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.
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“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)
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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.
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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 MI 48226-1409
(313) 963-1320 – (313) 963-1325/Fax
rglotta@glottaassociates.com