Jesse Jackson campaign: Frontrunner shifts to the "right" lane

Scan page 3

SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1987 3 A year ago, following the bipartisan congressional vote of $100 million to the contras, Nicaraguan Commander Omar Cabezas commented in The New York Times that the difference between the Democrats and Republicans was like the difference between drinking Coca-Cola with strychnine as opposed to Pepsi-Cola with arsenic.

But lesser-evil politics—the view that arsenic is preferable to strychnine-continues to hamstring the trade-union, antiwar, women's, and Black and Hispanic rights movements of this country.

AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland has pledged that delegates to the federation's national convention in October will line up behind whomever the Democratic Party nominates for president. In the meantime, however, labor leaders have approached the presidential race with a glaring lack of zeal.

Most of the leading presidential candidates of the Democratic Party have proposed higher taxes, cost-cutting in social programs, and gimmicks such as tying pay scales to productivity and eligibility-testing for federal benefits. Labor leaders realize it will be difficult to "sell" any of these potential nominees to working people.

A few trade-union officials, however-such as William Winpisinger, president of the International Association of Machinists-have stepped onto Jesse Jackson's presidential bandwagon.

Jackson's calls for "economic justice" provide a left cover to the union bureaucrats. It is easier for them to try to justify their orientation to one of the parties of the capitalist class now that Jackson, who identifies with many social issues, is touted as the "frontrunner" among possible Democratic Party nominees.

Left groups join the Rainbow Most organizations on the left also advocate working inside the Democratic Party—the lesser evil approach. This has been the position of the Communist Party (CP), for example, since the 1930s.

The Communist Party, however, has not come out wholeheartedly for Jackson. Since a Black person is not likely to get the Democratic Party nomination, the reasoning goes, it will be difficult for Jackson to carry through what the CP considers "a meaningful alternative to Reaganism."

A stronger (if somewhat apologetic) proJackson perspective is found in the April 27, 1987, issue of Frontline, published by the Line of March organization. The editors admit that Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition is "reformist and occasionally ambivalent," but urge their readers to support Jackson anyway. They state:

"We believe that progressive forces must prepare to function over the next period 1) in the electoral arena; 2) on the terrain of the Democratic party; 3) in support of the peace and justice platform now articulated by the Rainbow Coalition and the Jackson candidacy."

The Frontline editors ridicule the call for an independent working-class party as "the almost obligatory platitude of left politics." They write:

"Simply to repeat the virtually self-evident truth that an independent working-class party in the U.S. is a historical necessity does not by itself signify any 19 8 particular measure of historical vision. The real challenge comes in recognizing the objective motion toward that goal in a period when the conditions for such a formation to appear have not yet developed.

"In our view, this is the potential embedded in the impulse which has given rise to the Jesse Jackson phenomenon and the Rainbow Coalition."

Goals of the Rainbow But work in the Rainbow Coalition in no way contributes to the goal of independent working-class politics. Frontline applauds what it calls the Rainbow's "peace and justice platform," but overlooks the coalition's failure to attempt to mobilize people for the antiwar, anti-apartheid, and pro-labor demonstrations of recent years.

Some Rainbow organizers have called for the group to become involved in broader political issues. But Jackson's campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination still gets top priority. Rainbow affiliates are therefore obligated to uphold whatever concessions Jackson's campaign advisors consider necessary to bolster their candidate's footing inside Party.

In their June 8, 1987, issue the editors of Frontline warn that Jackson is liable to "compromise" his previously stated positions and "accomodate himself to the dominant forces in the party." But they once again offer Jackson their backing, ignoring the fact that Jackson has already made several drastic "compromises" indeed:

Following his defeat at the Democratic Party convention in 1984, Jackson switched his support to Walter Mondale, the "lesser evil" who campaigned to increase taxes, vowed to quarantine Nicaragua, railed against the "dangers of big labor," and otherwise tried to serve the interests of big business.

Jackson continues to stress the theme of "conciliation" with the mainstream power blocs inside the Democratic Party. He has pledged his support to whomever the party nominates for president—offering to settle for the vice-presidential nomination in 1988.

Last month, Jackson told a group of Democrats that "the party has a progressive wing and a conservative wing, but it takes two wings to fly."

Jackson counsels moderation "It's important," Jackson said after a recent road trip, "not to be so radical that the truck jackknifes." Jackson was referring to his position on Star Wars; he has refused to support the demands of disarmament activists that he advocate an end to research in this area.

Jackson has counseled moderation in other struggles as well. During the Hormel packinghouse workers' strike last year, Jackson sought to appear as a friend of the embattled union fighters. But in a wellpublicized visit to Austin, Minn., he refused to support the strike. Instead, he offered himself as a mediator.

On Nicaragua too, Jackson maintains his "impartiality," taking a swipe at the Sandinista government when it dared to defend itself against the U.S.-backed counterrevolution by closing the contras' mouthpiece, the newspaper La Prensa.

Workers mistrust both parties The Frontline editors justify their orientation to the Democratic Party by arguing that the conditions for the formation of a labor party "have not yet developed." This is only partly true. Working people are today angrier and less trustful of the two capitalist parties than in recent memory.

Seventy-six million eligible Americans--21 million more than voted for Reagan—-abstained in the 1984 election. The overwhelming majority of these abstentions are working people who have concluded that their interests are not served by either party.

The Iran/contra arms scandal and other recent U.S. foreign-policy setbacks have only deepened popular mistrust of Republican and Democratic officials.

But, with few exceptions, the leadership of the labor movement devotes its resources to thwarting the crystallization of this sentiment in the form of a mass independent political movement led by This disparity between the millions of workers who are developing a clearer perception of their class interests and a misleadership working to block this development is the great contradiction in U.S. politics today.

Independent political action Less than 1 percent of the population owns 35 percent of the wealth in the United States. This ruling elite decides which plants will be closed, which cities will become rustbowls, and which wars will be waged. This same wealthy minority finances and controls both the Republican and the Democratic parties.

But while the working class and its allies are handicapped, having no political party of their own, they have had a profound impact on American politics when they acted independently. The movement against the war in Vietnam and the Black struggle against Jim Crow-which involved millions in the streets-are two examples that give testimony to this fact.

The Democratic Party has led none of this country's mass movements for social justice. It has worked to derail them or limit their impact. This is one of the lessons of the fight of the Hormel packinghouse workers, who were dealt a body blow when Democratic Party Governor Rudy Perpich ordered the National Guard to break their strike..

A new generation of union fighters will come to understand that victories on the picket line can only be maintained and expanded if union power is also expressed independently in the political arena.

This power will be fully unleashed when the illusions in the two capitalist parties have been overcome. But support to the Rainbow wing of the Democratic Party only perpetuates and reinforces these illusions.

Our strategy must be to help mobilize oppressed people in this country in independent mass actions. These struggles will build the confidence and experience necessary for the working-class majority to ultimately raise its own political banner.

summer when the schools get al the money they need an d the Navy has to hold a bake sale to buy a ship."

Available now! Send $10 to: Socialist Action, 3435 Army St., Suite 308, San F rancisce CA 94110

----- pull-quotes -----

BEARS SPER BONL U

Keep cool this this with

Acti ocialist ActIon T-Shirt! "It'll be a great day