Seven Oaks Magazine.

Jack O’Dell is a long-time peace and social justice activist who was a rank-and–file union organiser while in the merchant marines during WWII; head of fundraising and southern voter registration alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference during the 1960s; and head of foreign policy for People United to Save Humanity and the Rainbow Coalition under Rev. Jesse Jackson Jr. during the 1970s and 1980s when Jackson ran for president and the leadership of the Democratic Party.

His wife, Jane Power, is also a long-time peace and social justice activist and has worked closely for decades with the ongoing struggle for publicly accessible education in the U.S. She is an accomplished researcher in Middle Eastern studies and is currently completing her Ph.D dissertation on British-occupied Palestine at Simon Fraser University.

They both currently live in Vancouver, B.C. where they are still active in community organising. Seven Oaks was fortunate enough to catch up with both of them and get their respective views on the upcoming U.S. elections, the role that mass movements could play in defeating Bush in November, and the decisive importance of voting.

1) Seven Oaks: You both have considerable experience working for radical change within the Democratic Party and in various social movements throughout the U.S. Do you think that the current manifestation of the party will have enough progressive momentum to defeat Bush in November?

O’Dell: Well if we count the momentum that is being exercised by the social base of the Democratic Party: the labor and civil rights movement’s activities that are going on, and the people of color activities that are going on, and the environmental issues that are being pushed. That is the real momentum that matters in this election, and I’m happy to say there is a lot of it going on. But the Democratic Party structure is showing the same character that it has for the last dozen years under the umbrella of centrism. You know, it’s lagging and it tends to be very constricted and in need of a lot of pushing. But I think that the base of the Democratic Party has to deliver the vote to Kerry. The Democratic Party will not do it.

Power: The Democratic Party machinery has started to try to look like people who are really active. I mean they’re sending out emails, most of which ask for money, but they usually put the name ‘from John Kerry.’ It’s like some parties that we know in Canada which say ‘we have to appear more kindly, we have to present a more compassionate image.’ The Democrats are saying we have to appear more hip, so they’re starting to use email and websites and all kinds of electronic things because they noticed that Howard Dean was too successful from their point of view at doing this kind of thing. But I think, as Jack said, they haven’t woken up to the fact that to get more votes they should be moving to the Left right now, rather than to the Right.

O’Dell: The lack of initiative on the part of the Democratic Party to see this as a critical election. This is probably the most significant election since 1948 when the decision was on the line of whether we’re going in the direction of the Cold War and turn our backs on President Roosevelt’s perspective or whether we’re going to keep up the New Deal and keep on moving. And so the biggest obstacle is that the people that are making the decisions with regard to these elections in the Democratic Party do not respond to that reality – that this is not just another election. The second thing, as an obstacle, is the hundred million people who did not participate in each of the last two presidential elections. And we’re working with a formula now where half the population goes to the polls and where whoever gets 51 per cent of the 50 per cent wins the election. Well that’s not a winning formula for a democratic society. So the idea is that we must reach out to the brothers and sisters who have not been voting and bring them a sense of what Dr. King said, the “urgency” of now. This is a now election. This is not simply choosing between a lesser evil, this election has to do with whether we will be able to preserve what’s left of our democracy and on the basis of that build it so that we can become a really democratic society.

Power: I would say it is sort of along the same line as choosing between the lesser of two evils but you’re choosing between somebody who is not that good, which is kind of a lesser evil, and somebody who could render the world uninhabitable in any one of a number of ways, through climate change, through nuclear war. So, it is a lesser of two evils, but the greater evil is a threat to the survival of humanity. I guess when we talk about the Democratic Party we mean the Democratic National Committee and then a lot of the sort of official democratic apparatus around the country. I mean, there are then a lot of democratic voters and local activists in the party who are not like that, who are still now what is being called ‘old Democrats.’ They’re the ones that would be pushing for the party to return the principles – not necessarily the same platform and program – but the principles that it started off with during the Roosevelt era. But it’s this national apparatus and the different state and local apparatuses that decided in 1980, when Reagan won in a landslide, that the Democrats were going to turn to the Right. And so it’s this new kind of apparatus which has got to be neutralized in order for the Democrats to have any kind of popular victory.

3) S.O.: What do you think of the Nader ticket this time around, or any other possible individual presidential candidates?

O’Dell: Well I don’t think the Nader ticket makes a contribution to this situation. And I’m saying that as a supporter of Ralph Nader in the last two presidential elections. But I think the focus of this is of such seriousness and such urgency that a Nader ticket is diversionary. I mean, it’s just a ticket, it’s not like he’s building a new party that would be around in 2005, 2007…etc… I don’t think he should be running. I think he should be throwing his weight, if not to the top of the ticket, to the election of Democrats and progressives in the House and the Senate, so that whoever gets elected that’s not Bush will have support in the area of the government that really counts. Because, you know, these presidents run like they’re kings, but they haven’t got any budget. They can promise a whole lot of things, but in the last analysis it’s up to Congress to pass it. I think Ralph Nader’s energy could be much more productively used in getting out the vote and supporting candidates who have a possibility at the congressional level. If this were done, his constituents could respond by saying, ‘well, I guess I better get out and vote because Ralph is not running, and he has said that we have a chance to get a Democratic majority in the Senate and a Democratic majority in the House.’ But his running for president is not a contribution at all.

Power: I don’t have anything to add to that.

4) S.O.: What are both of your assessments of the growing anti-Bush sentiment in the U.S. and how this can be channeled?

O’Dell: Well, I think the anti-Bush sentiment grows out of an awakening, as we look back over these four years, to what we have gotten from this presidency. And it’s good that people are not sleeping through this situation because it is perhaps the worst presidency since the overthrow of Reconstruction in the United States -- and that’s almost 150 years ago. So I think well of [the anti-Bush sentiment], I’m elated that it’s there, and it represents the hope for the future of the country. It is not simply personal anti-Bush sentiment, it is an understanding that this administration, as an administration, has isolated us from the world, sacrificed human life on a terrible scale (American, Iraqi and Afghani), and represents an ignorant arrogance. Everyday there are people who are assessing what the significance of this November election is, and what we the people of the United States have achieved over the last four years, and why not? And it all comes back to Bush’s doorstep.

Power: Yes, I think a lot of people still have a sense that Bush wasn’t really elected. I know that the American people are notorious for not remembering, but I think that a lot of them remember 2000 and the awful mess that took place then. And people voted for him because of his image, the kind person they thought he was. So I think that to the extent that they have found out that he was not what they thought, that he’s not this sort of ‘straight-shooter’ that would ‘get the job done’ as he had supposedly ‘got the job done’ in Texas – however you might define that. He was supposed to be ‘honest,’ ‘uncomplicated,’ especially ‘truthful,’ and then kind of a relaxed ‘good old person,’ and then efficient, you know - able to get things done. And it seems to me that people who have paid attention over the last four years would notice that none of those is true except maybe the relaxed ‘good old boy’ part. The whole rest of the image was unfounded.

5) S.O.: How do you think the anti-war movement has in any way contributed to the anti-Bush sentiment, or vice-versa?

O’Dell: Well, the anti-war movement has had a lot of experience, because we are a nation that has not been at peace since the end of WWII. We’ve been in the Cold War, and then all the real wars that grew as an expression of that. So there is a solid core of experienced people that are very much dedicated to a change and transformation of U.S. foreign policy from one of being a war culture to being a peace culture. And I think that their efforts have met a serious challenge in the Bush administration, but not the first challenge that they have had. So, in this situation they have been able to sustain their activities over a period of three or four years, and that sustenance represents both strength and vision and has made some difference, as Jane says, while people are making up their mind about the situation. If the peace movement had disappeared anywhere along the road, that catalyst role would not have been present to keep people focused. What is happening now with this awakening is that a lot of people are catching up with what the peace movement was saying two or three years ago about this administration, about U.S. foreign policy and about the Middle East and so forth. So it has been an indispensable factor in galvanizing public opinion in the United States and I know that it will grow and that awareness of their contribution is going to grow.

Power: I would just draw attention to the film by Michael Moore, which has already gotten a lot of attention. In that film a bereaved mother who has always encouraged her children to go into the military because it’s the only chance they have for education, and a good job, now says ‘I’m now starting to look at the peace demonstrators not as people who were against the soldiers, but as people who were for the soldiers and for the country.’ Often with people who lose someone [in a war] they cling to the illusion that they did not die in vain, that they died in a good cause. But this mother does not cling to that, and she has come to a whole new understanding of what the peace movement really is. And I think that the more people can understand that the best thing that we can do for our soldiers is get them out of harms way, the more they’re going to be willing to get out and vote against Bush and maybe even organise against him.

6) S.O.: The Bush administration at this point seems to represent the epicenter of right- wing clawbacks of the important social policy gains of the 20 th Century. As people who have been deeply involved in the struggles that brought these policies to fruition, how difficult is it going to be for us to maintain and strengthen them?

O’Dell: Well I think with the change in administration in this election, it will be difficult, but indeed possible, hopeful and doable. Without a change in administration we’ll see momentum to the clawbacks, because this administration has not been able to do everything in one term that constitutes its larger agenda. But I think that with a changed administration and with the fact that people have had a chance to digest the meaning of what it would mean to have social security privatised and the so-called welfare reform -- those lessons have been coming home in the last three or four years. So I predict that there will be a new energy to strengthen these institutions that were the products of democratic struggle over the last seventy-five, almost a hundred years. That’s why I originally said that this was not another ‘lesser evil’ kind of election, although Jane elaborated on it well. You know, this is not just another election. The Bush crowd has a huge agenda and they’ve been able to get through maybe about a third of it in the last few years. But the other thing is that there will be considerable let-down for people too, if they saw them re-elected, because people would really feel that there wouldn’t be much hope. That means that resistance to a second Bush administration would not do so well, and that would give the Bush agenda more momentum. And in a certain sense, our work can only really begin with a new administration, in other words, we cannot take the honeymoon that we did for Bill Clinton in 1992 where we ended up in a state of stagnation. So we’ve got to take this thing to the next stage by removing these guys through the ballot and then move on, and don’t wait to see what Kerry and them will do, we’ve got to tell them what we want. There should be a march on Washington in early April of next year that says, “Now wait a minute!” But that’s consistent with having elected him and in the process created a mass base that provides momentum.

So we have every reason to be hopeful that we can change the administration because we known that the stakes will be high, but we will be able to protect and improve – because there is a lot of improvement that is needed in the social security that we have. We need proportional representation. We need a federal minimum wage that is applicable to the whole country – we’ve got some states that don’t even have a minimum wage… well you know what that means. We’ve had an opportunity to a look at the entire range of [social policy] achievements and do some comparisons. There was an important article in The New York Times the other day that talked about how Germany and France are fighting to hold onto the 32-hour week, and five-week vacations. Well our vacations are two weeks. So there’s a whole number of things that constitute an unfinished agenda for us, so we don’t need to have that agenda under attack. We need to have the optimum conditions for completing that agenda. And that’s what [a victory] in this election could promise, rather than a reversal or retrenchment. We need to get back on the offensive as a movement.

Power: I don’t need to add anything.

7) S.O.: In both Canada and the United States, federal elections are events which young people don’t seem to take seriously. There’s a consistently low voter turnout among young eligible voters in both countries. What would be your message to young activists who might be involved in say, the antiwar movement, but not willing to engage in electoral politics in any serious way?

O’Dell: Participating in electoral politics is part of our culture. It should be just as much a part of our culture as going to a hip-hop dance or going to a good movie. That’s what people who have faith in the future and want to make a contribution to society do. Among the things that they do is vote. Most adults that you see who are still active in politics have been doing just that. I mean, you have healthcare in Canada because people are engaged in politics. Canada stayed out of war in Iraq because there was a mass movement around that issue and we had a leadership in the Liberal Party that responded to that in a limited way by not sending any Canadian troops without the UN support. So, our young people have got to get over this idea that because politics is full of problems it is not worth addressing. The electoral arena can inspire and assist all the things we want to accomplish or it can be a negative element that will reverse all the things that we want. If we want to improve the educational system – like in the States there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have education through college. Our students in Canada don’t need to be coming to college and coming out in debt. But that will be resolved in the political arena, and therefore the voices and energy and inspiration of the young people need to be in that arena based on timing of wherever it is possible to make a difference. And don’t be turned off by the fact that you don’t win every fight, that’s okay… the struggle continues. And it does. There will be struggle that involves us being in it, and there will be one without us, but there will be a struggle. So if we’re in it, we can make a difference.

Power: I would say that if people feel that their greatest contribution is going to be in movement organising rather than electoral politics, one thing they might want to look at (in addition to what Jack said) is who is going to be in positions of political power. Whoever is in power ultimately decides whether a people’s movement succeeds or fails. I mean we get presidents in the United States who say, ‘well there were 500,000 people marching on Washington today, but I didn’t pay any attention, I was watching the football game.’ That’s what Nixon used to say during the Vietnam War. You get politicians who will not move, who will not respond, who do not care what people think and do not believe that they need to care what people think. And for that reason if you want the mass movement to be able to achieve some of its objectives, you need to be also working on the electoral front.