Hillary and McCain:
The White Bloc That Must be Stopped
by Eric Mann
The Opening Argument
Hillary Clinton is running an increasingly desperate, unprincipled, and racist campaign against Barack Obama. She must be stopped. At this moment in history the defeat of Hillary Clinton and the victory of Barack Obama in the forthcoming Democratic Party primaries in Pennsylvania, Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, and Puerto Rico is a critical question facing the anti-racist, civil rights, and Black Liberation Movement.
Despite all Hillary Clinton's machinations, the power of the Clinton machine, and a year in which she was the unchallenged front-runner, it is Barack Obama who has a commanding lead—a margin of at least 130 votes in the delegate count. Hillary's last resort is to organize a White Backlash campaign against a Black candidate. Hillary Clinton has escalated her attacks on Obama's capacity to be president and sanctioned the most racist interventions against Obama that McCain would never dare to initiate—but gratefully receives as a campaign contribution. In return, conservative talk show forces led by Rush Limbaugh with the tacit support of McCain are sending Republican voters ("Dummycrats") into open Democratic primaries to vote for Clinton. Their goal is to get her the Democratic nomination because they see her as a weaker candidate against McCain than Obama. If they can't assure Clinton the nomination, the goal is to support her plan to weaken the campaign of Senator Obama, to raise so many questions of his character and competency that again John McCain will have a far better chance of winning the general election. Hillary Clinton is well aware of this stealth campaign by the most reactionary racist Republican voters to assure her the margin of victory in Ohio and Texas over Obama. She gladly accepts this deal with the devil. By her actions, it is clear that Hillary Clinton does not see herself in an alliance with Barack Obama to defeat John McCain. She does not see John McCain as their common enemy or even adversary. In fact, she sees Barack Obama as her worst enemy. Hillary Clinton is leading a White Bloc in which she is allying with John McCain against Barack Obama. She must be stopped.
Barack Obama is well aware of white racism in the electorate. He is trying to appeal to the best instincts among white people, to neutralize "moderate" white voters, and to isolate the most racist ones. He is carrying out a complex tactical plan to talk about racial discrimination in a way he thinks can reach out to Black and Latino voters and appeal to or not threaten white voters through a populist "class" appeal for all working people. While there is much to challenge in Obama's approach to the endemic problem of racism in U.S. society, it is not accurate to reduce his campaign to a "beyond race" perspective. Obama is an anti-racist. By her practice, Hillary Clinton is running a racist campaign. The choice is that clear.
The victory of Barack Obama in the Democratic primaries and the defeat of Hillary Clinton could provide a seismic shift in U.S. politics 28 years after Ronald Reagan's first election and 16 years after the Center-Right Far Right continuum of Bill Clinton and George Bush. It is in the interest of the anti-racist movement to challenge the White Bloc, to work for the victory of Barack Obama, and to work for the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.
It is also in the strategic interests of a broad united front against racism, the police state, and the U.S. Empire to strongly encourage the Third Party candidacy of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The McKinney campaign will be the sharpest contrast to that of John McCain and George Bush. Her Reconstruction Platform focuses on a full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, the Right of Return of the New Orleans 250,000, and a challenge to the growing police state and the racist mass incarceration of Black and Latino people. This will offer a principled challenge to the Obama campaign and an alternative and attractive choice in the general election. We should welcome an Obama, McKinney debate with two good choices for the progressive left anti-racist movement.
A Call to Action
This in-depth commentary makes the case against Hillary Clinton, frames our options in the historical fight between racism and antiracism among the U.S. electorate, and offers a tactical plan for taking action. Given that taking action is first and last on the agenda, let me open with what you, and we, can do to intervene in this historic campaign. I include additional action items at the end.
1) Email Hillary Clinton, or call 703.469.2008. Tell her you will not support her racist and cynical campaign. (http://www.hillaryclinton.com/help/contact/)
2) Email Barack Obama, or call 866.675.2008. Offer support and encouragement for his historic campaign and his efforts to stand up to the racist maneuvers of the Clinton forces. Ask him to pledge a complete withdrawal of all combat troops and all other mechanisms of U.S. occupation in Iraq, and the Right of Return of 250,000 displaced and disenfranchised Black residents of New Orleans. (http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2)
3) Email Cynthia McKinney Encourage her entrance into the presidential race as a candidate of the Green Party and offer financial support for the fullest dissemination of her views into the campaign. (http://www.runcynthiarun.org/TalkBack)
The Master Narrative
The Deceptive Honeymoon
On February 26, 2008, at Cleveland State University, after 20 debates, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton had "the last waltz," the final debate. The tone was contentious but amiable. Hillary Clinton had said how much she respected Obama, and he reciprocated by saying how she too would be a strong president. Hillary pointed out that the contest for the Democratic nomination was historic, for either the election of her as the first woman Democratic candidate or Obama as the first African American candidate, and offers inspiration to many children who could not have imagined that possibility. The tone was collegial and commendable. But it masked what had already begun and was escalating rapidly—the decision by Hillary Clinton to appeal to the worst instincts in white voters and to form a White Bloc with John McCain and the Republicans against Barack Obama.
The Contested Terrain—the Reagan Democrats
Racism is endemic to white, Christian capitalism in the U.S. and its particular formation as a white settler state—a history the U.S. shares with South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. In the U.S., white people as a group have been active participants in the exploitation and oppression of Black people as a group since the inception of the colonies, the advent of genocide against Indigenous peoples, and the building of the U.S. on a foundation of slavery. In 1968, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, white Southerners moved en masse to the Republican Party, the party they had hated for a century as "the party of Lincoln" but now embraced as "the party of white supremacy and racism." They hated the Democrats who they now saw as the party of civil rights and the party of the Blacks.
In 1968, Richard Nixon was elected president on a "Southern strategy" of telling whites he would not enforce civil rights laws. That same year, an even more arch racist, Dixiecrat Governor George Wallace of Alabama, ran for president on a "state's rights platform" and created the American Independent Party. Wallace won over 13% of the national electorate with 9.9 million votes and carried five southern states in the Electoral College. The White Backlash was in full force just four years after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act—an angry response to civil rights, urban rebellions, and Black Power. Since Nixon's victory in 1968 and his crushing defeat of the liberal anti-racist George McGovern in his re-election in 1972, the centrists and rightists in the Democratic Party have been in a panic about how to win back the "white vote." When McGovern ran a heroic anti-racist, anti-war campaign he was sabotaged by his own party and abandoned by former Democratic white voters who saw him as the candidate of "the Blacks" and "abortion, acid, and amnesty."
In 1984 and 1988, Reverend Jesse Jackson initiated his Rainbow Coalition campaign for president in the Democratic primaries. This was a brilliant experiment in Black-led anti-racist populism. Too few remember that Jackson beat virtually every major white candidate, won 11 state primaries, and was only defeated by the "last white man standing" strategy of the Democratic leadership which led to the nomination of the pathetic Michael Dukakis. At that same time the Democratic Leadership Council was formed by Bill Clinton, Richard Gephardt, and Al From with the explicit objective of isolating the liberal and Jackson wing of the party. They abandoned any discussion of civil rights with a so-called colorblind "it's the economy, stupid" platform. They positioned the Democrats as the party of military buildup, free market capitalism, law and order, and white folks. Bill Clinton used a racially coded message to crack down on people receiving social welfare benefits and angry, low-income Black and Latino urban youth while valorizing "those who work hard and play by the rules." Clinton convinced most Black Democrats to go along with the program as the only way to get the Republicans out of office and to get positions in his future administration.
Clinton appealed to the Reagan Democrats, who the system affectionately calls "socially conservative." In fact, these are racist and misogynistic whites who are furious at liberated women, abortion rights, gay liberation, immigrants, Black people, communists, socialists, protestors, and Third World challenges to the U.S. Empire. Clinton manipulated this constituency by running not one but two white Southerners, himself and Al Gore, on the Democratic ticket. Clinton defeated an ineffective incumbent, George Bush Sr. whose bid was further weakened when a right-wing libertarian, Ross Perot, ran a third party candidacy and split the white racist vote. (Historical note: While the Democrats are apoplectic about Ralph Nader's campaigns and many will attack Cynthia McKinney for challenging the two party duopoly, note that the Democrats were respectful and even obsequious towards the right-wing and racist Wallace and Perot campaigns.)
Today, the ideology of white racism is unchallenged national policy while antiracism is fighting for its life. This is reflected in a punitive government campaign for the mass incarceration of Black and Latino youth carried out through the pretense of the "war on drugs," "war on crime," "war on gangs," and "war on terrorism." There are more than 2.3 million people in U.S. jails and prisons. More than a million prisoners are Black and 500,000 are Latino—the Racist Re-enslavement Complex. We are living in the 40-year White Backlash against the victories of the civil rights, anti-Vietnam war, and Black liberation movements—a right-wing Counterrevolution against the revolutionary victories of the New Left. It from this perspective of the historical struggle between racism and antiracism and the terrifying conditions of life for Blacks and Latinos inside the territorial borders of the U.S. that provides the best lens with which to see the danger of Hillary Clinton's campaign. It is the sordid legacy of the Clinton years and the degeneration of Hillary Clinton's presidential bid into racism and reaction that inform our choices in the present.
The Clinton Presidency, 1993-2000
The Clinton's have been a power couple long before Bill ran for Governor of Arkansas. When Bill took office as president in 1993, Hillary was given the responsibility to initiate a national health care plan. She argues that her experience for the presidency includes her eight years in the Clinton White House. So let's look at that record.
In 1994, after just two years of the Clinton presidency, Congressman Newt Gingrich of Georgia, a brilliant conservative tactician, organized a group of ideologically clear and organizationally disciplined candidates to run for Congress under the slogan "Contract with America." Their unified national platform focused on attacks on Clinton, restricting plaintiff's suits against the abuses of large corporation ("tort reform"), reducing benefits and increasing privatization of Social Security, and attacking low-income welfare recipients with a clearly coded assault on Black women in the tradition of Reagan's slander of "welfare queens." The Republicans won a majority in Congress and tried to put Clinton under house arrest.
The Clintons abandoned their last pretenses of ideological opposition to the Right. They formalized a tactical plan of "triangulation." Bill and Hillary were at one point of the triangle, pursuing their center-right interests. The second point was for the hard right Gingrich's forces who Clinton tried to weaken by adopting most of their program. At the third point were the Democratic liberals whom the Clintons threw to the wolves, abandoning their programmatic concerns and telling them they had no where to go. (Why many Democratic liberals were loyal supplicants and willing prey in Clinton's plan requires a longer discussion of self-destructive behavior and lack of self-esteem. On the positive side, a few high profile liberal advisors quit his administration over the attacks on welfare recipients and the welfare state).
By the time of his re-election campaign in 1996, Clinton co-opted Gingrich's platform and advocated "Ending Welfare as We Know It." This involved denying survival benefits to low-income women that had been provided since the Great Depression and creating a five year limit to the government's minimal welfare payments but no five year promise of guaranteed jobs. Clinton signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 that significantly weakened the right of habeas corpus, an instrument by which people held prisoner by the government can demand their release. The Act made state sanctioned murder of prisoners more "effective" by reducing the appeal rights of prisoners on death row—none of whom should be executed in the first place and many of whom are innocent of the charges. In that Blacks comprise 12% of the U.S. population and yet make up 40 percent of the prisoners who have been sentenced to death, it is appropriate to call the Clinton's actions "The Effective Execution of Black People" Act. In terms of the prosecution of suspected "terrorists," who in the U.S. are the people most critical of U.S. policies in the Third World, the most courageous and militant in their protests, the most vulnerable to arrest, torture, and imprisonment for their political views? Black militants, Third World advocates, Arabs, Muslims, and militant anti-racist whites. So, in fact the Clintons attacked Black women on welfare, denied legal rights to Black prisoners, and created more laws to spy upon and arrest those who would protest against the system.
In 1996, the Clintons also sabotaged the fight for affirmative action. In California, the Right initiated Proposition 209, a ballot initiative to repeal affirmative action in all state funded programs. The Clintons contributed to the ideological offensive of the Right with their half-hearted defense of affirmative action: "Mend it, don't end it." This gave credence to the myths of the Right that affirmative action was unfair to whites and perpetuated "reverse racism." The slogan should have been "Affirmative Action: Strengthen it and lengthen it; extend it, don't end it." Bill Clinton withheld major Democratic funding that had been promised to defeat Proposition 209. That initiative was on the same 1996 ballot in California as the presidential election, and Clinton wanted to tone down any defense of affirmative action that would hurt his chances with racist white voters. Affirmative action advocates were crushed by the Clintons' double cross. But the Clintons were willing to win their re-election and sacrifice the civil rights of the most vulnerable. Clinton carried California while Prop 209 was passed by a massive margin. Today Black and Latino students are an endangered species in California's top public undergraduate and graduate schools, as gifted, hard working high school students are denied a higher education because of racial discrimination.
The political motivation of the Clintons' plan may have begun with cynical self-aggrandizement, but it quickly gained a racist and reactionary political content: smashing the social welfare state and strengthening the police state—while sabotaging civil rights and constitutional rights.
Once in the Senate, Hillary co-sponsored a federal bill against flag burning with Republican Senator Bob Bennett of Utah. She compared the act of flag burning in protests against racism and U.S. wars of aggression with cross burning. Senator Clinton wants to make first amendment protests against war and racism, including demonstrations that burn the confederate and U.S. flag, often led by young people of color, as punishable by police arrest and prison. She tells the press that her denunciation of the courageous anti-racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright is the same as her denunciation of the racist Don Imus. In the Pennsylvania primary, Clinton proposed adding 100,000 new police with federal funds, at a time when more than 1.5 Black and Latino people, mainly low-income young men, are already in jail. Her support for law-and-order knows no bounds.
Her strong support of the invasion of Iraq was not based on false information, the lie of all the Democrats who capitulated to Bush and the war hysteria. It was based on political expediency and support for an invasion of a sovereign nation to advance her political career—she hated George Bush and knew full well the pretense of "weapons of mass destruction" was an outright lie.
The Iowa Caucuses
As early as the Iowa caucuses, Hillary decided to go after Barack Obama's character. "There's a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we're willing to fight for," she told reporters in Iowa, saying Iowa voters will have a choice "between someone who talks the talk, and somebody who's walked the walk." When asked whether she intended to raise questions about Obama's character, she said, "It's beginning to look a lot like that."
Bill Clinton's Commentaries on Obama's Victory in South Carolina
On Saturday, January 26, 2008 Barack Obama handily won the South Carolina primary, beating Hillary Clinton by 55% to 27%. That night, Bill Clinton commented, "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina in '84 and '88. Jackson ran a good campaign and Obama ran a good campaign here." Clinton did not acknowledge that as late as November, Hillary had been up by 25% in South Carolina and leading among Black voters by 15%.
Bill Clinton's remarks had multiple objectives: to signal to white voters in forthcoming primaries that if they do not like Jesse Jackson, who they perceive as a Black militant, then they should not like Barack Obama. He was signaling that if Jackson and Obama won with the strong support of Black voters, there was nothing wrong with Hillary Clinton winning future primaries with the help of white voters. It was also a pouting denunciation of the Black electorate for rejecting Hillary and Bill who feel they have a divine right to the Black vote. If it did not end Clinton's delusion that he was the first Black president, it did signal a growing rejection of the Clintons by the Black electorate—a major progressive development in itself.
Hillary Runs as the Anti-Hope Candidate
In Ohio in January, Hillary Clinton was clearly shaken up by Obama's oratorical and movement-building skills. She tried to ridicule Obama's "celestial message" and his appeal to a transformational politics. Hillary told a partisan crowd, feigning looking up to the sky for inspiration:
"Now I could stand up here and say: Let's get everybody together, let's get unified—the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing, and the world will be perfect. But I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be. You are not going to wave a magic wand and make the special interests disappear."
It was bad acting and worse politics. She got slammed by the media and many voters. It was not a great tactical plan to run as the "anti-hope candidate." Hillary went back to the drawing board and decided to sharpen her attacks on Obama.
Saturday Night Live Gives the Anti-Obama Campaign a Boost
In late February, Saturday Night Live produced an effective, and partisan infomercial for Hillary Clinton.
The opening skit portrayed a national TV debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The commentators are so enamored with Obama that they can't control their adoration of the man who they hoped would become "the first Black president of the United States." Their opening question to Obama is "Senator, are you comfortable?" When he nods yes they follow up with "Are you sure you are comfortable, is there anything we can do for you?" But if Obama gets a soft ball, Hillary gets the fastball, curve, and change up. The moderators run off a long list of every primary she has lost, and ask her if she is not discouraged by her defeats. The Hillary character says, with transparent bravado, "Well, not at all, in fact is has been a dream of mine since childhood to lose the Maryland primary to Senator Obama."
They then ask the Obama character how he feels about the criticism that the media is biased in his favor. Obama goes into a staccato, robotic speech about how he fully supports the right of the press to "wear Obama buttons and tear up Hillary Clinton's lawn signs." Obama argues, "They say the press should be neutral, but for those who want to campaign for me, I say: Yes they can. Yes they can." This is followed by a supposedly random question from the floor that turns out to be a sexy rap ode to Obama by Obamagirl. When Hillary tries to speak she is reprimanded by one of the hosts, "If you ever interrupt Obamagirl again you will be asked to leave the auditorium." Finally, when Hillary tries to make a closing statement they cut her off and say curtly, "Well, we're out of time."
Amy Pohler's portrayal of Hillary is nuanced and self-deprecating, ditzy at times, hurt at times, bravely confronting her defeats at times, but she is a real person within the limits of SNL characterization. By contrast, Fred Armison's portrayal of Obama is cartoon-like and derisive. Hillary is portrayed as vulnerable and victimized, Obama as an arrogant winner with no actual basis for anyone's adoration. Within a few days, in the real Ohio debate, Hillary Clinton accused the press of being biased against her and giving Obama a free ride, telling the audience that the Saturday Night Live skit proved it was true. The SNL tactic had an impact. The press moved against Obama with greater aggressiveness.
Hillary Challenges Obama's Competency to Be President, Praises McCain's "Lifetime of Experience"
Hillary Clinton began this line of attack at a press conference in Ohio. She told reporters, "I have a lifetime of experience I will bring to the White House. I know Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience he will bring to the White House. And Senator Obama has a speech he made in 2002."
This was the first overt sign of her tacit alliance with John McCain. In case the public did not get her point, she kept repeating the remarks. James Fallows reported, "In a live CNN interview just now, Senator Clinton repeated twice that line, 'Senator McCain has a lifetime of experience. I have a lifetime of experience. Senator Obama has one speech in 2002.'"
Instead of a retraction there was an escalation. Hillary argued that she and John McCain had the necessities to be commander-in-chief of the empire and that Obama does not:
"I think that since we now know Senator McCain will be the nominee for the Republican Party, national security will be front and center in this election…. And I think it's imperative that each of us be able to demonstrate we can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. I believe that I've done that. Certainly, Senator McCain has done that and you'll have to ask Senator Obama with respect to this."
Two things besides the obvious bear mention.
First, when can we remember a Democrat praising the Republican he or she has to run against if she wins? When can we remember a Democrat attacking another Democrat by saying that he or she and the Republican are qualified but the Democrat isn't? This is the most overt manifestation of Hillary's White Bloc tactical plan—signaling to white voters that her unity with a white man in the opposing party who is a known reactionary and who she hopes to run against for president is greater than her unity with the Black man who is now the front runner for her party's nomination.
Second, there is a long history in the U.S., rooted in slavery, of whites trying to justify the ill-gotten plunder of "white skin privilege" by challenging the competency and humanity of Blacks. Hillary Clinton sees her only chance to beat Obama is by carrying out a reactionary appeal to the most reactionary ideas of the most reactionary white voters—unfortunately a large voting bloc in the United States. In this case, her plan is to convince the white electorate that an eminently qualified Black man is unqualified. There is a massive white projection of their own massive, if subconscious, guilt for the blood on their hands—the enslavement, rape, beating, murder of Blacks and the very creation of white wealth on Black backs. This is reflected in the ideology of white supremacy and the denigration of the miracles of Black survival and achievement. Today, reactionary white voters support Three Strikes, the death penalty, and the mass incarceration of Blacks with a perverse frenzy. They get drunk on wine, beer, or Chivas Regal, pop pills like Rush Limbaugh, use methamphetamines and cocaine, and yet see themselves as the leaders of the "war on drugs" against "those people." They deny funds to public defenders and their worst nightmare is the specter of an army of Johnny Cochrans. They love the war on terror because it gives them further justification to overturn constitutional protections against search and seizure. They support police brutality against inner city kids and propose to "lock 'em up and throw away the key." This is the angry white mob that Obama is trying to struggle with and placate, educate and neutralize. This is the angry white mob that W.E.B. DuBois and Dr. King asked white people of good will to confront, while they called on Black people to lead the struggle for their own liberation. This is the angry white mob that is the core of the Bush and McCain base and that has become the centerpiece of Hillary Clinton's last gasp.
There are millions of daily examples of how white people of little ability and less morality belittle the gifts, achievements, and miracles of Black accomplishment. One classic example was the infamous remarks by Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis on April 15, 1987, coinciding with the 40th anniversary of Jackie Robinson's Major League Baseball debut. Campanis, who had played alongside Robinson and was known for being close to him, was interviewed about Robinson's legacy by Nightline anchorman Ted Koppel. Koppel asked him why, at the time, there had been so few Black managers and no Black general managers in major league baseball. Campanis replied that Blacks "may not have some of the necessities to be, let's say, a field manager, or, perhaps, a general manager" for these positions. Elsewhere in the interview Campanis said that Blacks are often poor swimmers "because they don't have the buoyancy." His remarks were met with nationwide protests and the Dodgers, scapegoating Campanis and refusing to acknowledge that his remarks reflected those of top management, forced his resignation a few days later. The damage was done.
Hillary Clinton is not an unsuspecting second-level baseball executive who was fed a softball that he could not hit. Clinton is going on the offensive in a willful campaign of belittling the accomplishments of a Black opponent. Hillary has experienced sexism and misogyny and the wrath of the Right. She understands full well the racial impacts of claiming that Barack Obama as a Black U.S. Senator is not qualified to be president while she as a white, female, U.S. Senator and John McCain as a white, male, Republican Senator can cross the commander-in-chief threshold. Hillary Clinton is saying that she and John McCain have the necessities to be general manager of the empire, but Barack Obama does not.
Hillary's Surrogates—Geraldine Ferraro, Ed Rendell, James Carville, and Bill Clinton Raise Racism to a Crescendo
Geraldine Ferraro
Listen to the voice of Hillary's surrogate, former Vice Presidential Candidate Geraldine Ferraro. Ferraro's remarks have gotten far less press than the statements of Reverend Wright, and yet she was wrong and he was Wright.
In a radio interview, Ferraro observed, "If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept."
You have to play the You Tube interview to hear the racist rage in Ferraro's voice. Commenting on the super delegates who are supporting Obama she said: "John Lewis [former leader of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and now a U.S. Congressman from Atlanta]—he's supposed to be a civil rights leader, but he moved his super delegate vote to Obama because his constituency is Black. I'm so disappointed I could die."
Ed Rendell
Pennsylvania has two cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, with large constituencies of Black voters and some white liberal voters (and more than their share of white reactionary voters as well). The rest of the state is very white and conservative, and Hillary Clinton is hanging her hat on winning Pennsylvania based on the white demographics and the conservative worldview of the majority of voters. Obama's plan is to motivate a multiracial team of on-the-ground organizers to mobilize idealistic Black, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American, and white young people, to build a strong Black base, and to win over a substantial number of white, working class, conservative, and yes, racist white voters. He understands white racism only too well. He is trying a class based appeal to get whites to have some empathy with Blacks and Latino immigrants, to stop scapegoating Blacks and Latinos, and to make demands on the system for better health care and higher paying jobs. This appeal is essential to any possibility of progress in the U.S. and to any chance of reversing the present counterrevolution. It is essential for the multiracial anti-racist Left to take the message beyond what Obama can or chooses to make of it. This appeal is also essential to the Democratic Party's chances to defeat John McCain—who will be a far more formidable candidate than some may think. It is an appeal that Hillary Clinton should expand upon. She is obligated to use some of her white privilege to challenge white supremacy.
Instead, Governor Ed Rendell, Hillary Rodham Clinton's most visible advocate in the forthcoming primary proclaimed, "Some white Pennsylvanians are likely to vote against Barack Obama because he is Black. You've got conservative whites here, and I think there are some whites who are probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate." This racist intervention, masquerading as neutral analysis, is really frightening. Rendell, a Jew, should have known better. He should have said, "This election shows that a Jewish governor, a white woman and a Black man are all capable of governance and we urge you to choose the person you believe is best for the job." Instead, Rendell was literally telling the white electorate, "I support and encourage the view, even if you hadn't thought about it, that you are likely to vote against Barack Obama because he is Black." This is not an observation, it is an exhortation. This is another calculated move by the Clinton camp to foment a White Backlash that Obama has masterfully worked to contain.
Barack Obama has been pilloried by the press for remarks he made at a fundraiser in Marin County. Obama was again trying to give a perceptive and sympathetic explanation of the "bitterness" of the low-income, small town people in Pennsylvania—and yes, without saying the word, small white towns. He argued that their focus on "guns and religion" was an effort to seek solace from an economic system that had let them down. Should he have made those remarks? From a tactical perspective, obviously not. But his intentions were good and, again, very generous to the white working class. Obama, as a Black man, was trying to make sense out of the aggressions and transgressions of rural whites—anger that has cost so many Black lives and now may cost him white votes—especially if Hillary Clinton gets her way. Hillary could have rallied to his defense, saying she too shared his concern for those let down by the system and the economy—and by so doing, remove Obama's remarks out of the battleground for white conservative voters. Instead, she, who along with her husband has a combined income of $100 million over the last seven years, is portraying herself as the God fearing, gun-toting proletarian champion—pretending to be Annie Oakley as Obama called it. She is trying to create the illusion that Obama is a (Black) elitist, raising the demagogic imagery that he was "condescending to small town Pennsylvania" and repeating that Obama made the remarks "to a private meeting in San Francisco." As if Hillary does not have hundreds of private meetings with funders—including many in San Francisco. But her intent is to create an uproar among white voters that a Black man would talk about them to a "private" meeting of people in the dreaded San Francisco—the symbol of ultra liberals and gays. It may play well in small town Pennsylvania, but it is another example of Hillary playing with fire and not giving a damn about who is burned.
Bill Clinton and James Carville Go Ballistic Against New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson
On March 21, 2008, Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico, endorsed Barack Obama for president. Richardson, who had been a Clinton appointee and with whom Bill Clinton spent Superbowl Sunday, had been courted heavily by both camps. He had held his cards very close to his vest, aware that to endorse Obama would invite the wrath of the Clintons. But he was up for the job. In supporting Obama, he said in Portland, Oregon, "You are a once-in-a-lifetime leader. Above all, you will be a president who brings this nation together." Richardson, a prominent figure in the Democratic Party and the only Latino Governor in the U.S., had made an impressive run for President that focused on a rapid U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and a more diplomatic and less militarily aggressive stance for the U.S. in the world.
Apparently Hillary Clinton and her closest advisors, James Carville and Bill Clinton, did not like the idea of Governor Richardson exercising his right of self-determination. They were enraged at the idea of a Latino endorsing a Black and all the possibilities of a Black/Latino alliance that it portended.
Carville, a white southerner, called the endorsement an "act of betrayal" and accused Richardson of being like Judas. "Mr. Richardson's endorsement [of Obama] came right around the anniversary of the day when Judas sold out for 30 pieces of silver, so I think the timing is appropriate, if ironic," Mr. Carville said, referring to Holy Week. By that analogy Hillary Clinton must be Jesus Christ.
Later, Bill Clinton attended the California Democratic Convention. A former Richardson delegate who now supports Hillary expressed to Bill that she was upset about how Carville, Hillary's advisor and Bill's close ally, called Richardson a "Judas" for backing Obama. If she expected Bill Clinton to apologize for those incendiary remarks, she miscalculated. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Clinton unleashed one of his "famous meltdowns:" "It was as if someone pulled the pin from a grenade. 'Five times to my face (Richardson) said that he would never do that,' a red-faced, finger-pointing Clinton erupted."
When James Carville, one of Hillary Clinton's top advisors, and Bill Clinton, the former president of the United States, use abusive terms and go into hysterical rants because a Latino elected official endorsed a Black man, this is a classic form of racist behavior. The out-of- control rage of white men against a Latino who endorsed a Black smacks of the slave owner who feels the slaves were not grateful enough for his beneficence. When a Black person or Latino, or Asian or Indigenous person, is verbally abused by an apoplectic white man in power who challenges your character and accuses you of being a traitor while the red blood vessels are in sharp relief against his white skin, this is a form of racist violence. Hillary Clinton knows this and sanctioned it. She might as well have added, "I am Hillary Clinton and I approve of this message."
Hillary Keeps Repeating that Obama Can't Win the Presidency
When Hillary Clinton won the Ohio primary she proclaimed, "No Democrat can win the presidency if you don't win Ohio." Again, unprovoked, she argues that Obama can't win the presidency against McCain. Hillary knew full well after winning in Ohio that because of the democratic rules of proportional delegate distributions in both Ohio and Texas she was still more than 130 delegate votes behind Barack Obama—including their committed "super delegate" votes. Why would she assert that her victories in Ohio and Texas prove that Obama can't beat John McCain? To begin with, this is a lie. The actual delegate split in Ohio was 74 delegates for Clinton and 65 delegates for Obama. In Texas, Obama actually won the delegate count, combining the popular vote and the caucus vote, 99 to 94. Moreover, there is a very small chance that either Obama or Clinton can carry Texas in the general election while there is a significant chance that if Obama is nominated he can carry Ohio in the general election with many former Clinton voters and moderate Republicans and independents swelling his ranks. So why would Hillary Clinton argue to voters in subsequent primaries and to Ohio voters now focusing on the general election that Barack Obama is not electable as president? Her goal: either she will win the Democratic nomination or she will do so much damage to Obama that he will not be able win the presidential election against McCain—and in four years, she will come back to get the Democratic nomination. This is a gift to John McCain's campaign.
Hillary's Not So Secret Weapon—Rush Limbaugh and Republican Voters
A decisive factor in how Hillary Clinton was able to win more votes than Obama in Texas and Ohio was through the explicit help of the right-wing racist Republican "crossover" voters. Many on the Right hate Hillary Clinton and "the Clintons." Much of that is rooted in their misogyny and their seeing the eight years of the Clintons as "liberal" compared to the arch reactionary George Bush. Given Hillary Clinton's righteous hatred of the Right and her understanding of how they went on a search and destroy campaign against the Clinton administration and her family for decades, it is perverse that she would accept and encourage an alliance with Rush Limbaugh and John McCain. As Time Magazine observed:
"As if Democrats didn't have enough problems deciding upon their presidential nominee this year, now they must contend with the possibility that Republicans are deliberately crossing party lines to prolong the bitterly contested race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. In recent weeks, conservative talk radio stars Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham have urged loyal listeners to vote for the much despised Clinton in open Democratic primaries so as to prevent Barack Obama from sealing the nomination, and there are some indications that their calls have already been heeded in states like Texas and Mississippi."
John McCain does not love Rush Limbaugh or Laura Ingraham, and it's quite mutual. But they know which side they are on and their alliance is a conscious one. Hillary Clinton is also part of that alliance. She welcomes the support of reactionary Republican voters who are going in to wreck the Democratic primaries by subverting the choice of registered Democrats to choose their own candidate.
The Seattle Times reports:
"For a party that loves to hate the Clintons, Republican voters have cast an awful lot of ballots lately for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. About 100,000 Republican loyalists voted for her in Ohio, 119,000 in Texas, and about 38,000 in Mississippi exit polls show. Since Sen. John McCain effectively sewed up the GOP nomination last month, Republicans have begun participating in Democratic primaries specifically to vote for Clinton, a tactic that some voters and Republican activists believe will help their party in November. Spurred by conservative talk radio, GOP voters who say they would never back Clinton in a general election are voting for her now for strategic reasons. Some want to prolong her bitter nomination battle with Barack Obama, others believe she would be easier to beat then Obama, or they simply want to register objections to Obama."
Hillary is appealing to the worst instincts of the majority of white people rooted in their reactionary role in U.S. history. She is also undermining the critical role of pro-Black, anti-racist whites who have also been an important force in that history and who are trying to turn out white voters for Obama. Hillary Clinton is focusing her wrath on Obama and is helping to establish John McCain as the successor to the politics of George Bush. In this primary, Hillary is letting George Bush off the hook and objectively white washing his record—another impact of the White Bloc strategy.
When Obama says he wants to reach out to Republicans and independents, he mainly refers to the general elections, where he wants to take those votes away from McCain. He also wants to court more "moderate" Republicans who might be neutral or less virulently opposed to civil rights, against the war in Iraq, for better health care, and against George Bush. These are not the Republi-fascists but white working people with racist tendencies who Obama is trying to educate court, neutralize, and mobilize on his behalf. Barack Obama is on a civilizing mission.
Hillary's Last Gasp: A Massive White Backlash
Michael Barone of U.S. News and World Report in his article "Defending My Projection: Clinton Can Win the Popular Vote" explains the critical role of conservative white voters in the remaining Democratic primaries. He projects that Clinton will win Pennsylvania by 60% to 40%, win 60% of the vote in Indiana, 65% of the vote in Kentucky, and 70% of the vote in West Virginia. His projections are solid, at least as a possibility. As he explains, "I was influenced in all three cases by the wide margins, 75 percent to 80 percent of the two candidate vote Clinton won in many southern Ohio counties. These counties I think look and feel like Southern Indiana and most of Kentucky and West Virginia." Ask any Black person what it is like driving through those counties at night and you will understand the code of what he is saying. So in the end, all Hillary's calculated tactics from South Carolina to the present are geared to prolong the primaries, reach out to whiter and whiter electorates, and to either win her long shot at the nomination or batter Obama so that even if he wins he will be weakened in his fight against John McCain. Hillary Clinton is not wrong for trying to extend the primary competition. She is wrong for trying to extend it by building and unleashing the White Bloc and sending the Democratic Party into chaos—and contributing to the possible election of John McCain. We must defeat her in the primaries and create an historical repudiation of her unprincipled and racist campaign.
The Future Is Now
The late Molly Ivins was prescient. In June 2006 she wrote:
"I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. I've had enough. Enough triangulation, enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone…Senator Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a strong stand on the war on Iraq and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag burning are just contemptible little dodges…There are times when a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief."
Former U.S. Senator Gary Hart stated:
"By saying that only she and John McCain are qualified to lead the country, particularly in times of crisis, Hillary Clinton has severely damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be the party's nominee, and, perhaps most ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to which she will go to achieve power. She has essentially said that the Democratic Party deserves to lose unless it nominates her…Senator Obama is right to say the issue is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs. Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will be traced to the date she voted to empower George W. Bush to invade Iraq."
Alice Walker stated in her commentary "Lest We Forget: An Open Letter to My Sisters":
"I am a supporter of Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the country at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to start over, and to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him. Cannot see what he carries in his being. Cannot hear the fresh choices toward Movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans—black, white, yellow, red and brown—choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me…
"It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs. Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as "a woman" while Barack Obama is always referred to as "a black man." One would think she is just any woman, colorless, race-less, past-less, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in America in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to attempt to make her innocent of her racial inheritance."
Linda Burnham, in her article "The Tightrope and the Needle," concluded:
"It will not count as progress if a Clinton win is purchased at the cost of deepening the racial divide. It is inexcusable to support a candidate in the name of feminism while deploying racist argumentation, minimizing the existence and impact of racism, and denying the advantages of inhabiting the racial space called 'white.' It will not be excused. Nor will it be forgotten."
White people today are scared. Their jobs are going, going gone, not to "foreign competition," but to a capitalism that sees them as expendable. Their pensions are eroding if they ever had one and Social Security is in danger. They are renting apartments that take too much of their income. Their kids are living with them because their low paying jobs can't pay the rent and they can't make their own house payments. The young people do not want to go to Iraq, and those who have gone desperately want to come home. They are sick of George Bush. Even Merle Haggard, the conservative super patriotic country singer, is jumping ship. They stay at home with crippling diseases and no medical coverage. They cry out for change but, still, many hate and fear gays, Latinos, immigrants, communists, terrorists, and, of course, Blacks.
Barack Obama is trying to introduce an anti-racist message as part of a populist appeal. He is asking white people to abandon centuries of racism and to vote for a Black man. These white voters understand that Reverend Wright was Obama's pastor, so they know that they will have to decide to cross the racial Rubicon and reject overt racist appeals to vote for Obama. It is in all of our interests that they do so.
It would be a grave misunderstanding of the historical significance of the Obama campaign to not see that a Black man is asking Black people to be a major force in U.S. politics in support of a Black man. He is reaching out to Latinos by trying to stop the demonization of Latino immigrants (while the demand for full amnesty and democratic rights for immigrants must be placed in front of him with force and clarity). He is asking white people, as beneficiaries of a system of white supremacy, to recognize the humanity and intelligence and competency of a Black human being, so much so that they would entrust the running of the country to a Black person over a white person. He is picking up significant trade union support from the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers, and UNITE HERE, which represents hotel and garment workers. Many of the workers in these unions are Black and Latino, which in itself is not to be taken for granted, especially the growing Latino support for Obama. But there is also a major breakthrough as many white working people, as they did with Jesse Jackson before him, are rallying to his side. The trade unions who have endorsed him are playing a progressive role in winning working people of all races to his candidacy.
The Obama campaign and its victory against the center-right politics of the Clinton gang will move the anti-racist movement forward and will move history forward. If Hillary Clinton is able to seize the Democratic nomination through a malicious and racist campaign, it will move U.S. history backward and create even more frightening conditions for people of color in the U.S. and throughout the world. Barack Obama is more than her match, but it is the role of social movements and dedicated anti-racists to stop Hillary Clinton in her tracks and to help Obama win the Democratic nomination.
Challenge the White Bloc with an Anti-racist United Front
There is a need for an independent social movement, a united front against racism, fascism, and imperialism—fighting for a Third Reconstruction against the Age of Reaction, raising an independent political program far to the left of the two-party system. The presidential primaries and general election offer our chance to put demands in front of the candidates:
Free the U.S. Two Million—let the prisoners go. Full and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from Iraq to allow Iraqi self-determination. Full and immediate Right of Return for New Orleans' 250,000 Black dispersed residents who are being barred from their homeland. Free, safe, and legal abortions and the right of minor women to control their bodies without parental consent. Support the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people. Dramatic restriction of autos and industrial production to reduce greenhouse gases by 80 percent. There is a spirited debate among civil rights, anti-racist, and Black Liberation activists that situates the discussion of "who to vote for" in the context of the future of Black people, the Black race, and all oppressed nationality peoples at a time of escalating racism and national oppression. There can be many contradictory points of view within the movement that, when possible, can generate a unity of action. In other instances when tactical disagreements cannot be resolved, it is critical to foster an atmosphere of principled debate and mutual respect and to reject sectarianism and bridge-burning. This essay focuses on those within that united front who choose to participate in the electoral process, who want to stop the White Bloc of Hillary Clinton and John McCain, and who want to help Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination for president. It also asks for the encouragement of the third party campaign of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney in the 2008 general elections. From that common assessment, I am proposing three interrelated courses of action.
1) Ask activists in the Clinton campaign to reject Hillary Clinton and openly declare their support for Obama in the Democratic primaries.
2) Help Barack Obama win the Democratic nomination for President. Ask him to take strong stands for the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. occupation forces from Iraq and for the Effective Right of Return of the 250,000 dispersed and disenfranchised Black people of New Orleans.
There is the historical opportunity and imperative to struggle with the polices of Barack Obama now, during the primaries, and hopefully during the general election, initiated by grassroots anti-racist, environmental justice groups and supported by Obama's grassroots base including those who volunteer for his campaign. It is critical that Obama's strongest supporters pressure him to take a stand on the effective Right of Return of New Orleans displaced and abandoned 250,000 Black residents and the immediate, effective, and actual withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops, advisors, mercenaries from Iraq.
The goal is to influence his actions and to let him know there is pressure in the world from the Left, not just the Right. We cannot be hamstrung by the dead-ended Democratic Party myth that making demands on a Democrat during an election "plays into the hands of the Republicans." In reality, those who offer that advice never make demands on a Democrat before, during, or after an election. I have been deeply influenced by the advice of Fannie Lou Hamer, the sharecropper who became a leader of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). In 1964 when their struggle took them to the heart of the Democratic Party Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, their demand was to unseat the "regular" all-white Mississippi delegation and seat the Black-led multiracial MFDP delegation. Ms. Hamer and other MFDP leaders were taken into a closed door meeting with Democratic Party power brokers. They were told to drop their demands in the interest of "party unity" and to not hurt the candidacy of President Lyndon Johnson who was running against the arch-reactionary Barry Goldwater. Then Senator Hubert Humphrey, accompanied by Bayard Rustin, Walter Reuther, and other Democratic Party heavyweights, tried to pressure Ms. Hamer and the other MFDP leaders to drop their challenge to the white Mississippi delegation. Humphrey told Ms. Hamer that her actions would hurt his chances of being chosen as the vice-presidential running mate of President Johnson. "Mr. Humphrey," Ms. Hamer replied, "With all due respect, we did not risk our lives in Mississippi to come here to get you to be the vice president. We hoped you would want to be vice president to fight for the rights of those of us who risked our lives for civil rights in Mississippi."
Asking, demanding, that Senator Obama should stick to his positions when they are right and change them when they are wrong is a critical component of any effective electoral strategy. Surely we cannot just deliver our votes to a candidate who is courting the votes of others, including conservative whites, those of big business and the Pentagon, without pressuring him to address the demands of those most oppressed by U.S. policy and the entire system of imperialism. Those who are directly involved in the Obama campaign as volunteers and staffers can play a critical role in helping to support these movement demands during the campaign, just as the active base of the Right can be expected to pressure a George Bush or John McCain. The independence of the anti-racist movement and its role in the elections as a political force is essential. Obama, who takes pride in his history as a community organizer, understands that any good organizer has to represent the interests of their base (for those of us fortunate enough to have a base). In his debate with Hillary Clinton, he argued that it was the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists that changed history and it is the job of presidents to respond to righteous, grassroots pressure. Our job is to raise an independent political program and to change national policy.
3) Encourage Cynthia McKinney's candidacy for president of the United States.
Cynthia McKinney is a former U.S. Congressperson from Georgia and a long-time leader in the anti-war, civil rights, women's, and Black Liberation Movement. She is running for president of the United States as an independent movement candidate. She is seeking the nomination of the Green Party and will probably get it. She will be on the ballot on most if not all states in the general election. Her campaign will push both Barack Obama and all of us to deal with a strong, anti-racist and anti-war program—led by a Black woman. Cynthia McKinney is calling for the Right of Return of 250,000 displaced and disenfranchised Black residents of New Orleans (a demand Obama has so far not proposed or supported) and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops, forces, and presence in Iraq (which Obama does not advocate), and a focus on antiracism and national self-determination for Black and oppressed people in the United States. McKinney, like Obama, has the "experience" to be president. She will put pressure on Obama and McCain from the Left and from some of the most dedicated forces in the Black community.
Supporters of Obama and Clinton and independents should fight for Cynthia McKinney's access to future debates. While Obama, Clinton, and McCain raise hundreds of millions of dollars, Cynthia McKinney is struggling to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. She needs our help to fund her campaign now. She must be helped to get her message out against media censorship. In this case, encouragement must be reflected in the form of dollars. (It is not at all contradictory to support Obama's candidacy in the Democratic primaries, or even in the general election, and to make a generous contribution to Cynthia McKinney's campaign). Cynthia McKinney, as an outspoken and courageous Black woman, has already been sabotaged by Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party on whose ticket she was elected to Congress. We must defend her from the charges that her candidacy, or any other independent candidacy (including that of Ralph Nader), "spoils" the sanctity of the two party duopoly. There are some who argue that those who do not see the obvious wisdom of voting for Obama (as opposed to McKinney) suffer from ultra-leftism. This criticism is off the mark. A united front for Obama in the Democratic primaries and for Cynthia McKinney's right to be heard in the general election are not just compatible. They are essential grounds for common action and the re-building of the united front and the movement against racism and national oppression. Obviously there are other forks in the road and hard choices have to be made. But at this moment in history, the defeat of Hillary Clinton, the nomination of Barack Obama, and the encouragement of the campaign of Cynthia McKinney afford plenty of work to do and plenty of opportunity for much needed unity.
Time to Take Action
1) If you live in or know anyone in Pennsylvania, Guam, Indiana, North Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, and Puerto Rico, please send them this article if you find it persuasive and add your own opinion on why they should vote Yes on Obama and No on Clinton. Let's turn out the vote for Barack Obama and turn out the vote against Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party primaries.
2) If you are active in Hillary Clinton's campaign or were planning to vote for her, send her a message. Tell her you have decided to withdraw from her campaign and support that of Senator Obama. You will not be party to the White Bloc strategy. Email Hillary Clinton click here (http://www.hillaryclinton.com/help/contact/), or call 703.469.2008.
3) Send an email to Senator Obama. Tell him you support his bid for the Democratic Party nomination and appreciate his taking on the racism, bitterness, and elitism of the Clinton campaign. Ask him to support the Right of Return of 250,000 Black residents of New Orleans through the creation of emergency government housing, jobs, and benefits that are long-standing and permanent, and the withdrawal of all U.S. troops, forces, "security contractors," and mercenaries in Iraq. Email Barack Obama click here (http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/contact2), or call 866.675.2008.
4) Send an email of support and a contribution to the campaign of Cynthia McKinney, saying that while you are not yet decided on whom to vote for in November you welcome her entrance into the campaign and look forward to hearing more about her views to inform your vote. Email Cynthia McKinney click here (http://www.runcynthiarun.org/TalkBack).
The time to take action is NOW. In the Democratic Party, it is time to turn up the heat and turn out the vote for Barack Obama. In the general election, it is time to bring a movement voice to help shape history and impact all of the candidates.
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Eric Mann, a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality, Students for a Democratic Society, and the United Auto Workers, is the author of six books including: Comrade George: An Investigation into the Life, Political Thought, and Assassination of George Jackson, Dispatches from Durban: Firsthand Commentaries on the World Conference Against Racism, and Katrina's Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. He is working on his next book, Revolutionary Organizing in the Age of Reaction, featuring The 25 Qualities of the Successful Organizer.
This commentary is the product of collective thinking, discussion, struggle, and editorial engagement. Lian Hurst Mann shaped this article from start to finish. Damon Azali-Rojas, Manuel Criollo, Tammy Bang Luu, Daniel Kim, Geoff Ramsey-Ray, and Kelly Archbold made critical contributions to the political line of argument and the final outcome. Email design by Geoff Ramsey-Ray.
Please send comments to 2008elections@ericmannauthor.com
If you have gotten this commentary through the generous forwarding of others and would like to get new commentaries directly, please send an email to newlistmember@ericmannauthor.com
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Recommended Readings
For additional background material on the U.S. Left, the electoral process, and counter-hegemonic demand development see:
How Do We Stop the Clinton Assault?
by Eric Mann and Lian Hurst Mann
The 2000 U.S. Presidential Elections
by Eric Mann and Lian Hurst Mann
Toward a Program of Resistance
by the Program Demand Group
Eric Mann is a veteran of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the United Auto Workers (UAW), and was a delegate to the United Nations World Conference Against Racism.
Email to:
2008elections@ericmannauthor.com
Mann is the author of:
Comrade George: An Investigation into the Life, Political Thought, and Assassination of George Jackson
Katrina's Legacy: White Racism and Black Reconstruction in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast
He is working on his next book, Revolutionary Organizing in the Age of Reaction, featuring The 25 Qualities of the Successful Organizer.
Mann is co-host of the weekly radio show, Voices From the Frontlines, on KPFK Pacifica Radio 90.7 Los Angeles. Listen to his March 24, 2008 interview with Wendell Pierce and Andre Royo of The Wire.
