[ian joining the AFL-CIO bureaucracy, the social-democratic DSA…]
1984 1984-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 4 →
Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: expect misread words, and now and then a caption or a line from a neighbouring story. For anything you quote, read the scan.
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ian joining the AFL-CIO bureaucracy, the social-democratic DSA, and. the stalinist CP in a lemming-like rush into a "Dump Reagan (Vote for Mondale)" campaign?
The Guardian believes that Reagan's defeat, even at the cost of supporting a Democratic spokesperson of U.S. imperialism, is necessary to preserve the living conditions and fighting capacity of working people at home and abroad. First, the Guardian editors claim that "the Reagan administration embodies a number of extremely reactionary forces which, if unchecked, will alter the course of U.S. politics for years to come."
In other words, a Democratic victory in November will bring-some relief from the uninterrupted attacks on the historic conquests of labor, minorities, and women that we have seen over the last four years.
Second, they assert that "A defeat of the reactionaries in November can offer an important breathing space to left and progressive forces in the United States and, perhaps more importantly, to the liberation movements and anti-imperialist countries around the world."
Put simply, a Democratic administration will provide more favorable conditions for organizing against union-busting, concessions, austerity, racism, sexism, and war. The Guardian editors present us with a variant of the "lesser-evil" argument for socialist support for Democrats. Is there any more reason to accept this thesis today than in the past? We think not.
The Democratic platform Can we expect a Mondale-Ferraro administration to stop or slow up the cuts in social services, attacks on democratic rights, or increased U.S. military aggressiveness? Any critical exmination of the 1984 platform (such as Guardian staff writer Kevin Kelly's "Dems Move Toward Middle, But Miss the Masses, also in the August 8 issue) reveals the most conservative Democratic campaign document in nearly 50 years!
Gone are the "New Deal/Great Society" pledges of "full employment" and "affordable housing and medical care."
The usual paper commitments to affirmative 0K... MR.
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SOCIALIST ACTION A long Viewpoint Reagan's the Nicaraguan revolution, only when the U.S. ruling class suffered embarrassing set-backs and defeats), the Democrats have actively participated in the onslaught against working people at home and national and social liberation movements abroad.
This should come as no surprise to socialists. We should know that the systemic crisis of capitalism, not the policies of any particular party produced the current wholesale attacks on working people. As the crisis deepens, the range of options open to different segments of the ruling class narrows, and both wings of the capitalst class are pushed toward a policy of war and austerity.
In short, there is no reason to believe that the Democrats will be one bit less brutal than Reagan in meeting the needs of capital. The only answer to the capitalist onslaught-the only way workers, minority people, and women can defend their historical gains-is through their independent organization and mobilization.
Will, as the Guardian editors claim, Reagan's electoral defeat (Mondale's victory) enhance our ability to build a working people's movement in the EN REICH! HEH... HEH.. JUST KIDDIN FOLKS!
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SORETIMES MORE SEPTEMBER 1984 diverts the socialist left from the task of promoting the self-organization and struggles of working and oppressed people. Not only are our limited forces and energy expended in the dead-end of campaigning, but we often stop talking about potentially "controversial questions" (immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces and aid from Central America or the Middle East, reproductive freedom, affirmative action, restoration and expansion of social services, etc.) in order to "defeat the main enemy."
In other words, despite our best intentions, the sacrifice of our distinct "voice,, our independent politics, is the necessary cost of socialist support for Democrats.
In a period when the working class has yet to organize an effective answer to the capitalist onslaught-in the forms of a mass movement against the U.S. intervention in Central America, militant strikes against concessions and austerity, or an independent workers' party-the left is easily frustrated with the difficult work of building the mass movements and seeks "short-cuts" like supporting Democrats.
However, to claim that Reagan's reelection will be an "historic defeat" for working people and to throw our energy into the campaign to defeat him will only result in a demoralization and dispersal of the socialist left's meager human resources when Reagan is reelected in the fall.
The long haul Instead we must dig in for the long haul and patiently construct mass action-oriented anti-intervention committees, rank-and-file caucuses in the unions, antiracist and antisexist organizations, etc. Only through such patient work, beginning now and continuing long after November, can we build the sort of working people's movement that can turn the political tide in this country and around the world.
A very concrete and small way we can help build such an independent working people's movement is organizing for the "Emergency National Conference Against U.S. Military Intervention in Central America/The Caribbean" to be held in Cleveland on September 14-16. This conference, already endorsed by a large number of anti-intervention /solidarity activists and trade union officials and rank and filers, is potentially an important step toward the formation of a labor-oriented, mass-action, anti-intervention All opponents of U.S. imperialism's war against the Central American revolution are encouraged to participate in the conference proceedings, which will plan a national campaign of mass actions against U.S. intervention in Central America and the Caribbean.
Charles Post is a supporter of Socialist Action and an editorial associate of Against the Current. He is active in the trade union and anti-intervention movements and teaches U.S. history at the New York Marxist School.
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British miners: despite the fact that 80 percent of the miners are on strike. That's also the
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