This article was reprinted from the August 24, 1996 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.
The Republican Convention was a wake-up call to all the people of the United States.
This was a made-for-TV convention, produced, directed and financed by corporate America and its congressional lobbies, with the Christian Coalition forces pulling the extreme right-wing strings from behind the scenes.
It was a four-day ultra-right ideological crusade, a marathon of GOP hypocrisy and unparalleled demagogy. At the same time it pushed through a hidden agenda that elevates the danger of the ultra-right and raises the stakes in the 1996 elections.
The hidden agenda was camouflaged by slogans, mottoes and catchwords: God, country, family values, honor, duty, self-reliance and "restore the American dream." The reality was concealed beneath an extravaganza of pomp and hype, sparkling red-white-and-blue hoopla. There was even a sprinkling of top-GOP entertainers straight from Capitol Hill, like Trent Lott's "singing senators" and Newt Gingrich's bit-part - his only on-camera appearance - introducing the beach volleyball Olympic gold medalist as "the essence of what freedom is all about."
It would have been just a sometimes-funny, mostly boring, overwritten and overacted screenplay - if it weren't so real, so deadly serious and threatening. If you have a healthy class instinct, a good memory, some political common sense and a keen sense of smell you could just sniff that same "whiff of fascism"Jcoming from the podium that poisoned the 1992 Republican Convention, as speaker after speaker gave us a frightening glimpse of the face of fascism USA.
The foul-smelling odor of the "Contract on America" filled the air, although the Contract itself was never mentioned. Those words were taken out of the convention script,and so were names like Buchanan, Robertson, Schlafly and especially Gingrich himself, because they have all become identified with extreme right-wing politics and everything that has gone wrong in our country.
Also forbidden - censored - was the mere mention of the main issues on the minds of the great majority of working people. Incredibly, the words homelessness, hunger, poverty, unemployment, mass layoffs, downsizing and privatizing were never uttered.
It is being aptly labeled a "stealth" convention, because the Republicans tried to fly their hidden agenda past the people undetected, concealed by low-lying clouds of demagogy and deception.
It was a political convention of the very rich - mainly white, male, small and big businessmen. Some 38 percent had incomes over $100, 000, over 25 percent were millionaires and only 2 percent were working people making under $25,000. Less than 20 percent were women, and only 3 percent were African American, Latino or Asian.
The heavily-weighted parade of minority and women speakers, with the aid of camera crews focusing on the few minority delegates, created an illusion of "inclusion and diversity." African Americans and Latinos were used in the most shameful, vulgar, racist way. Colin Powell, a born-again Republican, was presented as the model moderate of the Republican Party.
It was all designed to reverse the image of the Republicans as the political party of Wall Street, to win over the undecided, the middle class and even some women and minority voters.
In this sense Powell's speech attacking all entitlements was perhaps the most demagogic and most damaging. The fact that he drew boos from the delegates for his support for affirmative action and abortion rights revealed that the delegates to the Republican convention do not represent the majority of Republican voters but rather the extreme right wing.
The monopoly-controlled TV networks followed the Republicans' script blindly - maybe that is why they could draw only 22 percent of the viewing audience, about half of what they had in 1992. However, the manufactured illusions, the demagogic use of smoke and mirrors, evidently fooled enough of the people to narrow the gap between Dole and Clinton in the public opinion polls.
The hidden agenda was contained in the Party platform, modeled on the Contract on America and crafted by the corporate masters of deceit, with help from their Christian fundamentalist pro-fascist friends. The Republican platform is their master plan for the future of the United States.
After the platform was written, the professional image-makers took the Party line and shaped it into a softer, more moderate script that projected onto the TV screen a patriotic, caring and humane party of all the American people which would "restore the American dream."
In spite of it all, their party's nominees just couldn't resist nature's call, the call that comes from their reactionary cores to throw moderation to the winds and expose the real Dole and Kemp.
In Dole's acceptance speech, it almost seemed as if the angry voice of Pat Buchanan was finally heard - from Bob Dole's mouth. He dropped the warm and cuddly face the Republicans had been trying to peddle for four days and went into attack mode - against Clinton, his family and his administration, against the government, the teachers' union, against cuts in the military budget, against entitlements, and so on.
Jack Kemp, who was selected for his youthful, energetic, moderate image, no sooner got the nomination than he began to repudiate his past positions, such as on affirmative action and immigration, to prove that he will truly be Dole's "right hand man."
The Republican Convention should be a jarring wake-up call to all progressive, democratic forces in this country. It should also be a wake-up call to Clinton and all the delegates at the Democratic Convention this weekend.
The Democratic Convention is a golden opportunity to counter the Contract, to speak to the urgent issues confronting the working class. The Democratic delegates have an electoral opportunity-of-a-lifetime to write a pro-people, pro-labor , pro-civil rights platform that promises to undo the wreckage wrought by the ultra-right Republican majority.
It is an opportunity to convince the 20 percent of voters who are undecided and the 60 percent of non-voters to come out against Dole-Kemp and all the pro-Contract Republicans. It's an opportunity to convince the great majority of working and poor people that there is a difference.
Especially because of people's justified anger about the Republican welfare bill, it is important to remind ourselves that Clinton did veto most of the Contract legislation that reached his desk. And after bitter floor fights and a nationwide "America needs a raise" campaign by labor and its allies, the minimum wage bill was passed and signed by Clinton.
We have to keep in mind that Clinton's opportunism, his tendency to cave in to the right, can only be checked by massive pressure from labor and the people against the Contract and its backers.
We know that the "lesser evil" concept promotes illusions about the two parties. However in light of the Republican convention, the danger of the ultra-right and the rising stakes in these elections, the political reality of the moment is that we have to recognize the differences between the two parties, that there is a greater evil in this election and that it is necessary to work to defeat all the pro-Contract, ultra-right politicians.
The anger, frustration, cynicism and pessimism of so many is understandable. Americans have become more anti-government, anti-monopoly and alienated from electoral politics than ever before. There is even a silver lining to this attitude among working people - it shows a higher level of class consciousness which can lead to real political independence, ultimately a new political party led by labor. However, losing to the ultra right in '96 could set back political independence for years.
The stakes in this election are much too high to stay home, or to vote for spoilers and thus throw votes to the greater evil.
The Republican Convention should erase any overconfidence that the election is in the bag. It should confirm our worst fears that there is a fascist danger lurking in the '96 elections, and that this danger must be exposed and defeated.
If the Republicans, with Gingrich and his gang at the helm, maintain their majority in Congress, and if Dole-Kemp capture the presidency, the hidden agenda will become wide open - an extreme right-wing agenda, a poisonous brew of policies imposed on the people by the most reactionary elements in the U.S. ruling capitalist class.
If the ultra right retains its political majority, the door will be open even wider to anti-democratic forces. The attacks on entitlement programs will become all-out. The corporate assault on the working class will sharpen.
We will have more open shops and "right to work (for less)" laws. Union busting will become standard corporate-government operating procedure. Trade unions will be destroyed. Dole's attack on the teacher's unions will be only the opening shot of a policy to destroy the trade union movement.
Our democratic rights will be eroded. Racism will take on a new head of steam. Medicare and Medicaid will be liquidated.
All existing regulations that preserve our environment and natural resources will be eliminated. The public school system will be destroyed. Privatization will take root and grow like a disease, eating up every public service and institution. Reactionary policies on issues like abortion, immigration, crime and punishment will win out.
Downsizing and mass layoffs to further maximize the already-obscene profits and multi-million-dollar executive salaries will accelerate. More factories - even whole industries - will be closed, destroying lives, families and communities.
The multinational corporations will ship more and more of their plants to countries like Indonesia, India, El Salvador, Guatemala and South Korea, where children working 14 hours at $5 dollars a day will continue to replace U.S. workers' union wages and working conditions.
We should remember that fascism came to power in Germany after the fascists blocked regular operation of the democratic government and shifted the blame for the economic and social crisis on the democratically elected government.
The Nazis called their political party the German National Socialist Party to fool the people. They used demagogy, the ideology of a superior master Aryan race and loyalty to the German fatherland to throw the working class off guard. When the people heard the wake-up call it was too late to save the world from the death and devastation of fascist enslavement, the Holocaust and World War II.
We should be very clear about the fascist danger in this country. Especially at this moment it is important to be able to recognize fascist developments in a uniquely American guise.
Many consider fascism synonymous with Hitler and Mussolini. But fascism in our country develops in typically U.S. fashion. It arises out of the kind of developments and organizations that have come to dominate the Republican Party, the Congress and Senate, the Supreme Court, the federal court system, the mass media and many of the state governorships and legislatures - and the Republican Convention .
The clearest expression of the fascist danger is the Contract on America. The Contract is an open, brazen attack on the standard of living of the majority of our people. Not only would it eliminate all government programs, but it would wipe out the whole concept of entitlements and the long-standing principle that government is responsible for the welfare of the people.
If we can rid Congress of the Gingrich Gang and their Democratic bedfellows, we will have gone a long way toward getting rid of the whiff of fascism in Congress that is poisoning our political structure and eating away at the fabric of our whole society.
We are in complete agreement with the electoral policy and activities of the trade union movement. But to win will take the combined strength and power of labor and the people united - Black, Brown, Red and white. We have to convince the non-voting millions that it is in their vital self-interests to vote in this election.
Defeating the ultra right will send a signal to the pro-fascist forces nationwide - including the militias, the Ku Kluxers, the church-burners, the terrorists, religious right and pro-fascist fringe - that the people of this country will not tolerate reactionary politicians and their policies.
Such a people's victory will take the wind out of the right-wing's sails. It will force the ultra right, with its fascist-leaning and corporate supporters, to pull in their fangs.
To answer the wake-up call, labor - together with other people's organizations, mass movements and working class communities - must build electoral coalitions that will hold demonstrations and marches, speaking out on issues everywhere and every day, from now until election day.
We can only turn our country around and go forward as a people by defeating Dole-Kemp and cleaning the Gingrich Gang out of all positions of political power.
It is the only possible response to the wake-up call. It is a challenge we must accept as our number one priority, from now until the polls close on November 5th.
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