- , W,/i/(EltS ''''''(JIlt' 2se No. 458 29' July 1988 Jackson Fronts for Dukakis and, the Dixiecrats Democrats'· Racist~~Unity" Eve;y four years, according to the rituals of American capitalist "democ­ racy," millions of voters are trooped to the polls to pull the lever for one or the other of the bosses' parties. Through art elaborate yearlong process of caucuses, primaries and conventions, with end­ less star-spangled hoopla, they try to sell to the workers, poor people, blacks and other minorities the illusion that they are deciding which ofthe bourgeois pol­ iticians is going to run the country (that is, to rule over us on behalfof the ruling class). So last week the Democrats named their standard-bearers: Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis for pres­ ident and Texas Senator Lloyd Bentsen ' for veep. The technocrat and Dixiecrat will now square off against the Repub­ licans-i-George Bush and X-In what is being touted as' the war of the nerds. (Despite all the glitz for TV, half of America switched off the networks dur­ ing the weeklong yawn in Atlanta.) And from now until November we will be bombarded by the spectacle of the candidates trying to outdo each other in saber rattling and pandering to racism. Dukakis laid it out in his acceptance speech: "We'regoing to build the kind of America that Lloyd Bentsen has been fighting for for the past' 40 years." Bentsen's America is one where agri­ business barons like his daddy built their fortunes from the sweat of Mexi­ can farmhands. With 50,000 acres of . P.F. Bentley , crop land and citrus groves, 'where un­ Boston/Austin racist axis-Dukakis and Bentsen (left) and their front man Jesse Jackson. ions have been kept out for the past 50 years, "Big Lloyd," the grandee ofthe get the. oppressed to vote'for their and working-class anger ihto.capitalist plain, brown wrapper." In the last 20 Rio Valley, is today estimated to be oppressors, But Jackson's hype maynot politics and blocking militant mass years, the Democrats have lost every worth $50 to $100 million. Bentsen .be enough to pull out the black vote this struggle, the popular front paves the presidential election except one, when Country is where a black man like Loyal .time around. When Dixiecrat plutocrat way to bloody defeat. Jesse Jackson. Jimmy Carter barely beat Gerald Ford Garner, Jr. gets bludgeoned to death in Bentsen was nominated by acclamation may be plenty annoyed at Dukakis' (who couldn't chew gum and walk at the an east Texas jail arid the killer cops go there were angry shouts of"no!"around snub. But that's nothing compared to same time). So this time they were deter­ free. the hall. what happened to Salvador Allende, mined to shake off their image as the The Democrats' "Southern strategy" After nearly eight years of Reagan­ who played out the popular-front sce­ party of "special interests" (labor, is an attempt to "out-Reagan" Reagan. Ism, there's a lot of people in this coun­ nario to the end in Chile, and was the minorities) and heighten the "comfort When Dukakis' managers picked a run­ try who are fed up with the "new greed" first victim ofthe 1973 Pinochet coup. level" of the Democratic campaign. ning mate to the right of George Bush, and Rambomania. But then, after the During the primaries, we wrote: But swilling Bentsen-style "Southern and didn't bother to inform runner-up Vietnam War and Watergate, people "Now there's a Iot of energy going into comfort" may not go down well in N0­ the Jesse Jackson campaign. Young Jesse Jackson, the "perceived insult" .to had had it with the Nixon Republicans. vember. Black people in particular have <, the black Democrat was no accident. It­ black college students and ghetto youth So in '76 they voted inDemocratJimmy alike are proud to see a black man for been the bedrock support of the Dem­ was a message to the several million peo­ Carter, and what did they get? Carter the first time ever as a serious con­ ocratic Party, and this ticket is pretty ple who voted for Jackson in the pri­ went after the miners strike with Taft­ tender for president.... But come this hard for blacks to swallow. In 1981; the maries. It was intended to tell them who Hartley injunctions, presided over the summer and fall, there are going to be a first year ofthe Reagan administration, was running things, that blacks and 1979 Greensboro massacre of blacks lot of upset people around when they the Congressional Quarterly rated Bent­ figure out that 'Jackson action' means labor would have to "eat it." Dukakis & and leftists, initiated Cold War II being herded to the polls as voting cat­ sen the Democratic Senator most sup­ Co. are'banking on the"lesser evil" shell against the Soviet Union over Afghani­ tle for the same old Democratic Party of portive of the president. This multimil­ game of the partner parties of racist stan and with his "human rights" rhet­ strikebreaking, racist terrorand imperi­ lionaire "Texas Tory" has received more American capitalism. oric. set. up the death squad junta' in· EI alist war." funding from the corporate political . Yet they still have' to get them to the -"Jesse Jackson, Racism Salvador. and the Democratic Party," action committees than any other mem­ polls. So Jesse Jackson "made up" and The Democrats pose as the "people's WV No. 451, 22 April ber of Congress. And for good reason. got his spot on network TV for a party" of American capitalism, the We told the truth while the reformist left Lloyd Willard Bentsen, Jr. has been "unity" appeal. All his talk about "com­ phony "friends" of labor and blacks. one of the chief cover-up artists for the was stumpingfor Jackson. So now there mon ground," about the patches of his From the FDR New Deal coalition in area lot ofupset people who feeljobbed, Reagan White House. In his book Veil: grandmother's quilt, his rhyming rhet­ the '30s to Jackson's "Rainbow Coali­ The Secret Wars ofthe CIA, 1981-1987, and the key task is, as we wrote then, "to oric about going from the outhouse to tion" today, it's the Americanversion of break the chains that bind the black Bob Woodwatd writes that as a mem­ the White House, is just sucker bait to the popular front. By channeling black masses and workers to their capitalist ber of the Senate Intelligence Commit­ masters through the Democratic Party." tee, the wealthy businessman Senator Bentsen covered for CIA chief and Wall Street lawyer-profiteer Bill Casey, "Nuke 'em" Duke squashing an investigation into Casey's and the Dixiecrats illegal stock-trading. Ronald Reagan, in his weekly radio Bentsen is a real Cold Warrior, a die­ address, tweaked the Democrats after hard supporter of aid to the contras in their convention: "You'll never hearthat Nicaragua and to South African pup­ 'L' word-liberal-from them. They've pet Savimbi in Angola, and of military SEE PAGE SIX put on political trench coats and dark sales to the bloody Pinochet junta in glasses and slipped their platform into a continued on page 4 Pa..ti§du Defeu8e' £o......ittee CLASS-STRUGGLE DEFENSE NOTES Lexington Women Win Case Against Alejandrina Torres Susan Rosenberg Silvia Baraldini ing white fluorescent. lights 23 hours a day. Mandatory prison garb is bleaehed '~Hellhole Prison colorless. The prisoners are forbidden to hang pictures to cover the glaring white Underneath the Federal Correction­ surveillance follows their every step­ walls and three of them report seeing al Institution in Lexington, Kentucky is even to the shower stalls. Every private black spots on those barren walls. the female High Security Unit (HSU), a . act is monitored by a guard. Officials Susan Rosenberg reported how the barbaric dungeon designed to quaran­ restrict prisoners to one 15-minute HSU was "designed to destroy those tine, tormentand degrade political pris­ phone call with their lawyers each week who are in it, psychologically and oners. In a lawsuit brought by inmates and one family visit per month. Inmates physically.... They are trying to drive us Silvia Baraldini, Susan Rosenberg and are denied access to the prison library, completely out of our minds." Not Sylvia Brown, in Washington, D.C., and reading material is censored By surprisingly, each of the women has federal district judge Barrington Parker prison officials. To providea 20th cen­ manifested severe medical and psy­ on July 15 ruled authorities could not tury veneer to this medieval torture chological problems including marked use prisoners' political beliefs as the chamber, the prisoners are provided a weight loss, loss of appetite and inabil­ basis for placement in the HSU, and television set. ity to keep food down, dehydration, ordered Baraldini and Rosenberg trans­ Lexington's human guinea pigs are heart palpitations, insomnia and ob­ ferred to regular prison cells. subjected to high-tech barbarism using sessive anxiety. The Lexington HSU, like its coun­ "Clockwork Orange" behavior mod­ Silvia Baraldini describes, herself as terpart at Marion, Illinois, is a proto­ ification methods, foremost being' ananti-imperialist activist. Shewas con­ type psychological torture chamber, sensory deprivation. The five women WV victed on RICO conspiracycharges aris­ designed for political opponents. The prisoners at Lexington are confined to International Women's Day demon­ ing from the. 1981 Brink's armored car Gestapo would have approved. Video subterranean white tombs under glar- stration In NYC, March 5. robbery in Nyack, New York. Susan Rosenberg, long a target ofthe FBI and double jeopardy grounds-the consti­ cops, is serving 58 years on charges of tutional right not to be twice placed on possession of arms and explosives.