- By TIM WHEELER
U.S. Daily World
Washington Correspondent

A network of 711 corporate

olitical Action Committees
(PACs) and ultra-right groups has
Taised a war-chest of well over
$100-million that big business is
Pouring into the campaign coffers
Of rightwing, anti-labor political
Candidates in the 1978 elections.

Both Republican and Demo-
Cratic candidates are the reci-
Plents of this largess. Senator
Jesse Helms, a North Carolina
Republican, a rabid ultra-rightist,
for example, has received over
q Million in contributions for his

Te-election bid, while Rep. Larry
McDonald of Georgia, a member
of the National Council of the
John Birch Society, is receiving
full political and financial backing
for his re-election campaign on
the Democratic Party ticket.

The aim of the big business
drive is to sharply expand the
Number: of right-wing, racist,
Congress members of both major
Parties, while defending incum-

nt seats to preserve past gains.

Liberals Targeted
Labor circles here warned that

the goal of this powerful alliance

IS to defeat liberal congressmen
and state and local officials, and
replace them with hardline, labor
aiters, racists, and other tools of
big business profiteering.
Jeff Byron, a researcher for the

| Committee for An Effective Con-

DANIEL MOYNIHAN

AR

gress, told the Daily World that
the ‘‘campaign is being spear-
headed by the Business Industry
Political Action Committee and
the National Association of Man-
ufacturers: These groups have
made a big point of getting these
PACs started. They are looking
further down the road toward
electing a Congress that will do
theit bidding.” . e
The PACs were authorized
under the Federal Election Cam-
paign Act of 1974, ostensibly to
end the stench of political corrup-
tion flowing from Watergate. In-
stead of ending the corruption

however, the PACs have opened .

the way for an outright big busi-
ness takeover of Congress and
other levels of government, labor
officials charge.

Big Stakes

Ben Albert, an official of the
Committee on Political Educa-
tion, warned recently that the
corporations and their right-wing
cohorts are ‘looking toward a
Congress controlled both in num-
bers and ideology by the likes of
Senators Thurmond, Helms,
Garn, Hatch, Crane, Edwards,
and McDonald,” the most viru-
lent bloc of labor baiters in Con-

gress. ;
‘‘They see in the not too distant

future a President in the White
House willing to repeal OSHA

- (Occupational Safety and Health

Act) ... to push across a national
compulsory open shop law, to lop

off any job programs, to excise
any government responsibility for
housing, health, welfare, educa-
tion,’’ Albert said.

A recent report from the Fed-
eral Election Committee (FEC)
revealed that 711 Corporate
PACs, together with right-wing
‘“‘trade’’ groups, such as the
American Medical Association’s
PAC, have raised over $40-
million to fund the campaigns of
right-wing candidates. The Re-
publican Party has raised an addi-
tional $63.9-million for its candi-
dates, the majority of the right-
wingers, for a combined total of
more than $100-million. The FEC
has reported that the Democratic
Committee has raised $21-million
and a large percentage of this also
goes for the election of extreme
right-wing racists and cold war-
riors like Senator Eastland, Jack-
son, and Moynihan.

Among the biggest fundraisers
for the right-wing candidates are
Citizens For the Republic,
$2,116,961, the National Conser-
vative Political Action Commit-
tee, $2,075,635, the Committee
for the Survival of a Free Con-
gress, $1,497, 802 (set up by union
busting Colorado beerbrewer
Joseph Coors) the American
Medical PAC, $1,462,0625, Gun-
owners of America $1,194,216,
Realtors PAC, $1,096,415, and
the Automobile and Truck Deal-
ers Election Action Committee,
$1,059, 625.

Ranking corporate con-
tributors include top Pentagon
contractors like General
Dynamics Corporation, Volun-
tary Political Contributions,
Standard Oil of Indiana
(AMOCO), SunPAC (Sun Oil

’Co.), Winn-Dixie Stores (a
notorious union buster), General
Electric Company, and Interna-
tional Paper Company.

The corporation PACs and
right-wing groups rely heavily on
the sophisticated computerized
direct mail organization of the
Richard A. Viguerie Company of
Falls Church, Va., to coordinate
and solicit the contributions from
a list estimated to number 20 mill-
ion people. According to “‘View-
point,’’ a publication of the

. AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union De-
partment, Viguerie plans to mail
out 100 million letters this year in
support of right-wing candidates
and causes. :

“Hit List”

The ultra-right big business al-
liance has compiled a ‘‘hit list’’ of
incumbent House and Senate lib-
erals they hope to defeat on
November 7. They are pouring
millions into the campaign coffers
of their right-wing opponents.

Already, Jeffrey Bell, assistant
to Ronald Reagan when he was
governor of California, has de-
feated Senator Clifford Case

_(R-NJ) despite broad labor sup-
port for Case. Bell, who faces
former pro-basketball player Bill
Bradley in the general elections,
is receiving lavish contributions

| from beer brewer Joseph Coors, a

guru and moneybag of the “‘new
right,”’ as well as from the heirs to
ultra-righist H.L. Hunt’s oil mill-
ions in Dallas, Texas.

Senator Dick Clark (D-Iowa),
who pushed through the Senate
the amendment blocking covert
U.S. intervention in the Angola
civil war, faces an uphill battle for
re-election against ultra-rightist
Roger Jepsen, who is likewise re-
ceiving tens of thousands of dol-
‘lars from Coors, the Hunts, and
other extreme-right individuals
and groups.

Rep. William Armstrong (R-
Colo) has received hundreds of
thousands of dollars in contribu-
tions for his extreme right-wing
campaign to unseat Senator
Floyd Haskell (D-Colo).

Incumbents Supported

‘Rightwing and big business
money also goes to support. in-
cumbents such as Senator Helms
(R-N.C.), one of the most ven-
omous racists and labor baiters in
Congress, Senator Orrin G.
Hatch (R-Utah), and Senator
James A. McClure (R-Ida), who
together spearheaded the suc-
cessful filibuster against the
Labor -Law Reform bill.

There is a sharp racist edge to
this: drive. Singled out on the
ultra-right ‘“‘hit tist’’ was Senator
Edward W. Brooke (R-Mass), the:
only Black Senator. The right~
wing went after Brooke by run-

against him in the Republican
primary, and by supporting How-
ard Phillips, chairman of the Con-
servative Causus, in the Demo-
cratic primary. Phillips is the thug
chosen by former President
Nixon to turn the War-On-
Poverty into a ‘‘war-on-the-
poor.”

It is evident that an effective
fightback can be mounted by the

ning right-winger Avi Nelson

fact that both these ultra-right op-
ponents of Brooke were defeated
last week in Massachusetts’ pri-
maries.
Labor Raising Money

So far this year, organized
labor has raised $13.5-million to
counter big business’ multi-
million dollar election year blitz.

Money, of course, is not the
most important element in labor’s
fightback. Indepedent_ political
action, fielding candidates that
represent the interest of working
people and the poor, Black,
Latino and white is increasingly
recognized as the key.

Peasants
seize land

OAXACA — Army troops and
state police are patrolling the
town of Tuxtepec, Mexico after
about 600 peasants armed with
machetes and shotguns took over
about 4,500 acres of private land.

Alfonso Mendez Marcial, one
of the invasion leaders, told Oax-
aca state authorities the peasants
took over the land because they
were ‘‘tired of waiting for the fed-
eral government to make good on
a promise of granting us some
land.”

AID NEEDED
FOR VIETNAM

Severe floods have seriously
affected nine provinces in Viet-
nam resulting in enormous los-
ses and suffering to more than
12 million people.

The World Peace Council has
sent out an urgent call to all its
national committees in 130
countries for material help,
food, clothing, medicines,
building materials. The Viet-’
namese people, who suffered
enormous losses during the
war against United States inva-
sion and now compelled to pro-
tect their borders from the
Kampuchean invasion and
threatened by Chinese military
attacks, need all possible help
from those who gave so gener-
ously during the war against
American occupation. |

All aid should be sent
through Canadian Aid to Viet-
namese Civilians, Box 2543
Vancouver, British Columbia,
V6B 3W8.

Further information is also
available from the Ontario rep-
resentative of Canadian Aid to
Vietnamese Civilians at 75
Essex St., Toronto M6G 1T4
(416) 536-3144.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—October 20, 1978—Page 7

FLOOD VICTIMS | —