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

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

David Walters wrote:
> Nader's campaign in 2004 represented true militant liberalism...and not a
> working class alternative. No one has answered Dougs point on this. His
> position on Iraq wasn't all that different from Democrat Kucinich (U.N.
> Troops in). His pro-labor perspectives were like that of Ron Dellums (who
> was also for overturning the Taft-Hartley Act and sponsored a bill  for
> "30 for 40"). I think that's all a good thing. It's not a criticism,
> perse, I've agreed with Democrats on several issues.

No, it is not a working class alternative in the sense that it would be if
somebody like Ed Sadlowski had decided to run as an independent labor
candidate in the late 1970s. Nader is much more of a middle-class populist
who has embraced working class issues. But it is not a question of ideology
per se. Saying that you have "agreed with Democrats" is missing the point.
We are trying to break the ruling class stranglehold on politics, from
Soros on the left to the oil and weapons bourgeoisie on the right. The
Green Party does not have funding like this at all, despite demagogic
efforts to paint Nader as a creature of some rightwing millionaires. In a
time of deepening social and economic crisis, it is important to build a
party that has the objective possibility of electing hundreds of Jason
Wests around the country. If Jason West is not a "working class
alternative," then he is about as good a substitute until the real thing
comes along.

> What is at issue, for me, is not this or that problem with Nader's
> positions (or the Greens for that matter). It is over his rejection of
> working class politics other than via a "sectoralist" approach. "NGO's,
> Labor, Civil Society" was the way he answered a similar question poised to
> him at Mission High School in San Francisco during his campaign. For him
> it's all the same. At any rate, perhaps the whole question is passe, as
> there is no movement, it seems, in establishing "Naderism" as a movement,
> except maybe on this list.

You aren't very clear about "working class politics", I'm afraid. Does this
mean a labor party? Or Green candidates who work at power plants rather
than who operate health food stores? At its worst, this can turn into the
kind of worker-Bolshevist posturing that you get in the Militant. Years
ago, when I was an existentialist, the plays of Jean Genet made a big
impact on me. Much of the "revolutionary" left strikes me as characters
drawn from plays like "The Maids" or "The Balcony".

> There are still, however, an orientation toward the Green Party, which
> played the useful role for the Democrats in "keeping them honest". The GP
> is a militant liberal party. The GP is not going away. I reject a
> sectarian approach to GP activists or even to the GP itself. I was
> approached by a leader of the Oakland GP on M19 to give a class on energy
> production and electrical grid organization. I look forward to it. I've
> worked with them at the level of the MWM, the Labor Party and various
> labor solidarity movements.

David, you are a middle-class guy like myself who took a job in a power
plant as part of the SWP's turn. Stop trying to sound like Joe Sixpack. It
is exceedingly tedious.


Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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