VI. What are the Stakes in this Election that Might Motivate an Answer to the Question: "How to Vote?" Given these contenders and the fundamental understanding that only a small portion of the population of this country will cast a vote to decide,
what difference should it make?We share the great concern that the Democratic party is moving further and further to the right, but the Left does not need to equate Bush and Gore in order to
score its points. The Democratic party is a racist, pro-imperialist party. That said, the Left cannot simultaneously denounce it for what it is, and also denounce it as if it is selling out a Left program it
has never claimed to embrace. In the present period, the differences between Gore/Lieberman and the Bush/Cheney Republicans are substantial. The Left does want some presidential actions and not others,
especially if we are not a strong enough force to compel either party to significantly change their policies at this point in history. For example, there is a major breakthrough of establishment opinion
against the death penalty and thanks to the work of Senator Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, and many of the scandals coming out of Bush's record in Texas, there is significant Congressional support for a
moratorium on executions—which would include Mumia Abu Jamal. A Gore administration would never initiate such a measure, but if there was a very powerful liberal/left united front, his signing such
legislation is at least historically possible. By contrast, a Bush presidency would make a moratorium on the death penalty virtually impossible, in that it would require a 2/3 majority to override a Bush
veto. We want an end to defense spending and to U.S. government intervention in sovereign nations. Neither Gore nor Bush, will reverse the posture of military intervention that guides U.S. imperialism—and Nader, while "against it" has chosen not to make it
central to his campaign. But it is of great historical importance that President Clinton recently made a major intervention against the Pentagon, by opposing the use of federal funds to continue to build the
missile shield which the Republicans in Congress and his own Republican Secretary of Defense, William Cohen argued for. This missile shield is far more than a boondoggle; the Star Wars concept is a recipe
for a first-strike strategy in which the U.S., believing it has enough protection against "enemy" missiles, can choose to attack. The Republicans were willing to threaten the Russians that even though
building such a missile shield would violate the nuclear arms treaty with them, the Russians should acquiesce, whereas Clinton refused to break that treaty. Clinton dodged the final action by saying he would
leave it to the next president. There is at least a significant chance that Gore/Lieberman will continue the Clinton policy of opposition—especially if there is some mass organizing and broad coalition
building on this issue. By contrast, Bush and Cheney will undoubtedly rebuild a missile shield, challenge the Soviets and China, and introduce a grave danger to world peace. As we know, Nader's concern is
inefficiency of expenditures, and he does not seem very concerned about world nuclear annihilation as an issue in his campaign. We
want expansion of civil rights for subjugated people, enforcement of all hard-won federal laws—from the Civil Rights Act to Row v. Wade—and protection of federal powers to enforce this expansion of rights.
We do not expect any candidate, Bush, Gore, or Nader, to protect and expand civil rights. However, there is a very critical
difference between the candidates. Yet another late act of the Clinton/Gore administration captures a focus of our concern. The Justice Department recently sent Bill Lann Lee, director of the Justice
Department Civil Rights Division to Los Angeles to threaten the Los Angeles Police Department and Mayor Richard Riordan that unless they sign a federal Consent Decree to have a federal monitor on police
brutality, the Justice Department will—after years of having compiled voluminous evidence of racially-biased police brutality—take them to court. Lee, as one of the NAACP/Legal Defense Fund attorneys who
represented the Bus Riders Union in its civil rights law suit against the LA/MTA, negotiated an historic Consent Decree. Although it is a matter of public record that the BRU disagreed with Lee about some
provisions of the final settlement, the overall role of the LDF was essential and positive and the Decree has become a nationally recognized instrument for expanding civil rights in Los Angeles—and a model
for similar suits in other cities. Lee's involvement in the monitoring of the LAPD would be another advance. Gore/Lieberman will likely maintain the policies of federal regulation of police brutality. Bush ,
by contrast, will aggressively dismantle the entire Civil Rights department—in content if not in form—and will abandon federal inquiry into civil rights violations in Los Angeles—allowing unchecked police
frame ups, beatings, and murders to continue unabated. As we know, these matters are of no concern to Nader.The issue of federal and state "separation of power" has a hollow ring to it, in that
all branches of government are essentially divisions of labor of the same ruling class. Nonetheless, these formal distinctions have taken on significant struggle within U.S. history and the issues of state
and federal rights are critical arenas of tactical interventions by social movements. From the point of view of our strategy, we oppose the many pro-imperialist/racist policies of all
levels of government in the United States. However, we place great emphasis on the necessary interrelationship of federal powers and protection of the inalienable rights of minority peoples. The particular history of the United States as a settler nation built on the oppression of whole nations of people and the revolutionary fight against national oppression and racism, which has required the power of the federal government to intervene in order to uphold civil rights. At the end of the civil war, the only way to guarantee the newly achieved and fragile rights of the freed slaves—reflected in the 13
th, 14th, and 15th
amendment—was to impose federal military control over the defeated states of the confederacy. With the Hayes-Tilden deal in 1877, northern capitalism allowed the defeated Southern aristocracy to re-enslave the blacks under the banner of "states' rights." From that time to the present, states' rights has been the cry of the enraged slave owners, Klansman, and segregationists—and for another century they got their way. This states' rights doctrine has completely overlaid the racist perpetuation of exclusionary voting rights. In this context, despite the origin of the "bill of rights" as protections for white, male colonists, the nonetheless progressive constitutional rights to be protected from "the tyranny of the majority" (the 14
th
Amendment), federal laws against discrimination (the Civil Rights Act), and federal powers to enforce the protection of subjugated people have been central to achieving the democratic advances of the anti-racist movement in the United States.
As we write this article, the Bus Riders Union, is awaiting a long-overdue decision from the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals. In 1999 we won a federal court order that required
the MTA to purchase 350 new buses and hire sufficient drivers to reduce overcrowding levels on the buses for 400,000 overwhelmingly minority bus riders. The MTA appealed the decision on the grounds that
"states' rights" theory allows them to disregard the Consent Decree, arguing it was an improper intervention by the federal courts in the running of a local government agency. If the courts uphold the MTA's
challenge, it will set a terrible precedent that in 2000 local entities can violate civil rights and get away with it. In this context, the stakes are high for the anti-racist movement across
the country and specifically for bus riders in Los Angeles. Gore's verbally articulated commitment to federal protection of civil rights—and to affirmative action and legal abortion—are responses to demands
from the mass social movements of women and people of color. Bush/Cheney are adamant soldiers for the right of states to oppose federal law and the Right wing maneuver to use the federal powers of the
Supreme Court to ensure states' rights. They explicitly oppose affirmative action and have no intention, stated or otherwise, to uphold, let alone strengthen, Civil Rights law. Nader's confusion
on this point calls for further clarification of our approach to the role of government in the protection of rights. This takes us back to our fundamental challenge to the discriminatory voting rights
formulas of the electoral system, which originated at the federal level. As we know, the federal government has used protection of "inalienable rights" to privilege the dominant social classes, and it uses
charges of "human rights violations" to intervene in sovereign nations. Yet it is, itself, capable of gross violations of human rights, such as, internationally, saturation bombing of civilian populations,
and domestically, the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the recent imprisonment of the Chinese American scientist Wen Ho Lee. We are dedicated to restraining the U.S. government any
time it acts to deny rights. Our support for federal powers in relation to "states' rights," therefore, is historically specific to the expansion and protection of the rights of subjugated people and
expansion of the social welfare state to satisfy the basic needs of oppressed people. The principle is that the rights of oppressed, exploited, subjugated peoples must be protected. The
principle is not that the federal government should have more power than a state or region. There are many instances in which "local" "regional" "statewide" or other struggles are in direct contradiction to
the power and "authority" of the federal government and must be supported—such as support for indigenous nations, state-specific expansion of legal rights such as legal marriage among partners of the same
gender, regional autonomy for concentrated populations of an oppressed nationality, special voting districts, local environmental regulations that provide greater protections, etc. In past years, there have
been Supreme court decisions that overturned specially created minority electoral districts in particular states to concentrate black and Latino voters, overturned the right of a state to curtail corporate
sales to a military junta, overturned the right of a state to prevent nuclear waste from being trucked through its borders, dramatically reduced the rights of women to file sexual harassment suits. In such
cases, we believe any effort by the federal government to overturn expanded rights at the local and state level is an abuse of federal power. Therefore, it is not only possible but historically
necessary for the Left to defend regional autonomy rights to oppose oppressive acts while maintaining a commitment to federal powers to enforce protections from oppressive acts. Returning to Nader, he
confuses progressive demands for regional autonomy to set higher environmental protection standards—"keep nuclear dumping off our land"—with reactionary states' rights powers like the LAMTA's "hands off our
segregated transportation system." In this case Nader once again aligns with the forces of structural racism. We want appointment of
progressive federal court justices who will secure the social welfare state and defend the rights of subjugated peoples at all times. We will not get the justices we demand, but the justices we will get will make a significant difference in the years to come. Since Supreme Court Justice Stevens,
the most determined voice for criminal and prisoner rights, is in his 80s, and both Ruth Ginsburg and Sandra O'Connor are ill and may choose to retire for health reasons, there may be as many as three
Supreme Court appointments to be made during the next presidential term. Most likely Gore will follow the Clinton approach, appointing centrists and trying to get them past Orrin Hatch. While
we despair of more centrists like Breier and Ginsburg, we do think they are committed to the legal framework of civil rights, which addresses our most central democratic demands within the limits of the
existing system. This takes the form of protecting voting rights, which ensure the federal government's powers to regulate state irregularities when voting rights have been denied based on racial
discrimination. We would be crazy to say we would not worry that Bush could appoint as many as three justices with the same vitriolic hatred of workers, women, and people of color as Justices
Scalia and Thomas. Any possibility of the federal government examining judicial improprieties in Texas on death penalty cases, for example, would of course be eliminated if Bush gets to make any more
appointments. The addition of even one more judge who emphasizes the right of states to resist federal enforcement will effectively dismantle the power of the federal government to enact social welfare.
Further, almost all the decisions that have protected the right to abortion in recent Supreme Court rulings have been tenuously won on five to four votes, for example the critical test decision to allow late
terms abortions. The appointment of only one anti-abortion judge could destroy the most significant right women have won in this century. We want an open field for counter-hegemonic direct action. We know that we will not get
this open field under the presidency of any candidate. There are several leftists who have argued that while the Republicans are a known enemy, the co-optive powers of the Democrats make them the main enemy.
We know only too well the treachery of the Democrats, but the struggle against liberals and even Democratic conservatives is not the same as the struggle against reactionaries. The very groups that are most
vulnerable to further attack under Bush—the low-wage working class, the homeless, immigrants, communities of color, those facing the death penalty, and the organized Left—are least able at this point in
history to effectively fight back against the organized Right. Since the Left is very weak, we do not wish upon ourselves struggles that we cannot win against forces far more powerful than ourselves — unless
there is a very compelling reason. The Nader forces argue that there is a very compelling reason, the advance of a progressive Third Party in the U.S. They argue that 5 percent of the ballot
would allow federal funding and, with it, approximately $12 million in federal matching funds for a 2004 presidential election. They argue that Nader is pushing the debate to the Left, putting pressure on
Gore to move in a more populist direction, and injecting urgently needed class issues into the election. In particular, Nader's warning of the grave danger of corporate power and its undermining of democracy
is so compelling that it requires, according to his supporters, a protest vote to show the Democrats they cannot take workers and environmentalists for granted. A strong vote for Nader will, they argue, push
Gore away from the Right, and presuming he is elected by a narrow margin, the Nader threat in subsequent elections will push Gore to keep his populist promises. Of course, there is no assurance that Gore
will defeat Bush. For us, the disappointment with the Nader campaign is that it simultaneously downplays the danger of the Right while in fact, not providing the excitement and challenge of a
Left campaign that would warrant the risks. It has consciously chosen to avoid any challenges to the structural racism and empire of our society, while refusing to address the serious threat that votes for
Nader may contribute to the election of Bush. We support the idea of Third parties, and we would face squarely the danger of electing a right-wing Republican if an exciting anti-racist, anti-colonial
candidacy ever materialized. While we respect the insurgency of the Nader campaign, we feel its economic narrowness, its national and white chauvinism negates its progressive promise. Nader's
facile conflation of his two opposing candidates, calling them "Gush and Bore," indicates a lack of compassion let alone passion for the entire arena of civil rights and civil liberties; in this arena almost
all the leading activists and attorneys explain that while they are furious at Clinton and Gore for their trespasses, they are absolutely terrified of a Bush election. For us, we will struggle even harder
against the Democrats if Gore is elected, but we fear for the people and the Left if the mass executioner from Texas is elected. VII. Where do We Go From Here? Having indicated how we weigh the stakes in the issue, our
main belief is that there are similar challenges in the next critical weeks before the election for those who choose to work for Nader, for those who choose to work for Gore, and for those who will work for
neither. Again, our tactical proposal: Focus on building and strengthening independent, anti-racist, anti-imperialist networks in each
city that can make a coordinated set of demands on all the parties and candidates. Encourage the formation of a civil rights and Third
World rights caucus inside the Democratic Party.
We encourage liberal and left supporters of Gore to use ads, leaflets, public forums, demonstrations if necessary, to push well known Democrats, such as Jesse Jackson, Maxine Waters, Barney Frank, Paul Wellstone, Bernie Saunders, Russell Feingold, and others to advance specific demands during the campaign—such as "free Mumia Abu Jamal" and "end the racist death penalty." Jesse Jackson Jr. has begun such a process by challenging Gore to allow Nader in the debates, and continuing to talk about racism and the death penalty during the campaign. He is already practicing more independence and initiative in the united front than some on the Left who are directly supporting the Democrats. Following this path, the anti-imperialist Left should focus on the most liberal Democrats, the ones with whom we have a modicum of influence, and try to push them to push Gore. We need to pressure the Democratic Party, not just write it off, especially at election time.
Encourage the formation of an anti-racist, anticolonial caucus inside the Green Party.
We encourage those trying to create grassroots pressure on Nader from within the Party to focus on articulating an independent political program. There are many good people inside the Greens fighting for an anti-racist anti-imperialist politics who are critical of Nader for driving away many people of color and anti-racist whites who checked out the Nader/Green campaign and rejected it, feeling alienated and refusing to vote for Nader, much less work for him. So far, they, like Leftists working for the Democrats, are in a small minority and don't seem to have much influence. Like their Democratic counterparts, they should talk less about what they plan to do "after the election" and experiment with independent anti-racist political organizing that can shape the Green Party in the present.
Encourage greater cooperation among independent anti-racist, anti-imperialist organizations throughout the U.S.
We encourage developing structures that can build organizational unity and expand visibility for demands—through web pages, emails, correspondence, mailings of articles, and hopefully direct coordination in different cities. The elections are a time when the national political debate, as dormant and bankrupt as it is, is raised to a more visible level in which the Left should try to maximize its influence. By November 4, the election will be over, the political operatives and apologists will move on, the nation will go back to sleep, but the Left will still face profound challenges—either stronger or weaker based on our tactics of trying to intervene in this historical moment.
Encourage greater alliances between anti-imperialist political forces within the Democratic Party, the Greens, and the social movements who can focus on building a unity of long-term
program, more than a unity of vote.
Such alliances are critical to challenging the existing system, regardless of who is elected to run it. If Gore wins, such alliances can try to put even greater pressure on those liberal Democrats who promised, "after the election" support for key demands. If Bush wins, the Democratic party liberals will feint to the left, or move to the Left; a broader united front will be possible. But again, they will work to co-opt and suppress Left social movements, to cut deals with the Republicans, to confuse people more than help people. Given how many concessions they made to the Republicans when they were in power, imagine what they will do when they are out of power. Without pressure from their Left, at the universities, in the factories and sweatshops, in the black, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander and indigenous communities, on the buses and in the streets, the Democrats are a hopeless out of power opposition.
The system is racist, the electoral structures corrupt and reactionary, the Democrats have moved far to the Right and the Nader candidacy is light years away from a thoroughgoing challenge to
the U.S. empire. But politics exists in actual time, place, and conditions, not the ones we dream of, and this election offers some openings, some opportunities, for a forceful and constructive
intervention—challenging the elections from the bottom up. |