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Proletarian Revolution No. 61—What’s Inside?

Our lead article, Bush/Gore: Is There a Lesser Evil? provides an analysis of the Bush/Gore election campaign, highlighting the greater-than-usual drive for both candidates to appear the most mainstream and dull. The ruling class needs to pursue cautious policies, to avoid upsetting a temporary, jittery economic equilibrium that is being passed off as a “record prosperity.” The easing of crisis in the U.S. has only been possible by shifting the burden of global crisis onto imperialist rivals and imperialized areas. But the arrangement has led to growing outbursts of mass anger internationally, and a deep discontent among American workers. This polarization between the rulers and the ruled is a vital subject for revolutionary-minded workers and youth.

The article also emphasizes opposition to the notion of voting for the “lesser evil” Gore—and the Democrats in general. In fact, it demonstrates how Clinton/Gore have used their cover of supposedly being the friends of labor and blacks to launch massive attacks on workers in areas from welfare to medical insurance. The revolutionary principle of no poltiical support to bourgeois parties is verified by this concrete discussion.

In an accompanying article, Ralph Nader’s Corporate Campaign, Proletarian Revolution takes on the campaign of Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. In a serious campaign this time around, Nader has garnered support among a number of leftists, and sparked interest among disgruntled labor bureaucrats. We make clear Nader deserves no support from workers and their allies; his campaign is only a slightly left version of bourgeois populism. For example, his opposition to the World Trade Organization and the China Trade Bill is on a protectionist basis; he virtually avoids issues of racial oppression; he dismisses women’s and gays issues as “gonadal politics;” and mounts no opposition to U.S. imperialist “foreign policy.” Those labor bureaucrats maneuvering with Nader are basically doing so as a pressure tactic on the Democrats. Those leftists supporting him expose themselves as showing disdain for the struggles of the working class. The article is a vital tool for those who wish to fight against the stream of the left which capitulates to bourgeois “alternatives."

ISO vs. SWP: Who’s More Opportunist? examines the brief but fierce faction fight within the IST between the British Socialist Workers Party, and the American International Socialist Organization, which appears to have inconclusively ended. It examines the SWP’s recent turn towards left labourism in general and parliamentarism in particular. It does likewise to the ISO’s own opportunist turn to workers struggle, combined with its focus on various middle-class campaigns. It then summarizes the basic IST positions that contrast sharply with the revolutionary Marxist worldview.

A major article, New York Battle Against Police Brutality Needs Revolutionary Leadership, focuses on the militant campaigns that arose in the wake of notorious police brutality cases in New York. It provides a hard-hitting analysis of why the struggles for justice for Amadou Diallo and Patrick Dorismond seem to be hitting a dead end. The reasons lie with treacherous leadership and strategy. The role of revolutionaries in these struggles is highlighted; we fight for working-class mass action and the building of revolutionary leadership and struggle to stop police terror.

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