1988 DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CONVENTION : Platform: Americans Have Right to Economic Justice

\o7 ATLANTA\f7 —  The adoption of the Democratic platform at the party’s national convention constituted an important tactical victory for Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis. Only two Jesse Jackson-sponsored minority planks--on raising taxes and barring first use of nuclear weapons--were proposed and both were soundly defeated. Here are excerpts from the platform as passed Tuesday:

We the people of the Democratic Party of the United States of America . . . hereby pledge our party, our leaders, our elected officials and our every individual effort to fulfilling the following fundamental principles for all members of the American family.

We believe that all Americans have a fundamental right to economic justice in a stronger, surer national economy that must grow steadily without inflation, that can generate a rising standard of living for all . . . that, as a first-rate world power moving into the 21st Century, we can have a first-rate full employment economy. . . .

We believe that the time has come for America . . . to reverse seven years of “voodoo economics,” “trickle down” policies, fiscal irresponsibility, and economic violence against poor and working people. . . .

We believe that government should set the standard in recognizing that worker productivity is enhanced by . . . safe and healthy work places, now jeopardized by seven callous years of lowered and unenforced occupational safety standards for American workers. . . .

Tools to Manage Trade

We believe that America needs more trade, fair trade, an administration willing to use all the tools available to better manage our trade in order to export more American goods and fewer American jobs. . . .

We believe that the education of our citizens, from Head Start to institutions of higher learning, deserves our highest priority, and that history will judge the next administration less by its success in building new weapons of war than by its success in improving young minds. . . .

We believe that illegal drugs pose a direct threat to the security of our nation from coast to coast . . . that every arm and agency of government at every federal, state and local level . . . should at long last be mobilized and coordinated with private efforts under the direction of a national drug “czar.” . . .

We believe that all Americans should enjoy access to affordable, comprehensive health services . . . that the HIV-AIDS epidemic is an unprecedented public health emergency requiring increased support for accelerated research on . . . treatments and vaccines, comprehensive education and prevention. . . .

We believe that this country’s democratic processes must be revitalized . . . by assuring and pledging the full and equal access of women and minorities to elective office and party endorsement. . . .

We believe in a clearheaded, tough-minded, decisive American foreign policy that will reflect the changing nature of threats to our security and respond to them in a way that reflects our values. . . .

We believe in an America, neither gun-shy nor trigger-happy, that will promote peace and prevent war--not by trading weapons for hostages, not by sending brave Americans to undefined missions in Lebanon and Honduras . . . but by maintaining a stable nuclear deterrent sufficient to counter any Soviet threat. . . .

Strategic Weapons Reductions

We believe in following up the INF Treaty, a commendable first step, with mutual, verifiable and enforceable agreements that will make significant reductions in strategic weapons in a way that diminishes the risk of nuclear attack by either superpower. . . .

We believe the apartheid regime in South Africa to be a uniquely repressive regime . . . that the time has come . . . to declare South Africa a terrorist state, to impose comprehensive sanctions upon its economy . . . and to determine a date certain by which United States corporations must leave South Africa. . . .

In sum, we believe it is time for America to change and move forward again in the interest of all its families. . . .