From: nlns@igc.apc.org (New Liberation News Service)
Subject: NLNS ELECTION COVERAGE (4)
Organization: The Ohio State University Department of Computer and Information Science
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 12:50:58 GMT

/* Written  6:21 pm  Oct 13, 1992 by nlns in cdp:nlns.news */
/* ---------- "NLNS Packet 3.3 *** 10/12/92" ---------- */

Peace and Freedom Party Nominates Ron Daniels for President
Husayn Al-Kurdi, 
News International

(NLNS)--The California Peace and Freedom Party, meeting at its 
State convention in San Diego on the weekend of August 15-16, 
has chosen Ron Daniels as its 1992 Presidential Candidate. 
Daniels defeated Dr. Lenora Fulani by 120 to 91 in the voting 
among delegates. Daniels, a long-time Black nationalist 
organizer, pledged to "reach out and organize the unorganized, 
to knit together the various communities" in an effort to 
"destroy the slave system" which features "racism and 
capitalism as the foundations."
	The smooth-spoken Daniels, a Youngstown, Ohio resident, 
had served as a leading advisor to Jesse Jackson in 1984 and 
1988, but was let down by Jackson's unwillingness to break 
with the Democratic Party, which he characterized as "openly 
Big Business and pro-capitalist." He vowed to "meet the system 
in the streets and make this country ungovernable," calling for 
a "domestic Marshall Plan" which would use $170 Billion from 
the U.S. military budget to serve a wide range of human needs. 
His Vice-Presidential running mate is Asiba Tupahache, a 
Matinecoc Indian from Great Neck, New York.
	Daniels came to the convention with impressive 
credentials--he was a leader at the National Black Political 
Conference in Gary, Indiana 20 years ago and a founder of 
African Liberation Day, as well as chairperson of the founding 
convention of the National Black Independent Political Party 
(1980) and is convener of the African American Progressive 
Action Network, which sponsors the National Malcolm X 
Initiative. His weekly column, Vantage Point, apprears in over 
100 newspapers. Heading up the Campaign for a New 
Tomorrow, the energetic, personable Daniels has been 
preparing his presidential run for over two years. He is slated 
to appear on the ballot in some 17 states, with write-in 
campaigns in at least ten others.
	His opponent for the nomination, Dr. Lenora Fulani, has 
generated controversy on the Left with her affiliation to the 
New Alliance Party, a New York-based operation run by Dr. 
Fred Newman. Peace and Freedom delegate Casey Peters (Los 
Angeles) referred to Newman as "an L. Ron Hubbard in drag, a 
political L. Ron Hubbard." NAP has been compared to 
Scientology, the Unification Church and Lyndon LaRouche in 
terms of its cult-like practices. When questioned about the 
mounting allegations against her organization, Fulani dismissed 
them as "Just not true, all lies." The 42-year-old 
psychotherapist from New York City called on delegates to vote 
for her because of her tie to NAP, which she described as the 
4th largest political party in the USA. Her punch-line in her 
effort to garner support was "I have a national following. I am 
an African-American woman. This is the Year of the Woman."
	The NAP has used intensive fundraising techniques to 
collect over $1.5 million for Fulani's 1992 Presidential bid, with 
guru Newman receiving a $6000 per month stipend from the 
campaign coffers, according to Federal Election Commission 
records. Newman was actually aligned with the eccentric right-
wing cult leader Lyndon LaRouche for a brief period in 1974. 
Since then he has founded a variety of interlocking 
organizations, some using his brand of "psychotherapy" to 
attract recruits.
	Steve Karp, a floor manager of the Daniels campaign at 
the Peace and Freedom convention, was elated at the results of 
the Daniels-Fulani race. "It was good to see the Peace and 
Freedom Party send a clear message to the NAP that they are 
not going to be allowed to take over this party. That message 
was sent not just by electing Ron Daniels and Asiba Tupahache, 
but also an entire slate of state officers who were all Ron 
Daniels suppporters."
	Over 400 people packed the Craftsmen's Hall in the 
Hillcrest district of San Diego to decide the Daniels-Fulani 
contest, to elect new state officers and to work out a platform 
for 1992. Peace and Freedom, founded in 1967 as a Left 
electoral front, has over 60,000 California members. Gerald 
Horne, Chair of Black Studies at UCal-Santa Barbara, was 
elected as state chairperson. Berkeley's Marsha Feinland, active 
in a broad range of struggles over the past 20 years, got the 
call as Northern California Chair.
	San Diego residents were elected to the Southern 
California Chair and Corresponding Secretary positions. C.T. 
Weber won the Southern Cal Chair post, urging a higher level of 
activist engagement, saying "It's almost the 21st century. If we 
don't get our act together pretty soon, we're going to be sliding 
back to the 19th century." Monty Kroopkin, the IWW 
("Wobbly") anarchist activist and journalist, is the new 
corresponding secretary. In what was characterized as a "media 
whiteout," only some ten media representatives out of 150 
invited were present. There was virtually no coverage in any 
US media.
	Sweeping and comprehensive resolutions were passed 
relating to HIV and "Lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans-gender 
rights," along with planks opposing the North American Free 
Trade Act, support for the Cuban government and people and a 
resolution "celebrating 500 years of indigenous resistance since 
the Columbus arrival." A statewide solidarity campaign with 
the Drywallers' strike and a mass demonstrations October 4th 
at the Bush-Clinton debate in San Diego are among the 
upcoming activities being planned.
	Resolutions were passed calling for the release of 
longtime Black Panther political prisoner Geronimo Pratt and 
condemning the Boy Scouts of America for their anti-gay 
discriminatory practices. "Ethnic cleansing" taking place in 
Yugoslavia was denounced, but opposition to US military 
intervention in the region, as elsewhere, was condemned.
	The Peace and Freedom Party proclaims that "In the 
class struggle between the workers and the bosses, we stand 
squarely with the working class. . .The bosses use their 
governmental power to subjugate the workers, poor and 
oppressed. We seek to dismantle the organs of the bosses' 
power and to build organs of workers' power. . .The working 
class and its natural allies far outnumber the bosses and their 
allies. It is in the bosses' interests to divide the workers 
through state, social and economic means. It is in the workers' 
interest to unite in common struggle against the bosses and in 
defense of each other's rights. National and ethnic minorities, 
women, and gays and lesbians are under increasing attack, and 
all workers must mobilize to beat back those attacks."
	As to the Ecology, Peace and Freedom calls for the 
development of technology which would "restore and enhance 
the workers and the earth." In international relations, the Party 
stands with "the workers and oppressed of the world in their 
struggle for freedom from their bosses and from the US empire 
which props up those bosses." The ultimate aim of Peace and 
Freedom is the establishment of a socialist system, in which the 
working class controls the planning and management of the 
economy, with production geared to human needs. Socialism is 
seen as the massive extension of democracy, with the widest 
levels of society taking part in the decision-making process.
	In his nomination acceptance speech at the convention, 
Daniels urged progressives in the US to move beyond the 
"betrayals and 'bankruptcy' of the US Democratic and 
Republican Parties, who have become mere competing factions 
of a single Big Business Party. He called for the building of a 
"Movement Party" to engage in ongoing action "in the streets" 
and not just during an election year.
	Daniels proposed a General Strike for April 1993, on the 
25th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, 
Jr. Citing the American Declaration of Independence, he 
reminded conventioneers that it is a duty to abolish an 
oppressive government. If justice and democracy cannot be 
won peacefully through electoral means because of Big 
Business control of the election process which shuts out any 
serious alternative candidate, then Daniels said "We should 
make the country ungovernable!"

News International Press Service can be reached at 6161 El 
Cajon Blvd. #4, San Diego, CA 92115; (619) 696-9531

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