The Socialist Party of Massachusetts (SPMA) held its annual State Convention in Worcester on Saturday. Seven members showed up at the Stone Soup Community Center, where they discussed the agenda for 2008.


The group encircled a pamphlet-covered coffee table to discuss the anti-war movement, International Women's Day, universal healthcare, this year's presidential election and how to expand the party's modest base (as of 2006, there were 176 registered Socialist voters in Massachusetts).

In the past 7 years our nation has become less and less free. Our government no longer values the right to privacy, has abandoned habeas corpus, has embraced torture and continues to justify unjust military invasions and occupations.


More than a year ago, Americans went to the polls (well 48% of eligible voters anyway) and registered their disapproval of the current path our country is on. They did the one sensible thing in a two party democracy- they voted for the other party!

With the primaries and election campaigns dominating the news I feel that the time is ripe for us as a society to critically analyze our system. We pride ourselves for being a democracy and yet we suffer from one of the lowest voter turnout rates of any democracy in the "developed" world. It seems ever more difficult to consider our system a democracy when candidates are required to raise millions of private dollars just to gain access to the mainstream media.