The Greenhouse effect: Capitalism won't solve it
1988 1988-08Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 5 →
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Similarly, people today are told to vote for Dukakis if they don't want the ghastly alternative of Bush.' SOCIALIST ACTION AUGUST 1988 ecological limits.
No longer an event seemingly limited to underdeveloped nations, the realities of drought have come home to a major bread basket of the world-the American Midwest. Withering under the highest average temperatures and lowest rainfall levels since the first records were kept 130 years ago, farmers are already preparing to accept that this year there may be no harvest.
Similarly, people today are told to vote for Dukakis if they don't want the ghastly alternative of Bush.
Compromises for "unity"
By far, the high point of the Democratic Party lovefest in Atlanta was the speech by Jackson. The only factor that made this convention interesting was a new emerging force in American politics-millions of Blacks, Latinos, workers, and farmers who galvanized themselves around Jackson's minimum reform program for social justice and peace. To keep these people in the Democratic Party, convention organizers had to go through the motions of "tipping their hat."
But even before Jackson was given his evening in the spotlight, all the compromises and back-room deals that subordinate the interests of working people had already been made.
To assuage the Jackson delegates, vague non-commital planks regarding the need for In an international conference at Toronto, Canada, a panel of scientists and government officials concluded: "Steps taken to halt deterioration of the atmosphere must be compatible with economic growth." This statement clearly illustrates the degree to which most government officials hesitate when the call for action conflicts with immediate financial gain.
Workers and farmers in the United States "resources for education, childcare, and jobs" were added to the Democratic platform. But when it came to taxing the rich, or self-determination for the Palestinians, or rejecting a first-strike nuclear policy, the true reactionary face of the Democratic Party showed itself. The Jackson delegates lost on all these votes.
Yet when Jackson spoke that night, everybody was one big happy family again. "The relationship I am going to have with the campaign must be defined by Gov. Dukakis," Jackson said. "I have put an awful lot of energy, a tremendous investment, into expanding our party ... and I intend to follow through."
Michael Dukakis expects a lot. He had said earlier that "[Jackson] won the votes of 7 million Americans, and we want the votes of every one of them." For Jackson, this won't be as easy to accomplish as he may think.
But the phony respect that the Democratic Party showed Jackson at the must insist through their organizations that the government give them immediate assistance to combat the economic effects of the drought.
A popular outcry for immediate steps to ensure environmental planning must be heard. In the long run, a government led by working people will finally place the cause of human survival ahead of the quest for private profit.
convention and the prominent media coverage he received were designed to accomplish much more than just get Dukakis elected. By bringing Jackson into the inner circle, they have waiting in the wings a demagogic politician who will seek to capture and neutralize all sizable left-wing developments among the masses and keep them bottled up in the Democratic Party.
Not much imagination is necessary to picture what the impact on the American political scene would be if the 7 million people who voted for Jackson moved in the direction of supporting a labor party that was based on the unions and the oppressed communities.
A labor party built around a fighting program to meet human needs would appeal to many more millions. The capitalist class wants Jackson to be the antidote against this kind of development both this election year and in the future.
We need a presidential campaign that advances a program that fundamentally represents the interests of the exploited and oppressed in this country. The socialist ticket of James Warren and Kathy Mickells, the Socialist Workers Party candidates for president and vice president, points in this direction.