I am Ephrem Hugh Bensusan, and I am running for reelection to the National Committee of the American Solidarity Party.
A little about myself: I am 49, married with grown children. I work for Apple, Inc. as a Technical Advisor in the Enterprise Creativity Software division. I have a long background in political activity, and my views are particularly formed by Liberation Theology, as well as the thought of the American Civil Rights leaders of the 20th Century. I am technically a Melkite Greek Catholic, but I attend the Roman Cathedral of Christ the King in Lexington, Kentucky, under Bishop John Stowe, a Bishop notable for his Social Justice activism.
Currently, I am the Director of Social Media and Marketing for the National Committee. I oversee our Internet presence and Social Media accounts. I am also the Chairman of the American Solidarity Party of Kentucky, and I have led our state party through a period of fairly rapid growth, established us as an officially affiliated chapter, and worked to establish relationships with other political and social justice groups locally, most notably the Lexington NAACP and BUILD - Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct-action, and we continue working to establish relations with the various refugee and immigrant advocacy groups in the commonwealth, as well as with pro-life groups that seek to implement whole-life solutions rather than simply focus on issues of legal status. The Kentucky ASP is also very serious about racial justice, and we have contributed to the movement to remove specific Confederate monuments both in Frankfort and Lexington. In Lexington, this movement, coordinated by Take Back Cheapside, an African American led organization, was successful in getting statues of John C. Breckinridge and John Hunt Morgan removed from the Old Fayette County Courthouse, and having the plaque marking the South’s largest slave marketplace restored, thus dispelling the celebration of those who fought for slavery, and returning to truth-telling about the atrocities of our past. We of the ASP-KY are both grateful and honored to have played even the smallest role in helping bring this to pass.
I am deeply committed to the 4 core principles of our party:
The sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.
The necessity of social justice.
Conservation of the environment.
The promotion of a more peaceful world.
Guided by these principles and values, we seek to promote the material and spiritual welfare of all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, creed, gender, or orientation, in a political framework that emphasizes unity over fragmentation, community over individualism, liberation over oppression, solidarity over division.
These have been my emphases both in Kentucky and on the National Committee. It is my hope that your vote will return me to this position, that I may continue the work we have undertaken.
My priorities for the National Committee are these:
Grow the party at the state and local levels, encouraging networks with other groups of like mind.
Encourage state chapters to affiliate with the national party in order to create a national organization with strong chapters in all states.
Field candidates to run at all levels of government, with a focused emphasis on local and state elections.
Ensure that all of our policies and actions as a party arise from a preferential option for the poor and the marginalized, rather than serving to enrich the already wealthy and the dominant.
Emphasize our particular distinctives - the 4 core principles - in platform and policy development, and in spreading our ideas in the various media.
Lastly, promotion of principled resistance to both the current Administration and to the threats to the common good that come from both sides of the conventional political spectrum.
In 1904, in the original edition of his novel, The Jungle, Upton Sinclair described the American two-party system as “‘two wings of the same bird of prey!’ The people were allowed to choose between their candidates, and both of them were controlled, and all their nominations were dictated, by the same power. The people attended political meetings of either party, and the hall was paid for, and the speakers were hired, out of the same purse.” More than a century later, that reality has not changed. In fact, the inequality of wealth between the top 1% and the rest of humanity is greater now than ever before. For all their superficial “differences,” Democrats and Republicans alike are united in the neoliberalism that feeds the ruling elite.
We need people on the National Committee that take a stand of Principled Resistance against this existing order, and particularly against its assault on those who it has targeted for oppression: immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ people, and the unborn.
I can guarantee that I will remain in the vanguard of those who stand and fight, and not among those who compromise and acquiesce as the country slides further under the boots and high heels of its monied master class.
I thank you for your consideration. I would deeply appreciate your support and your vote at the upcoming convention.
May God bless our endeavours and our nation.
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