially in this epoch of capitalist crisis, an attempt to mix the two is like trying to mix hydrogen and oxygen together. The result will ultimately be a horrible conflagration.

She is also asked, in effect, what a lone socialist voice on the city council can accomplish. She replies: “What I can do on the City Council as one socialist is really far more thanwhat people imagine it to be. Because it won’t just be my voice … to talk to other council members, but it’s also going to be to continue to really encourage and to invite public pressure into it. Which is how this camp succeeded.”

In other words, this is not simply a matter of having somebody spout off in this den of criminals that composes the city council, or any other such body. It is a matter of using her position to help working class people and youth in Seattle organize to fight for themselves.

Right on, Kshama!