Americans vote with their bottoms-They sit it out

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SAN FRANCISCO "Human Needs Before Profits!" was the slogan that became familiar to thousands during the four months of Sylvia Weinstein's socialist campaign for San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Through the campaign, Socialist Action campaign teams were able to appear before many community and labor meetings where Sylvia was, without fail, the one candidate that got a genuinely enthusiastic response from the crowd.

The capitalist media gave short coverage to the socialist campaign in favor of well-financed "major' candidates. Nevertheless, Sylvia was able to rack up over 10,000 votes, while Socialist Action newspaper sales soared throughout Socialist Action members were out on the streets and campuses every week, distributing well over 5,000 campaign brochures and meeting lots of new "What difference would a socialist supervisor make?" Sylvia's campaign literature asked. The answer was one every working person in San Francisco could relate to: affordable housing and healthcare, more money for our schools, free childcare for all who need it, taxing the corporations aren SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1986 3 The 1986 national elections had the lowest voter turnout since World War II. Three out of five eligible voters didn't bother to vote. That's the largest voter abstention of any advanced industrial country, largely due to the absence of a working-class electoral alternative in the United States.

Despite the huge amount of money spent to whip up enthusiasm for the campaigns, most working people remained unconvinced that voting for either party would help resolve the worsening conditions of their lives. One commentator noted that the American people "voted with their bottoms, they sat it out."

Most workers disregarded the numerous get-out-the-vote drives promoted by the trade-union leadership to elect Democratic Party "friends of labor." Nevertheless, the union officialdom saw fit to hand over millions of dollars to Democratic candidates.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters raised close to $3 million in "contributions" from union members' paychecks. Some 80 percent of the funds were earmarked for the Democrats.

The United Automobile Workers union magazine, Solidarity, urged that workers participate in a regular paycheck deduction plan in order "to replace pro-Reagan Republicans" and to "set the stage for a Democratic presidential victory in 1988."

In their campaign against "Reaganism," labor officials had to cover up the real records of Democratic Party candidates. One of the most important of these candidates participated in the California race for U.S Senate.

Alan Cranston was heralded as a senator who stood fast against Reagan's pro-war policies. "He's for peace, for jobs, and for justice," said Jack Henning, executive secretary-treasurer of the California AFL-CIO, as the labor federation voted to endorse Cranston in the election.

Reagan lent credibility to this false perception of Cranston by labeling him "an architect of America's military decline." But Cranston deflated many of his supporters by frankly pointing out that he "had supported every military bill Reagan ever proposed" (Nov. 2 San Francisco ChroniclelExaminer).

In another part of the country, retiring House Speaker Tip O'Neil objected to Reagan's unjustified attacks on the Democrats because "it ran counter to the bipartisan cooperation the president has sought from Congress."

Indeed, war, racism and poverty are Scandalf BEN SARGENT.

bipartisan policies of the ruling class. That's why most Americans feel it does not make a bit of difference to vote for either party.

The majority of Americans retain a deepseated mistrust of the rulers in this country. The memories of Watergate and Vietnam have not been erased from the popular consciousness.

Recent polls, moreover, have recorded a significant social consciousness existing among millions of people. They show that 75 percent of the population support federal affirmative-action programs, 74 percent support a federal jobs program even if it means increasing the size of the federal deficit, and 80 percent oppose sending any troops to El Salvador.

The pollsters found that 67 percent oppose the mining of Nicaragua's harbors should be spent defending working people at home against further plant shutdowns and the continual erosion in our standard of living.

The majority of Americans, however, aren't so easily falling for these lies.

An October 1986 New York Times/CBS News Poll, for example, found an increasing public awareness of government deceit. Fifty-three percent of those polled believe that the government told the truth only some of the time. Only 1 percent AND NOW, FROM THE SAME:

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But labor officials have failed to seize on this discontent to explain the need for independent political actions such as rallies, picketlines, and strikes directed against the policies of the strikebreakers and war -makers. These protests could be spring -boards for the development of a labor party based on the unions.

A labor party would be fundamentally different from the Democratic and Republican parties, which are controlled by the capitalist class. To the extent that it is controlled by the ranks of labor, a working-class party would put forth a program and organize activities to advance the interests documented. Yet bipartisan funding to the contras continues uninterrupted—despite major public opinion polls expressing overwhelming opposition to this policy.

Majority sentiment for the issues of peace, jobs, and justice needs to be mobilized in visible protest actions. As we go to press, major national labor and religious leaders are planning demon -strations in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco on April 25, 1987.

According to the latest plans, the two main demands of the actions are in people eager to learn more about our ideas. of all the oppressed.

Most left-wing political groups joined the trade-union officialdom in backing the Democrats. The Communist Party argued in the Nov. 8, 1986, issue of its paper, People's Daily World, that there were many social issues that required a "labor-Black alliance...to work with and within the Democratic Party."

Nothing was said about building a laborBlack alliance to advance the demands of working people, women, and the oppressed nationalities through independent protests like the civil-rights demonstrations of several decades ago.

These mass-protest movements—not the Democratic Party-forced the rulers to dismantle Jim Crow segregation. Similar mass antiwar protests in the 1960s and 1970s, along with the fighting determination of the Vietnamese people, forced the government to withdraw from Vietnam.

Instead of explaining that the independent organization and mobilization of working people is the real force for social change, the People's Daily World incorrectly identified the interests of the majority of people with the election of Democratic Party politicians.

This policy meant that no matter which party won the elections, the American people would be the guaranteed losers.

The Communist Party and others argue that it is necessary to work inside the Democratic Party in order to move the party to the left. However, the current capitalist economic offensive is driving politicians of both major parties to the right. They are looking for solutions to rescue capitalist profits—solutions which, therefore, run counter to the interests of the majority.

Increasing economic attacks will compel workers, unlike the Republicans and Democrats, to seek radical solutions to defend themselves against further erosion of their living standards.

Every day of reliance on capitalist politicians, capitalist courts, mediators-or any agency other than the mobilized power of the workers themselves-delays the day when the first great victories of working people will be recorded.

opposition to U.S. intervention is Central American and U.S. support for South African apartheid. Other themes of the protest include opposition to nuclear weapons and to government attacks on working people at home.

It is time for us-the American people—to speak up for ourselves. There is a tremendous potential for involving unions, churches, anti-intervention, anti-apartheid, Black, Latino, women, and student groups in a massive public rejection of the policies of war, racism, and poverty.

We urge our readers to fully participate in making April 25 a complete success.

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