Re: [Marxism] Greens, Dems and Building Working Class Independence,

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

David Walters wrote:
> A real discussion on this should place an equal sign between
> those that feel as Doug does and those that support an orientation  toward
> Nader, et al. The issue is what pushes forward working class politics and the
> building of a workers movement strong enough to change society. It's a *good*
> discussion, preachy or not.

David, it should be obvious that if the Labor Party ever took off in the
USA, most people--including myself--would vote for their candidates and/or
join it. But it did not. It was stillborn because a good section of the
bureaucrats who launched it are infected with the same ABB mentality as Ted
Glick and company.

Politics is always about taking the next best step. If Nader hadn't been
betrayed by the 5th column inside the Green Party and around the Nation
Magazine, etc. and had been on the ballot in even more states than he was
in 2000, the vote would might have been even larger this go round. It would
have helped recruit people to the Greens and have created more and more
poles of attraction around people like Mayor Jason West in New Paltz, who
was written up in the NY Times Magazine last year. West became notorious in
the bourgeois press for opening up the doors to gay marriage in New Paltz.

On March 19th, an antiwar rally sponsored by the March 19 Coalition of New
Paltz featured Jason West and former Green Party congressional candidate
Joel Kovel. We can be sure that West used his office and his stature to
publicize the action.

Here's a snippet from the lengthy profile of Jason West that appeared in
the NY Times Magazine last March. West is an ally of Peter Camejo and Howie
Hawkins, as I understand it. It seems foolish to me that anybody would
reject someone like Jason West right now in favor of their leftist fantasy
of what should be. After all, that's what led the film character Morgan to
disaster

---

West grew up in Latham, N.Y., a suburban town just north of Albany. His
earliest memories include the blast furnace he saw when his mother took him
to pick up his father at the steel mill where he worked. The stories his
parents tell include his boycott of McDonald's as a child (he opposed the
plastic foam containers that held Big Macs) and the time as a teenager when
he felt that Christmas was too commercial and asked that he receive no
gifts. The parents of the man who speaks so poetically about the
institution of marriage -- ''Marriage is the act of making public what is
already written in two people's hearts,'' he said as he was arraigned --
are divorced. They separated when West was young, and he and his sister
grew up shuttling between two homes. When West talks about marriage, it's
very personal. As his sister puts it, ''It just makes it really true when
he says that marriage is something that is just between two people and not
about anyone else.''

After being a member of the steelworkers' union and then the Teamsters,
Jason's father, Ron, was a house painter for 15 years, until recently, when
after completing his college degree, he became an elementary-school teacher
on the South Side of Albany. ''When I was getting my degree, Jason brought
over 'A People's History of the United States,' and he said, 'Dad, I think
you need to read this if you're going to teach,' and then he took home one
of my books, 'Detroit, I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution,''' Ron
West said. ''I was a rebel without a clue, but Jason, he is a rebel with a
vision.''



Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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