[Marxism] Fw: Kerry and Progressive Party Building

[andrew c pollack <andypollack@xxxxxxxx>]

For those of you whose blood pressure wasn't already high enough...
Trivia question: what scurrilous Trot-baiting pamphlet title is used in
this screed?
Hint: The sentence immediately after the title is an out-and-out lie.
Bonus points for remembering the name of author of said pamphlet.

--------- Forwarded message ----------
From: moderator@xxxxxxxxxxxx
To: portside@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:10:39 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Kerry and Progressive Party Building
Message-ID: <200409230010.i8N0Adkb027351@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Future Hope Column, September 21, 2004

Kerry and Progressive Party Building

By Ted Glick

Peter Camejo was the first one I heard put it out, back
in April: "Kerry will do what Bush wants to do better."
In other words, Kerry and the Democrats are the greater
evil, not the Republicans which, followed to its
logical conclusion, means that Camejo hopes that
Bush/Cheney will win re-election.

Since that time I've heard and seen others put forward
this same point of view. There's not a lot of them on
the Left but they're out there. The Counterpunch
website seems to be a repository of several authors who
take this approach.

It reminds me of the old socialist saying, "Left in
form, right in essence."

I don't support John Kerry and never have. The main
difference between his plan for dealing with Iraq, put
forward yesterday, and Bush/Cheney's is that he wants
to bring in other countries to help do the job of
creating a U.S.-friendly Iraqi government. Neither of
them want to see genuine Iraqi self-determination and
sovereignty. In that surface respect there's a grain of
truth to what Camejo and some others are saying and
writing.

But a recognition that both Bush and Kerry are about
maintenance of the Empire ignores a number of very real
differences on policy between them: on civil rights, on
abortion rights, on global warming and the environment,
on worker rights, the Bush tax cuts, etc. Although they
are both "corporatists and militarists," in the words
of David Cobb, there are concrete differences that
cannot be swept away by purist ideological arguments.

However, there's another reason why those of us who are
members of the Green Party, Labor Party or other
alternative parties, or who support progressive third-
party building, should hope for a Kerry victory: it
will help our progressive party cause.

Jenny Brown, co-chair of the Alachua County (Fl.) Labor
Party, put it this way in an article in the summer
issue of Independent Politics News: "It's only as long
as they're out of power that Democrats can credibly
claim to represent us [progressives and workers]. . .
The Democrats are not the answer. This is something we
must keep being able to prove each day, to more and
more people. More people will see it. . . when the
Democrats are in power. Bush is close to the worst this
system has to offer, and Kerry is, apparently, the
best, which means that Kerry is better proof than Bush
will ever be that we need to upend it."

Since World War II the strongest, national, progressive
third party movements have developed when Democrats
were in power. The first example was the Henry
Wallace/Progressive Party effort in 1948 when Harry
Truman was President. Then there was the 1968 national
Peace and Freedom Party effort when Johnson was
President. The decade of the '90s, when Bill Clinton
was in office, was a decade which saw the emergence of
three major efforts, the Green Party, the Labor Party
and the New Party.

If the Bushites are re-elected, several things will
happen. First, there will be deep and broad anger
toward Nader/Camejo on the part of many progressives,
both independents and Democrats, because of the attack-
the-Democrats strategy that campaign is openly
following. There may be similar feelings toward
Cobb/LaMarche but, given the "strategic states"
approach they are taking, distinguishing between swing
and sewed-up states, it will be much less.

Second, we will be in a position where our criticisms
of the Democrats, out of power, will not have the broad
impact they will if they were in power, as Brown
articulates above.

Third, growing numbers of us will undoubtedly be faced
with an increase in government attacks on our dwindling
rights. We will be much more on the defensive. Our
conditions for struggle will be harder.

These are not favorable conditions for movement-
building.

This does not mean that a Bush/Cheney victory would
mean that we have no hope of making progress during the
four years they would be in power. We saw an indication
of what is possible on the part of our movement before
and during the week of the Republican Convention in
NYC. During that week there were an impressive series
of actions conducted by a very broad range of
organizations despite the efforts to marginalize and
undercut them by the Republicans, sectors of the
corporate media and even some timid progressives. It
was an inspiring display of intelligent activism.

After November 2 we will need to assess what happened
on that day and determine how we struggle for justice,
peace, democracy and a stronger independent progressive
movement no matter which shade of Empire is elected.
But until then, we should be doing all we can to
maximize and defend the progressive vote on election
day, articulating clearly that while both parties are
seriously deficient and that we need to be building an
alternative to them, a key step toward such an
alternative is to remove the Bushites from the White
House.

Ted Glick is the National Coordinator of the
Independent Progressive Politics Network
(www.ippn.org), though these ideas are solely his own.
He is a co-coordinator of 2004 Racism Watch
(www.racismwatch.org), which is working with other
organizations toward a "Vote for Racial Justice Week"
October 18-24. He can be reached at
futurehopeTG@xxxxxxxx

By Ted Glick

Peter Camejo was the first one I heard put it out, back
in April: "Kerry will do what Bush wants to do better."
In other words, Kerry and the Democrats are the greater
evil, not the Republicans which, followed to its
logical conclusion, means that Camejo hopes that
Bush/Cheney will win re-election.

Since that time I've heard and seen others put forward
this same point of view. There's not a lot of them on
the Left but they're out there. The Counterpunch
website seems to be a repository of several authors who
take this approach.

It reminds me of the old socialist saying, "Left in
form, right in essence."

I don't support John Kerry and never have. The main
difference between his plan for dealing with Iraq, put
forward yesterday, and Bush/Cheney's is that he wants
to bring in other countries to help do the job of
creating a U.S.-friendly Iraqi government. Neither of
them want to see genuine Iraqi self-determination and
sovereignty. In that surface respect there's a grain of
truth to what Camejo and some others are saying and
writing.

But a recognition that both Bush and Kerry are about
maintenance of the Empire ignores a number of very real
differences on policy between them: on civil rights, on
abortion rights, on global warming and the environment,
on worker rights, the Bush tax cuts, etc. Although they
are both "corporatists and militarists," in the words
of David Cobb, there are concrete differences that
cannot be swept away by purist ideological arguments.

However, there's another reason why those of us who are
members of the Green Party, Labor Party or other
alternative parties, or who support progressive third-
party building, should hope for a Kerry victory: it
will help our progressive party cause.

Jenny Brown, co-chair of the Alachua County (Fl.) Labor
Party, put it this way in an article in the summer
issue of Independent Politics News: "It's only as long
as they're out of power that Democrats can credibly
claim to represent us [progressives and workers]. . .
The Democrats are not the answer. This is something we
must keep being able to prove each day, to more and
more people. More people will see it. . . when the
Democrats are in power. Bush is close to the worst this
system has to offer, and Kerry is, apparently, the
best, which means that Kerry is better proof than Bush
will ever be that we need to upend it."

Since World War II the strongest, national, progressive
third party movements have developed when Democrats
were in power. The first example was the Henry
Wallace/Progressive Party effort in 1948 when Harry
Truman was President. Then there was the 1968 national
Peace and Freedom Party effort when Johnson was
President. The decade of the '90s, when Bill Clinton
was in office, was a decade which saw the emergence of
three major efforts, the Green Party, the Labor Party
and the New Party.

If the Bushites are re-elected, several things will
happen. First, there will be deep and broad anger
toward Nader/Camejo on the part of many progressives,
both independents and Democrats, because of the attack-
the-Democrats strategy that campaign is openly
following. There may be similar feelings toward
Cobb/LaMarche but, given the "strategic states"
approach they are taking, distinguishing between swing
and sewed-up states, it will be much less.

Second, we will be in a position where our criticisms
of the Democrats, out of power, will not have the broad
impact they will if they were in power, as Brown
articulates above.

Third, growing numbers of us will undoubtedly be faced
with an increase in government attacks on our dwindling
rights. We will be much more on the defensive. Our
conditions for struggle will be harder.

These are not favorable conditions for movement-
building.

This does not mean that a Bush/Cheney victory would
mean that we have no hope of making progress during the
four years they would be in power. We saw an indication
of what is possible on the part of our movement before
and during the week of the Republican Convention in
NYC. During that week there were an impressive series
of actions conducted by a very broad range of
organizations despite the efforts to marginalize and
undercut them by the Republicans, sectors of the
corporate media and even some timid progressives. It
was an inspiring display of intelligent activism.

After November 2 we will need to assess what happened
on that day and determine how we struggle for justice,
peace, democracy and a stronger independent progressive
movement no matter which shade of Empire is elected.
But until then, we should be doing all we can to
maximize and defend the progressive vote on election
day, articulating clearly that while both parties are
seriously deficient and that we need to be building an
alternative to them, a key step toward such an
alternative is to remove the Bushites from the White
House.

Ted Glick is the National Coordinator of the
Independent Progressive Politics Network
(www.ippn.org), though these ideas are solely his own.
He is a co-coordinator of 2004 Racism Watch
(www.racismwatch.org), which is working with other
organizations toward a "Vote for Racial Justice Week"
October 18-24. He can be reached at
futurehopeTG@xxxxxxxx
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