COUP WATCH: Blacks & Labor Belatedly Take to the Streets -- From BRC-NEWS\r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCOUP WATCH: Blacks & Labor Belatedly Take to the Streets -- From BRC-NEWS<\/b><\/p>
\r\n\r\n\r\nDecember 14, 2000<\/b><\/p>
\r\n\r\nBlacks & Labor Belatedly Take to the Streets<\/p>
\r\n\r\nBy Frances M. Beal -- fmbeal@igc.org<\/p>
\r\n\r\nTaking marching orders from the Gore campaign managers,\r\nthose most concerned about Florida voting irregularities,\r\noutright fraud and racist intimidation had been playing it\r\nsomewhat cool since the election. Labor and Black leaders\r\nhad reluctantly, but obediently followed the Democratic\r\nParty's stratagem of relying on the courts and their \r\nhordes of lawyers to carry the day. The U.S. Supreme Court's\r\npolitically motivated 5-4 ruling that stopped the hand count\r\nof votes, however, has showed the limits of this \"judicious\"\r\nbehavior.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nEven before this ideologically motivated court decision, \r\nit is clear that Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO head John Sweeney\r\nwere beginning to feel queasy about the strategy of ensuring\r\na democratic victory. They made some moves toward mobilizing\r\npeople and almost tepidly began to muster their troops with\r\nbanners that screamed \"Count Every Vote.\" Simultaneously,\r\nthe Greens and others who have been criticizing the two-party \r\narrangement have begun organizing protests with banners that \r\ndemand a fundamental overhaul of electoral laws.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nThe civil rights establishment that has invested so much in\r\na Gore victory had a serious dilemma. On the one hand, their\r\ndemand for a remedy to address the extensive deprivation of\r\nthe black vote did not have the capacity to impact the\r\nimmediate election. They could only ask that the Justice\r\nDepartment launch an investigation of egregious violations\r\nof the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). Even if Attorney General Janet\r\nReno had been willing to act upon these complaints in a\r\ntimely way - and she was not - this would have put off \r\nthe resolution of the accusations for at least months \r\nif not years.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nOn the other hand, the type of mobilization of people that\r\nbrought us the civil rights statutes of the 1960s and is a\r\nhistorical strength of the progressive constituencies that\r\ncompose the base of the Democratic Party, were scorned by\r\nGore's campaign advisors. In fact, labor and Black leaders,\r\nin particular, were specifically cautioned by Gore's campaign \r\nmanagers not to mobilize their troops into the streets, but\r\nto go the judicial route. In the meantime, the GOP fielded\r\ndemonstrators and gangs of threatening white men at strategic \r\npoints to consistently disrupt the count or recount of \r\nvarious ballots.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nBy the time Jesse Jackson began to think for himself and \r\nsee the ineffective tactics of his Democratic Party buddies, \r\nit was too little, too late. The same can be said of the\r\nAFL-CIO. Right after Election Day, the labor federation\r\ndispatched an army of labor representatives to Florida. But\r\ninstead of using their historic strength as mobilizers, they\r\nbowed to Gore's campaign directives to \"be nice and polite.\"\r\nRather than amassing the people to confront the attempt at\r\nan illegitimate election coup, AFL-CIO operatives were\r\nfielded to sit and count votes or as bystanders.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nA month later, Jesse Jackson and AFL-CIO president, John\r\nSweeney, came to their collective senses, particularly after\r\nthe U.S. Supreme Court stopped the vote count the first time. \r\nThis combined with mumbling in the ranks and calls for action \r\nin the streets to confront the right wing's henchmen. Finally, \r\nthe civil rights and the labor movement came together to \r\nbelatedly take the fight into streets.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nSpeaking at a mass rally in Tallahassee on Dec. 6th Sweeney\r\nannounced a campaign of nationwide protests by labor. \"We\r\nare taking our case beyond the Florida courts and into the\r\ncourt of public opinion,\" he proclaimed to a cheering crowd.\r\nFollowing on his heels, Jackson then orated, \"Our mission is\r\nto honor a standard that everybody matters and every vote\r\ncounts. We want democracy by inclusion and not exclusion,\r\ndemocracy by the count and not by the clock.\" And around \r\nthe country people began to rally at courthouses, at civic\r\ncenters, at federal buildings, but the gatherings remained\r\nsmall and did not get much mainstream press coverage and\r\nbefore the momentum could be built that would lead to\r\nimpressive national protest demonstrations, the U.S. \r\nSupreme Court appeared to usurp and undermine the \r\nbattle for democracy.<\/p>
\r\n\r\nAs tardy as it is, people are beginning to realize that \r\nthey cannot rely upon the Democratic Party, the courts, \r\nthe politicians and the political operatives to carry on \r\nthe dramatic battle for democracy which has been unfolding\r\nbefore our very eyes. As the fighters for racial justice\r\nturn their attention to mass mobilization of people, it \r\nis hoped that this lesson will not be forgotten again.<\/p>
\r\n\r\n--<\/p>
\r\n\r\nFrances M. Beal is a San Francisco Bay View news columnist\r\nand the National Secretary of the Black Radical Congress.\r\nThe views and opinions expressed in this article are her\r\nown. Contact: fbeal@aclunc.org or \r\nfmbeal@igc.org<\/p>
\r\n\r\nCopyright (c) 2000 Frances M. Beal. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>
\r\n\r\n<\/p>
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\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/p>\n","contact":"fmbeal@igc.org","link":"http:\/\/www.mail-archive.com\/brc-news@lists.tao.ca","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Labor and Black leaders 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. Reprinted from BRC-NEWS by permission of the author.","numcomment":2,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2000\/12\/brc_2.htm","filesize":"8.5 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2000\/12\/4901.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":4906,"heading":"We Were All Duped","article":"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. \r\n\r\nI 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. \r\n\r\nMass 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.\r\n\r\nSo, 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. \r\n\r\nAnd 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.\r\n\r\nBlaming 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. ","author":"Quimps","parent_id":4901,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2000-12-17 16:16:05","modified":"2000-12-17 16:39:30","fileurl":""},{"id":4942,"heading":"King George","article":"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. \r\nIn 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.\r\nThe extraordinary became mundane - until Kent State.\r\nAs 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. \r\nUnfortunately 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. \r\nMany 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 -\r\nLife vs. Death. \r\nThe ones who have orchestrated this coup are Pro-Death.. Let this be our focus:\r\n The Death of democracy, the Death of Freedom. The same bell is being tolled for us all. \r\nThat being so- then I propose a March of Mourning- a Funeral dirge. \r\nThe 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. \r\nAt 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. \r\nI 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. \r\nThis 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. \r\nAnd for those watching, an indelible image to contemplate.\r\n","author":"Elysian","parent_id":4901,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2000-12-22 13:45:33","modified":"2000-12-22 14:00:01","fileurl":""}]}