Third Parties, Republicans and
White People
 All
politics is local. That political bromide, made
popular by Thomas P. (Tip) O’Neill, contains an
important kernel of truth. Congressman Tip
O’Neill from Massachusetts once bragged he never
forgot the name of a constituent, or even the
names of the constituent’s mother and father.
While that talent is impressive, it hardly
qualifies him as a profound political thinker.
Nevertheless, he reminds us that political work
to be successful must begin not just at the
state level, or even the congressional district
level but most importantly at the precinct
level.
That is not to say that
national and international political analysis is
irrelevant; in fact, it is key. But political
organizing must be grounded in local concerns,
alliances, and interests. Political organizing,
however, quickly meets a brick wall unless it
has a national or even international
perspective.
Because of the
Democratic Party’s persistent and consistent
refusal to address the needs and demands of its
constituency, progressives turn in frustration
to direct action, demonstrations or third
parties. That is always the motivation,
hopefully, of those who turn to alternative
forms of political expression and explains,
again hopefully, the rise of the Green Party,
the Labor Party, and other political expressions
of resistance to the established order.
One hopes desperately
that people who turn to third parties are not
motivated by personal ego, petty jealousies or
racism or any other of the more base human
impulses. But objective analysis requires
recognition that a human process involves all of
these impulses. But because racism is a
political statement that has enormous
consequences, particularly in this country, it
is that dilemma that must be addressed and
resolved to have any hope of success in changing
this country.
We can now officially
acknowledge that the Republican Party, led by
the aggressively opportunist Bush cabal, is the
white people’s party. After a 35-year campaign
of wedge politic, i.e. hate politics, the Bush
cabal seized power in 2000 by illegally
disqualifying 80,000 to 100,000 Black voters in
Florida.
Nixon established the
Southern strategy and vicious attack politics as
the modus operandi of the Republican Party but
it was Ronald Reagan who made the definitive
move to capture the hearts and minds of the most
reactionary and racist section of white people
in this country. By opening his presidential
campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, he openly
proclaimed that the Republican Party condoned
the terroristic suppression of the Black
community and with that symbolic statement, he
won the South for the Republican Party.
The location of
Reagan’s opening shot, of course, was the same
area where Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were
murdered for trying to register Blacks to vote.
By combining violent suppression with political
activity, Reagan endorsed the violent
terroristic attacks on the Black community for
its attempt to exercise the most basic of
democratic rights. Neither the media nor the
Democratic Party took him to task for such an
outrageous political posture. As a result, the
Republican Party’s plunge into racism and hatred
was sealed.
Of course, any historical dividing line is
imprecise and insufficient. The Republican Party
has carried a majority of the white vote since
1968 after President Johnson passed the Civil
Rights Act and Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther
King were assassinated. Jack Lessenbury
correctly observes:
“Yes, the last Republican convention had
blacks and Hispanics prominently on display as
window dressing. But that is all that they
were, other than a way to make socially aware
voters feel better about the Republicans. When
Election Day came, Al Gore won the virtually
unanimous support of African-American voters
everywhere in the country. He also won something
like three-quarters of the Hispanic vote, except
for Florida’s Cubans, and high percentages of
other minorities.” Metro Times (8/13-19/2003,
p.5) (Emphasis added)
The window dressing, however, is important.
Appealing to the most reactionary and racists
elements of this country would make the
Republican Party a small minority party
particularly given the political program of the
Republican Party. The program of the Republican
Party addresses only the needs of the wealthiest
people in this country, and basically robs the
rests of the population. It can only carry the
rest by pandering to racism, male supremacy and
homophobia. All this careful maneuvering is done
through the skillful use of coded messages that
generate the necessary hatred in order to hide
the true political agenda. Hatred is a powerful
emotion that blinds white working people from
their economic self-interest.
The Democratic Party takes the absolutely wrong
approach. Instead of solidifying its base by
building a program that addresses the country’s
racist history, current racial unfairness and
then building bridges to the progressive
impulses within the white working class, it
tries to send its own pseudo coded racist
messages. That leaves progressives within the
Democratic Party an open field. Instead, too
many progressives abandon that open field and
set up new basically all white organizations.
Nevertheless, the contradiction can be exploited
if white progressives are willing to enter the
Democratic Party and organize, accepting
leadership from the powerful African-American
leadership within the party. The economic
realities will force recognition within the
white working class where its economic
self-interest lies.
“A three-sentence description of the arc of
American politics over the past 70 years would
run like this: First, Democrats and moderate
Republicans created institutions—above all
Social Security and Medicare—that provided a
measure of financial security to ordinary
working Americans. The biggest beneficiaries of
these institutions were African-Americans and
working-class Southern whites, and both were
part of the moderate-to-liberal coalition that
dominated American politics until the 1960’s.”
But the right opened an increasingly effective
counterattack, with a strategy that included
using racially charged symbolism to get Southern
whites to vote against their own economic
interests.
* * *
“The big story in
that election [November, 2000] was the victory
of Republicans in Mississippi and Kentucky. The
secondary story, however, was a string of
victories by affluent suburban areas in the
Northeast. In my state, New Jersey, Democrats
took firm control of the state’s Legislature.
What this tells us is that some people—either in
New Jersey, Mississippi or both –voted against
their economic interests. For whatever you think
of Bush’s economic plan, it’s clearly much
better for New Jersey—a rich state, which gains
a lot from tax cuts tilted toward the
affluent—than for a poor state like
Mississippi.” Paul Krugman, NYT, 11/07/03, p.23
There were several elements of the forged
coalition of working class whites (not just in
the South) and African-Americans. First, the
depression framed the necessity for such unity.
The depression represented the total failure of
capitalism. Second, the worldwide revolutionary
movement frightened liberals more than poverty.
At the time, the progressive movement in this
country pushed an anti-racist agenda inside the
union movement and even within the Democratic
Party itself.
World War II destroyed productive forces
throughout the world and concentrated enormous
capital in the hands of a few groups in this
country. These groups consolidated their power,
gave certain benefits to workers, and purged
communists and other progressives from unions,
universities, schools and every other possible
institutional setting. Facing a devastating
criticism from the Soviet Union and progressive
forces in this country of Jim Crow segregation,
these same forces had to dismantle racist
institutions in the South. That allowed
corporations to move south where low pay and an
antiunion culture predominated, and was
profitable.
The Democratic Party then became a strange
structure with African-Americans as the base and
an uncomfortable white leadership at the top.
With its form of racism, this white leadership
vacillated between an opportunistic use of the
Black vote and a programmatic addressing of its
needs. But it never addressed in any systematic
matter the protection of the political and
economic rights of minorities within its
constituency. Nor did it formulate an openly
anti-racist agenda. Instead it moved more and
more to the right. Calling it a move to the
“center”, the Democratic Party more and more
ignored its base.
Disgusted with the opportunism of the Democratic
Party, white progressive either left or acted in
organizations outside the Party to influence it.
That left the power oriented Republican Party
able to exploit the contradictions within the
Democratic Party. That is why the wedge politics
or hate politics has been so effective. But it
is also why the Republican Party is now the
white people’s party. Republicans, of course,
must deny or hide their racist foundation. White
progressives acting within the Democratic Party
could forge an anti-racist agenda and expose the
Republican Party.
Outside the Democratic Party they become
marginalized and often are more “white” than the
Republican Party. The Republican Party continues
to deny its whiteness with no alternative
institution to expose it. But that denial will
ring hollow as time and information reveals the
invalidity of its claims.
“Winton claims, however, that the GOP had a
breakthrough year among Hispanics. He cites as
evidence a drop in Hispanic support for
Congressional Democrats and rise in support for
Republicans between 2000 and 2002. While
Winston’s data for 2002 are wrong and exaggerate
this change, it is true that the Hispanic two
party House vote was 65 percent Democratic/35
percent Republican in 2000 and did fall modestly
to 62 percent /38 percent in 2002. However,
Hispanic support for House Democrats
traditionally falls at least several points from
a Presidential to an off-year election, so this
says little about a real trend toward
Republicans. The more pertinent comparison is to
1998, the last off-year election, where
Hispanics supported Democrats 63 percent to 37
percent. So, basically, we have shift in
off-year Democratic support from 63/37 to 62/38.
If that’s a trend, Public Opinion will eat his
calculator.
Well, what about the Senate races? These were
the most significant races in 2002 and perhaps a
pro-GOP surge can be detected here. Nope, the
Senate two party vote among Hispanics was 67
percent Democratic/33 percent Republican.
Governors, then? Not here, either—Democratic
support among Hispanics was a healthy 65 percent
to 35 percent.
What about other minorities? Not much luck here
either for the GOP. In fact, blacks and Asians
both appear to have increased their support for
Democrats. The two party black vote for the
House went from 89 percent Democrat/11 percent
Republican in both 1998 and 2000 to a 91
percent/9 percent split in 2002. And Asians
increased their support dramatically for House
Democrats going from 56 percent Democratic/44
percent Republican in 1998 to 60 percent/40
percent in 2000 to 66 percent/34 percent in
2002!
Much more “progress” like this among minority
voters and the GOP—aka “the white people’s
party”—will have a very limited future indeed.
Ruy Teixeira, Mid-Term Myths of the 2002
Election. TomPaine.commonsense. http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9098/view/print
Like it or not political discussion occurs in
this context. Third parties either reach for
some big name like Ralph Nader and are therefore
bound to his perspective or work in anonymity at
the local level. And they remain as segregated
as the Republican Party. Even though the long
term prospects of the Republican Party are
limited, it will do enormous damage in the
meantime. As will be discussed, later, the
Republican Party will consolidate its power
through strongarm tactics and election fraud.
The identification of this rightwing, probably
fascist force, as the enemy of our democracy is
only the first step.
The damage done by the Bush cabal is clear and
horrendous: 1) rejection of the repetitive
injury standard for workers; 2) the withdrawal
from Kyoto; 3) the unpunished and unexamined
fraud of Enron; 4) the withdrawal from the
International Conference on Racism; 5) the
refusal to support the International Criminal
Court; 6) the appointment of vicious rightwing
judges who will dismantle protections for
workers, women, and minorities; 7) the
undermining of constitutional protections
including but not limited to the use of
noncombatant detainee status and the attack on
entire sections of our population; 7) the attack
on the separation of church and state; 8) broad
scale wiretapping, etc, etc, etc; 8) the
elimination of 2,500,000 manufacturing jobs, the
first president since Hubert Hoover to have a
net loss of jobs; 9) the sacking of the American
treasury by huge tax cut for the rich; 10) the
transition from surplus to deficit to the tune
of 500 billion dollars. The list goes on and on
with a specific attack on the environment
accomplished by a multitude of executive orders,
etc.
But in a separate category, the Bush cabal is
guilty of the murderous unilateral attack on
Afghanistan and Iraq killing thousands and
thousands and thousands of people first as an
excuse not to deal with Saudi Arabia and then as
an attempt to steal oil. Lies are used to cover
the misdeeds and lies are used to cover the
lies, all with the willing compliance of the
media.
The propagandistic media has never mentioned the
word “mandate”, a requirement for dramatic
change in a democracy. Because the
propagandistic media refused to discuss whether
the Bush cabal had a mandate for radical,
reactionary change, our democracy has been
brutally damaged. Any effort by the progressive
movement will be first to fight for democracy
and that has a majority constituency in this
country. Benito Mussolini defined fascism as
corporate control of government. Of course,
German fascism included a racist perspective.
The Bush cabal embodies both elements with
propaganda to hide both elements of their
program.
The Bush cabal is the enemy as is the rightwing
movement that supports his seizure of power. The
destructive power of this coalition of forces is
undeniable. The above list, in fact, is
incomplete and inadequate. It only touches the
wreckage that has been done, the institutions
dismantled, the lives destroyed and the capital
wasted.
While the wreckage done by the Bush cabal is
awesome, it is not surprising. Any serious
analysis of the reactionary movement in this
country could easily have predicted the
devastation. Yet, knowing the dangers presented,
thousands and thousands of people,
overwhelmingly white and a majority progressive,
turned to third party alternatives or ignored
the entire process. Energized as never before,
the African-American community had the political
sophistication to understand the peril presented
and the vulnerability of our democracy. Under
tremendous attack in Florida, this community was
able to increase its vote substantially which
required the Bush cabal to steal the election
and not allow the counting of the votes.
As previously documented, the groups that
constitute the backbone of the working class
movement voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic
Party. The African-American community is the
core of the working class. This community not
only performs most of the most oppressive and
poorly paid jobs; this community is also a key
element of the trade union movement. Whether it
is the demand for a stronger union movement or
women’s liberation, this community will be the
political base. The unity of working people is
the only basis for change. As Abraham Lincoln
said: “The strongest bond of human sympathy,
outside the family relation, should be one
uniting all working people of all nations and
kindred.”
The unity of African-Americans (92% Democratic);
Hispanic (63% Democratic) women (at least 60%
Democratic); Asians (66% Democratic) is key to
any progressive movement. The political and
cultural expression of that unity is inside the
Democratic Party. The struggle will be to unite
that political unity with progressives and force
the Democratic leadership to accept and respect
its political base. Yet, progressives
consistently refuse to unite politically with
this constituency.
Instead, the Green Party creates another white
people’s party, runs Ralph Nader who has 1% of
his vote from minorities and assists in visiting
untold misery on the working class. The Nation
magazine carries a headline on its front page
that Democrats are an endangered species in the
South. Democrats are not an endangered species;
white Democrats are rare. But millions of Blacks
support the Democratic Party, and they are not
irrelevant as is consistently implied. They get
almost no assistance from the white leadership
of the Democratic Party.
The Bush cabal provides a good example of the
differences in strategy:
“Mr. Bernier’s program is part of a network
of conservative-minded local radio shows in
politically important states on which campaign
officials are heard daily, programs like
‘Mid-Day with Charlie Sykes’ in Milwaukee, ‘The
Martha Zoller Show’ in Atlanta and ‘The Jerry
Bowyer Program’ in Pittsburgh.
It is a network that the Democrats do not
have -- though they are trying to cultivate one
-- and one that Mr. Bush’s campaign strategists
believe will give him an edge in an election
that could go to whichever side best mobilizes
its core voters.
Presidents have used radio to reach voters
virtually since its invention. But strategists
and radio experts say the Bush campaign has
taken it to a new level of sophistication, using
it far earlier in the campaign cycle and
appearing regularly on shows with even the
tiniest of audiences.” (New York Times 12/29/03,
Page 1 – Emphasis added)
This example provides an example not only of
weakness of the Democratic Party, but also the
racist ideology that underlies that weakness.
There exists a tremendous network of Black, and
Hispanic radio stations that would effective
contrast the Republican and Democratic Party
approaches: Tom Joyner, Tavis Smiley and others
speak to millions of people every day. Given
support, that audience would broaden and take on
ever more political clout.
“LOS ANGELES – A sign that Tavis Smiley’s new
PBS talk show is not standard-issue for public
television: The set was created by tennis star
and aspiring designer Venus Williams.
That’s just the start. Smiley, retuning to TV
less than two years after he was canned by BET,
says his daily late-night series debuting next
month will be more than visually striking.
‘Tavis Smiley,’ PBS’ first West Coast-based talk
show, will be fast-paced and aimed at drawing a
younger, more ethnically diverse audience than
typically watches public TV, its host says.
Smiley, whose punchy, baritone delivery and
pointed questions are familiar to his growing
National Public Radio audience, is ready to get
back on the tube. (His radio program, aired
locally at 9 a.m. weekdays on WDET-FM (101.9)
will continue)
* * *
Smiley says he
intends his program to be the same kind of forum
he’s created on NPR’s ‘The Tavis Smiley Show,’
one that challenges its audience to consider
issues from new viewpoints and addresses
over-looked issues.
‘I want to use this show, as I try to do on my
NPR show, to introduce Americans to each other.
In many ways, we still live in a very segregated
country,’ he says.
Recently, Smiley examined heavy opposition by
black Americans to the war in Iraq.
* * *
Not everyone is
impressed by his ecumenical efforts. Last year,
National Review managing editor Jay Nordlinger
referred unadmiringly to Smiley as ‘the black
leftist radio personality.’
His reach is increasing. His NPR show, which
started with 16 stations in January 2002, has
enjoyed one of the fastest NPR expansions ever
to major markets and now is carried on more than
80 stations and reaches an audience of more than
1 million.
He has brought in a somewhat younger crowd and
definitely attracted more blacks listeners – 30
per cent of his audience, compared to about 5
percent for most other NPR shows.” Lynn Elber,
the Detroit News, 12/29/03, Page 60 – Emphasis
added)
The Democratic Party could easily tap into this
network if it was willing openly to confront the
racism of the Republican network.
The Democratic Party leadership consistently
refuses to build the party at the precinct
level, choosing instead to rely on rich donors
to then buy advertisements. We have this
terrible spectacle of Democrats going to bunch
of rich people to raise money to give to the
rich media to get its message to the people. No
wonder the message is so weak. The Republican
Party has more money but instead builds its
party from the ground up. The reason is obvious.
To build the Democratic Party from the ground up
would require putting a lot of money and
political muscle into the Black community. And
the party and apparently progressives are afraid
of that. The Black community is then left
twisting in the wind.
That political fact represents a tremendous
opportunity for the progressive community. Green
Party activists are not barred from
participating in the Democratic Party. They
could run for precinct delegate, unite with the
large representation of the minority communities
and force the Democratic Party to be responsive
to its base. In fact, that could be done as the
Green Party because there is no prohibition
against dual membership. Then, when an
independent candidacy is realistic, it would
have the ability to forge the necessary
alliances. But that would require engaging Black
delegates as equals or more importantly to
accept their leadership based on their power
within the Party.
The Labor Party could do the same, and so could
every other progressive group. All of this could
be done without losing any group identity. The
Democratic Party has an organized, national
delegate system in place ready for organization,
especially since the leadership is afraid of
mobilizing its base.
Yet progressives continue to cling to the myth
that there is no difference between the two
parties. Once they start organizing in the
predominantly Democratic precincts, it would
soon become clear that there is an enormous
difference. Undoubtedly, Green Party and Labor
Party activists live in primarily white
communities. That would make them minorities in
most of those communities. That would make it
easier for them to be elected precinct
delegates. But it would also require that they
confront the racism in those communities and
raise money to empower the base of the Party.
Instead, the third party movement expects the
base of the Democratic Party that is
multinational and working class to move into
their parties and accept a new white leadership.
What form of racism is that—it needs a new name.
There are two coterminous changes in this
country that require immediate attention by
progressives and require immediate movement into
the Democratic Party. First, redistricting by
the Republican Party has now made almost all
congressional districts safe seats with a
majority going into the Republican Party.
Second, the combination of money, fraud, and
coercion has made almost all elections rigged.
The use of computer voting machines with no
paper trail and owned by partisan Republican
corporations has resulted in elections that are
turned upside down without any reason other than
the fraudulent control of machines. Max Cleland
in Georgia, Janet Reno in Florida and the
senator from Nevada are glaring examples.
“Roxanne Jekot, who has put much of her
professional and life on hold to work on the
issue full time, puts even more strongly.
‘Corporate America is very close to running this
country. The only thing stopping them from
taking total control are the pesky voters.
That’s why there’s such a drive to control the
vote. What we’re seeing is the corporatization
of the last shred of democracy.
I feel that unless we stop it here and stop it
now ‘ she says, ‘my kids won’t grow to have a
right to vote at all.’ Andrew Grunbel, Published
on 10/13/03 by the Independent/UK.”
The article by Andrew Grunbel is too long to
quote but begins with the following synopsis:
“A quiet revolution is taking place in US
politics. By the time it’s over, the integrity
of elections will be in the unchallenged,
unscrutinized control of a few large - and
pro-republican - corporations.”
In addition, the following is a quote from An
Open Letter to America: It’s Time to Take Back
our Country by John and Elaine Mellancamp.
“The vote count was not conducted by state
election officials, but by private company that
sold Georgia the voting machines in the first
place, under a strict trade-secrecy contract
that made it not only difficult but actually
illegal—on pain of stiff criminal penalties—for
the state to touch the equipment or examine the
proprietary software to ensure the machines
worked properly. There was not even a paper
trail to follow up. The machines were fitted
with thermal printing devices that could
theoretically provide a written record of
voters’ choices, but these were not activated.
Consequently, recounts were impossible. Had
Diebold Inc, the manufacturer, been asked to
review the votes, all it could have done was
program the computers to spit out the same data
as before, flawed or not. Astonishingly, these
are the terms under which America’s top three
computer voting machine manufacturers—Diebold,
Sequoia, and Election Systems and Software
(ES&S-have sold their products to elections
officials around the country.”
Republican money has now taken over California
and will rig the election for Bush II in 2004.
It is at least interesting to observe subtleties
of this process of distorting and cooking the
election results.
“Let’s hear it for California’s secretary of
state, Kevin Shelley. Based on the findings of a
public task force, he has now decided that all
electronic voting machines used in his state
must print out a paper receipt. Inexplicably,
Shelley postpones implementation to the 2006
election.” Jim Hightower’s Lowdown, Vol. 5,
#12 (12/03) (Emphasis added)
That probably will insure that Bush II can steal
the 2004 presidential election. The only place
where progressives have a chance to act is in
the Democratic precincts and primaries. Most of
the other elections will be controlled by rich
corporate Republicans. With a war chest
approaching $1,000,000,000.00, Bush II can buy
the election, and that’s what the Bush cabal
intends to do. Even if, by some wild chance, a
Democrat were to be allowed in the presidency,
the media attack dogs would not allow that
president to have any effect whatsoever.
Because the Republican media will make sure to
hide the stolen election and put a spin on these
rigged elections, progressives will have a
wide-open field to show the courage to fight
that the Democratic leadership lacks.
One of two things will happen in November of
2004. Either the Bush cabal will steal or buy
the election using computer control to steal key
states, or a Democratic President will be
allowed to be elected. In the latter case, such
a President will be paralyzed by the media
attack dogs who will make it impossible for the
elected President to govern.
Under either scenario, progressives will have to
build a base inside the Democratic Party. Such a
movement will address the question of
marginalization that now exists. Progressives,
if effective, can speak for the Democratic
Party, showing the courage that the current
leadership lacks.
While the Democratic Party will have a majority
of the votes, and certainly a majority of the
working class votes, it will have a minority of
power and a minority of positions. The
Democratic leadership will weekly protest the
fraud and unfairness of the system. In those
circumstances, progressives will have fertile
ground to till especially as the Democratic
leadership continues to ignore its base. Taking
leadership at the base will enable progressives
to support mobilization of that base with direct
action, civil disobedience and strike activity.
This strategy is increasingly important because
the Republican Party leadership intends to
dismantle the entire governmental structure that
supports working people. The recent Medicare
bill was passed with no debate and is designed
to require destruction in 2011. Ted Kennedy
describes this as the Trojan horse strategy.
(See Paul Krugman NYT 121/14/03 p A25)
Even Head Start is under attack. With a
Republican attack, it is now fighting for its
existence.
“Facing an increasingly raw fight over the
future of Head Start, Congressional Republicans
asked the General Accounting Office today to
examine the federal government’s financial
oversight of the program, which serves almost
one million preschoolers who live in poverty.”
NYT, 11/20/03 p. A22
In these circumstances, the Black Panther
Program of feeding the children becomes, again,
an important part of the political struggle, and
the struggle will be multinational, potentially
revolutionary
In addition, the Republican economic program
continuously concentrates wealth in fewer and
fewer people, which leaves a bigger and bigger
constituency for progressives. The Republicans
always concentrate first on activating its base.
As Bush II said in January of 2000: “you can
fool some of the people all the time and those
are the ones we concentrate on.”
The strategy of the Republican Party is to
solidify its base and tell enough lies, make
enough appeals to racism, male supremacy and
homophobia to steal elections
“The thirteen states in which ‘sodomy’ laws
were struck down by the Supreme Court were all
states that Bush carried in his first election.
But the Republicans’ decision to embrace
political homophobia anew is more than simply a
sop to the Christers and the far right—given
that antigay backlash; it’s shrewd political
strategy. Karl Rove never tires of pointing out
that 4 million of the 19 million evangelical
Christians didn’t vote in 2000. With 2004
shaping up as another close elections, Rove & Co
want to energize the Christian-right base to
which Bush is already so heavily indebted (it
motored his 2000 primary victories against John
McCain) and insure a maximum turnout among the
AWOL evangelicals and other Christian
traditionalists.” Doug Ireland, Republicans
Relaunch the Antigay Culture Wars, Nation,
10/20/03 p22.
The base of hate politics is racism in this
country. The response to such hate politics is
first to consolidate the base—that is, to
address the question of racism, the Republican
Party’s reliance on racism and the other hate
politics and then address the economic strategy
that underpins the reason for hate politics.
That can be done by forcing the Democratic Party
to address its base just as the Republican Party
always caters first to its right wing white base
before it addresses other issues.
Certainly, progressives cannot address the
question of racism in this county by promoting
another form of racism. The African-American
community represents a powerful voting block
inside the Democratic Party and also understands
that the Democratic Party’s white leadership has
refused to recognize that base. That is why some
of the more reactionary and opportunists
elements inside the Black community have become
Republicans or pork chop nationalists or both.
Progressives need to look ahead. There are only
two possible scenarios in 2004. Probably, the
Bush cabal will steal the election. In those
circumstances, progressives must build the
Democratic Party base to confront the fascist
movement that will emerge once Bush II
consolidates power.
With the remote possibility that a Democrat
takes the presidency, he will not be allowed to
govern. The media attack dogs will immediately
block all possible efforts to repair the damage
of the Bush cabal:
“From the beginning, his enemies portrayed
Clinton as unworthy to occupy the office of
president of the United States. This assessment
held firm despite his acknowledged intellect,
industriousness, and charm, and also despite the
fact that by almost every statistical measure,
the American people and their government were in
far better condition by 1999 than when the
Arkansan took office in 1993. With is remarkable
political skills, the president had broken the
Republican ‘lock” n the electoral votes of the
southern states, muted his own ‘party’s
clamorous left wing, adapted portions of the
Republican agenda to how own uses, restored
fiscal discipline, and outmaneuvered his
bitterest foes in the GOP leadership again and
again. But the better the president and the
country did, the more his adversaries appeared
willing to endorse almost anything short of
assassination to do him in.” (p xiii – Emphasis
added) The Hunting of the President, The
Ten-Year Campaign to Destroy Bill & Hillary
Clinton, Joe Conason & Gene Lyons (St. Martin’s
Press, NY)
If a Democratic president is elected,
progressives must make it impossible to silence
the “clamorous left wing”. If Bush II is
elected, progressives must mobilize the
Democratic base to attack the fascist moves that
most certainly will come.
The beauty of the current constellation of
forces is that progressives can now seize the
moral high ground and speak for the majority
needs and dreams of people in this country. We
need only the courage and vision to seize the
time.
Yours in Struggle,
-
Ronald D. Glotta
220 Bagley, Suite 808
Detroit, Michigan 48226
(313) 963-1320
(313) 963-1325 fax
rglotta@glottaassociates.com
www.glottaassociates.com
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