Socialist Party USA Co-Chair Featured on CNN.com
April 15, 2010- Co-chair of the Socialist Party USA, Billy Wharton, was featured today in an article entitled “Ask the Card Carrying Socialist: Is Obama One of Them?” by CNN.com reporter, John Blake. The article comes in response to the Tea Party’s assertion that Obama is a socialist. Blake uses interviews from leading socialists to debunk the claim.
"We didn't see a great victory with the election of Barack Obama," Wharton says in the article, “and we certainly didn't see our agenda move from the streets to the White House." He also challenges the notion that Obama’s healthcare plan is a government take-over; instead, he calls it a corporate restructuring of the health insurance industry.
On the Tea Party movement Wharton states in the article,” It makes no rational sense. It clearly means that people don't understand what socialism is."
John Blake’s article was featured on the front page of CNN.com and has drawn more than 3,000 comments.
Billy Wharton is available for comment on the nature of the Obama presidency, issues related to healthcare reform, questions about the meaning of socialism and its current role in popular debate and questions regarding the Tea Party movement.
To read the article visit: http://www.cnn.com/
For more information and interviews contact:
Kristin Schall
928-308-7563
kristinspnyc@
Billy Wharton is a writer, activist and editor of the Socialist WebZine whose articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Counterpunch, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, the NYC Indypendent, Links, Spectrezine and the Monthly Review Zine.
