Forwarded from Anthony (united left presidential ticket)

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Lou. Thanks

Here is a little item -

Hey there, hi there ho there does anyone remember SCULPT?

A comrade from somewhere outside of the borders of the USA posted a
suggestion for a united left electoral initiative in the USA. (Forgive me,
I am not online and don't recall who posted the suggestion.)

I think that this is a good idea. But, it has been tried before, and did
not work.

I participated in the effort. It was called SCULPT, Search Committee for a
United Left Presidential Ticket. And it lasted about eight years.

It was the initiative of the Peace and Freedom Party of California. The
PF&P is a legally recognized, ballot status party in California -whose
program at the time was more socialist than the SWP's -  whose electoral
base was made up of mostly former leftists, hippies and proponents of
legalized marijuana - and whose activists mostly came out of the communist
party and the old International Socialists (Shachtmanite state capitalists
for those who want a label).

The PF&P was the product of the great rebellion of the 1960's and the
movement to form a third party unitiing the anti-war movement and the black
nationalist and civil rights movement. The Black Panther Party, various
Maoists, and the state caps, played a big roll in starting it. It failed at
the time for a variety of reasons - not least the abstention and hostility
of the SWP, but even more the participationm of the Communist Party in
order to prevent it from becoming a real challenge to he "left" Democrats.

Despite its failure to become a national third party, it maintained its
ballot status in California - and it became a haven for leftists with
electoral illusions, no place else to go, or looking for a vehicle to
promote some other project. (even socialist revolution)

Ballot status in California is veyr difficult to get - ask the SWP who
tried and failed numerous times (despite their official anti-electoralist
line.)

Anyway the activists in this electorl shell left over from a bygone era,
tried to resucitate it by inviting every and all socialist organizations to
join together in a united electoral campaign for the 1984 presidential
elections.

The Communist Party, Workers World Party, New Alliance Party, Socialist
Party, Internationalist Workers Party (Fourth International), Revolutionary
Workers League, Freedom Socialist Party and other even smaller
organizations participated. Individual members of DSA (part of DSA was in
the P&FP). Organizations like the Irish republican Socialist Party also
participated, as did some greens.

The Socialist Workers Party and its children, notably Sociliast Action,
declined to participate.

Needless to say, for anyone familiar with those organizations now or then -
this effort went nowhere.

The Communist Party and Workers World party were supporting Jesse Jackson -
and did not want any serious electoral challenge to Jackson's left.
Although WWP also had its own candidate for the moement when Jackson
inevitably lost and endorsed the real Democratic Party candidate (this was
mostly for their members and periphery in my opinion.)

The other organizations were small, and sectarian - haggling over who could
be more rrrrrevolutionary than the others.

We, the IWP(FI) - the Morenoists of the United States - proposed to offer
the presidential nominaiton to the CP, the Vice Presidential nomination to
the SWP, and to examine their official programs for pints of agreement as
the basis for the electoral platform. This I thought was a very good
proposal - which went nowhere for the above stated reasons.

However it atracted people seriously interested in presenting a socialist
electoral alterantive to the IWP(FI), so we recruited about 35 English
speaking members - doubling our English speaking membership.

My conclusion from that experience was that - although the truth is that
the CP, WWP, SWP et al were hopelessly lost in their opportunist and
sectarian (and at the same time) and senile politics - it was a good idea
to treat them as if they really are living, breathing, serious
organizations. Why? because their peripheries - think they are - and within
their peripheries are to be found some of the very small number of leftists
in the USA.

Well, so much for that anecdote from the 80's.

Anthony


Louis Proyect

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