San Francisco mayoral race: Socialists aim for ballot; candidate heard at debates

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Over 5,000 signatures were collected by campaign supporters in San Francisco.

SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1987 15 "Hello. Would you like to sign a petition to put a socialist candidate on the ballot?"

San Francisco Socialist Action members have gotten such a positive response to this question that they have raised their goal of total signatures from 4000 to 6000.

It's all part of a campaign to put Joseph Ryan on the ballot as the socialist candidate in the San Francisco mayoral race. Over 5000 signatures have already been collected in support of Ryan's right to be on the ballot.

For the last three weeks, campaign supporters have been on busy street corners, bus stops, and shopping areas of this city introducing people to the socialist program.

"Sign up for a candidate who puts human needs before profits and is a Vietnam vet who's running on an antiwar program," was a phrase that most potential signers could not resist. With four weeks remaining in the petition period, the socialist campaign expects to easily exceed the new goal of 6000 signatures.

Ryan's campaign has also gotten off to a fast start by producing a variety of literature. Several position papers—that range from the issue of AIDS research financing to cutbacks in education-have been distributed. "Fund AIDS research, not the contras!" and "Education is a right—stop the cutbacks!" are some of the solutions being proposed by the socialists.

Two colorful posters with the demands: "Stop Union-Busting" and "U.S.S. Missouri Out of San Francisco" have been printed and will be placed all around the city. In addition, stickers and T-Shirts will be available for campaign supporters.

Ryan's campaign has been heard several controversial meetings.

In late June Ryan spoke at a Board of Education meeting that was going to vote for a $10 million cutback for the city's already hard-pressed schools. These cutbacks meant that city workers and teachers would be laid off and class sizes increased.

Board of Education

While over 200 concerned parents, teachers, and students listened, Ryan criticized the Board of Education members:

"The job of the Board of Education is not to play bookkeeper, but to defend the interests of education," Ryan said. "It was on that basis you were elected, and you should be organizing mass rallies and demonstrations to demand that education is a right-and not a privilege."

Pointing to the two board members who were against the cutbacks-both liberal Democrats-Ryan said: "Instead of just voting 'no' with your hands, you should be organizing people to vote 'no' with their feet in Sacramento."

The socialist candidate's remarks received an ovation, but that did not prevent the Board of Education from voting to implement the cutbacks.

One teacher told a campaign supporter, "Ryan was the only one who made sense, and my union president agreed with me.

U.S.S. Missouri homeporting On July 22, Ryan and his supporters brought the socialist election campaign to Rosa Dear editor, Cliff Conner is to be commended for his excellent review of the film Rosa Luxemburg, "Red Rosa's fight for revolutionary socialism" (Socialist Action, July 1987).

By explaining the historical background of the period-the infamous betrayal by the German Social Democratic Party of the German (and world) working class in the face of World War I, the left-wing opposition to the party's social patriotism, the German revolution of 1918—Conner has performed a real service for many of the film's viewers who, like myself, were a little hazy about that period.

I would like very much to send copies of this review to those of my friends who commented that the film left them confused or that they didn't understand the film. Please send me five copies of your July issue.

Ruth Schein, San Francisco, Calif.

Correction In the July issue of Socialist Action, we incorrectly stated in an article about the Teamsters union, "Long history of government harassment," that Farrell Dobbs and several other Teamster militants of the early Joe Ryan/Socialist Action dation the Board of Supervisors chambers. A supervisors' subcommittee was hearing testimony on a proposal to give the Navy approval for homeporting the nuclear-armed battleship U.S.S. Missouri in San Francisco.

The most enthusiastic booster for the homeporting is the current mayor, Diane Feinstein. Deviously holding out the carrot of "jobs" as the reason for homeporting the U.S.S. Missouri, Feinstein has been able to win labor's support.

Opponents of the homeporting plan include artists (who will be evicted by the Navy from the Hunter's Point shipyard), environmentalists (who have proven that dredging the bay will seriously pollute the water), and peace activists (who correctly oppose the war aims that the U.S.S. Missouri represents).

At the hearings on July 22, however, the supervisors' chambers were packed with shipyard workers—who are hard pressed for jobs. They were mobilized by the shipyard owners and union bureaucrats. Unfortunately, most opponents of the homeporting were forced to listen to the proceedings from out in the hall due to overcrowding.

With only three minutes to speak, Ryan addressed his comments to the workers:

"The most important people in this room today," Ryan stated, "are the pipefitters, shipfitters, boilermakers, and electricians. But because they don't have their own political party—a labor party-they can't formulate an alternative program for jobs—like a mass public- works program."

Ryan continued, "The San Francisco labor movement has played a big role in organizing demonstrations for jobs and peace, like April 25th. And many of the workers and Vietnam vets here know that the only ones who will really profit from this homeporting will be the Navy-who is a strikebreaker-and the Chamber of Commerce-who is responsible for the attacks against our standard of living."

As Ryan was leaving some of the workers gave him a respectful smile as U.S.S. Missouri opponents outside applauded him. Needless to say, the Board of Supervisors approved the homeporting of the U.S.S. Missouri.

This is going to be an interesting campaign.

era landed in prison in 1940 in a government frame-up.

Dobbs and 17 of his comrades, leaders of the Socialist Workers Party and of Minneapolis Truckdrivers Local 544-CIO, were the first victims of the Smith Act, which was passed in 1940. But they were not sentenced to jail until December 1941 and, in fact, did not begin serving their 16month sentence until Jan. 1, 1944.

We have also received phone calls from old-time members and supporters of Socialist Action, some of whom are veterans of the 1934 Teamsters' strikes, stating that Hal Leyshon's quote in the accompanying article, "Government attacks all labor in Teamsters takeover move," is misleading, if not incorrect.

In that article, Leyshon, a member of TDU's New YorkNew Jersey regional council, told Socialist Action that the "government collaborated with the mob to destroy Teamster rank-and-file dmocracy throughout the Midwest and sections of the South beginning in the 1930s."

According to these Teamster veterans, although there were cases of corruption in a few Teamsters locals in the Midwest in the '30s, there is no evidence of government and mob connections at the time. This did not occur until later.

The editors