Workers World Party endorses McKinney for President.
Cynthia McKinney for president
Workers World newspaper in the past has supported the candidates of Workers World Party running for national office in the U.S. presidential elections and who have put forward a revolutionary socialist program. This time we are taking the unusual step of endorsing the candidacy of Cynthia McKinney because these are unique times and this is a unique candidate.
McKinney, a courageous Black woman and former U.S. Congresswoman from Georgia, has become one of the most militant leaders and voices for the U.S. left, progressive and Black movements.
Because of her militancy in the struggle against the war, the struggle to impeach Bush, as well as her struggle to expose the government’s role in the displacement of survivors of Hurricane Katrina, she was branded too Black and too radical to walk the halls of Congress. She was pushed out, not once but twice, by the leadership of the Democratic Party. Last year, McKinney severed her ties to that party.
On July 12, McKinney and her running mate, activist Rosa Clemente, won the Green Party’s nomination to run for president and vice-president, respectively. The Green Party’s nomination will put McKinney on the ballot in about 20 states, which is no small thing in the U.S. where the ruling class has made it very hard for any electoral formation independent of, and even slightly to the left of, the two major ruling-class parties to get ballot status. The Green Party is not the reason why we are supporting McKinney.
McKinney’s “Power to the People Campaign” gets most of its program from the draft program of the still-in-formation Reconstruction Party. Activists in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, together with supporters nationwide, have been developing a Reconstruction Party as a mass political vehicle to fight for the reconstruction of the Gulf and justice for Katrina survivors.
The draft program of the Reconstruction Party is inspired by the program of the original Black Panther Party. The Reconstruction Party draft program calls for, among other things: self-determination for Black people, the relocation of displaced survivors of Katrina back to the Gulf, jobs, healthcare and housing, reparations for Black people, an end to racist terror and political repression, an end to the prison-industrial complex and an end to the war.
McKinney’s campaign is laying the foundation for a radical coalition of Black, Latin@, Asian and Indigenous activists, trade unionists, progressives and revolutionaries. This is important and timely.
We have no illusions regarding the difficulty that McKinney’s campaign will face, because this presidential election is like none other before it.
The economic crisis and prospects for class struggle
Barack Obama is the first Black person to be the nominee of a ruling-class party, and he could be the first Black president of the U.S. Many are understandably excited about Obama’s candidacy, especially Black people.
No matter how far Obama moves to the right, most likely Black people are going to come out in unprecedented numbers in November in the hopes of achieving something that very few thought possible a year ago. Apart from Black voters, many others will vote for Obama in November for reasons that are historically progressive. And some will not vote for Obama because of his name, because they think he’s Muslim and because he’s Black.
Race, or what some of us call the national question, is central to this year’s election.
But then there is the negative side to this contradictory development. Should Obama win the election (a prospect that shouldn’t be considered certain), the U.S. imperialist ruling class will have a gifted Black politician to help them save their troubled empire. An Obama presidency as the face of an imperialist state will not change anything fundamental, but on the surface it will mark a change, a new situation.
The U.S. capitalist class desperately needs to try something new to help them with their overlapping crises of deepening economic turmoil and imperialist war. In the board rooms of Wall Street, some are, no doubt, hoping that someone like Obama can delay or derail an uprising against widespread depression-level social conditions, or at least be the scapegoat for the unbearable misery that the ruling class has in store for workers.
The Obama phenomenon is more than anything else a sign that the period of political reaction, which has held the working class back and weakened revolutionary movements, organizations and their revolutionary ideas, is coming to an end.
No matter who wins the election, the magnitude of the spiraling crisis of world imperialism, centered here in the U.S., is going to challenge all the forces who share an anti-imperialist, working-class-centered socialist orientation to put aside narrow views, sectarian habits and small differences that have festered during a long and demoralizing period of world reaction.
The material conditions for resurgence of the working class may sooner than later reach levels not seen in this country since the 1930s. In order for the working-class movement to grow politically and organizationally, it will take time, experience in the class struggle, and the assistance of conscious political forces who are dedicated to reviving the struggle.
What is required of all of us who consider ourselves among the dedicated? At a minimum it is a higher level of clarity, seriousness, confidence, solidarity and coalition building.
McKinney’s campaign is Black-led, anti-imperialist, working-class-centered and has a multinational radical base with the potential of unlimited growth.
Of course, we believe that the struggle should not be confined to the electoral arena, especially as the capitalist ruling class completely dominates the electoral process. We must be in the streets fighting the war, fighting foreclosures and evictions, fighting in solidarity with immigrant workers, etc. However, Workers World believes that supporting the McKinney campaign is a step forward towards the path that the movement needs to take.
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9 comments
quick question - am i the only one that’s bothered by McKinney’s relationship with the “New Black Panther Party?”
http://www.blackpanther.org/newsalert.htm
yet another “revolutionary” group backing left-social democrats…it’s a shame really
and I agree, anyone with ties to a racial supremacist, anti-Semitic group like the NBPP is more than a little troubling.
I find the discussion puzzling . . .
I did a google search of “Cynthia McKinney” “New Black Panther Party.” The first 20 entries consisted of eighteen racist attacks on McKinney, all related to a scuffle between a member of her security detail and a reporter in 2006, and two black bloggers who covered the same story and accused the corporate media of waging war on McKinney.
What I did not see was any credible source alleging a “relationship” between McKinney and the NBPP that goes beyond the 2006 incident.
I think a discussion of the manner in which black nationalist groups are marginalized by claims of “black racism” and “anti-semitism” would be interesting . . . but before we even get there I would want to see something approaching credible evidence that McKinney has a “relationship” with the NBPP (which I believe actually endorsed Obama).
On a separate issue, I’m admittedly a little puzzled by Rowland Keshena, who describes himself as being in the “Debs Tendency” of the Socialist Party-USA, attacking people who support “left-social democrats.” Brian Moore, the presidential candidate of the SP-USA, does not appear to consider himself in any way a marxist or revolutionary.
ok, fair enough peter. i also can’t find much of anything beyond the 2006 incident. i personally think it’s a big deal to have any kind of association with any group that has reactionary politics (something very different from having nationalist politics) but if she’s since cut off ties from them, fine, i’ll drop my charge. but it leaves me with the question of whether or not she would have done so unless they were such a political liability. yes, i know, being a politician comes with a certain cynicism. i guess i’m just a petty utopian anarchist…
on another note, i did come across this from 2004:
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041026093059633
while it’s a comparatively mainstream in its signatories, and McKinney’s objections to the 9/11 Commission being too secretive are reasonable enough, the whole thing is enough to make McKinney leave a bad taste in my mouth. i guess i just think we need to draw a firm line between Right and Left.
peter_g
If you read over my blog you will find that nowhere on it have I actually backed the candidacy of Brian Moore. Yes I am a card carrying member of the party, but as a member of the Debs Tendency I am turned off by Mr. Moore’s decidedly more centrist policies (even vs. the core party platform). In fact you will find that the only time I even mentioned his name was a passing reference in the post of mine that this blog reposted.
He is certainly far more moderate a candidate than I would have liked to see. Going over his platform, especially under the section titled “ADDITIONAL SOCIALIST PARTY PLATFORM ISSUES ADVOCATED BY BRIAN” we see that he leaves out party platform points like “We call for worker and community ownership and control of corporations within the framework of a decentralized and democratically determined economy”.
His platform does make a reference to nationalizing certain segments of the economy, and also makes a vague reference to increasing citizens participation in society, but it falls short of what the actual party platform calls for, which is democratic worker control and ownership of production.
He also ditches ones like “We support militant, united labor action including hot cargo agreements, and boycotts, factory committees, secondary and sympathy strikes, sit-down strikes, general strikes, and ultimately the expropriation of workplaces” and “We support the right of workers to hold shop meetings on company premises, elect their immediate supervisors, and administer health and safety programs through the formation of shop councils.” Again here it would seem that he throwing out workplace democracy in favour of simple nationalization, which the mistake many on the left make.
As for the Debs Tendency, we represent the far-left of the party. We come from the revolutionary Marxist-Debsian tradition. I would point you towards our points of unity, but it seems our site is down at the moment, though if you go to my blog and search for it, I have posted it in the past.
Will McKinney be again hire that anti-semite loon Steve, “Jewish Doctors Injected Back Babies With AIDS, ” Cokely, to help her run for POTUS?
Noted by Bruce Dixon here.
http://www.bdixon.net/mckinney-analysis.html
Internal Factors in the McKinney Campaign Contributed to Her Loss. And Ours.
by Bruce A. Dixon, bruce at dixonmail.com
Last modified 09/16/02
Why this paper?
Why did McKinney lose?
Lack of a campaign field operation cost thousands of votes
Strategic failure to discern the type of contest
First tactical error — no voter registration drive
Second tactical error – no phone and door to door canvass
Third tactical error – no effective election day operation
Result of strategic and tactical errors — large disparity in voter turnout.
Table 1: Top 21 Dekalb County precincts by voter turnout
Table 2: McKinney’s top 20 precincts by margin with turnout
Conclusion: Internal factors played a decisive role in the defeat of Cynthia McKinney
Volunteer coordinator for McKinney in ‘02 was ex-NOI demogogue, Steve
“Jewish Doctor’s inject Black Babies Wirh AIDS, “ Cokely. See, “ Internal
Factors in the McKinney Campaign Contributed to Her Loss. And Ours.”
http://www.bdixon.net/mckinney-analysis.html >…” I understand there may
have been 3 changes of campaign directors in a few months. Some members of
the Nation of Islam appear to have been prominently involved in planning or
advising the campaign from as early as April or May. A couple hundred NOI
members, many in unform were around the offices and on the street for Cynthia
the last weekend of the campaign. That seems more than a little strange to
this author. NOI would seem to be philosophically at odds with the sorts of
inclusionary politics that are at the core of much of the American left. It
makes sense that their operatives would have little skill and no track record
at political organizing, even if they had not been philosophically opposed to
the underpinnings of political organizing.”
I have no idea where you’re getting the notion that Brian has taken a centrist position on the issue of workplace democracy. Brian has this issue directly in his platform “18) Cap and reduce corporate profits and excessive executive salary levels while fostering transfer of corporate ownership and control to workers.” Furthermore, in every interview and debate Brian has engaged in, he has made workers’ control of production and the elimination of bosses the CENTRAL issue of his campaign. As a relatively new convert to socialism, he certainly does not have the same level of theoretical experience as veterans in the socialist movement and I have had some disagreements with the way he’s put some things, but ever since the Convention, he has put such revolutionary demands as workers’ self-management at the forefront of his campaign’s presentation to the public. You have my full agreement that social ownership/workers’ control is the fundamental revolutionary demand that makes our campaigns worthwhile and distinguishes socialist candidates from left liberals like Nader and McKinney. Fortunately, Moore has been consistently solid on this.
You can find an archive at: http://vote-socialist.org/press/index.html
I checked back through QWB archives and found this published on April 29th. The Manifesto of the Reconstruction Party which Cynthia McKinney participated in the meeting which wrote the Manifesto and contributed to this draft. For anyone who wants to read this document just bring up April archives. Very worthwhile reading.
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