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NAT H ENTOFF
few churchmen who recognize the costs to the poor of another four
years of Wagner- would they have spoken up? What has Harrington
to say to the new Left in that situation? From what elements can one
now construct Harrington's broad coalition for change in New York
City? I will grant that
if
John Lindsay wins, he will probably not
be elected by black and Puerto Rican votes. Out of habit, and mistrust
of
any
Republican, they will probably still go Democratic. In
this
instance, what is to be done? Does the new Left try to convert
organized labor in New York, which
is
quite happy with its relation–
ship to a Democratic party that obstructs rather than facilitates
social
change? Or does it convert churchmen and white liberals? Isn't
the
real task-the most promising one- to focus on the ghettos and work
with indigenous black and Puerto Rican leaders who are trying
to
organize their communities so that four years from now a Wagner
will not be able to take the black vote for granted?
There are similar problems in most if not all large cities.
To
talk of a broad coalition now
is
too simplistic. In what Harrington
calls a "brilliant" analysis of the new coalitionism in the February,
1965, Commentary,
Bayard Rustin
is
astonishingly simplistic when
he writes: "the objective fact is that
Eastland
and
Goldwater
are
the
main enemies--they and the opponents of civil rights, of the war on
poverty, of Medicare, of social security, of federal aid to education,
of unions, and so forth."
If
the situation were that simple, a meaning–
ful coalition, even with things as they are, would be possible. But
for the urban poor-black and white-a more immediate and more
serious enemy is the Robert Wagners, the labor leaders in alliance
with
him, those well-intentioned policy-makers of the "war" on poverty
who are making that operation a cruel hoax, and the interlocking
corporate structures which make so many basic decisions for
all
of us. The enemy
is
also those members of a Rustin-Harrington kind
of
coalition who are not protesting against a disastrous, let alone immoral,
foreign policy, a policy which rationalizes allocating at least forty–
five percent of our budget to military spending (54.5 billion dollars
in 1964) and which may ultimately bring about an integrated crema–
torium of all classes and colors.
The problem of redistributing power is much more complex
than
Harrington admits. And helping the poor learn how to organize
themselves to get power is extremely complicated. There are no
