Re: World Socialist Web Site analysis of Camejo

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have the same view as Eli on this.

The only significant working class membership of the GP here are those
the Petroni's Left Party may of brought in, and even their recruitment
is mostly among young people, not bad in and of itself. But the GP is
simply seen, correctly for the most part, as composed of middle-class
environmentalists and 'radical activists' along with a very large
grouping of "demo-greens", those that will NOT vote for Camejo, and
will vote for the Democrats, especially now, after Camejo yesterday
said he's "...understand if GP vote for Bustimante".

The GP in San Francisco has a core of very dedicated labor union
activists, but it's very small and not even in a large minority. It's
*worse* throughout the state. The main reason for this is that the GP
doesn't see labor specifically or the working class in general as
force. Unlike Jose's semantic contortions to see the movement around
the GP as some sort of "proletarian" movement the GP is a significant,
mostly middle class environmental movement...that's it. You can, as Eli
suggests, work with the Greens (I certainly have around public power)
but it's best selling point is that it's "not the Democratic Party".

On Wednesday, October 1, 2003, at 12:24  PM, marxism-digest wrote:

> Louis P wrote:
>
> > I have a somewhat different take on the Green Party social
> > composition. My
> > mother rents out her apartment in the basement to a Green Party
> > member. He
> > is a 40ish man who prunes trees for a living. Before that he was a
> > plumber
> > until his lungs were permanently scarred in an on-the-job accident. He
> > belongs to the Greens because he feels victimized as a worker and
> > because
> > he hates what is happening to the environment.
>
> Louis, you know very well that, except maybe for his concern for the
> environment, you could find victimized workers in the Democrat,
> Republican,
> and for that matter American Independent and "Reform" parties. Limited
> anecdotal evidence does not substitute for real evidence. I have no
> statistics one way or the other, and I'll be happy if someone does and
> provides them, but I doubt there are a higher percentages of plumbers
> (or
> any other working-class job category you could mention) in the Green
> Party
> than in the other parties. If anything, my impression is that the
> percentage
> is lower, but I admit that's strictly an impression without supporting
> data.
>
> I have no problem (and I'm sure you don't care if I do) with people
> supporting Camejo and thinking that throwing their energies into his
> campaign and/or the Green Party in general is the way forward. It may
> well
> be. But please, let's not idealize the situation, shall we?


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