Socialists assess S.F. mayoral campaign

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SOCIALIST ACTION DECEMBER 1987 7 answers, however, from the Democratic Party candidates-only false promises and shifty evasions.

Agnos eventually came out on top by posing as a friend of working people and small business people. Once in office, however, his true class allegiance will become apparent when he starts slashing social services even further because of a $76-billion budget deficit. [See box on this page.] In contrast, Ryan told working people that they must organize themselves independently to protect their rights; and this organizing effort must point toward the formation of a labor party based on the trade unions.

The absence of a labor party, Ryan explained, makes it harder for voters to break away from the illusions they have in "lesser-evil" capitalist candidates. In the San Francisco mayoral race this translated into support for Art Agnos.

Modest goals

From the beginning, the Ryan campaign's goal was to popularize certair.

Assemblyman Art Agnos is a liberal Democrat who had no problem working with conservative legislators to author GAIN-Greater Avenues for Independence-known as "workfare." GAIN, a so-called "reform," was designed to get women off welfare by providing them with job skills. However, most jobs pay below $5.00 per hour and don't train women for better-paying positions. Many women do better financially on welfare than on workfare.

While GAIN is supposed to be voluntary, Agnos defends the use of sanctions against women who balk at "workfare." A woman who fails to participate, Agnos says, "will lose her adult right to spend her [welfare] check as she chooses. The state will handle all her money."

In the December issue of the Progressive, Agnos is quoted as comparing welfare mothers to children. He believes these women must be forced into GAIN "just as we do with children in public education."

These are the types of "enlightened" solutions Agnos will offer to San Franciscans. basic ideas: (1) working people should run the city; (2) human needs should come before profits; and (3) the corporations should be taxed to pay for needed social services.

While spreading these ideas, the Ryan campaign was able to break new ground by appearing on radio talk shows, by being a guest columnist in a large San Francisco newspaper, and by intervening in important public meetings.

These modest-but important-accomplishments, however, are dwarfed by the multimillion dollar campaigns waged by Agnos, Molinari, et al. Indeed, this will always be the case when workers don't have a mass party of their own.

Ryan's final media appearance was a televised debate with all 11 candidates on the local public TV station. As was typical throughout the campaign, Ryan and the other socialist candidates got to answer only two questions while the Democratic Party "major" candidates were allowed to for Black liberation respond to five questions.

The first question the moderator asked Ryan was why there were three socialist candidates running in the election? Ryan responded by asking the moderator why he didn't ask the same question of the four Democrats on the panel.

"They all represent the rich," Ryan said. "They're all for big business, they're all for the corporations. Why don't you ask them [the Democrats] why they don't run just one candidate?"

Ryan continued: "The kind of unity I'm for is working-class unity inside a labor party. The rich already have their unity in the Democratic and Republican parties.' In his 30-second summary, Ryan told the TV audience that it was time for the rich— the gilded minority— to take cutbacks, not the working-class majority. "Things will only change," he concluded, "when working people take their fate into their own hands."

The opportunity presented by the elections to get that message across was utilized well by the socialist alternative. They planted seeds for the future.

Marxism's Lessons for Today South Africa: The Black Unions Organize Toward a Socialist America:

Vhat Socialist Action Stands Fo Edited by Asher Harer, $.75 The Meaning of Gorbachev's Reforms By Alan Benjamin, $.75 The Legacy of Malcolm X By Joe Ryan, Nat Weinstein, and Kwame Somburu, $1.25 clude $.56/pamphlet postage 18 to win the consent of their parents before getting an abortion, and to renewed attempts to cut off all state funding for abortion for low-income women, many saw this meeting as an important step toward involving the labor movement in the fight for women's reproductive rights.

One woman's testimony ended with a theme that the audience applauded: "There are many of us...here in America, who are being denied and refused this basic right to take control of our bodies and lives. I now know that we cannot expect the government to make laws which protect us. As women, we have to fight for our rights. And as women, we will."

seag 300 1 Myesha Jenkins (at podium) and Pat Norman, chairwoman of speak-out THI

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