Re: SWP candidate rejects fighting to defeat Proposition 54

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thinking about it subsequently, I have decided that one aspect of my
response to SWP California gubernatorial candidate Joel Britton's refusal to
oppose Proposition 54, which I went so far as to call, my "main political
point," was wrong.  Here is what I said:

"NOW for my main political point:  JOEL BRITTON'S REACTIONARY,  ANTI-WORKING
CLASS REFUSAL TO OPPOSE PROPOSITION 54 DISQUALIFIES HIS CAMPAIGN FOR THE
SUPPORT OF CLASS CONSCIOUS WORKING PEOPLE AND OTHER FIGHTERS.  Working
people have no use for an election campaign that refuses to stand up to an
attack on our rights."

This was an over-reaction to the fact that I had come pretty close to
endorsing Britton myself -- a hidden core of political intelligence kept
holding me back from going all the way.  But as I have said before, special
campaigns against any of the candidates who present themselves as
challenging the imperialist parties from the left are uncalled for
politically in this year's California election.

The fact is that those who vote for any of these parties (Green Party, Peace
and Freedom Party, Socialist Workers Party, and even the Socialist Equality
Party -- the former Workers League) will be doing so for pretty much the
same reason.  A desire to say NO at the ballot box  to the policies of the
imperialist parties and the ruling rich they represent.

While it is important to challenge the errors that the  SWP makes in
refusing to defend the fights for democratic rights on this issue,  it is
also important to keep a sense of proportion about this. Despite Britton's
militant-sounding denunciations of the liberals and LA top cop Bratton, the
SWP's position on Proposition 54 is basically an adaptation to the "color
blind," nationally neutral,  "unity" and "harmony" demagogy of Connerly and
the Prop 54 advocates.  Their campaign promise that a workers and farmers
government will  be "color blind" once capitalism has been overthrown
highlights the seriousness of the adaptation taking place in today's
politics.

The fight for the national rights of  peoples of color is the issue here,
not whether one should rely on government statistics or find alternative
ones in some other part of the library. They have to fight for their full
rights and full recognition peoples as human beings, as distinct from the
official semi-invisibility that the advocates of  "color-blindness" offer as
a supposedly safe haven. ( If we all just  refuse to see your awful color,
which is causing so much hatred and conflict, the divisions  between us will
disappear!)

But the SWP isn't responsible for Proposition 54 or for the pressures they
are bending to.  These come from the imperialist rulers and their political
apparatus.  Their abstention from fighting on this issue, like their
tendency to abstain from antiwar protest, is backward and nonrevolutionary
but it does not make them co-responsible for the crimes of the ruling class.

The SWP's sectarianism has its political importance, but it is still a very
tiny part of the political picture today.  The big picture is the crimes
that the US ruling class and its two parties are committing against the
working people and those who should be the allies of the working people all
over the world.

People who are thinking about voting for Britton should go right ahead and
do so if they wish.  Any vote against the imperialist parties in this
election is better than a vote for them.
Fred Feldman


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