From: nlns@igc.apc.org (New Liberation News Service)
Subject: NLNS ELECTION COVERAGE (2)
Organization: The Ohio State University Department of Computer and Information Science
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 01:33:31 GMT

/* Written  6:24 pm  Oct 13, 1992 by nlns in cdp:nlns.news */
/* ---------- "NLNS Packet 3.3 *** 10/12/92" ---------- */

Beyond the Ballot Box: WHY THE LEFT SHOULD OPPOSE CLINTON
Jason W. Moore and David Jarman, NLNS Election Editors
"Laugh about it, shout about it When you've got to choose 
Every way you look at this you lose,"
                       -- Paul Simon

	Half the voting-age population might be fed up with 
rightwing and unresponsive one party rule in this country, but 
much of the U.S. Left remains supportive, even enthusiastic, 
toward Bill Clinton's presidential bid.  And while the prospect 
of a centrist President after a dozen years of Republican rule is 
undoubtedly appealing, Leftists should critically examine a 
pro-Democratic Party political strategy which has done little to 
empower the oppressed, augment Left forces, or stem the 
Democrats' move to the right.
	Few would disagree with the observation that the U.S. 
party system is in crisis.  Despite the opportunities for political 
independence provided by this development, most of the Left, 
apparently driven by little more than inertia, seems unable to 
strike forward with much imagination.
	This lack of imagination was manifest in the Left's 
reaction to the Perot campaign--part loathing and disdain, part 
bafflement, part arrogance.  But many of Perot's backers 
readily grasped the reality that the two-party system, in fact 
mainstream politics in general, can no longer deliver the goods. 
It is no longer feel-good Leftist posturing to note that millions 
of Americans want a real alternative to a political system 
which seems unable to recognize the basic causes of our 
economic and social crises, let alone solve them.
	Certainly this represents a legitimation crisis for ruling 
elites, most obvious in the rightward realignment of the parties 
and their concomitant social disconnectedness.  The problem 
goes much deeper, however. The emergence of a qualitatively 
new type of global economy is leading to, inter aly, the collapse 
of traditional liberalism and social democracy, not to mention 
most forms of nationally-centered socialism.  Despite the 
immensity of this problem, which can only be sketched out all 
too briefly here, revolutionary socialism can be reconstructed; 
reformism cannot.
	Why? The answer is best summed up with a question--
Just how many social democracies are there in the Third 
World?  How many U.S.-style welfare states?  The implications 
of these and related questions demands close examination as 
the transnationalization of capital Third World-izes the U.S. 
working class, and the U.S. state itself.  The welfare state, social 
democracy especially, relies on the existence of nationally-
based economies capable of reaping the benefits of a capitalist 
world system committed to plundering the vast majority of the 
world's population.  In this way Scandinavia, home of the most 
developed social democracies, can take advantage of 
imperialism without having to dirty its hands. As long as the 
capitalists keep making money, few serious problems arise.  
When the accumulation process begins to slow down, however, 
we begin to see the reversal of social democratic gains.  
	The Swedish social democrats are now out of power, the 
British Labor Party is on the skids, the Italian ex-Communists 
continue to fare poorly, and the French Socialists have long 
since forsaken socialism, or even social democracy, for what is 
at best a welfare state technocracy.  All this goes to show that 
as the social base erodes for reformist ideologies and political 
action--embodied most obviously in the liberal and social 
democratic traditions, but also in those of the Western 
Communist Parties--the political spectrum shifts to the right, 
but only for as long as no revolutionary movement threatens 
the status quo.
	The U.S. experience of the past twenty years bears this 
out--as stagnation began to hamper the accumulation process, 
the U.S.  ruling class sought to recapture much of that social 
welfare cushion built up since the New Deal.  The result was a 
restructuring of the economy, especially the working class 
(more temporary workers, more chronically unemployed,  
weaker and fewer unions, etc.) and an intensification of 
exploitation--what we know now as the "Reagan Revolution," 
though the changes went much deeper than the term implies.  
Liberals have proved unable to halt, much less reverse, this 
process.  Unfortunately, much of the Left continues to argue 
that the Democrats just need more support, "pressure" as they 
call it, to live up to their promises.

THE LEFT AND THE DEMOCRATS -- Mistakes, Past and Present
        When Leftists such as Charlene Mitchell, national 
coordinator of Committees of Correspondence (CoC), tell us that 
Bill Clinton "offers the only realistic possibility to reverse the 
continuing slide toward the right in this country," she tells us to 
forget our history. [Charlene Mitchell, "Worse is not better," 
Dialogue and Initiative, July 1992]   She knows better than 
most of us that the independent social movements, based 
outside the Democratic Party, have been the catalysts for 
reversing the gains of the Right--the civil rights movement of 
the 1950s and '60s is only the most obvious example.  It only 
makes sense, then, that the best, maybe the only, way to open 
up political space for historically progressive social 
transformation is to organize outside, and not inside, the 
primary institutions of socialization, cooptation, and social 
control in our society.
	The inability of the Left to form a viable--which should 
not translate as "electable"--alternative to the Democrats has 
led to the emergence of a Democratic Presidential candidate 
beholden not to any independent political force, but to a gaggle 
of centrist technocrats and emasculated liberals.  We can 
comfort ourselves with an admiration of Bill Clinton's ability to 
respond toughly to some of the President's distortions, but a 
glance at the newly retooled, lean-and-mean Democratic Party 
gives us little else to cheer about.
	Clinton personifies the Democrats' utter capitulation to 
the successes of Reaganism and the New Right.  Like Bush, 
Clinton implies that traditional liberal Democrats are "too left-
wing," that the only way to win elections is to woo the so-called 
"Reagan Democrats."  The new Democratic Party strategy is to 
ape the Republicans' simian ways--for instance, Clinton has 
jumped vigorously on the welfare-bashing bandwagon, calling 
for welfare mothers to get off the welfare rolls and get jobs 
(jobs which do not and will not exist, at least not under 
Clinton's economic program).  This extends to his racially 
charged attacks on Sister Souljah, and his carefully planned 
reluctance to be seen with African-American leadership--
perhaps the most "special" of the "special interests" from the 
Right's perspective.
        But the Democrats' right turn extends beyond issues of 
race--their new economic plan is little more than Reaganomics 
with a human face. Although he favors new expenditures in 
education, job training, health care, and infrastructure, the 
basics of Clintonomics exclude the three-quarters of the 
population unable to "compete" in the global economy.  It is a 
woefully myopic economic vision, focused purely on shoring up 
the shrinking middle class, though it lacks the mechanisms to 
do even that, let alone help the poor. Clintonomics' chief failing 
is its refusal to provide a democratic opening for a progressive 
reconstruction of the U.S.  economy; without serious efforts 
towards a radical democratization of the economy, Capital will 
continue its transnational stampede with all the disastrous 
consequences that entails.
        Still, dutiful liberals, and many social democrats (both left 
and right-wing), continue to hope that Clinton will be a good 
President, maybe as "good" as Jimmy Carter.  "Even if I grant 
you that Clintonomics is not progressive economics, shouldn't I 
still vote for Clinton because he appoints judges and approves 
legislation?" Clinton supporters say.  "He's pro-choice; he'll 
protect the environment; he'll cut defense spending; 'pay or 
play' health care is better than none at all; he'll make sure that 
everyone puts a 'visualize world peace' bumper sticker on their 
VolvoI" Even if, and it is a big if, Clinton lived up to such 
pronouncements, and everything indicates that he will not, this 
short-sighted pseudo-pragmatism is a dead end for those 
seeking long-term progressive change.
        History will verify this.  Social and economic justice, even 
to a limited degree, has been won not through accommodation 
with the Democratic Party but through aggressive challenges to 
the two party system.  The Populist experience of the 1880s 
and '90s, the Socialist Party from the turn-of-the-century to 
World War I, the Communist Party of the 1930s, and the New 
Left of the 1960s all succeeded, for a time, because they spoke 
to a public concerned with the inability of the ruling parties to 
look beyond their corporate patrons.
        All these challenges took place in a context of some kind 
of crisis --economic depression, war, social disruption.  Yet, as 
their success grew, so did their ties to the Democratic Party, 
invariably leading to their demise as an independent political 
force.  For example, the Populists hit their high-water mark in 
the 1892 election after years of grassroots organizing, as James 
Weaver received 22 electoral votes.  In 1896, however, the 
Populists nominated the Democratic candidate, William 
Jennings Bryan -- and (while some blame lies in the Populists' 
failure to attract urban workers and to bridge racial lines 
among Southern and Mid-Western farmers) accordingly 
rendered themselves irrelevant.  They were gone by 1900.
        This experience, and those of progressives and radicals 
since, demonstrates the danger of trying to "humanize" the 
Democratic Party and pull them leftwards.  Unfortunately, 
virtually the entire U.S.  Left still sees little alternative to 
supporting Democrats, hoping that Clinton just lacks the right 
advice and can be pulled leftwards once entrenched in office.  
Many, such as Jesse Jackson, seem to support Clinton with little 
vigor, but a disturbing number, including the Democratic 
Socialists of America (DSA) and feminist Gloria Steinem [Gloria 
Steinem, "Why I'm Not Running For President,"  The Nation, 
July 20/27, 1992] are all but fawning over the prospects of 
President Clinton.  Others still, like Charlene Mitchell of the 
Committees of Correspondence, and the Communist Party [Tony 
Monteiro, "The Winning Ticket: A Campaign for People's Needs,"  
Peoples Weekly World, July 11, 1992; and Jarvis Tyner, 
"Forward to Political Independence," PWW, Aug. 8, 1992], 
maintain a theoretical distance from Clinton, but call for a 
"realistic" embrace of the Democrats and insist on attacking 
anti-Clinton Leftists as "extremely shortsighted" and "not 
responsible." [Mitchell, op. cit] (1)
        This type of pro-Democratic posturing reveals what 
Manning Marable rightly calls "non-Marxist approaches to the 
question of politics I [approaches which] fail to comprehend 
the class nature of the U.S. electoral system." [Manning 
Marable, "Remaking American Marxism," Monthly Review, 
January 1991]  As Marable stresses, the Left "must revive the 
traditions and tactics of non-electoral politics" as a necessary 
precondition to any real electoral success.
         If progressives and radicals are strong enough to 
influence elections, it simply makes no sense to give our 
influence away to a Democratic Party which has stabbed us in 
the back more times than we care to recall. If, and again we 
have a big if, the Left can decide elections, we don't need the 
Democrats, they need us.  On the other hand, if we cannot be 
influential players in electoral politics, we have nothing to gain 
from organizing for liberal and, as with Clinton, centrist 
Democrats.  We don't get brownie points for good behavior; 
rather, the opposite is nearly always true.  Raise hell, and then 
we'll see some results.
        Too many on Left see Clinton at worst as a "lesser of two 
evils," at best as a bona fide liberal.  Yet, however much 
Steinem and the DSA/CoC/CP-influenced Left may hope and 
pray every night that Clinton will be a good liberal President, 
even an elementary understanding of contemporary political 
history shows that there's not a chance in hell of that 
happening. Clinton, having led the center-right Democratic 
Leadership Council in its assault on traditional Democratic 
constituencies during the 1980s, is unlikely to reverse course.  
Worse, it is likely that, like Carter in the late 1970s, Clinton will 
help prepare the ground for a further move to the right.  If 
history teaches us anything in this regard, it is that centrists 
like Clinton in times of economic and social crisis are far more 
likely to give way to the right than the left.
	The pro-Clinton Left needs to consider two major 
questions:  For one thing, when has an entrenched president 
listened to anyone other than people of his own mindset?  But 
more importantly, when has a strong liberal movement (which 
does not presently exist) ever given rise to a strong radical 
movement, as these progressives seem to hope?  If the 
experiences of the early 1900s or 1930s or the 1960s are any 
indication, strong liberal movements, on the contrary, arise 
from strong radical movements.  The reforms of the 
Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the early 1970s were won 
by liberal movements which owed their strength and vitality to 
the disruptive radicalism that preceded and underpinned them.  
Would Progressive Era "trusting busting" and social reform 
have been won without a militant working class movement and 
a still powerful tradition of rebellion among farmers?  Would 
the New Deal reforms have come without the power elite's fear 
of a strong Communist Party in the U.S.?  Would the War on 
Poverty have been declared without fear of an increasingly 
militant civil rights movement?
	Even if many Leftists continue to ignore the alternatives, 
we do have more than two choices.  Ron Daniels, former 
National Rainbow Coalition executive director, is using his 
independent presidential bid -- the Campaign for a New 
Tomorrow (185 Hall Street, Suite 1402, Brooklyn, NY, 11205) -- 
as an organizing vehicle to build a progressive political 
movement which can be effective both in elections and at the 
grassroots level. Daniels understands that if progressives are to 
win at the ballot box, they must reach "the 91 million non-
voters [in the 1988 presidential elections], 70 million of whom 
are not registered, two-thirds of whom are poor." [Kim O'Donnel 
and Steven Wishnia, "Can We Have a Party this Year?" The 
Guardian, June 3, 1992]
        Much more significant, however, is that the Daniels 
campaign seems to understand that the question is not "If not 
Clinton, who do you vote for?"; rather, it is "If not Clinton, what 
do you work for?"  Daniels doesn't want the White House, he 
wants a strong progressive movement which can scare the hell 
out of the corporate elites and the Republocrat apparatchiks.  If 
the Left wants to reverse, or even slow down, this country's 
rightward shift, we won't be able to rely on the Democrats, who 
have never served that purpose.  Only an effort such as Daniels' 
can open up the political space we need to build alternatives to 
the hard right policies of Bush, or Clinton's neoliberalism with a 
human face.
	With this in mind, it is understandable why the Daniels 
bid is supported by a number of progressive groups seeking a 
divorce from the Democratic Party -- Labor Party Advocates 
(based in organized labor rank-and-file), the National 
Organization for Women's 21st Century Party, the New Party 
(modeled on Canada's New Democratic Party), the Greens, and 
the National Committee for Independent Political Action.  
Daniels picks up on the logic of the New Deal and Rainbow 
coalitions, going one step further by favoring a whole series of 
social democratic reforms, embodied in his call for a "socially 
responsible economy," equality for women and people of color, 
revitalizing the inner cities with a "domestic Marshall plan," 
and conversion to a peacetime economy.
	Whatever the specifics, however, the Daniels campaign's 
significance lies more in its movement building efforts than in 
the ingenuity of its policy papers.  It is the campaign's 
"democracy in the streets" component which deserves the 
Left's active support despite what we see as the basic 
inadequacies of its social democratic politics. The groups 
coalesced around the campaign recognize that democracy takes 
place not in a polling booth but in day-to-day organizing for 
the rights of citizens and communities to be free from 
corporate control.  The Campaign for a New Tomorrow reverses 
the traditional liberal and social democratic approach--viewing 
empowerment, not electoral success, as the primary objective.
	If, as it threatens to do, the Daniels campaign lays the 
groundwork for a viable progressive third party, it must avoid 
the pitfalls of previous progressive movements.  The failure of 
Oregon's eco-liberal Pacific Party is a case in point--the party's 
single issue focus and inability to reach Oregon's urban poor 
and rural working class has kept it a small circle of relatively 
affluent white environmentalists.  If a third party takes shape 
out of the Daniels campaign it must commit itself, above all, to 
movementbuilding with an emphasis on solidifying its base 
among the working class and poor.  Only through such 
commitment can they retain the base to resist getting sucked 
back into the Democratic Party--the surest route to immediate 
political oblivion.
	"Okay," says the dutiful liberal.  "But still... wouldn't 
taking away votes from the Democrats, in the end, just serve to 
elect more Republicans?" Unlikely. A progressive third party 
constituency would consist of those whom the Clinton 
Democrats have spurned in their quest for suburban votes. A 
progressive alternative would just mean more voters overall, 
since one would assume these voters would remain disgruntled 
otherwiseI and stay home. However, the question is not so 
much one of winning every race as it is one of shifting the 
entire political spectrum to the left.  Even in the rare case of a 
progressive party/movement taking enough votes away from 
the liberals to  "hand" the Presidency to a Republican, we 
would still win by electing hundreds, maybe thousands, of local 
officeholders and by building powerful social movements able 
to force force any administration to consider its wishes.
	The need for a strong independent progressive 
movement is especially urgent with a rise in the Christian 
Right's grassroots efforts.  As proto-fascist movements capture 
more and more influence within the Republican party, pulling 
the political spectrum sharply to the right, they further 
legitimate increasingly conservative "mainstream" Republicans. 
The emergence of the proto-fascist, Christian Right Oregon 
Citizens Alliance has successfully put the "far left" liberal 
Governor, Barbara Roberts, on the defensive, and forced the 
Republicans to bend over backwards for the Party's far right 
wing.  An independent force on the left could similarly force 
the Democrats left, "legitimize" liberal politicians and 
movements, and build the social base for truly radical political 
and social transformation.
	Although electoral politics are important, the times call 
for a progressive movement which seeks a political strategy 
that goes beyond humanizing an electoral (and economic) 
system constructed to preserve the power of the wealthy, to 
exposing the basic superficiality and unresponsiveness of the 
present political system.  The lesson to be learned from the 
crisis of what passes for democracy in the U.S. is not that we 
need to try harder at the same old game.  We need to confront, 
and ultimately defeat, the rule of the rich masquerading as the 
rule of the people.
	As the two major parties realign themselves from 
center-left and center-right to center and right, the need for 
independent progressive voices is greater than ever.  
Progressives and radicals cannot afford to sit by and quietly 
support the lesser of two evils; even less can they afford to sit 
out this election.  Despite the seeming lack of choice, we can 
participate politically in a way far more meaningful than MTV 
sloganeering--we can help lay the foundations for progressive 
struggles which will rebuild democracy and government from 
the ground u.

*     *     *

ENDNOTE -1.  Writing in Monthly Review in January 1991, 
Manning Marable--now a national co-chair of the Committees 
of Correspondence -observes that on the issue of electoral 
politics "the late Michael Harrington [founder of the Democratic 
Socialists of America] and [Communist Party National Chairman] 
Gus Hall were largely identical.  DSA has operated as the 
extreme left wing of American liberalism, trying to make 
socialism respectable to Congressional liberal Democrats.  
Similarly, Communists have consistently supported political 
liberals, such as Detroit's Mayor Coleman Young, and even post-
black candidates like Virginia's Governor Douglas Wilder, 
whose political agendas are hardly progressive."
	This thesis is verified by the nearly identical responses 
to the Clinton campaign among social democrats, Communists, 
and the assortment ex-Communists and fellow travelers now in 
the Committees of Correspondence.
	Communist leader Jarvis Tyner, chairperson of the CP's 
Legislative and Political Action Commission, writes somewhat 
defensively in the People's Weekly World ["Forward to Political 
Independence," Aug. 8, 1992] that there will be no "Communist 
Party endorsement of Clinton.  Like most working people, we 
are anti-Bush rather than pro-Clinton.  We see our contribution 
to this year's election as an all out effort to defeat Bush and to 
expose his antiworking class, pro-war and racist, anti-people's 
policies."  This effort to defeat Bush, the Communists imply, 
must take place primarily within the Democratic Party.  Tyner 
argues that Clinton must move left to win the presidency--at 
best a dubious assertion--and that such a political move will 
open "a 'window of opportunity' for the progressive forces in 
the remaining months of the 1992 election campaign."
	Explaining away Clinton's history with the Democratic 
Leadership Council, Tyner argues that, "Despite close ties with 
the DLC, Clinton, like FDR, is susceptible to pressure from the 
people."  [emphasis added].  While he is correct that bourgeois 
candidates can be pressured, he fails to explain the Party's 
continued support of the Democrats.  It seems that despite Gus 
Hall's sectarian blather about "right opportunism" concerning 
the emergence of the Committees of Correspondence, the 
Party's own right opportunism continues to run rampant.
	Feminist and social democrat Gloria Steinem differs little 
,from the Communist position, although her enthusiasm for 
Clinton is a bit disconcerting.  She understands that 
independent social movements are necessary for pressuring 
the president, but continues to urge support for Clinton, whose 
most wonderful quality seems to be that he is "someone who 
,,will listen" (never mind that he didn't pause to listen to Sister 
,,Souljah before bashing her in a manner that bore an eerie 
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,resemblance to Republican demagoguery, past and present).  
,,,Comments like "Clinton sees himself as a catalyst of change 
,,,,,,,,from the bottom up," are bad enough.  Worse, she approvingly 
,,,,notes that "he's a 1990s combination of Harry Truman and Jack 
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Kennedy." [Steinem, op.  cit.]
,,,,,	And within the Committees of Correspondence, although 
there continues to be considerable disagreement on the 
organization's relationship to the Democrats, National Co-Chair 
Charlene Mitchell comments that "in the Biblical battle of David 
and Goliath, David has only his slingshot, certainly not the 
preferred weapon for giant-killing, but that was what was 
available.  Although Clinton is not our preferred weapon, he is 
all that is at hand to defeat Bush and Perot." [Mitchell, op. cit.]  
The faultiness of this analysis is dealt with at length in this 
essay.

Jason William Moore, Co-Editor of the Student Insurgent, and 
David Jarman, former managing editor of the Amherst Student, 
serve as cochair of the Center for Contemporary Activism, a 
radical youthoriented research, education, and publishing 
center.  The Center can be reached at 206 NW 7th, Corvallis, OR 
97330 or 503-346-3716.

--- 30 ---

Newsgroups: alt.activism