Dennis James Banks

 

Dennis James Banks, April 12, 1937 (Leech Lake Indian Reservation. Minn.) – October 29, 2017 (Rochester, Minn.)

VP candidate for Party for Socialism and Liberation (aka Peace and Freedom Party) (2016)

Running mate with nominee: Gloria Estela La Riva (b. 1954)
Popular vote: 68,139 (0.05%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

The Gloria La Riva/Eugene Puryear ticket for the Party for Socialism and Liberation was nominated again for the 2016 election, and Puryear was still too young to serve if elected. La Riva's substitute running-mates were Dennis Banks (California [Peace and Freedom Party], Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico) and Sarah Sloan (Maryland).

The strength of Bernie Sanders' campaign in the Democratic Party was a mixed issue for the PSL. On their webpage they did not consider him a real socialist--

He does not call for nationalizing the corporations and banks, without which the reorganization of the economy to meet people’s needs rather than maximizing the profits of capitalist investors could not take place … He is clearly seeking to reform the existing capitalist system.

La Riva's capture of the Presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party in California was a major victory. American Indian Movement co-founder Dennis Banks was a longtime household name for activists of all stripes and by selecting him as the PFP running-mate the VP actually had more name recognition than the standard bearer.

Banks campaigned in California with a focus on the oil pipeline protest taking place at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota. Describing the 2016 choice as "the worst presidential election in U.S. history," Banks elaborated, "We're a sick county, and we're voting in 34 days from now for somebody that is hated ... So if you elect Hillary Clinton, it's because you hated Trump, and if you elect Trump, it's because you hated Hillary. That's not a very good platform to win: 'I won because I was the least hated.' What do you say to your children and grandchildren? ... Of course, I'm not running to accept the vice presidential office. I'm running because there's a forum that has to be made in this country, an ongoing forum and I've decided to use this to get on that forum."

The La Riva/Banks campaign issued a platform-in-brief--

OUR 10 POINT PROGRAM
1.    For the earth to live, capitalism must end
2.    Make a job, free health care, free education & affordable housing Constitutional rights
3.    Shut down all U.S. military bases around the world-bring all the troops, planes and ships home
4.    Stop racist police brutality and mass incarceration
5.    Defend our unions
6.    Equality for women and free, safe, legal abortion on demand
7.    Full rights for all immigrants
8.    Full federal equality for LGBTQ people
9.    Honor Native Treaties-Free Leonard Peltier
10.   Seize the banks–Jail Wall Street criminals
 
Of the impressive 74,405 popular votes (0.05%) gained nationally by La Riva in 2016, the ticket with Banks accounted for 68,139 of them, mostly from California. The La Riva/Banks results: California 0.47%, New Mexico 0.15%, Colorado and Iowa 0.02% each. If elected, Banks would have died in office less than 10 months into his term, aged 80.

Election history: none

Other occupations: US Air Force, co-founder of American Indian Movement, teacher, drug and alcohol counselor, member of the Board of Trustees for Leech Lake Tribal College, actor, composer, musician, author

Buried: Battle Point Cemetery (Federal Dam, Minn.)

Notes:
Banks endorsed Jesse Jackson in the 1988 Presidential primaries and Dennis Kucinich in the 2004 cycle.

Sarah E. Sloan

 

Sarah E. Sloan, ca1980 -

VP candidate for Party for Socialism and Liberation (2016)

Running mate with nominee: Gloria Estela La Riva (b. 1954)
Popular vote: 48 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538

The campaign:

The Gloria La Riva/Eugene Puryear ticket for the Party for Socialism and Liberation was nominated again for the 2016 election, and Puryear was still too young to serve if elected. La Riva's substitute running-mates were Dennis Banks (California [Peace and Freedom Party], Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico) and Sarah Sloan (Maryland).

The strength of Bernie Sanders' campaign in the Democratic Party was a mixed issue for the PSL. On their webpage they did not consider him a real socialist--

He does not call for nationalizing the corporations and banks, without which the reorganization of the economy to meet people’s needs rather than maximizing the profits of capitalist investors could not take place … He is clearly seeking to reform the existing capitalist system.

Sloan had been a co-author, along with La Riva, Puryear, and Brian Becker of the book China: Revolution and Counterrevolution (2013). Like La Riva, Sloan had been an activist with the Workers World Party but joined the split and helped form the PSL in 2004.

During a PSL meeting in 2014, Sloan presented her view of life in the USSR during Stalin's regime--

    "Socialist revolutions have not happened in rich societies but in the poorest parts of the world. At the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Russian economy was one-twelfth the size of the U.S. economy. By eliminating the profits for a tiny handful of capitalists, even a poor country like the Soviet Union, managed by the 1930s, to provide every worker with the right to a job and the right to free health care. By 1960, the Soviet Union had emerged as the second-biggest economy in the world. There was no unemployment and there was a right to housing — to pay no more than 6 percent of your income for rent. Evictions were illegal because there were no landlords. It was your housing.

    Women had a right to free childcare and one year’s paid maternity leave, and they had the right to put their child in child care facilities at no cost. Women in the Soviet Union had the right to retire at 55 years of age at half pay. And remember, they had free health care, so retirement didn’t mean being plunged into poverty. They had a month’s paid vacation.

    It doesn’t mean that there were no problems in the Soviet Union, or that we agree with all the policies of different leaderships. But the Soviet Union proved, just as Cuba proves today, that when you take the wealth out of the hands of the capitalists, it can be used to meet people’s needs."

During the 2016 campaign, the Washington, DC-based Sloan took part in demonstration protesting the opening of a hotel by Trump on Pennsylvania Ave. "The people of D.C. and the people of the country say no to Trump's rhetoric and policies of racism, of fear mongering and scapegoating against immigrants, the Muslim community, refugees," Sloan told the press.

Of the impressive 74,405 popular votes (0.05%) gained nationally by La Riva in 2016, the ticket with Sloan accounted for 48 of them. Sloan's public presence began to evaporate starting in 2019 for reasons that are not clear.

Election history: none

Other occupations: author, National Staff Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and Racism)

Notes:
Apparently came to DC from New York.