Re: [Marxism] Green Party

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Joe Callahan wrote:
>  This is a belated comment on Camejo's Avocado declaration and on the 
> idea of revolutionaries supporting the Green Party.  The Green Party is 
> clearly a liberal capitalist party.  It makes no pretense of removing the 
> capitalists from power and replacing them with rule by the working class.

The role of the Green Party is not and cannot be socialist revolution. It 
only promises to break the stranglehold of the 2-party system and allow 
radicals like Joel Kovel, who ran for Governor in NY a few years ago, to 
reach many more people than they could as isolated individuals. Here's 
something from Joel's website. Any connection between this and liberalism 
is beyond me.

>>We believe that the present capitalist system cannot regulate, much less 
overcome, the crises it has set going. It cannot solve the ecological 
crisis because to do so requires setting limits upon accumulation­an 
unacceptable option for a system predicated upon the rule: Grow or Die! And 
it cannot solve the crisis posed by terror and other forms of violent 
rebellion because to do so would mean abandoning the logic of empire, which 
would impose unacceptable limits on growth and the whole ?way of life? 
sustained by empire. Its only remaining option is to resort to brutal 
force, thereby increasing alienation and sowing the seed of further 
terrorism . . . and further counter-terrorism, evolving into a new and 
malignant variation of fascism. In sum, the capitalist world system is 
historically bankrupt. It has become an empire unable to adapt, whose very 
gigantism exposes its underlying weakness. It is, in the language of 
ecology, profoundly unsustainable, and must be changed fundamentally, nay, 
replaced, if there is to be a future worth living. Thus the stark choice 
once posed by Rosa Luxemburg returns: Socialism or Barbarism!, where the 
face of the latter now reflects the imprint of the intervening century and 
assumes the countenance of ecocatastrophe, terror counterterror, and their 
fascist degeneration.<<

full: http://www.joelkovel.org/newreadings.html#ecosocialism1

>    Camejo as much as admits when he argues that liberal Democrats are in 
> the wrong party and should join the Green Party.  His whole article is a 
> polemic against the idea that the Green Party should defer to the 
> Democrats in the presidential election rather than run their own 
> candidate.  This shows I think how the Green Party is not a true break 
> from the capitalist politics of the two party system, but just a third 
> pro-capitalist party.

In the context of American politics today, a polemic against deferring to 
Howard Dean is quite a bold stance. If you don't believe me, just read the 
Nation Magazine which is on a crusade to chain the left to the Dean candidacy.

>    So I don't agree that revolutionary socialists should give any support 
> to the Green Party, if they do put up a candidate.  This won't advance 
> the idea of building a working class political alternative, it caves in 
> to the "anybody but Bush" refrain of liberals.

Excuse me? The "anybody but Bush" camp has been twisting the arms of every 
Green Party leader it knows to get them to fall into line. Haven't you been 
reading the stuff that has been posted here?

The Greens Under Pressure

posted to www.marxmail.org on November 8, 2003

The latest issue of the Nation Magazine has an article by Micah Sifry 
(http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20031124&s=sifry) that is meant to 
reinforce tendencies within the Green Party to act as an appendage of the 
Democratic Party, as a kind of tail upon a kite. As author of "Spoiling for 
a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America", Sifry would appear to be an 
advocate of independent political action. However, in his view there is a 
time and a place for everything:

"I love Ralph and respect his legendary accomplishments and example, but 
another Nader run as a Green or independent without an explicit and binding 
agreement to concentrate on safe states would be a terrible mistake."

Sifry is in strong agreement with Green Party leaders such as John 
Resenbrenck, whose website (www.green-horizon.org) urges a kind of 
backhanded support for the Democratic Party candidate for president, 
whoever he is:

"?the Green Party runs home grown Greens for President and Vice President 
in a vigorous campaign that includes, at the beginning, the stated 
intention to be ready to a) give their support to the Democratic ticket 
late in the campaign if the race between the R and D candidates is very 
close; or b) if the race between the D and the R candidates is very close, 
to concentrate only in states where the outcome between the D and the R 
candidates is not in doubt."

Not that I would accuse people like Resenbrenck of channeling the ghost of 
Earl Browder, but this formula is eerily evocative of the kind of maneuvers 
pulled by the CPUSA when FDR was president. They ran their own campaigns, 
but always with the message of "stopping fascism", in other words whoever 
was running against FDR.

full: 
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/american_left/Greens_Under_Pressure.htm

>    Here in Minnesota we went through the experience of Jesse Ventura, a 
> third party candidate, actually winning the election for governor and 
> serving out a 4-year term.  Of course Ventura was not a Green Party 
> liberal, he ran under the auspices of Ross Perot's Reform Party, and was 
> basically a middle-of-the-road capitalist politician.  He was elected by 
> the votes of young people and blue collar workers based on being 
> different than the Democrats and Republicans, a tough guy who wouldn't 
> put up with their crap supposedly.  But I think it shows that merely 
> having a third party is not per se a break from capitalist politics.

Did he salute Rosa Luxemburg, like Joel Kovel did?

>    There is no escape from the fact that there is no large scale working 
> class political party in the U.S., even of a reformist variety like say 
> Lula and the PT in Brazil.  The Green Party is no substitute for this.  I 
> think for now it is best to focus on concrete struggles like antiwar 
> protests, Cuba solidarity activities etc .

I think it would be a mistake to wait for a radicalized working class 
before independent political action is taken. When the Greens start to win 
some major local elections, it might actually encourage thinking about a 
Labor Party. In any case, I do encourage you to stay active with antiwar 
protests, etc.


Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org 


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