COUP WATCH: Blacks & Labor Belatedly Take to the Streets -- From BRC-NEWS COUP WATCH: Blacks & Labor Belatedly Take to the Streets -- From BRC-NEWS

December 14, 2000

Blacks & Labor Belatedly Take to the Streets

By Frances M. Beal -- fmbeal@igc.org

Taking marching orders from the Gore campaign managers, those most concerned about Florida voting irregularities, outright fraud and racist intimidation had been playing it somewhat cool since the election. Labor and Black leaders had reluctantly, but obediently followed the Democratic Party's stratagem of relying on the courts and their hordes of lawyers to carry the day. The U.S. Supreme Court's politically motivated 5-4 ruling that stopped the hand count of votes, however, has showed the limits of this "judicious" behavior.

Even before this ideologically motivated court decision, it is clear that Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO head John Sweeney were beginning to feel queasy about the strategy of ensuring a democratic victory. They made some moves toward mobilizing people and almost tepidly began to muster their troops with banners that screamed "Count Every Vote." Simultaneously, the Greens and others who have been criticizing the two-party arrangement have begun organizing protests with banners that demand a fundamental overhaul of electoral laws.

The civil rights establishment that has invested so much in a Gore victory had a serious dilemma. On the one hand, their demand for a remedy to address the extensive deprivation of the black vote did not have the capacity to impact the immediate election. They could only ask that the Justice Department launch an investigation of egregious violations of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). Even if Attorney General Janet Reno had been willing to act upon these complaints in a timely way - and she was not - this would have put off the resolution of the accusations for at least months if not years.

On the other hand, the type of mobilization of people that brought us the civil rights statutes of the 1960s and is a historical strength of the progressive constituencies that compose the base of the Democratic Party, were scorned by Gore's campaign advisors. In fact, labor and Black leaders, in particular, were specifically cautioned by Gore's campaign managers not to mobilize their troops into the streets, but to go the judicial route. In the meantime, the GOP fielded demonstrators and gangs of threatening white men at strategic points to consistently disrupt the count or recount of various ballots.

By the time Jesse Jackson began to think for himself and see the ineffective tactics of his Democratic Party buddies, it was too little, too late. The same can be said of the AFL-CIO. Right after Election Day, the labor federation dispatched an army of labor representatives to Florida. But instead of using their historic strength as mobilizers, they bowed to Gore's campaign directives to "be nice and polite." Rather than amassing the people to confront the attempt at an illegitimate election coup, AFL-CIO operatives were fielded to sit and count votes or as bystanders.

A month later, Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO president, John Sweeney, came to their collective senses, particularly after the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the vote count the first time. This combined with mumbling in the ranks and calls for action in the streets to confront the right wing's henchmen. Finally, the civil rights and the labor movement came together to belatedly take the fight into streets.

Speaking at a mass rally in Tallahassee on Dec. 6th Sweeney announced a campaign of nationwide protests by labor. "We are taking our case beyond the Florida courts and into the court of public opinion," he proclaimed to a cheering crowd. Following on his heels, Jackson then orated, "Our mission is to honor a standard that everybody matters and every vote counts. We want democracy by inclusion and not exclusion, democracy by the count and not by the clock." And around the country people began to rally at courthouses, at civic centers, at federal buildings, but the gatherings remained small and did not get much mainstream press coverage and before the momentum could be built that would lead to impressive national protest demonstrations, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to usurp and undermine the battle for democracy.

As tardy as it is, people are beginning to realize that they cannot rely upon the Democratic Party, the courts, the politicians and the political operatives to carry on the dramatic battle for democracy which has been unfolding before our very eyes. As the fighters for racial justice turn their attention to mass mobilization of people, it is hoped that this lesson will not be forgotten again.

--

Frances M. Beal is a San Francisco Bay View news columnist and the National Secretary of the Black Radical Congress. The views and opinions expressed in this article are her own. Contact: fbeal@aclunc.org or fmbeal@igc.org

Copyright (c) 2000 Frances M. Beal. All Rights Reserved.

---

[IMPORTANT NOTE: The views and opinions expressed on this list are solely those of the authors and/or publications, and do not necessarily represent or reflect the official political positions of the Black Radical Congress (BRC). Official BRC statements, position papers, press releases, action alerts, and announcements are distributed exclusively via the BRC-PRESS list. As a subscriber to this list, you have been added to the BRC-PRESS list automatically.]

[Articles on BRC-NEWS may be forwarded and posted on other mailing lists, as long as the wording/attribution is not altered in any way. In particular, if there is a reference to a web site where an article was originally located, do *not* remove that.

Unless stated otherwise, do *not* publish or post the entire text of any articles on web sites or in print, without getting *explicit* permission from the article author or copyright holder. Check the fair use provisions of the copyright law in your country for details on what you can and can't do.

As a courtesy, we'd appreciate it if you let folks know how to subscribe to BRC-NEWS, by leaving in the first seven lines of the signature below.]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - General News Articles/Reports
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: mailto:majordomo@tao.ca?body=unsubscribe%20brc-news
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: mailto:majordomo@tao.ca?body=subscribe%20brc-news
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: mailto:majordomo@tao.ca?body=subscribe%20brc-news-digest
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: mailto:worker-brc-news@lists.tao.ca?subject=brc-news
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: http://www.mail-archive.com/brc-news@lists.tao.ca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: http://www.egroups.com/messages/brc-news
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive3: http://archive.tao.ca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: mailto:brc-news@lists.tao.ca
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
www.blackradicalcongress.org | BRC | blackradicalcongress@email.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Look, we were all duped. Even seasoned, crusty old USSC watchers and reporters, who had hung around the chamber for years, were duped. Whites were duped. Asians were duped. Latinos were duped. Democratic operatives were duped. The whole nation was unequivocally led down a "righteous" path of law and justice, and five justices who will retire in shame and infamy slammed the doors of justice abruptly in the nation's face.

I cannot help but wonder what mass mobilization of people in the streets would have achieved given the closemindedness of the justices. We're talking about a guy -- Rehnquist, who worked in Arizona to intimidate blacks who were trying to vote. Physically and verbally intimidated and threatened them at the polls. He bought a house that contained explicit language in its deed that it couldn't be sold to a Jew. That's the sort of racist he is. As for the others, they merely followed orders, like good little jackbooted thugs.

Mass rallies would have been effective solely as a public relations strategy, but it wouldn't, repeat, WOULD NOT have had ANY effect on Rehnquiest and his gang. If anything, it would have served to further mobilize them.

So, I take issue with your conclusions. It is not that we cannot trust the Democrats, the courts, or the political process. That's standing the issue on its head. Clearly, we cannot trust the Republicans.

And we have to do all we can to see that the electoral college is abolished, that as many people are registered to vote as possible, that the voting mechanisms are streamlined and accurate, and that every person who can vote gets a chance to vote. Headway is already being made in the machinery -- the presidents of MIT and Cal Tech are working in concert to build a voting system that will be accurate, modern, and simple to use. And most of all, we all have to pull together on the progressive left, not splinter into disparate warring groups, or the GOP will continue to dominate the political landscape for decades.

Blaming Democrat "operatives" is useless. They were just as naive as all the rest of us, just as trusting in the mechanism of justice as the nation, and, in the end, just as irrevocably screwed as the little guy in the street. Make no mistake, this was an election that was rigged from the start to protect the corporations. Continued direct action is necessary against corporations and, specifically, against the companies and corporations that are funded or owned by Republican big money.

As a child of the '60's I watched nightly both the protests of the peacelovers and the body count rise. Both of these numbers seemed to swell both independantly of each other yet parallel.. They were analogous each other in another key correlation- the people watching this madness unfold on national television every night became anesthetized to both the numbers of dead (unless of course it was Your son, grandson, etc) and to the sight of another screaming horde of the young enveloped in clouds of teargas supplied oh-so-generously by the stormtroopers.

In a visual medium such as television, one green body bag looks the same as every other- as does each throng of a thousand marching hippies with signs. It began to seem as if the stations were simply replaying the news from the night before, the only changing aspect being in location.

The extraordinary became mundane - until Kent State.

As I watched the film clips of the Seattle protests I felt transported back in time. Many survivors of the '60's felt the same. There were two noted differences though between then and now. Then there was a common focus- a laser beam of energy, action and thought directed at a discernable end point. The other difference is that somehow now the stormtroopers are much more frightening in deportment, arms, and strength. It is as if they have been trained for this for years and years in expectation of an eventual rebellion by people who are waking up to the truths of the world. Perhaps they have been.

Unfortunately for the peacelovers, we have not. What we can do at this point is look to the mistakes made- and learn from them. Another mass of screaming protesters will not make a statement on the national conscious. It simply gives the fascists more ammunition to use against us- as they have so many times... and gives the infiltrators an opening, as happened at the RNC.

Many who are holding center stage currently are the ones who years ago began the process leading up to this point in history. Understand that they have decades of experience in handling us. They look at us as children tossing tantrums in the corner. And when we have seemingly disparate issues-we are in several corners, divided; all too predictable in our actions.We need to close these gaps- womens rights, the environment, economic imbalance, sweat shops, race etc. etc. and realize that all of these issues add up to One issue. That issue is the same as the one fought for in the 1960's -

Life vs. Death.

The ones who have orchestrated this coup are Pro-Death.. Let this be our focus:

The Death of democracy, the Death of Freedom. The same bell is being tolled for us all.

That being so- then I propose a March of Mourning- a Funeral dirge.

The protestors in Washington and elsewhere should - EN-MASS - dress in black from head to toe, paint thier faces white in unity, and walk in TOTAL silence -carrying no banners, no posters.. Instead, carry coffins: coffins draped in black cloth bearing one word -DEMOCRACY- in letters as scarlet as the blood of those who have died in defending it.

At the moment of the Coronation of King George the thousands of protestors should - as ONE body- silently turn thier backs on the scene of the crime.

I can think of no stronger visual or visceral impact than this. A silent, unified condemnation that would be utterly horrifying to the Pro-Death people.

This way there can be no infiltration of ranks - there can be no censure by those who would want to call us 'rioters' and 'anarchists'- and no arrests or beatings that 'they' seem to delight in.

And for those watching, an indelible image to contemplate.