Jeremy Gong for Oakland City Council? Consider Oakland’s history!
In considering whether or not East Bay DSA should endorse Jeremy Gong, or any other DSA member, for city council, we should start by looking at some of Oakland’s history as well as the concrete issues that are specific to Oakland. There are two examples in the Oakland city council whose pasts are not that different from Jeremy’s.
First is Ignacio de la Fuente. I knew Ignacio back in the 1970s and ’80s when he was the business rep for the Moulders union. He was the most militant union rep in the entire bay area, bar none. I was on the picket line with Ignacio back during the Greyhound Bus strike in the early 1980s. He got his shoulder dislocated by the cops, went into the hospital, came back a couple of hours later with his arm in a sling… and I had to physically restrain him from getting into it with the cops again!
At one point, Ignacio decided he wanted to run for Oakland City Council. He went to the Alameda County Central Labor Council (CLC), to which he was a delegate, for endorsement. They refused, telling him he had to make some more connections. So he spent the next few years making those “connections” — with the Democratic Party establishment in Oakland — got the CLC endorsement, and got elected. He then became the single most pro-big business and pro-landlord city council member in Oakland! That’s how far he traveled, because he didn’t cut his ties with the political establishment.
Then there is the example of Rebecca Kaplan, who is presently the Oakland City Council member at large. I knew Rebecca when she was an environmental activist before she ever ran for office. Her politics weren’t really all that different from Jeremy’s. Today, Kaplan has good “progressive” positions on a whole host of different issues, such as cutting ties with ICE. But the main point is that in reality she’s part of the good-old-boys and gals club that runs the city. That club is the local, liberal/“progressive” Democratic Party, of which she’s a member. (Previously, she was a Green.) Yes, I know that candidates run for city council without a party line, but it’s the Democratic Party club and the backers that play a major role in both determining who gets what backing as well as who does what once elected. While Kaplan has voted the “right” way on a number of different issues, her votes didn’t really matter because they were guaranteed to be in the minority. That’s because Kaplan has never done anything to actually build a working class movement in the streets of Oakland.
And that leads to the second point: What is desperately needed in this country is a mass working class party. Such a party is most likely to be started exactly through that movement in the streets. And not just any such movement, but one of open defiance and — yes — disruption. It is exactly for that reason that it’s so unfortunate that the overwhelming majority of East Bay DSA has not done anything of note to actually build such a movement. Nor do I know of Jeremy Gong having advocated such within EBDSA.
It’s for these reasons that I don’t see any reason to think that if elected Jeremy won’t be more than just another minority liberal/“progressive” voice on the city council. One that is seduced by the pleasantries of the rest of the council members, but won’t use his office to build that desperately-needed movement. Just as Rebecca Kaplan has failed to do.
I should add one other point: I have read Jeremy’s program and it unfortunately shows a lack of awareness of the issues that are specific to Oakland. Many of his points get back to the issue of funding. The issue of city finances is directly linked to another issue that has been long covered up in our city: The fact that the Port of Oakland is not taxed. Even in last year’s Oakland teachers’ strike, this issue was ignored by the OEA leadership. The reason is that this is a complete no-no for the main powers-that-be in the City. Not even Rebecca Kaplan will touch it. Maybe Jeremy doesn’t mention it because he’s unaware of the issue, but in any case it has to be central to any campaign. Jeremy’s failure to mention it now doesn’t bode well for the future if he gets elected.
Related to that are specific local issues concerning land use — ranging from the corporate controlled Oakland Zoo taking over the beautiful Knowland Park to the A’s taking over a part of the Port (thereby furthering gentrification and threatening thousands of well-paid blue collar longshore jobs). I tried to get EBDSA to get involved in such issues with a singular lack of success. Unfortunately, Jeremy did not join in that attempt, so I see no reason to think that he will go against the grain if he’s elected.
So, while I’m entirely in favor of EBDSA running candidates for local office, I think it should flow from the building of a movement in the streets, and also as far as the unions are concerned helping build a rank and file movement to transform the unions themselves. It should also be based on building an alternative to the Democratic Party. Otherwise, it will be sucked into the same old liberal/“progressive” Democratic Party politics as usual. Just as we’ve seen up until now.
To return to the issue of Ignacio de la Fuente: the CLC (Central Labor Council) pushed de la Fuente into the arms of the Democratic Party politicians, and he went on from there. Instead, the CLC should have told de la Fuente “we’ll support you as a workers’ representative who makes his campaign one to build an alternative to the Democratic Party. You might not win this time, but you’ll be building a base, building a movement for that.” Times are different now from what they were back then and the evolution of de la Fuente is unlikely to be the exact same today. It would be more similar to that of Rebecca Kaplan. But the lesson is there, just as it is for Rebecca Kaplan. And that’s the position EBDSA should take with any member who wants to run for Oakland City Council.
John Reimann
50 year Oakland resident, “Funktown” neighborhood
