SWP says 'don't vote' on Prop 54 in California

[John M Cox <coxj@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I had taken to comparing the SWP to the Sparticists lately; actually, by
contrast, the Sparts are starting to look like rational, well-grounded Marxists:

from the Oct. 6 Militant:

SWP takes not voting
stance on Proposition 54

The following statement was released September 23 by Joel Britton,
Socialist Workers candidate for governor of California, to Good Politics
Radio, an Internet site through which audio messages can be recorded and
heard.
Hello. Im Joel Britton, the Socialist Workers Party candidate for governor
of California. Im on the special recall election ballot as Joel
BrittonIndependent, Retired Meat Packer.

A long-time trade unionist, Black rights and antiwar activist, I serve on
the National Committee of the Socialist Workers Party.

I have been asked whether I support or oppose Proposition 54, the proposed
amendment to the California constitution that is on the recall election
ballot.

According to the Official Voter Information Guide Proposition 54 is
supposed to prohibit state and local governments from using race,
ethnicity, color or national origin to classify current or prospective
students, contractors or employees in public education, contracting, or
employment operations.

I am opposed to both the Vote Yes on 54 and the Vote No on 54 campaigns
being waged and take a Not voting position.

Ward Connerly, the conservative Republican who heads the Vote Yes campaign
cynically claims that if Proposition 54 receives a majority of ballots
cast it will help create a color-blind society. This, from a well-known
opponent of affirmative action measures to redress current-day
inequalities and discrimination against working people who are Black,
especially.

Without a fight to end such inequalities and discriminatory practices,
working people will be unable to wage united struggle against the wealthy
families who rule this country through their twin Democratic and
Republican parties.

As we build a revolutionary workers movement that can fight for a workers
and farmers government that will put an end to capitalismwhich breeds
racist oppression and discrimination of all typesa color-blind society
will then become possible. This is not what Connerly and Co. have in mind.

Those campaigning for a No vote on Proposition 54 include Democratic
governor Gray Davis, his Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante, Republican
candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger, the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the mayors of Los Angeles and San
Francisco, many trade union officials, and leaders of health-care and
other organizations. They all falsely claim that unless this measure is
defeated, it will be impossible to fight racist discrimination in housing,
education, medical care, and employment.

We can lead a fight against racist discrimination without promoting
reliance on government collection of racial statistics. The civil rights
fighters of the 1950s and 1960spart of a mass proletarian struggle that
brought down the Jim Crow system of statutory segregation throughout the
Southdidnt need racial data from governmental bodies to convince people
that something had to be done. Whats more, as Malcolm X taught us, it is
the government that was responsible for maintaining racist oppression in
the South and in the North. That is still true today.

Los Angeles police chief William Bratton and other top police officials in
the state have come out against Proposition 54, saying that the measure
would hurt their efforts to stop racial profiling and protect against hate
crimes. These pronouncements take the fakery to a higher level. The
purpose of police is to mete out punishment, to keep workers in line, to
make an example of you if you come from the wrong classeven more so if you
happen to be the wrong color or the wrong nationality. It is worth
remembering that far more working people are executed by a policemans
bullet, chokehold, or hog-tying than by lethal injection or electrocution,
even with the unrelenting climb in state-sanctioned murders since the U.S.
Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.

The logic of the Vote No on Prop 54 forces is to rely on governmental
bodies, instead of relying on ourselves and our own capacities, of
organizing ourselves in struggles independent of them.

Liberal Vote No campaigners falsely claim that passage of Prop 54 would
have a devastating impact on civil rights and would roll back 40 years of
hard-won civil rights gains. But to roll back the gains of the civil
rights movement would take a massive counterrevolutionary movement. And
that is simply not on the agenda. The Supreme Court ruling this past
summer upholding affirmative action in university admissions registered
this fact.

Vote Yes to recall Governor Davis and then vote Socialist Workersfor Joel
Britton, Independent, Retired Meat Packer.






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