A worker's choice on Nov. 7

By Barbara Jean Hope

Here we are. Sparks are flying as the ultra right attempts to back up and run over the gains that the working class has struggled for in this century.

Their aim is to drag us back to when older workers had no Social Security, when reading was a privilege learned by the children of those who happened to come to earth from the "right" parents, and to when labor organizing was a crime punishable by death.

At the same time, we have those who talk about voting "their conscience" and voting for Green Party candidate Ralph Nader. The ivory tower is a safe vantage point from which to dream and limagine utopia, but we aren't in utopia. We are in a capitalist nation and we must make our choices based on what we see on the streets where the smoke and fire of class warfare too often burn the dreams of those who toil in this nation.

Why would a worker vote for Nader? The spin is that a worker can get away from the two corporate-owned parties and strike a blow for freedom from those parties. However, Nader supports capitalism. Nader's spin on it is that capitalism can be made to work for people, if we reform it. However, W.E.B. Du Bois, in his 1961 letter to Gus Hall (in which Du Bois applied to join the Communist Party), said that he was joining the CPUSA precisely because he understood that capitalism could not reform itself. And neither can anybody, including Ralph Nader, sufficiently reform capitalism so that it works for workers.

The ivory tower factor is at work to the detriment of workers when we look at Nader's candidacy. The appeal to hipness and "conscience" overlooks the very real lives of workers. A few points of the reality that should drive the working class to let George W. Bush off at the next stop are these:

As governor of Texas, Bush has fought to keep Texas first in air and water pollution.

Bush heads a state that is first in working families without health insurance.

During Bush's governorship, Texas is first in executions, killing more human beings than any other state.

Calls to conscience must include calls to working-class consciousness. If workers fall for the spin from the ivory tower, some may be bamboozled into feeling good for the second it takes to pull Nader's lever. Then, back on the street, the fact will remain that a vote for Nader will allow Bush to bring to workers throughout the U.S. what he has brought to Texas.

What worker lives in an ivory tower, isolated from his/her decisions when it comes to choosing to make more children hungry or putting more older workers in poverty (sure to happen with the Wall Street schemers and the privatization of Social Security)?

If a sufficient number of workers vote for Nader, the die will be cast and Bush will be in office. If a sufficient number decide to vote in order to feel "good," bad times will be in store.

Is Gore a panacea for working-class struggle? Of course not. Is Bush a greater threat to working-class struggle? Yes.

To ensure your conscience is clear on November 8, vote like a worker, with working-class consciousness on Nov. 7.

Vote like a worker. Look at your children, at your parents and family members. They are not in an ivory tower. They are in the road about to get run over by those gunning their engines to further assault working class people in the United States. We are on the ground and Nov. 7 will break ground as the working class moves forward and out of harm's way. It is a make-or-break election. We must avoid being run over by the right wing. The primary mission at this point is to defeat George W. Bush on Nov. 7.

Do not be fooled. The results of years of struggle will be torn from the working class if Bush is allowed to slip past our barricades. Workers know the deal. Workers don't live in ivory towers. We are on the ground, making America work. America must work for workers. We cannot allow George W. Bush and the right wing to gun their engines and slip past us and into control of the three branches of government.

Barbara Jean Hope is a frequent contributor from Philadelphia.