'Kim Jong Un is a freedom fighter?!': Rebel News INFILTRATES LA socialism and liberation event

On March 1, 2024, a community forum titled ‘End Capitalism before it Ends Us’ took place at Irvine United Congregational Church in Irvine, California.

This meetup for the self-described Marxist and Leninist Party for Socialism and Liberation (or PSL) was promoted as a campaign for presidential candidate Claudia De la Cruz and vice presidential hopeful Karina Garcia, although neither of these figures were in attendance.

PSL candidates usually run as independent candidates or as third-party candidates and are attempting to run under the Peace and Freedom Party in this election. De la Cruz ran against Jasmine Sherman and mainstream media darling Dr. Cornel West in the March 5th Super Tuesday California primary and defeated West by five points.

However, this does not mean that De la Cruz is guaranteed to be the nominee, as Tuesday's election has been described by the party as a “non-binding preference primary”. Ironically, the Peace and Freedom Party’s nominee will not be chosen via democratic election but instead by the Party’s State Central Committee in August.

The PSL website states their party’s main goal: “The 100 largest corporations in America should be seized from their billionaire owners and turned into public property – owned by the working class that created their vast wealth in the first place.”

The party also supports ‘non-citizen voting’ in Santa Ana Orange County, an initiative proposed by the Santa Ana City Council in November of last year which would allow illegal immigrants — who account for 30% of the city’s population — to vote in the 2028 city election.

We went undercover dressed as communists to the event, our outfits complete with a surgical mask reminiscent of the COVID era, to obtain as much information as possible on the radical ideas of the PSL and their plans to overthrow the California ‘bourgeoise.’

The meeting kicked off with a repeat-after-me song led by the volunteer coordinator for the Claudia and Karina campaign, Juliana Gabriel, which featured the names of ‘great leaders’ being pulled out of a box followed by the lyrics ‘is a freedom fighter, he/she taught me how to fight.’ Figures who were praised by the group in the form of songs included George Floyd, Kim Jong Un and Che Guevara.

Following this, a campaign volunteer gave a passionate speech on the party’s agenda and how they plan to enforce it:

“We will seize all vacant housing units, and we will repurpose them as public housing. Rents and mortgages will be eliminated, and tenants will have the option to own their homes. No workers will have to fear eviction or homelessness, and only the banks, mortgage brokers and landlords need to be afraid.”

She claimed that once this socialist utopia takes place in America, there will be no more incentive to back Israel in its war against Hamas:

“The money that we are using for the military would go towards paying reparations to those who have suffered under U.S. militarism worldwide. Global relations will be based on mutual collaboration, which will unleash the full potential of humanity to address the existential crisis of climate change and ecological destruction.”

The speaker concluded that it is entirely possible to turn the majority of Americans into socialists, citing the Chinese Cultural Revolution in which the Chinese Communist Party went from having 40,000 members to 800,000 members in five years.

After the event, we spoke with two leaders of the movement to go more in-depth about party positions, solutions for issues they presented, and the party’s stance on the North Korean government. Watch above to find out what they said.

Sarah Stock

Formerly Ontario-based, Canadian-American Sarah Stock joined Rebel News in 2022 where she worked behind the scenes before reporting on the streets of Toronto in 2024. Now, Sarah is located in Southern California where she reports for Rebel part-time and studies political science at Vanguard University.

https://twitter.com/sarahcstock

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