Voters give thumbs down to bosses' parties

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Sandinistas expose CIA OF SOLIDARITY He sonne Fm te Szt: Forum for Southern Africa MIse motil re Socialist A QUESTION Trade Unlons ImsouthAtrice 90p Bob Fine Lawrence Welch Sandinista leadership and creating conditions for its overthrow by the extreme Display The Sandinistas themselves have added to this, with a display of prisoners, testimony from captured raiders, stocks of US supplied weapons, and further details of the Honduras activities.

The government spokesmen listed 16 bases inside Honduras from which between three and five thousand counter-revoluleading Democrat, Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill, forecast a turn to more 'bi-partisan' policies, which will further confirm the fact that neither of these capitalist parties has anything to offer the American working class.

The Democrats, offered the sitting campaigning target of President Reagan's catastrophic economic policies, which have driven unemployment to the levels of the Depression, succeeded in winning a hefty 26 seats from Reagan to increase their own majority in the House of Representatives; but they failed to dent the Republican grip on the upper chamber, the Senate, where Reagan retains a 54-46 majority.

Though disaster was averted in several areas by the narrowest of margins, the results are no landslide defeat for Reagan.

Voters - largely drawn from the American white middle class, since vast numbers of workers, alienated by the twin parties of big business, are not even registered to vote - were plainly unconvinced that the Democrats had any serious alternative policies to offer in place of 'Reaganomics' They elso showed a considerable ability to separate political issues from politicians. A referendum on the proposal for a freeze on nuclear weapons produced overall majorities in California, Michigan, Montana, Rhode Island, North Dakota, Oregon, and New Jersey - and a staggering 74% support in Massachusetts.

Yet the support for this proposal did not necessarily flow over into support for 'pro-freeze' candidates - Governor Jerry Brown in California was defeated, and Edward Kennedy plummetted to his lowest share of the vote for 20 years in Massachusetts.

Several warmongers were among those who did lose their seats - and there was a spectaculr failure of the ultra-reactionary religious 'new right' ', which had set out to influence these mid-term elections through the well-financed 'National Conservative Political Action Committee' Not one of the 'too liberal' Democrats targetted by the NCPAC was toppled, despite its efforts, and at least one - Tennessee Democrat Jim Sasser - increased his majority.

This setback for the most extreme reactionaries will limit their already restricted ability to press-gang Ronald Reagan into implementing their demands for more anti-abortion legislation and other attacks on the oppressed and exploited.:

Reagan will certainly have to consider how much of his planned programme of action for his remaining time in office will secure the bi-partisan support needed to pass through Congress. Defence spending in particular could fall victim to this.

But Reagan can count upon the evident and total disarray of the opposition.

Reagan's claim that they had no alternative to his policies was largely vindicated not only by contradictory statements or evasion on the part of Democratic candidates, but also by the fact that Democrats have wound up supporting many of Reagan's most controversial policies.

The elections show a swing neither to Kennedystyle 'liberal' capitalist policies, nor towards right wing conservatism. Which leaves the Democrats, as the 1984 Presidential election approaches, still lacking any plausible central figure to challenge for the candidacy.

Meanwhile as Reaganomics continues to take its toll of jobs and welfare services, the American working class faces an even bigger quandary.

Lacking any independent party to represent their Interests tues are s or against a trade union leadership largely tied to the coat-tails of the Democratic Party and resolutely opposed to the building of a Labour Party.

Yet only such a political break can offer a means to channel the demands of the American working class -and in particular the blacks, unemployed and ethnic minorities who have suffered most at the hands of the two capitalist parties in recent years.

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Socialist Organiser no. 108 November 11 1982 Page 5 GREVE-GERA !• PELA n vbcc

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Harry Sloan US mid-term