ADA Takes a Step Toward the Left
Plastrik, Stanley
PERHAPS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT thing to be said about the May 1968 convention of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) was its revived spirit and liveliness, particularly impressive to one who...
...All regretted this withdrawal, yet most delegates felt ADA has passed the test of its inner political crisis...
...in fact, during the period of its relative success in influencing policies and decisions, it was precisely ADA's ability to offer concrete domestic legislation that probably accounted for such success...
...formation of a representative coalition government in the South...
...It is a revolt against what may one day be called the politics of convenience...
...The mood of questioning has been worldwide...
...Let us not suppose because goals are confused or reactions extreme that nothing is wrong...
...A last-ditch fight by the Administration defenders in the Foreign Policy Commission came to naught...
...In line with this, the current convention showed its sensitivity to the "urban crisis"—the key issue in American life—by the intensity of its discussion on such matters as guaranteed annual wage, negative income tax, ghetto housing, family subsidies, community control over education, and the legalization of "pot...
...ADA HAS GENERALLY SHOWN a particular awareness of domestic issues and problems...
...The labor movement was born out of the confessed objectives of anarchists, socialists, and reformist trade unions...
...One of the themes harped upon at the convention was the need for a completely new Administration, a theme evincing great hostility to support for Humphrey except as a final hapless alternative...
...ADA has proved to itself that an act of political courage and imagination, even if timidly undertaken, can convert a largely moribund organization into one with some semblance of life and a possible future...
...There's still a long way to go, but a step has been taken...
...Delegates were delighted by reports that the organization had recruited many thousands of new, younger, individual members...
...any movement failing to place them on its priority list is bound to miss the boat...
...Most stress was placed on those sections of the Galbraith speech dealing with the election campaign and particularly on the section that, while urging reendorsement of McCarthy, expressed the wish that the door to an eventual support of Kennedy be kept open...
...I would sense that there is a revolt against conformity—against the comfortable man of well-padded mind...
...Galbraith is a sensitive political man who recognizes that we have entered a dimly-lit phase in history where great events will be, so to speak, our daily experience, and where hopes for a democratic future are coupled with equally great dangers...
...the Commission voted them down by 19 to 3. Reiterating ADA opposition to the war in a brief preamble, the resolution urged the immediate resignation of Dean Rusk and other officials who had opposed negotiations...
...The keynote address of the new national chairman was poorly reported in the national press...
...Other proposals deal with long-range reconstruction efforts, steps toward eventual reunification of the country, etc...
...Galbraith clearly rejected the premises of American foreign policy since 1945, this observer would say, including those that motivated the Kennedy Administration...
...PERHAPS THE MOST SIGNIFICANT thing to be said about the May 1968 convention of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) was its revived spirit and liveliness, particularly impressive to one who had witnessed the factional bickering of the previous year's convention...
...The domestic agenda for the next 1 or 20 years clearly will be dominated by these issues...
...Most felt that John Kenneth Galbraith, elected chairman of ADA at the previous convention, was providing responsible leadership...
...Galbraith urged his o:ganization to realize that the universal "revolution" he foresaw would mean that liberals must be prepared to enter "new areas of activity...
...Pointing out that historians will "celebrate these last months as a time of brilliant change," Galbraith emphasized that support for the war in Vietnam had evaporated once the opposition channelized its efforts in the political arena...
...More important, the resolution proposed a series of actions to be taken by our government: 1) Immediate and unconditional cessation of bombing and any offensive actions against North Vietnam...
...No industrial community is exempt...
...3) Participation by all parties (U.S., South and North Vietnam, NLF) in the negotiations...
...2) A proposal at Paris for immediate ceasefire...
...But, added Galbraith, More than support of the Vietnam war has been a casualty of this season of discontent...
...Perhaps not since 1848 has there been anything so universal...
...The February executive board's decision, by a vote of 65 to 47, to endorse Senator McCarthy for President, had not only proven a worthwhile risk but had brought a measure of self-confidence to the several hundred delegates...
...One swallow doesn't make a summer, nor one convention a renewed movement...
...The more thoughtful and thematic content of the speech was largely lost...
...The punitive withdrawal from ADA of the ILGWU and other labor organizations after the February endorsement of McCarthy has certainly not proved fatal up to this point...
...no more American troops to be sent and an end to all military actions...
...Warning that foreign policy is "the ambush COMMENTS AND OPINIONS of American liberalism," Galbraith pointed out that "there is, in fact, no practical difference between the conservative reaction in foreign policy and reactionary conservatism in domestic policy...
...This is all to the good and welcome...
...But I think it fair to say that ADA has taken a step forward, away from its sojourn in official and uncombative liberalism, and toward that renewal of liberal-radicalism or radical-liberalism that is so essential for this country...
...It seemed an appropriate note in view of the Poor People's march then assembling in Resurrection City, the college upheaval, and the urban-ghetto crisis...
...that new chapters and groups had been started and, perhaps most astonishing of all, that ADA's treasury was solvent and its bills were paid...
...Finally, Vietnam...
...My own sense of the discussion which took place was not so much an appreciation of its level or depth—in fact, it was rather skimpy and superficial—but rather that ADA had taken the first step away from the traditional liberal center...
...It extends from New York to Paris and on to Rome, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw and Moscow...
...Essentially, this is the program Senator McCarthy has been pushing throughout the country...
Vol. 15 • July 1968 • No. 4
