RACE AND CLASS IN THE UNITED STATES: Ralph Nader: 'Freedom is participation in power'
SAN FRANCISCO — "Freedom is participation in power", Ralph Nader, US Green Party candidate for president, told delegates to the July national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the largest US civil rights organisation.
Nader is the best-known consumer advocate in the country. He is a supporter of consumer democracy who believes that big corporations are too powerful and have seized power from the public, who he believes should control society's wealth.
"When you get taken for granted, you get taken", Nader told the NAACP delegates, referring to the attitude the Democratic Party has toward African-Americans, organised labour and what he called the "progressive wing" of the Democratic Party.
Nader's candidacy is shaking up liberal circles, which fear that the more right-wing Republican Party presidential hopeful, Texas Governor George W. Bush, may win in November if the current opinion polls prove accurate. Nader is scoring up to 8% of the national vote.
Nader also ran for president on the Green Party ticket four years ago, but he refused to do much campaigning. This time, Nader has decided to make the campaign his main activity. He has travelled across the country meeting unionists, environmentalists, social justice activists and potential supporters.
Many civil rights and women's rights activists, environmentalists, social justice activists and trade union militants support Nader's campaign. I believe all non-sectarian socialists should actively back his campaign.
Some US socialists think that it is wrong to support Nader because he is not a socialist but a "radical liberal" who favours reforming the capitalist system. I support Nader the radical liberal democrat because he does not see elections as key to change. He believes, and his history shows it, that mass social protest movements are key to real democracy.
His "agenda", Nader explained to the NAACP convention delegates, "deals with the essential premise of democracy, that all people have to feel that they can participate, they can deliberate, and they can have an impact on their own grievances and the future of the country". He added, "We have to recognise that those who are excessively greedy and excessively powerful must give up their privileges. They must give up some of their power."
Nader's populism is anti-corporate and pro-working people. He is no demagogue. His 40-year record as a consumer activist is widely respected. Much of his annual earnings go to support social projects.
Nader's basic program for the black community is the same one he offers to all working people: fight the injustices of the corporations. He told the NAACP that every social justice movement in the history of the country was opposed by corporations: "Who opposed the anti-slavery movement [in the 1800s]? Who opposed the women's right to vote movement? It wasn't just some men. It was the railroads, it as the liquor industry, it was industrial interests that didn't want women to speak out with voting power against child labour and the injustices of the industrial revolution."
Nader continued: "Who opposed the workers in the steel, coal, textile and other areas trying to unionise? It was the corporations. And who opposed the dirt-poor farmers coming out of Texas? It was the big banks and the insurance companies.
"It's the same today ... Who opposed the consumer movement to try to reduce death and injury on the part of innocent consumers because of hazardous products and toxic chemicals and other sources of trauma? The corporations did. Who opposed the drive for environmental health in our country? The corporations did."
How to change their concentration of power? Nader's answer: build powerful social justice movements that can force change on the rich and powerful.
To make his point, he quoted from a letter sent to activists in the 1960s by the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., from a jail cell: "We have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is a historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily."
Nader rejects accusations that he is a "spoiler" to Democrat candidate Al Gore. He has warned that by 2102 "the Democrats will be worse than today's RepubliCrats". Prominent social critic Noam Chomsky made the same point when he quipped that well-known bigot Richard Nixon was the last liberal president.
President Bill Clinton, on the other hand, has been described by some black liberals as the "first black president". Why? Because he's comfortable around African-Americans and has spoken out against racism and in favour of equality.
Yet the reality is more telling. Nixon was forced to sign laws and take action to support affirmative action for minorities because of the residual power of the civil rights movement. The 1990s under Clinton, on the other hand, have been a period of retreat on civil rights. Clinton has accelerated the process by taking actions that former Republican presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush could not have hoped to implement without large-scale protests.
Clinton, with the African-American and trade union leaderships in his pocket, has been able to destroy social welfare programs that existed for 40 years and mainly benefited the poor, who are predominantly black and brown. Not surprisingly, in a period of relative economic boom, the Clinton administration's policies have led to the highest ever income gap between rich and poor.
The US has an "apartheid economy", Nader told the NAACP delegates. "It is an economy of such staggering inequalities that mere words and statistics hardly do it justice. It is an economy where one man, Bill Gates, has as much wealth as the combined wealth of the bottom 120 million."
Moreover, "The inequalities are even more staggering worldwide ... the 250 richest people in the world have the combined income of the bottom 3 billion people in the world."
Nader cannot be a spoiler. The "RepubliCrats" have already spoiled the system. The president, courts and legislative bodies only codify gains won through struggle — or defeats suffered. The lack of organised resistance leads to defeats or reversals of gains. It doesn't matter which capitalist political party is in power.
Unlike Australia, voters in the US are not required by law to vote. A majority will not vote if the choice is between Gore and Bush. Nader is a hope for many, and a protest vote for others.
For socialists, it is an opportunity to support an alternative and present views on capitalism at a time when many people are open to new ideas. Although electoral participation does not, in and of itself, indicate a high level of political consciousness, it reflects in a distorted way the conflicts between the rich and powerful and the working class. That's why many socialists are supporting the Nader campaign.
BY MALIK MIAH