Freedom Road Socialist Organization

All summer and fall, Black trade unionists in New Jersey signed up new voters on streetcorners, in churches and in union meetings, at registration tables hung with posters reading "After All We Have Been Through...How DARE You NOT VOTE."

That about says it all.  Without the courageous efforts of students and sharecroppers in the 1960s to register black voters in the Jim Crow south, there would be no Obama victory today.  Even 10 years ago no one could have imagined a person of African descent elected president of this imperialist superpower built on white supremacy.  The victory marks a new milestone in the battle for democracy in the US.  It does not, of course, mark the end.  Neither does it mark the end of white supremacy, or the centuries-long struggle for self-determination of African and other oppressed peoples living inside the US.

The Elections Arena: Wake up and Smell the Masses 

 In this presidential election, voters will turn out in record numbers. Pennsylvania has reached a high of 8.6 million registered voters, and the Indiana voter rolls show more than 470,000 new voters since the 2006 election. In Virginia, which had a 71 percent turnout rate in 2004, officials are forecasting turnout to be around 90 percent of the state's more than 5 million voters.

The revelations of Rev. Jeremiah Wright's remarks have unleashed a reactionary backlash that has many (virtually entirely white) people scornfully denouncing Rev. Wright as a racist, even though he is African American. This reaction has been used to reframe our understanding of race and racism in America, essentially contextualizing race as a question of personal attitudes, or comments by individuals that reflect negatively on white people.

By this reasoning, the centuries of national oppression against African Americans and against indigenous people, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Asians and immigrants are dismissed, and we must assume that everything is equal. In other words (according to this logic), oppressed people of color who have suffered in a society built on slave labor, genocide, land expropriation and discrimination can be equally racist. What convenient logic!

Senator Obama was forced to denounce Rev. Wright's remarks and disassociate himself from Rev. Wright or be denounced as a racist himself. Ultimately, Obama carefully walked a tightrope, working to disassociate himself from Rev. Wright's remarks, while tactfully trying to appease his white critics. For his role, Obama is being hailed by the white-controlled, mainstream media as having given the most significant speech on race since Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Some recent controversy in connection with the statement on the US Presidential elections by Jamala Rogers posted on the FRSO website, along with a odd exchange that accompanied a piece that I wrote at The Black Commentator on the now-halted John Edwards campaign, caused me to reflect some more on the radical Left and elections. Is there a point for the radical Left to be thinking in terms of participating in elections, be they national or local? If so, in what capacity?

Contrary to those, such as the Greens, who suggest an immediate third-party run for national (and local) office, I believe that the actual conditions plus the nature of the electoral system do not justify it. To borrow from the remarks offered by long-time writer and activist Frances Fox Piven at the recent Left Forum in New York City, there are those who wish to engage in an electoral politics that does not exist in the USA and wish to avoid the electoral politics that does.

Central to a radical left practice must be a concrete analysis of concrete conditions. Among other things this means understanding the nature of the state in a particular social formation, including how it operates, its history and the class forces operating within it. The US state is extremely undemocratic, particularly when it comes to electoral politics, making it difficult for minor or third parties to operate and be considered relevant. This reality has often led many left activists to turn entirely away from electoral politics and focus on non-electoral social movement activity. While this work may at times be exemplary, it is often disconnected from the fight for political power and can be condemned to the realm of resistance-only activity. This is not a criticism of the work, but a criticism of the decision to turn away from electoral politics.