'The Rainbow Coalition is a potential for building the left'

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The following is an interview with Ed Ott, a labor activist in New York City. The interview was conducted on Sept. 15 by Alan Benjamin.

Socialist Action: In a recent article in The Guardian newspaper, you say that labor and peace activists should take the risk and work within the Rainbow Coalition in order to pursue the struggle for progressive politics. Why do you think this is necessary?

Ed Ott: I attended the [April 1986] National Rainbow Coalition convention in Washington, D.C., as an observer. The thing that struck me was the class composition of the participants. Jesse Jackson has attracted large numbers of community, grass-roots, solidarity, and left-labor activists.

These are the people who do all the work of the Rainbow on a local level. Some of them consider themselves Democrats. Some do not. Others are "notjust" Democrats. Many of them came through various forms of the left movement and are socialists ideologically. Their political agenda goes beyond anything the Democratic Party could ever be. group of professional politicians but a controllom it is At the top, the Rainbow is clearly controlled by a a social movement.

From the point of view of those of us who are interested in coming up with some sort of socialist, progressive agenda in this country, the Rainbow Coalition is a potential. At this point it may, in fact, be the only place where the left can engage people from the mass movements in a serious political discussion and struggle.

S.A.: But the day after the Rainbow's convention, Jackson said he had no intention of leaving the Democratic Party.

Ott: That was clearly the majority sentiment at the convention. The question for the left becomes: Where do you engage people in the fight? The thing that is so interesting about the Rainbow is that while Jackson's view is clearly to stay inside the Democratic Party, the overwhelming amount of his grass-roots supporters question that position very seriously.

S.A.: So what kind of struggle should the lett engage in inside the Rainbow and for what purpose!

Ott: We have to learn from the right wing about how they moved their ideological agenda within the Republican Party. We've got to lay out an ideological line that has our own values and our own standards and that holds people in the Democratic Party to the test. We must become the people who pull the political discussion to the left.

If Jackson runs for president in the Democratic Party primaries, we should accept him as the candidate of the so-called Rainbow Democrats. Our objective must be to sharpen the issues around which the Rainbow presents itself, including such issues as Central America.

If the Rainbow Coalition is engaged in the Democratic Party primaries and doesn't win, we would not support the winners of the primaries unless these are people who support the issues as they have been laid out by the Rainbow.

The important thing is that in this process the revolutionary left can win new cadre, gain people who we lost in the past, and recruit new people on an ideological basis to a left-strategy.

S.A.: So then what is the risk of joining and working within the Rainbow?

Ott: The risk is that we go in as one thing but we end up as Democrats. The risk is that we lose the rest of our cadre to the Democratic Party, which we are losing an enormous amount to already. And I think that one reason we are losing them is that the left has failed to articulate an agenda to progressive people that allows them to be any place other than the Democratic Party and still engage in real politics.

S.A.: But isn't the Rainbow Coalition today just an appendage of the Democratic Party.

Ott: Absolutely, the Rainbow's structure and political framework is within the Democratic Party. That is the case objectively. But is it the case subjectively for the people who are there? We have to answer this honestly.

S.A.: Can't a genuine Rainbow be built independently of the Democratic Party?

Ott: At this point, no. The credibility of the revolutionary left is too low. The left cannot offer these grass-roots forces an arena in which they can struggle in real politics.

These people will not break with the Democrats at this point. They don't feel they have enough organizational strength to pull it off. I think a lot of these people feel that with the Rainbow they have a movement that can eventually be the basis for the formation of a labor party or a mass progressive third party-formation. Maybe they are hoping against hope that this can be done.

The question before us is do we rail at these people from the outside, as we have done for the past 10 or 15 years, or do we engage them in a discussion from the inside. I think that our own credibility and integrity is at stake here.

S.A.: But your proposal means trying to build a labor party by working within the Democratic Party...

Ott: The problem is that there isn't another vehicle. We have spoken of the the need for a labor party for the past 30 years but have gotten nowhere. The left has to be honest with itself and recognize its own limitations.

I don't think that working along these lines in the SOCIAI