"Ice-T often used his rap to

Scan page 7

combat the gang war conducted to make peace among them. Itwas necessary, he rapped, to end the suicide and to be conscious of the fact that a real common enemy existed that needed combattingthe police, FBI, and CIA, as well as the social-economic system that is social-economic system that La prison for human beings. political spheres. She appears as a soldier of an army she has called to be formed.

"With the Clinton situation now, she's definitely throwing bombs. And that's her role," comments Chuck D.

The unforeseen promotion of the young rapper—by means of the polemics between her and the Democratic candidate—is having even more unexpected consequences. The Source headlines its cover: "Sister Souljah for president?"

Meanwhile, Ice-T proposes her for a vice presidential candidate, if the rappers decide to present a Black independent slate one day. When such a slate is put forward, he says, with Ice Cube and Sister Souljah at its headaccompanied by Chuck D, KRSOne, and himself-it will really be possible to obtain millions of votes.

Ice-T and gangsta rap Contrary to Sister Souljah, Ice-T is one of the most prominent rappers in the public eye. Occasionally, he is also a movie actor. In "New Jack City" by Mario Van Peebles, he played a Black undercover cop, which brought him good reviews from his fans, while the film was accused of having It's evident that with other rappers, who are the heart of the Stop the Violence Movement, Ice-T made a major contribution to the truce begun by the Crips and the Bloods just before the uprising and to the fraternization initiatives during and after it. Recently, a coalition of gang leaders elaborated a common program of immediate demands for the development of the poor neighborhoods of Los Angeles. This was made public in the magazine The Nation.

In an interview aired on KPFK in Los Angeles and other Pacifica radio stations, some gang members affirmed that the Crips and Bloods were discussing among their projects the formation of an independent radical party, looking to overturn the white supremacist system and the power of big business.

"Will we get justice?"

In interviews in the magazines Rolling Stone and Spin on the subject of the "Cop Killer" affair, Ice-T explains that the police in America have a large body of angry killers in their midst who are out of control and never punished for their crimes. That's the reason, he says, why he often tests the desire to take a fling and kill some of those killer cops. He knows that many Blacks and youth have that desire, and "I have the right to say how I feel."

Besides, an artist has the duty to warn society, Ice-T declares. And he does it quite distinctly: "I totally predict that if we don't listen, people are going to move to bloodshed. I know from listening to the homeys and the people in the street, if they do not see justice, then they are going to move, and this time it's going to be on more than inanimate objects. They're going to hurt some people.

"So are we going to get some justice? Are you going to send some of these killer cops to jail, show people that everybody is responsible under the law? Or are you going to show them that the law doesn't work? And in that case, why should they respect any of the laws?"

But Ice-T doesn't consider "Cop Killer" merely as a warning. This song has, in his eyes, a significance much more profound. It is a revolutionary song, he explains:

"This country was founded on the things I talk about. I learned it in school. Paul Revere was running around saying, 'Here come the pigs, and a fuckup is going SOCIALIST ACTIO down.' We had a revolution. ... That was a revolutionary thought, and those were very honorable thoughts in those days.

"We just celebrated July 4th, which is really just national Fuck the Police Day. And "The Star Spangled Banner' is a song about a hell of a shootout with the police. You can call them troops, whatever you want, but basically they're police from the other side.

"I'll bet back during the Revolutionary War, there were songs similar to mine. If you want to look at it, I guess the cop killer is the first soldier in the war who decides, 'Hey, it's time to go out there and be aggressive, and I'm moving against them.' "This country is based on war and revolution. Now to hear a revolutionary song like 'Cop Killer' coming from the cities, where they know there are people ready to get going, they want to shut it down real quick. ... Cops are here to serve and protect, but they're also here to control, and not let shit get too out of hand. They don't want another revolution, so they want to shut down these thought patterns. : "Cop Killer" was withdrawn from sale in the United States and throughout the world. But Ice-T has announced that he 'Il continue to sing it in his concerts.

OCTOBER 1992 7

Scan page 8

"In desperation, they must resort to rauments like. 'We have no choice bu to hold our noses and vote for Clinton because its the only way to stop Bush.' Or as one political columnist put it: The choice is between Mr. Bush 8 SOCIALIST ACTION OCTOBER 1992 (continued from page 1: “Bush & Clinton: They should run on the same ticket”) anger of working people-and specifically at the phenomenon of skyrocketing taxes.

Both parties had been shifting the tax burden from the very rich to working people for years. Sales taxes and value-added taxes on such things as liquor, gasoline, and cigarettes (all of which are flat taxes, hitting the poorest the hardest) were steadily raised. And as larger and larger income tax-bites were withheld from paychecks, growls of discontent grew louder.

Seeking to subvert this discontent to its own class needs, the capitalist news media began to link the cause of rising taxes to social welfare programs Periodically, there appeared "exposés" of "welfare queens," more often than not identified as Blacks or Latinos-some of whom, it was alleged, drove downtown in Cadillacs to pick up their welfare checks. Such reports served to make a racist connection between high taxes, welfare costs, and the Black "welfare cheats."

Welfare for the rich At the same time, the media rationalized welfare for the rich. The far more massive expenditures on war and the vast government handouts to bail-out bankrupt industries and banks were held to be sacrosanct and beyond criticism.

Republican demagogues like Ronald Reagan soon became identified as the most consistently aggressive exponents of an ongoing campaign to "reform" the "tax and spend" policy, which was linked by Reagan and other Republican leaders to the Democrats, even though the so-called "tax and spend" policy was almost always supported by a majority of both parties.

The fact is that the policy of tax and spend was mainly a mechanism for regulating the economy so as to avoid alternating bouts of recession and inflationor at least to flatten out the low and high points of the cycles. These policies were never instituted in order to serve the good and welfare of the great majority of working-class Americans.

The amalgamation of high taxes, welfare, and "welfare cheats" served the Republicans to chop a chunk of the better paid worker and middle-class voters away from the Democrats. Soon most Democrats in and out of government hopped aboard the anti-"tax and spend" bandwagon.

But behind the campaign against "tax and spend" and the new reluctance to use deficit financing to give a boost to a slumping economy, is the huge budget deficit and the national debt, which limits further deficit financing to spur the failing economy. This is because such a policy now risks triggering hyper-inflation—no less a threat to capitalist stability than is a sharp eco nomic decline and a massive increase in unemployment.

American capitalism's crucial need was and is to reduce taxes on the rich by raising the taxes of everyone else. This is what caused the whole political spectrum of capitalist politics to shift steadily to the right.

This is the way it has worked: With each election, unkept promises by the Democratic Party "liberals" have permitted the Republican Party "conservatives to move ever rightward, dragging in their tow the more affluent, but discontented voters, who had traditionally voted Democrat.

Then in each subsequent election, as the bad guys saw their way to become bolder and fiercer fighters for the rich and against the poor, the "good guys" could move more openly in the same direction and still give the appearance of resisting pro-business, anti-labor policies.

The result has been that Democrats need pretend less —and promise less. The scarcity of Democrats accepting the label "liberal" or "pro-labor," nowadays, testifies to the decline of practicing "liberals."

While this swindle may not have been planned, it has been seized upon by all wings of the capitalist class and now functions as a brazen and crude confidence game.

But it would be a mistake to wring our hands in despair over its having gone on for so long without the "suckers" learning very obvious lessons.

JUST DINK... THE ECONOMY IN THE TOILET.

UNEMPLOYMENT SKYROCKETIN...

THE ENVIRONMENT GONE TO HELL-IN-A-HAND BASKET...

CRIME OVERTAKING OUR SIRELIS. DRUGS.. ESPAR_ To the contrary, it wasn't long before it became ever-more apparent that tax and spending cuts (tax cuts for the rich and spending cuts for the poor) hurt the poorest workers and benefited only the rich. Now the illusion of lesser evilism is at its lowest in years.

But major shifts in consciousness (drawing the appropriate conclusions from this Republican-Democratic Party shell game) don't come little by little. The meaning of these developments accumulates in people's heads, until quantity changes into quality-and what physicists call a "phase change" takes place.!

Evidence of changing consciousness has for some time been expressed by the growing rate of those abstaining from voting. This was demonstrated recently by the unprecedented mass response to Ross Perot.

Many disgusted voters, who may not have illusions that this multi-billionaire represents a real alterative, nevertheless see his candidacy providing another way of expressing opposition to both major parties.

It was earlier evidenced by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow demagoguery, which many demoralized socialists and ex-socialists argued pointed to a break from capitalist politics. More recently, one of his lieutenants, Ron Daniels, appears to be keeping open Jackson's option of forming a "radical" third capitalist party based on the middle class. Daniels has announced his "independent" candidacy for U.S. president and will appear on the California ballot as the candidate of the Peace and Freedom Party.

The third capitalist party option is also evidenced by the 21st Century Party, which had its founding meeting on Aug. 29-30 in Washington, D.C. This middle-class formation, sponsored more broadly than the Ron Daniels effort by pro-Democratic Party leaders of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and other liberal feminists, has revealed its real intentions in a declaration in the August National Now Times: "Membership in the 21st Century Party does not preclude members and participants from helping candidates of other parties who support feminist issues." It's hardly a secret that this means the Democrats.

A similar declaration had been adopted by Ron Daniels's People's Progressive Convention, at its Aug. 21-23 gathering in Ypsilanti, Mich.

Holding their noses for Clinton But even though the evidence suggests imminent big changes in mass political IT DOESNT GET ANY BETTER consciousness, it is not possible to predict how far down the road a real break, by workers, from the two capitalist parties will take place. But take place it will. The deepening economic crisis afflicting world capitalism seems to be on the verge of tumbling out of control. When it does, an acceleration in the pace of changing consciousness is certain.

Despite the evidence of changing consciousness, however, labor bureaucrats have hitched their wagon to the most openly conservative and anti-labor Democratic presidential candidate in 60 years.

A variety of burned-out ex-socialists has been recruited to the bureaucracy's motley crew of rank opportunists, to help them rationalize their bankrupt pro-capitalist policy. This is because the bureaucrats are finding it harder than ever to get workers to swallow the likes of Bill Clinton.

In desperation, they must resort to arguments like, "We have no choice but to hold our noses and vote for Clinton because its the only way to stop Bush." Or as one political columnist put it: The choice is between Mr. Bush and Mr. Not Bush.

They are driven down to this level of crass political fakery because few can take seriously the claim that this "good" Democrat will do more for labor than would George Bush.

After all, Bill Clinton has comfortably served as governor of the "right-to-work" state of Arkansas. He has not lifted a finger to give back to workers rights taken away by what the AFL-CIO had once called "slave labor laws."

Arkansas is likewise the only state withut a civil rights law. Gov. Clinton is fo restrictions on the right to abortion. He is an advocate of the death penalty, an opponent of welfare, and an advocate of "workfare"—which is nothing but a scheme for rationalizing and driving the victims of capitalist unemployment off welfare and a vote-getting signal to racist whites.

Clinton's stance on foreign policy is virtually identical with that of Bush. If anything, when Clinton attempts to differentiate himself from the Republicans, he appears to be even more of a hawk than Bush.

While endorsing the government's recent war moves against Iraq, for example, Clinton chastized Bush for not doing enough to "defy and defeat those who threaten us." Clinton is also a strong opponent of the Cuban Revolution; he gave his endorsement to a bill tightening the blockade against Cuba, which was passed by the House last month.

Those in the Democratic Party who claim to be champions of workers,' Blacks,' or women's rights are having a hard time keeping up the pretense. In this period, so-called "progressive" politicians, like demagogues such as Congressman (and self-proclaimed "socialist") Ron Dellums, see the shine rubbing off their "progressive" images to the extent that they attempt to palm-off the Democratic Party presidential candidate as a friend of the oppressed.

Rainbow-Democrat Jesse Jackson, for instance, was visibly uncomfortable last month when called on by his party to sit alongside Clinton for campaign photo-ops intended to garner Black votes.

Truly, in this election, the situation foisted on working people of voting for the "lesser evil" or not voting at all has been raised to the theatre of the absurd.

"Partners" with the bosses?

The most glaring void in this year's elections is the absence of a working class alternative to Bush and Clinton.

Socialist Action's efforts to drive home the central importance of the principle of working-class political independence is based on the simple fact that the class interests of workers and bosses are diametrically opposed.

In a nutshell, when sectors of the workers' movement make the mistake of granting political support to any wing of the capitalist class, it inevitably has the effect of grossly miseducating the working class and results in ever-bigger mistakes, setbacks, and defeats.

But class collaboration didn't begin on the electoral level. It begins inside the workers' economic institutions arising from the class struggle-the unions. So long as the bosses can prevent unionization of the workplace, they do so. But once compelled to recognize the union, they set to work to bribe and otherwise corrupt the most backward elements and form them into instruments of control over the workers' organizations.

In periods of sharp class struggle, however, the more militant and more conscious elements tend to emerge as leaders. In such periods, worker leaders are usually selected from among the best fighters, from those who have shown their leadership by getting into the thick of combat and taking. all the attendant risks.

However, this is not the case in periods of relative calm. The most conservative elements tend to find their way into the full-time paid positions-just like the froth that rises to coat the surfåce of a stagnant pond.

They are, as a general rule, a different breed. Their prime motive is not to improve the workers' lot but to get themselves off the production line and behind a desk with a steady job. Their outlook tends to be one of establishing peaceful relations between union and employer, and to avoid trouble. They become simple job-holders; i.e., bureaucrats, and are easily manipulated by the bosses.

The labor bureaucracy-especially those in commanding positions at the tops of unions—see themselves in a partnership with the bosses. They tend to see themselves as moderators of the daily struggle between workers and bosses. They reason it to be in the interests of everyone to keep production going smoothly so that both workers and bosses have a "pie" to divide each week.

They interpose themselves between bosses and workers, blocking the latter from fighting back. They reason, further, that profits must be kept high enough to keep the employers from closing down or moving their plants to an area in this country or abroad where wages are low enough to realize a "reasonable profit."

This logic adds up to the modus operandi of the class collaborationists: Workers needs must be subordinate to profits!

The labor movement's political alliance with the Democratic Party is merely the extension of this "partnership" relationship from the workplace into the sphere of politics; that is the arena of generalized economic struggle.

Political and economic class collaboration are just two sides of the same coin.

(continued on next page)

Scan page 9

ADViCE: EVACUATE AND/OR SEEK SHELTER UNTIL AFTER NOV. 3RD...

(continued from preceding page)

And as a general rule, you can't do one without the other.

Thus in this period of sharpening capitalist war against the working class, the labor bureaucracy has been openly blocking a fightback and is the direct cause of the current worker disorientation and demoralization.

Where to begin?

As you can see, there is no contradiction between the task of raising the level of class consciousness on the economic and political planes. And we begin wherever we can, wherever opportunities present themselves.

So now the 1992 election is before us. How and where do we begin? Revolutionary Marxists have been advocates of the formation of a mass revolutionary workers' political party from the first. We have long advocated a labor party based on the unions as a step in that direction. And we raise the idea in an educational way whenever appropriate-especially when elections are before us.

But at this point, workers do not have such a choice there is no mass workers' party. In such a case Socialist Action would, if it could, have fielded its own candidates in this election, as we have done in past local elections. SA would thereby set the example of independent working class political action. This would also permit us to advance our political program in a way not possible at other times.

Unfortunately, in SA's nine-year existence, we have not yet become strong enough to field a Socialist Action presidential slate.

Vote socialist in 1992!

But fortunately, working people can register their opposition to capitalism and its political representatives by casting a vote, wherever possible, for the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) candidates —James Warren for president and Estelle De Bates for vice-president.

By the end of September, the SWP campaign had completed petitioning for ballot status in 21 states, and the candidates had already been approved to appear on the ballot in 11 states and the District of Columbia.

Several states were challenging ballot status for the SWP candidates—a typical example of capitalist harassment of working-class electoral efforts.

Even though we have serious disagreements with the program of the SWP, we both agree on one very important principle-that of independent working-class political action. We view the SWP's independent socialist election campaign as an expression of this principle in the United States.

That alone makes it possible for us to take the tactical decision of granting the SWP critical support, and thereby helping to advance the principle of independent class political action in this election.

But our support cannot be granted without criticism. While we unreservedly urge our readers to vote for the SWP slate, we also have the responsibility to our readers of laying out where we think the SWP's current program is wanting-and where it conflicts with class independence.

One of our most important concerns is in regard to the position the SWP has powe first developed by Leon Trotsky in 190506, holds that the democratic revolution—which in South Africa includes central tasks such as providing equal rights for the Black majority—can only be fullfilled when the working class takes power in its own name and undertakes a socialist revolution.

But the SACP/ANC strategic goal includes sharing power with the white rulers and respecting capitalist property rights for an indeterminate historical period. We reject that as antithetical to the effectiveness of the Black freedom struggle.

This programmatic and governmental

FoReCAST:

100% CHANCE oF HOT, STRONG WINDS COMING AT YOU LEFT AND RIGHT... alliance commits all components of the alliance to a struggle that does not transgress capitalist limits.

It means that Black South African workers are barred from mobilizing around working-class economic and political issues —mobilizations which could set off the only dynamic that can lead toward the overthrow of the white capitalist social and political dictatorship.

Economic demands such as the fight to reduce the workweek from 50 hours to 40 hours with no reduction in pay, and escalitor clauses pegging wages to rising prices, are subverted by the attempts of the ANC to form an "interim government" together with the white supremacist regime.

Moreover, the SACP/ANC's alliance with white capitalists rules out any perspective that includes winning white workers over to the Black majority's struggle for freedom and democracy; it rules out combining the workers' revolution with the democratic revolution.

This also means that the SWP has broken with another central programmatic position we had once held in common as revolutionary Marxists—the Transitional Program, which strategically links together democratic and anti-capitalist transitional demands.

Positions of support to class collaboration in South Africa, and opposition to it in the United States are mutually exclusive. For scientific socialists (and the SWP still claims this designation) theoretical consistency is at the heart of the scientific method.

Drift from class-struggle strategy Reflecting their departure from the principle of class independence in South Africa and other countries, the SWP has been subtly drifting away from a class-struggle strategy in this country as well.

Over the last few years, reports on labor struggles carried in The Militant, the SWP's weekly newspaper, (with a single rare exception) have not made the slightest criticism of the official AFL-CIO policy of abiding by court injunctions that take away the right to picket effectively in strikeseven when scabs are pouring through plant gates.

The most important of these defeats resulted from the strike by members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) against Eastern Airlines. In this strike, as in virtually every defeated strike in recent years, the labor bureaucracy meekly abided by injunctions limiting strikers to handfuls of pickets at each entrance.

(Token isolated demonstrations involving as many as a few hundred workers were allowed but without any attempt to bar scabs.)

In the case of the IAM, the top officialdom focused its sights, not on winning its demands, but on ousting the corporate raider, Frank Lorenzo, from control over Eastern Airlines.

One of the purposes of this demand became apparent at the end of the strike when Lorenzo was indeed ousted by Eastern's stockholders. The IAM bureaucrats declared this to be a victory-while Eastern workers were left empty-handed and jobless. The Militant concurred that the ouster of Frank Lorenzo was a victory.

Another purpose of the IAM's focus on removing Lorenzo flowed from their hopes for winning the aid and support of "friendly" capitalists, like corporate raider Carl Icahn. The IAM bureaucracy, at the time, strongly hinted that if someone like him would take over Eastern, more concessions would be granted by the union to make the company more profitable.

Furthermore, the SWP had as recently as its last presidential election campaign four years ago promoted a break by labor from capitalist politics. They, too, had explained the need for an independent party of labor based on the unions. But in the current campaign the SWP has dropped this slogan.

The SWP's failure to draw the lessons of

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

and the BI for human beings.

HOPELESSNESS™ and Mr. Not Bush

THAN THIS. HEADQUARTERS