Following is a recent campaign meeting talk by socialist congressional candidate John Parker. Parker is a founding member of the Struggle for Socialism Party and Struggle-La Lucha magazine. He is a coordinator for the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice in Los Angeles and is running for election to the U.S. House to represent California’s 37th Congressional District. He is on the ballot for the primary on June 2, 2026. Campaign information can be found at socialist4congress.org.
Originally published in Struggle-La Lucha.
I’m John Parker and I’m running for the Congressional District 37th seat on the Peace and Freedom Party ballot.
Wouldn’t it be something if the police and sheriffs were replaced with a community safety patrol that would be organized and made up of the neighbors of that community? Imagine how many young adults are looking for a job, or forced into low-wage, part-time and dangerous work to feed their parents or children – jobs that don’t cover the rents and inflated prices of food and gas. That’s what this capitalist system forces upon us. It’s an oppression that’s forced upon a lot of Black and Brown young adults. Imagine if the young adults had the chance to get a pension, to get a full-time position, and the respect of the community in being part of an agency of peace and empowerment, not terror and occupation. Imagine how many people would jump at that opportunity.
When we talk about being safe in our communities, we have to do what works – what’s worked in the past when community self-defense organizations like the Black Panther Party or Young Lords or Brown Berets kept the neighborhoods safe from the few anti-social and the many military occupiers in blue.
Contrast that with the terrorism, the fascist-like repression we feel today, especially in the 37th district, which I am trying to represent in Congress. This is a district whose makeup is diverse, representing many communities in South Los Angeles and the borders of Inglewood. That oppression we feel every day would disappear in a flash if the billions being spent on the police and sheriffs – right now to oppress and put us in fear and humiliation – were spent on people who would be schooled in mental health and strategies of de-escalation. Imagine if we had those folks who knew how to talk to folks and be patient and not so fearful and cowardly, like the cops that pull a gun when someone of the wrong color looks at them the wrong way.
I see community members in South Central, where I live, put themselves in the line of potential violence and successfully de-escalate something that didn’t have to end in violence. My son and I have done it. Unfortunately, cops won’t do that because they play their role in attempting to keep us compliant as the ruling class of billionaires steals the wealth we created and uses our basic necessities of health care, education and housing as a source to maximize their profits through blood and oil.
When we all realize that, then we know that the police forces and sheriff’s departments as they exist today will not change in any fundamental way. We know that because Mapping Police Violence started tracking the number of people killed by police in the U.S. in 2013, and every year the numbers went up. In 2024, it was 1,365 across the country. During DA Jackie Lacey’s eight years in office, from 2012 to 2020, police in LA County killed more than 340 people, and only one cop was charged. We know that many of those killed were unarmed and presented no threat. That’s been normalized, like the killing of the people in Minneapolis by ICE, who are assisted by the police.
And we all know here better than most about the normalization of terror and genocide in Palestine. When I went to Gaza in 2009, I saw the effects of the Israeli bombings, some of which included depleted uranium, and we know what that did in Iraq. The United Nations finally admitted that the acts of the Israeli military are acts of extermination and the weaponization of sexual violence. There’s 78 years of history of that against the people and children of Palestine.
Leila Khaled, a Palestinian freedom fighter, recently spoke about what she witnessed as early as four years old. She didn’t allow Israeli horror to keep her compliant, and her life inspires many revolutionaries – I have her photo on my t-shirt.
What can we do to stop the war abroad and the war here? What can a congressperson do? Well, it’s hard to do anything when you’ve got a system that is designed to keep working people in check and exploited. But the main reason why I’m running is to help build a movement that can create the necessary power to create change.
But if winning were possible in the congressional race, one of the first things to be done would be to demand an end to bombs going to Israel. Their next planned shipment is 20,000 1,000-pound bombs aimed at those remaining in Gaza, especially women and children.
We could demand that police not work with ICE – that hasn’t happened yet. We could demand that flock surveillance system used by ICE in the schools be dismantled. We could demand that the governor begin demanding the dismantling of the detention centers.
I was in detention in Egypt for trying to get aid into Gaza in November 2023. And I can tell you that, as bad as the detention was in Egypt, it didn’t compare to the detention that we have in the United States, where so many have died.
Yes, I’ve been to a lot of places targeted by U.S. imperialism, like Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Russia, Venezuela and Cuba. I got to see a clear picture of U.S. imperialism and its ugly hatred of humanity.
As Martin Luther King said, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.”
We cannot tolerate an intolerable system addicted to war and theft. Let’s build working-class power by uniting with the struggles of the Black and Brown communities facing terror from the police and ICE. Let’s build power by uniting with everyone facing gender oppression and homophobia. Let’s unite with our trans youth who are under a severe attack today. Let’s unite with the victims of U.S. imperialism in Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan, Nigeria and the entire Global South.
The financial and industrial monopolies of capitalism that run this government take joy in being represented by psychopaths.
Let’s unite our international working class and fight the power, and seize the power.
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