Marching or Mobilizing

On October 2, 2010, about 175,000 people from over 300 different organizations gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC n the Washington Mall and heard speeches by numerous leaders on the theme of “One Nation: Working Together for Jobs, Peace, Education, and Justice.” These groups comprising of traditional labor, civil rights, peace, education, environment, and GLBT (Gay Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transsexual) groups were making their statement about the need for a society that places human beings ahead of profits. Speaker after speaker decried the “massive tax giveaways to the rich when 50% of our children are living in poverty.” There were signs all over the mall calling for the arrest and “locking up the Wall Street crooks.” As one of the marchers who listened to the four-and-half hours of speeches, I would like to say that the most significant aspect of this march was its positive and inclusive character. There were blacks and whites, young and old, gays and straight, workers and students, unwaged and wage earners, Latinos and Asians, and citizens from all walks of life. In fact, what was striking about this inclusiveness was that it reflected the multinational and the multiethnic character of the US. The multiethnic composition of the marchers did in fact, conceptually render the theme of the march contradictory to the character of the march.

Unity and diversity of the working peoples

The march and the diversity of the social forces in motion was a major step in moving from the celebration of “patriotism” and “nationalism” that have informed the mobilization for wars and militarism in the past. One speaker, from the First Nation Peoples, called on the persons present to work for the new society that recognize the differences and common humanity of all. It was a way of stating that the First Nation people were always supporting the idea of a shared humanity. This intervention of the First Nation speaker was the clearest reminder that the United States was a society of many nations and many peoples with many languages. This is in itself a strength that came out. But this strength was undermined by the intellectual and ideological lag of those who hold on to the concept of the nation-state. It is a conceptual drawback coming from the capitalist classes that continues to hold the society from realizing its full potential. The October 2, 2010 One Nation march was a clear response to the conservative Tea Party Nation and its racist orientation.

The Tea Party Nation describes itself as a "group of like-minded people who desire our God given Individual Freedoms which were written out by the Founding Fathers. We believe in Limited Government, Free Speech, the 2nd Amendment, our Military, Secure Borders and our Country.” This Tea party Nation has been campaigning across the US society under the slogan, “We want our Nation back.” This is an explicit statement by the conservative forces that they wanted a white nation in the United States. This contradiction between the vision of a white nation and a multi racial and multinational society is one that was addressed by many speakers.

Who were the forces in Motion?

I was very pleased that the first group that I saw was a group of Koreans marching for justice and peace under the banner of Koreans United for Peace and Jobs. Then I met a group of Latinos marching behind the banner of La Raza. Marchers had come into the capital of the USA on over 2000 buses from all over the country, and the subway exit into the mall was like a huge throng for over three hours.

Everywhere on the mall, there were marches within the big march, with groups from different parts of the country carrying banners demanding jobs, peace, and justice. This diversity of groups meant that although the political and organizational leadership of the march was under the traditional trade union organizations such as the UAW, SEIU and the AFL-CIO, there was a major presence of the peace and justice forces who organized literature stands, and small marches. So this was a network of marches in marches and protests within protest. One group paraded a huge plastic elephant portraying the billions being spent on war with the slogan, The elephant in the room.

This was a disguised reference to the fact that the establishments in the Senate, the White House and in Congress were carrying forward the policies of the Republicans by continuing the wars that had been initiated during the Bush administration. It was also another reminder that when Eisenhower had remarked on the military industrial complex in the USA, Eisenhower had included the US Congress who acted as errand boys and girls for the militarists.

As a veteran of the peace movement, it was different to see main stream union members who were out in force. I participated in this historic event at a section where there were members of the International brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) in bright yellow shirts. Other Civil Rights workers were prominent in their Blue T Shirts. Workers from the International Association of Machinist brought their long history of struggles for jobs with justice; they brought out a call for workers to align with communities and with persons in church groups so that the struggles of the workers move from the work place to the community. Labor unions, faith based groups, students and others have been working all across the country to call on actions across racial lines and across the barriers between workers and the unwaged.  Santa Gupta from Jobs with Justice spoke eloquently at a pre demonstration rally at RFK stadium on the need for those who are currently employed to stand in solidarity with the jobless. The new media can bring this message to all communities, especially for those who were not at the October 2 One Nation March.

Workers from established trade unions such as the United Auto Workers (UAW), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, AFL-CIO, National Education Association (NEA), Communications Workers of America, and the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) were very prominent. Many of these leaders gave short speeches and there was no hint of self criticism from the top union officials over their past support for the militaristic and jingoist policies. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka was introduced as a long standing militant and his speech steered away from the vexing question of war in the midst of a depression. Richard Trumka said boldly,

Trunka requested a promise from those gathered:

As the head of the largest trade union center in the country, Trunka could have been much more explicit in his call for workers to be part of the anti- racist and anti-imperialist force that is now needed to avoid the massive racist mobilization of the Tea Party Nation.

Fighting Racism and Chauvinism in the US

The rally in the US was an important anti racist front coming a month after Glenn Beck and the conservative forces organized a rally at the same venue to hijack the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. This One Nation march was an attempt to bring working people together against racism. Ed Schultz of MSNBC was most forthright in his anti racist appeal. Schultz can be distinguished from other liberals who have been passive in the face of the rising racism in the US. I mention Schultz because many of the trade union leaders do not want to confront the reality of  whiteness and the role of big capitalists in stirring up racial divisions among the working people. It has been the phenomenon of whiteness that allowed the capitalists to blunt the distinctions between white workers and white capitalists. The reality of the concentrated efforts of the billionaires to finance the Tea Party Nation is that poor working people are being steered to fight against their own interests. So, although there is no appetite for war among the working people, the Tea Party Nation is carrying forward a militaristic message, instigating the kind of divisions that are preludes to open warfare.

President/CEO Ben Jealous of the NAACP beseeched the massive turnout to look towards the multi-racial future of the United States. Evoking the long struggle for equal rights, Jealous asserted that, “We’ve come too far to turn back now.” “We’ve got to go home and ask our friends and ask our neighbors to vote. Get up off the couch and get out and vote November 2,” he appealed.

Nearly all the speakers made reference to the fact that billions are being spent on war while millions are unemployed and communities need to be cleaned up. Veterans such as Harry Belafonte and Jesse Jackson made references to the historic march of August 1963 in Washington. Belafonte eloquently outlined the idiocy of the wars in Afghanistan and the billions that are being spent in fighting an unwinnable war.

Belafonte said firmly and clearly,

Belafonte comes from a tradition of organizers who were in the civil rights revolution. Invoking the long traditions of peace and justice from the era of Martin Luther King, Since the March on October 2, hundreds have watched his presentation on You Tube.

 

Belafonte called for an end to all wars. Jesse Jackson followed up with this link between peace and civil rights and called for a cut in the military budget. Both Belafonte and Jackson were speaking with the memories of the massive mobilization that had taken place in the United States to defeat Jim Crow. Belafonte was saying that it was only the organization and mobilization of the people that can defeat the contemporary Jim Crows who are “want their country back.”

When the march in Washington took place in 1963, those who gathered in Washington came from long traditions of struggle, whether from the Mississippi Delta, the bus boycott, or the sit ins at lunch counters, the march brought together people who had been mobilizing and organizing. The challenge today is to build on the work that is being done in every community for peace, jobs, environmental justice, civil rights and the rights of same sex persons.

We must learn from those who paved the way but build with the new insights from the fifty years of struggle since the Civil Rights Revolution. A young student from Gallaudet University spoke clearly that the Civil Rights struggles of today were not only anti-racist struggles, but struggles for all citizens, regardless of abilities. Here was a student who was deemed disabled by the society making a passionate plea for the society to be more inclusive and that this inclusiveness must start from those who would want their own rights.

Here was a call for the technologies to be mobilized for the health and well being of all in the society. One young woman from the LBGT community challenged the traditional Civil Rights leaders to be more forceful in fighting homophobia and sexism in their communities.

Connecting the struggles across the society

The very strength of the march – i.e. its diversity and inclusiveness – meant that there was a clear, consistent analysis about the nature of the economic crisis and why militarism is so central to those in power. What was missing from this One Nation rally was the clear analysis on how the ruling class and those in power were using the structural crisis of capitalism to shift a greater burden on working peoples. In fact, there was a great effort by many of the speakers to avoid a criticism of capitalism but this was the elephant on the mall. Students and workers from all parts of the country have been involved in actions against the intensified exploitation. The nature of this capitalist crisis is very different in so far as nations and states are facing bankruptcy. California with its big deficit of over $34 billion is the poster child of this new face of the capitalist crisis. It is in California that students and workers have been engaged in prolonged struggles against a state government that has been spending billions on prisons than on education. It is this same state government that promotes divisions within the prison system so that black and Latino workers are fighting each other in prison and in their communities. The One Nation March on Washington was very clear on its position that all immigrants must have rights whether these were ‘legal’ or ‘illegal’ immigrants. This call from California to Maine is a call that opposes the anti-immigrant sentiments that are being whipped up across the country.

Over the past year, the intensity of the cuts in California has led to numerous battles with students and workers registering victories. These victories were not communicated because so much of the energy of the speakers was focused on calling people to register to vote on November 2. Trunka of the AFL-CIO outlined that the AFL-CIO was going to call on workers to ‘knock on doors’ so that working people could come out to vote to ensure that the Republicans did not take over the Congress. What Trunka did not address was whether this mobilization would continue after the November 2 elections.

Many youths did not identify with this One Nation march precisely because of the focus on the midterm by the establishment forces. From my community, members of the peace and justice forces converged on Washington because they understood that this struggle was going to be there long after November 2. The organization for election is very different from the organizing for long term change. So while  I would agree that it is important that the right wing forces do not capture Congress, it is even more important that grassroots organizing continues beyond the march in Washington for structural changes in the society.

The Media and the One Nation Rally

After the march I looked at the major newspapers to see how they would characterize this event that brought out the richness and diversity of the US. It became clear that the main media wanted to act as if this event did not take place. The same media that had given intense coverage to the utterance of the Tea Party leaders and those who stir up anti Islam sentiments want to act as if the working people are not in motion. This silence of the mainstream media places more importance on the need to strengthen alternative media among the progressives. The alternative media must develop the capabilities to expose the reality that the One Nation march on Washington was not an isolated US event. All over the world from South Africa to Iceland, workers have been organizing to defend their standard of living.

In the same week, there were workers demonstrating in France, England, Greece, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland, and Spain. So, the march in the US was not an isolated phenomenon, but the response of workers to the intensified exploitation in the midst of economic depression. Whether this exploitation is called austerity measure or reducing overheads, workers are battling to maintain a decent standard of living. In France, where the militancy of the workers has brought out millions on the street, the government has tried to use division among the people by whipping up anti Islam and anti Roma sentiments. The expulsion of the Roma people from France has been one of the efforts to blunt the militancy of the working people, and it requires full time mobilizing and organizing to beat back the long history of racism and chauvinism in Europe.

In the United States, racism is so deep that the traditional organizations do not want to confront the realities. This is especially the case in the education sector. While there was a major presence of teachers and those from the National Education Association at the March, the teachers who are fighting to preserve their jobs have so far refrained from taking up the issue of racism in the text books and racism in the very structure of the US educational system. AFT President Randi Weingarten called for "a new era of excellence and equity in America's public schools" and urged people to join with America's teachers to ensure "great, quality public education.  However, this leader of one of the major teachers’ union failed to be explicit on what it would take to achieve equity in the public schools to halt the drive towards charter schools and the privatization of education.

Students in California are being most explicit in the linkages between the anti racist struggles, the anti-imperialist struggles and the anti-war struggles. At California State University at Fullerton, students took over the administration building and declared that,

It is this international solidarity that must now be built beyond the organizing for elections. When I first heard of this plan for the march, it was clear that there were sections of the Congressional Democrats who envisioned the march as one way to get to the grassroots. However, the explicit and autonomous organizing by the peace and justice forces within the One Nation rally was a reminder that the peace and justice forces cannot be turned on and off for politicians. The people wanted an end to the bail out of Goldman Sachs and the bankers. Al Sharpton said clearly at the rally,

The Obama administration cannot expect to be on the defensive and win the support of the workers and unemployed. One message was sent  to Obama and the White House by the voters of Washington DC who voted out Adrian Fenty and Michelle Rhee. These were politicians and administrators who wanted to restructure education in a way that supports the privatization of education. Barack Obama and Arnie Duncan have not yet learnt the lessons of the anger of the people and the call by speakers of the One Nation rally for people to go out and vote will be meaningless until the people begin to understand that the challenge is to build a new society.

Van Jones who was hounded out of the Obama administration by the right wing and the corporate media tried to give a vision of a future based on a clean environment powered by wind and solar energy. The vision of Van Jones was however constrained by his unwillingness to now learn the full lessons of the intransigence of the capitalist class and the corporate media that is now bent on ensuring that counterrevolution takes over the society. Rupert Murdoch has crossed a line and Obama and Cass Sunstein are afraid to confront Murdoch and the corporate media who are whipping up hatred. Obama and the Democrats who hope to benefit from the One Nation march must act to halt this train to open warfare.

The left and progressive forces had joined the One Nation rally because they understood that it is the new organizing that can take the people through elections and sustain the networks that must be built to fight against the counterrevolutionary forces who are seeking to “restore [dis]honor.” Belafonte said clearly that this was the organization against Totalitarianism. I agree with UAW President Bob King who stated that, “we have to rebuild a social movement in America." He needed to go further to say that this social movement must be a movement for a new social system.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Dr. Horace Campbell, PhD, is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University in Syracuse New York. He is the author of Barack Obama and Twenty-first Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA     Click here to contact Dr. Campbell