Re: [Marxism] RE: Electoral politics and communist tasks

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Tony Abdo wrote:
> Lou first throws in his usual gratuitous flame (that I am like a member
> of the Spartacists), better to provide a smokescreen in the discussion
> about how far he has distanced himself from the previous SWP positions
> he once held regarding electoral politics.

Stop being so sanctimonious. You remind me of a professional wrestler
complaining to the referee about having his eyes gouged. That will do
you no good. I am the referee here, after all.

> In Lou's last post, here we also learn that Lou's current criterion is
> not the perceived anti-capitalism of the party he supports, since the
> Green Party is really not anticapitalist at all.     But rather, his
> principal criteria has become, is the political party running
> independently of the DP and RP, or not?     Lou thinks that the Green
> Party is "independent" of them, but sorry to say that not even that is
> an accurate assessment of the Greens at all.    For they are not truly
> all that independent of the DP, are they, Lou?     Most Green supporters
> are quite glued to voting the lesser of TWO evils, not three.

I don't identify with "most" Green supporters, just those who are
opposed to supporting the Democrats on a principled basis, like Howie
Hawkins, who is on this mailing list. Like Peter Camejo. Like most of
the people who come out of the Left Green Network. For those who want to
find out about the divisions in the Greens, which maps to the
"realo"/"fundi" differences in Germany, check out my Nader article that
I referred to previously. Or read this:

For a Green Presidential Campaign in 2004
By Howie Hawkins, Syracuse Greens

Presented at Regional Greens Meeting, Freeville, NY, June 28, 2003

Progressives are running scared today. They are scared of Bush and are
demanding that the Greens not run a candidate and back a Democrat, or
that the Greens backhandedly support the Democrat by not campaigning in
the swing states.

To be sure, Bush is scary. Constitutional rights restricted. Unilateral
presidential war powers. War budget hiked. International treaties
abrogated. Tax cuts for the rich. Worker safety and environmental
regulations gutted. Pandering to corporate interests in the midst of a
corporate crime wave. An anti-consumer bankruptcy bill. Invasions of
Afghanistan and Iraq, with threats of future invasions or proxy wars for
regime change in Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Venezuela,
Cuba, and who knows where else.

But the Democrats are scary, too. The majority of congressional
Democrats have let Bush have his way on every one of these issues.

If the Democratic Party won't resist Bush's policies in Congress, why
should progressives support them for the presidency?

The Democrats didn't even resist Bush when he stole the Florida vote in
2000. We now know that Gore won Florida handily from the recount done by
the media consortium that included the Wall Street Journal, New York
Times, and Los Angeles Times. But the Democrats, far more interested in
preserving the system's legitimacy than fighting its racism, refused to
make an issue of how the Republicans cut blacks from the voter rolls
through computerized racial profiling.

full: http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2003w29/msg00353.htm

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