Reagan in the face with mass protest

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Socialist Action: What is your assessment of the Reagan reelection?

The Rev. Phil Wheaton: I would say that we're faced with a more complex situation today. It's a situation in which the American public is much more serious at the local lever and in terms of issues and did not find in the Mondale camp any kind of serious challenge to the Reagan vision of society-the East-West vision, the "Make-AmericaStrong" vision, and so forth.

And I think the reason for this is that Reagan has presented a vision of the society which many of us see is demonic in nature, but which is a holistic presentation that Mondale is basically attempting to chip away at with the facts.

«The dislike of Reagan positions has not coalesced into an alternative vision."

In my view you do not attack the kind of diabolical, reactionary, and profascist positions of a person like Reagan except in one of two ways: You either hit him in the face-because they understand that kind of language-or you present a serious alternative vision of where this society should be going.

Mondale did not do that. I think we are therefore facing a situation in which the people at the local level can still be educated, won back over, challenged, and convinced that the Reagan position is incorrect. But that's going to take some serious alternative action and ideological kind of education. The so-called reformist, moderate, chippingaway position of the Democratic Party is not going to work.

S.A.: And what will this mean for Central America?

Wheaton: I think that we have to understand the American people as many people in the center without a position-confused, and so forth. Their ideological position, their alternative vision, is not clear. That's a weakness.

But if you start talking to them about issues, they can already begin to understand contradictions in the Reagan position. They know there is something fundamentally wrong with a covert war in Nicaragua. So the question of raising these specific issues to the American public has to be tied into what Reagan is overall attempting to sell us.

Many of us feel that this means building a stronger ideological, visionary, or in a religious sense, a theological perspective that makes it very clear where the Reagan administration is going and what this country has been about in terms of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

For most Americans the dislike of Reagan's positions has not coalesced into an alternative vision. That has to be done, and I think that the big battle over the next four years is going to be to challenge the whole mythology of the Reagan administration.

But at the same time, it is also necessary to hit Reagan in the face. That means all sorts of organizing at the base, mass protests, different forms of calling him what he is—a liar. It means challenging his positions up-front and saying, "All right, let's fight. We can't be gentlemen any more."

togethepFrunity® an opportunity this spring to bring S.A.: Many of us feel that we have together hundreds of thousands of people against U.S. intervention in Central America. A national coalition is forming to this end. What do you think the tasks ahead are for building this movement?

Wheaton: The coalition for the spring mobilization is fairly broad, fairly pluralistic in its representation. It has some strengths in the sense that it has attempted to build a stronger coalition with some minority groups and with some of the anti-nuclear forces.

It is weak in the area of its linkages to the labor movement. It is strong in relationship to church, antiwar, and a lot of the traditional groups that have been challenging the Reagan policies. It is still a little skittish in terms of its relations with certain political organizations such as PAM [People's Antiwar Mobilization], which was almost excluded from that coalition.

It is also skittish in its relations with the labor coalition represented by the Cleveland conference [Emergency National Conference] and with some of the people from the West Coast, labor representatives, who were at the last coordinating committee of the national coalition. So there are some weaknesses and some strengths.

Overall, I would say that today we have a more consistent continuum before, during, and after the antiwar marches than we did during the Vietnam war. This is one of our strengths today. It's an important difference from Vietnam. We would have 500,000 on the streets, and we didn't know where they were the next day, except for a handful ...Al Lannon (continued from sometimes become disenchanted with the policies that are followed.

People taking to the streets to demonstrate their displeasure in peaceful legal protest has in fact set in motion the deposing of two presidents, Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.

There is no question that substantial gains were made as a result of those struggles. Similarly, the movement against the war in Vietnam played a very crucial role in helping to bring enough pressure on the U.S. government to bring that war to a conclusion.

The labor movement was late getting into the movement against the war in Vietnam. Again, the Bay Area was a bit ahead of the rest of the country. I worked in helping to organize National Labor for Peace. I think the first newspaper ad signed by prominent unionists against the war was in San Francisco. Washington was the second one.

There is clearly a need for labor to get involved earlier, before the body bags come back. I think this is happening now. The labor movement had gotten away from forming alliances with the community. As a result, it has found itself cut off from the kind of community support that it once had. Those coalitions and alliances cannot be Socialist Action/May May Gong Al Lannon, president of ILWU Local 6, speaking at antiwar teach-in at San Francisco State University on Nov. 28. of them. I think that we are more consistently in touch with the 100,000 or 200,000 that may come out next spring than we were with the larger numbers at that time. We are in a stronger, steadier kind of coalition.

So I think we must understand the spring mobilization as only one part of a much more complex and creative kind of challenge to the Reagan administration, i.e. including the sanctuary movement, "brigadistas" going to Nicaragua, etc. This march must be understood in relation to other ongoing events.

S.A.: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Wheaton: I would just like to add that we've just received a significant amount of direct information on the elections in Nicaragua. This is very important. It has permitted us to respond to all the media lies and distortions.

rebuilt solely on the basis that "you help when labor does not do anything for you.

To regain that support, labor has to be out in front on issues that concern a wider constituency; issues that go beyond the bread-and-butter issues. The rank and file of the labor movement are not pro-war.

The fact that a number of international union presidents are on the Labor Committee for Human Rights and Democracy in El Salvador is also very important. The trade unions have sent people to Central America. Project National Interest sent an alternative [to Kissinger's] commission that included Diane Burneo [executive director, SEIU Local 616], who has reported back on human rights abuses there.

S.A.: So, today, we have a much greater involvement of the labor movement...

Lannon: Part of it is that a lot of the emerging labor leaders are veterans of the struggles of the 60s and the 70s that helped change national policies. They have not forgotten the tragic lessons of Vietnam. They see, after the MiG scare of Nicaragua, the possibility of a Gulf of Tonkin. [The alleged sinking of a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin by North Vietnam was the pretext used by Lyndon Johnson to begin the massive escalation of U.S. involvement in Viet Nam-S.A.] Vietnam has left an impact on this country that is still unspoken and undealt with. I heard a statistic a few weeks ago that over 50 percent of the homeless in San Francisco are Vietnam veterans. That is very frightening.

We don't need another generation of soldiers to come back in body bags. One of the things that has moved me is that I have a son who just turned 18. I don't want him to go to Central America to fight. It's that simple.

S.A.: You attended the Emergency National Conference in Cleveland last September. What were your impressions?

Lannon: I was impressed with what I saw in Cleveland in a couple of respects. One area was the democratic functionA few years ago, some weeks or months would pass before we would come up with our answer to the Reagan myth or lies. Serious groups are now on top of things. There is only a lag time of a few days before a serious rebuttal comes out. I think it is very important that we do not allow the extreme amount of time that we allowed them in the past to get away with distortions before they are at least challenged among those who are reading more serious publications.

As an example, we let the Misquito Indian thing go on for too long before it was challenged. So they got away with it. Most Americans now believe-incorrectly-that the Nicaraguans have been killing Misquito Indians. That was not challenged fast enough, and the lie entered into the subconscious as a reality. I think that we have got to keep the challenge as close to the media event as possible.

ing of the conference. And I was impressed that about a quarter of the 600-plus people in attendance were trade unionists.

There were local presidents like Joe Lindenmuth of the Steelworkers and others who do not come from the antiwar movement but who feel directly concerned about the dangers in Central America. So it told me that the sentiment is there.

I think the conference basically dealt with demands that can serve as a unifying factor; that can be the basis for a majority coalition in the United States.

S.A.: How has this affected the work here in San Francisco? How can that majority coalition be built here?

Lannon: A number of people, primarily trade unionists, have formed a temporary coordinating committee based on constituency organizations such as the unions and the churches. If you get the unions and the churches together in this country, you have a majority position. There was a lot of enthusiasm for the labor movement to take that kind of lead and initiative.

We had a coalition founding meeting last night [Dec. 18]. Approximately 120 people representing dozens of unions, community groups, the lesbian and gay community, politicians, the Hispanic community-very broadly based— attended an enthusiastic meeting.

There was an unfortunate situation where there were two separate coalitions holding founding meetings on the same night [see article on formation of unified coalition on page 1]. A unity statement was adopted by Mayor Newport of Berkeley and me and read to both meetings. We are going to be moving forward in a unified fashion.

Between the two groups, we have the potential for putting together the largest demonstration that has ever happened in the Bay Area. There is no question in my mind about that.

What I saw at our meeting last night is that a great many unions in the Bay Area are going to take the lead. Hopefully we can set the tone for the rest of the country. I think we can put together, despite the difficulties, a model coalition.

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