[Peace-discuss] movements and elections, clarification

[Ricky Baldwin]

We've been talking about this subject a lot lately
(for obvious reasons, and Mort brought up the 1930’s
reforms and the fact that they occurred under a
Democratic administration.  

This sounds like a common oversimplification of
history: assuming that the New Deal happened because
the Democrats came to the rescue.  In fact, Roosevelt
was very reluctant to enact those reforms and finally
did so only under intense pressure in the nation’s
streets, relief agencies and factories, mainly from
the movements of the unemployed and of industrial
workers.  In fact, the very minute these movements
stopped their misbehavior and turned to more
acceptable means like elections and lobbying and
sending representatives to negotiate, etc., they began
losing ground.  It’s well documented in Poor People’s
Movements by Francis Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward.

Even within those reforms, agricultural workers were
and still are excluded from the National Labor
Relations Act recognizing unions, the Fair Labor
Standards Act that sets minimum wage and overtime
standards, etc., and others, because of the influence
of Southern Democrats (and because the poor in the
South, black and white, were effectively barred from
voting by literacy tests, requirements to register in
person, and so on -- see below).

This is not to say that the elections played no role
in these successes.  Piven and Cloward point out that
the first noticeable signs of the discontent, the
first expressions of rebellious attitudes were seen at
the polls.  (They “threw the bums out,” and generated
enough heat behind their demands that the old
coalitions that made up the Democratic Party partially
broke down, or at least they created some maneuvering
room.)  

But there's more.  Popular movements tend to be
successful, according to Piven and Cloward’s argument,
only when sympathetic constituencies are allowed to
vote.  Earlier movements of workers and poor people
tended to be crushed directly by military force, or by
widespread lynching in the case of black participation
in the South.  The right to vote was key in preventing
these slaughters, but it was disruptive popular
movements themselves and not elections alone that
effected the greatest change.

Now, I haven’t heard anyone in AWARE advocate that we
drop our protest signs and start working on political
campaigns, but certainly individuals around the
country are doing that.  I just think it’s worth
clarifying why we don’t do that, and why we are
writing postcards to Kerry, and why we prefer voter
leaflets like the one from UPJ that explain why voting
is important by way of principles that we look for any
candidate to live up to.  I think we obviously hope
Kerry wins, and we want to be ready to jump on him
with both feet if he does.
 
That's what I've been trying to say.
Ricky


		
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