Kamala Harris is Joe Biden’s choice

Kamala Harris, the current Vice President, was a California Senator, Attorney General, and San Francisco District Attorney. Harris sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020 and dropped out before the primaries. President Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, selected her as his running mate in the 2020 election, making Harris the first female Vice President of the United States.

Biden was searching for a candidate who was ideologically aligned with him, someone he could work with. He also felt that picking a Black woman could boost his standing, particularly with younger voters.

On July 21, President Biden dropped out of the 2024 race, choosing Kamala Harris to replace him as the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate just four weeks before the Democratic National Convention, scheduled for Aug. 19.

Biden quoted Benjamin Franklin, whose portrait hangs on the wall of the Oval Office next to Dr. King, Rosa Parks, and Cesar Chavez, about maintaining “a republic.” At the time, Franklin meant preserving the slaveowners’ government. By the way, Franklin benefited financially from slave ownership by advertising the sale of enslaved people and runaways in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette.

Biden said Harris is experienced, tough, and capable of plotting the course for the United States of America. The real question is whether the course that Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party are taking is a path to a better world and future for all people.

Silicon Valley and Wall Street

Kamala Harris has many ties to finance capital, from Silicon Valley big tech (including Facebook and Google) to Wall Street billionaires. Harris led the U.S. delegation to the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, a sort of imperialist economic association for the Pacific Rim. 

Harris has been silent about her past, about mass incarceration and the plight of poor working-class people.

Today, Black, Brown, and all working-class people might be hopeful. With the constant tensions taking place in the Belly of the Beast, any change would appear to be in the favor of the working class. But is it? 

In a matter of days, the presidential candidates changed from Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden to Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Kamala Harris. The battle for the position of the 47th President of the United States continues.

Vice President Kamala Harris, a Black woman — colorful, smart, and capable — is possibly the next president. That’s certainly a change.

It is contradictory that Black, poor, and oppressed peoples are being mobilized by the corporate-dominated Democratic Party that has lied and denied them repeatedly.

‘Genocide Joe’ Biden

Democrat Biden is a genocide enabler. He supported the invasion of Iraq, where more than a million Iraqis died. He enabled and praised the Israeli genocide of Palestinian men, women, and children in Gaza.

In 1994, Biden sponsored the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, aka the “tough on crime law,” one of the key contributors to mass incarceration. The tough-on-crime policies overly criminalized Black and Brown people who are most likely to be incarcerated. The prison population rose from 1.6 million in 1995 to 2.3 million in 2008.

According to a study done in October 2018, 48.9% of men arrested by age 23 were Black and 37.9% white. Black men were given longer sentences, and many remain incarcerated today. According to the Prison Project, over half of people in U.S. prisons are serving sentences of 10 years or more.

As of January this year, 2,241 people are on death row — 40% Black and 14% Brown. This is a crime against humanity.

What is Kamala Harris’s platform? What is her vision for a better world for poor and working-class people who make up the U.S. civilian and prison population? What is Harris’s position on global war, violence at home and abroad, homelessness, criminal justice, immigration, climate change, medical care, reparations, education, livable wages, and child care?

We can look back at Harris’ record to see where she stands on some key issues impacting the poor, working-class population.

On the death penalty

California is one of 27 states that have the death penalty. In 2014, a California U.S. district court judge issued a ruling that could have eliminated the death penalty in the state. Attorney General Harris appealed the ruling and the lower court ruling was overturned.

Death row inmate Kevin Cooper, convicted of murdering four people in 1985, was one of many names of individuals District Attorney Harris tried to keep in prison even though there was evidence that he was innocent. In 2004, two days before his scheduled execution, an appeals court stayed his execution and ordered DNA testing, which was inconclusive. 

When Harris was California’s Attorney General (2011-2017), she opposed DNA testing for Cooper. Cooper’s lawyers had asked the state to approve additional DNA testing that could exonerate him. Harris’ Attorney General office did not take up the case, and evidence from the crime scene was never re-examined while Harris held state office. Cooper, 66 years old, remains imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison on death row. 

On arresting parents of children who miss school

In 2011, District Attorney Harris pushed for and saw the passage of a statewide anti-truancy law that allowed district attorneys to file charges against parents whose children were consistently missing school without a valid reason. Under the law, some parents were arrested by local law enforcement and faced harsh penalties. 

In 2013, Cheree Peoples, a mother from Orange County, California, faced a challenging situation with her 11-year-old daughter Shayla, who was diagnosed with sickle cell anemia, a debilitating disease. This condition caused Shayla to frequently miss school due to her chronic pain and hospitalization requirements.

In April 2013, the police showed up at her home, handcuffed Cheree, put a jacket over her pajamas, and escorted her out where news cameras were waiting. The police booked her, enforcing the truancy program that then-District Attorney Kamala Harris initiated. Cheree Peoples was shocked that all of this happened because of a miscommunication between her and the school over Shayla’s days of absence.

It is not hard to surmise that this plan to use the criminal justice system to solve social problems is not the answer. This plan was going to criminalize mothers of color, mothers with disabilities, mothers of children with disabilities, and mothers who might be housing insecure or homeless. 

On police killings

As Attorney General of California, Harris passed the buck on police killings. An example is the case of Anaheim Police Officer Nick Bennallack, who was involved in the fatal shooting of two unarmed men — Bernie Villegas and Manuel Diaz — in 2012. He remained on the force for years and went on to kill again in 2014. The City of Anaheim spent several hundred thousand dollars in lawsuit payoffs over Bennallack’s conduct. 

Harris’s office said it wouldn’t investigate the case, that it was a local matter. They did not push for police accountability, which could have prevented more killings down the line.

“She neglected a lot of cases,” says Genevieve Huizar, the mother of 25-year-old Manuel Angel Diaz, one of the men killed by Bennallack in 2012.

Bennallack, cleared of killing three unarmed individuals over eight years, fatally shot 30-year-old Daniel Ramírez III on April 4, 2019. There is a petition on Change.org to fire Officer Nick Bennallack immediately for killing four unarmed men.

In 2014, Harris spoke out against the bill requiring the attorney general’s office to conduct independent investigations into police shootings. Harris said it would take away prosecutorial power from local district attorney offices, but local district attorney offices were not taking on cases involving police shootings.

On protesters rights

On July 25, tens of thousands of protesters went to D.C. to show their support for the people of Palestine, to rally for a ceasefire, and to express the feeling of betrayal over Netanyahu’s visit to D.C. A protester asked why both parties in the U.S. Congress invited Netanyahu, who is causing genocide in Gaza, to speak. Protesters were pepper sprayed and arrested. 

Kamala Harris, in a statement, condemned the protest and said that the protesters were despicable, unpatriotic, and hate-fueled. An observer said, “All the fear-mongering around anti-Semitism is pretty wild because there were more Jews at this demonstration than I’ve ever seen. So many Jews wearing their JVP [Jewish Voice for Peace] or Jews for ceasefire shirts … pretty amazing.”

Who really rules

If Harris were to become the 47th president of the United States, she would make history as a woman of color. That, however, wouldn’t change who rules, the ruling class with the military-industrial complex at the top.

In the 2020 presidential election, about 60% of people voted, often feeling like they only had two options. It seems that no matter who you pick, the other choice is deemed much worse, whether you lean Republican or Democrat. However, it’s important to remember the 40% who didn’t vote, including those who are poor, homeless, incarcerated, or previously incarcerated, either choosing not to vote, or were unable to make it to the polls, or justifiably believed that their vote doesn’t count.

In the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton received approximately 65.8 million votes nationwide, while Donald Trump received about 63 million votes. Clinton won the popular vote by 2.8 million. Despite losing the popular vote, Donald Trump won the presidency by securing a majority in the Electoral College (304 electoral votes to Clinton’s 227). The 2.8 million vote difference is the largest in U.S. history, where the popular vote winner did not become president.

The Electoral College has overturned 33% of presidential elections in this century, from the 2016 Clinton-Trump election to the 2000 Gore-Bush election, in which Al Gore won the popular vote, but George W. Bush won the Electoral College vote.

Isn’t it time to abolish the Electoral College?

Voting can’t bring real change; it’s more like expressing what you want. If all the masses of poor and oppressed people find a way to vote their conscience, values, and beliefs, change will come. In some states, there are alternatives to the Republican and Democratic Parties on the ballot. If you are voting, look for them. 

Check out the Dr. Cornel West / Dr. Melina Abdullah campaign at cornelwest2024.com

And Jill Stein’s campaign at jillstein2024.com

Also the Claudia De la Cruz / Karina Garcia campaign at votesocialist2024.com

Send a message to the world!

Defeat capitalism, colonialism, & imperialism! Stand for socialism, democracy, compassion, and working-class unity!

End the death penalty and death by incarceration! Free all political prisoners!

Free Palestine! Free Haiti! Free ‘em all!