Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 07:57:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: Electoral politics


On Thu, 25 Jul 1996, James F. Miller wrote:

>    Why did the SWP endorse Stokes? There is nothing in the
> _Militant_, or in SWP documents, about ouija boards. There
> is a political argument. I think Louis already has a rough
> idea about what that argument was.
>    Unfortunately, however, he doesn't want to discuss it with
> me, so I'll say no more on this point.
> 

Louis: Look, the point is that the Militant was for an independent black
political party. It did not make demands that it not be "bourgeois and
liberal" at the outset since it viewed the black liberation movement as
having a proletarian and revolutionary dynamic. Stokes was fifty times
more reformist and coopted than Tony Mazzochi but the SWP was smart enough
at the time to see the potential of his running *against* the Democrats.

Yesterday I had lunch with Rakesh who's in town and we spoke about the
Labor Party. I said that maybe I'm missing something but if in the next
mayoral election in NYC, Dennis Rivera, president of Local 1199, ran
against Democrat and Republican on the basis of the program hammered out
in Cleveland tailored to local conditions, how could that *not be* a step
forward?



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