Coalition '88 program has built-in pitfalls

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SOCIALIST ACTION MAY 1988 7 LOS ANGELES-Chanting "Human Care Not Warfare" 8000 people marched here on April 9 from downtown's Skid Row to City Hall to hear a rally organized by a new organization—Coalition '88. The march and rally commemorating the 20th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was built as a multi-issue demonstration endorsed by nearly 200 organizations.

The Coalition '88 organizers had solicited issues from various movements in Los Angeles which, when compiled, resulted in a brochure of 61 different demands upon the U.S. government on 20 separate items of social concern.

The issues, which appeared on a full page of the printed brochure and program, ranged from Central America, Southern Africa, the Middle East, to the rights of students, gays ,Post Office Box 404830 Brooklyn, NY 11240-4830 IMPACT VISUALS 2-966-9619 Affordable photos, cartoons, caricatures and lustrations for the movement and the progressive press and lesbians, and to name a few.

All were supposedly united under "a single concept calling for government programs which meet human needs, not spending for militarism and destruction."

This method of organizing captured the interest of many in Los Angeles, including those among the left who have favored a multi-issue approach in the antiwar However, the built-in pitfalls of such a wide-ranging program became apparent two days before the rally when several prominent religious leaders publicly withdrew from the coalition. They stated that they had come to this decision after "discovering that the event's agenda included abortion, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and other controversial issues."

Undoubtedly this had a significant impact upon participation in the rally, not only within the religious community, but also among others who had similar questions about the nature of the coalition.

The major projection of the rally was to "kick-off an extensive precinct network campaign throughout Los Angeles County. The coalition encouraged movement activists to become precinct captains in order to "register people to vote in their own way with their own group agenda." About 960 marchers signed up as precinct captains to do door-to-door work to "get out the vote in '88."

The diversity of the agenda was evident by the signs carried. But the underlying reality of the coalition's obscured agenda was also made clear by a sea of signs, T-shirts, buttons, and bumper stickers supporting one candidate: Jesse Jackson.

Carried not only by the Rainbow Coalition per se, pro-Jackson banners such as "Gays and Lesbians for Jackson," Senior Citizens for Jackson," and " Arab-Americans for Jackson" abounded.

The latter was perhaps the most ironic, as Jackson himself was in New York at the time, giving a speech in which he "moderated" his position on the Middle East. (The next day, Jackson pledged on PBS's Face the Nation that he would not meet with P.L.O. leader Yassir Arafat unless the P.L.O. reversed its historic position and agreed to recognize Israel's right to exist.)

The real question facing the left today remains pivoted around the nature of the Democratic Party, including the Rainbow Coalition and Jesse Jacksor. While the sentiments of many supporters for Jackson reflect an unequivocal stance in favor of the rights of working people and of the oppressed throughout the world, Jackson himself continues to shift to the right on virtually all issues in an attempt to garner votes from so-called mainstream Americans.

There can be no doubt that as November approaches this trend of reversals will continue. It is predictable that many original supporters of Jackson will eventually see Jackson's candidacy in a traditional "lesser of two evils" manner. They will again realize that the Democratic Party and all of its caucuses defend the interests of the capitalist class and not the working class.

A sentiment shared by many marchers was that something needed to be done about "the way the whole world was going." But neither Jackson nor any wing of the Democratic Party can do that. Only the working class—-and its allies—can organize an effective fight to end the injustices created by capitalism.

But to do this, the labor movement and all other organizations of the exploited majority must break with the Democrats and Republicans and form a labor party based on the unions and open to all the oppressed.

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capitalists have good reason to fear the impending groundswell of resentment and rebellion these economic dislocations will trigger among working people and the oppressed. That is why the capitalists are now in the process of making political preparations for this inevitable explosion.

Just as the Supreme Court's ruling against de jure school segregation put the rulers in a position to best ride out the Black freedom upsurge of the 1950s and 1960s, their promotion of Jesse Jackson as prime leader and spokesperson for the poor and exploited masses will also help them ride out the stormy rise of the working class.

After all, the ruling class has nothing to fear from Jackson. He has made his loyalty to the Democratic Party and the capitalist system absolutely clear. They are fully confident that Jackson, far from capturing the Democratic Party, is doomed to be a captive of the class which it serves.

Growing consciousness

The Jesse Jackson campaign, and the support it has won, is a contradictory