[Marxism] Green Party Window Dressing Emasculates Socialist Politics

["Douglas MacDonald" <doug.macdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Todd Chrétien is a great activist and has offered much in leading the ISO in
their anti-war movement and various solidarity and educational efforts.  His
foray into Green Party politics is a step backwards.  Electoral politics for
socialists have always been tricky.  Eugene Debbs, the firebrand organizer
and SP candidate for President fought a huge uphill battle based on his
forward facing confrontation with capital, while always clearly identifying
class lines.  Of course, I expect nothing less from Todd.  However, the
Green Party whose banner he heralds holds a fundamentally anti-class view of
society and is openly a-historical, and barely rooted in the earth sciences
in which its name is founded.  Today, Democratic Party cast-aways, seeking
means to pressure the Dems (like Medea Benjamin and her ilk), ?deep
ecologists? better known as misanthropes and  basic free-market Greens a la
Peter Camejo, dominate an ever more anti-democratic and bourgeois Party.
 
Can the Green Party offer the space or resources to at least pick-up where
Debbs left off?  No.  The Green Party, unlike the ISO, is solely an
electoral presence and is absent from most social movement that have reared
their head since the GP founding.  Of course small bands of Greens have
sprung up around toxic sites and other more local issues, with relatively
few exceptions, these are middle or upper class dominated NIMBY efforts with
no desire for cross-cultural or working class advancement or focus.
 
Will Chretien try and create a left current in the Green Party?of course.
Such efforts are not new?.Howie Hawkins, Walt Sheasby (RIP), Joel Kovel, the
?eco-socialist? who endorsed Dean in 2004 and the non-movement ?Green
Alliance? all tried to carve out a leftist orientation within the Greens. I
myself was deeply involved with Howie, Joel and Walt, following the
dissolution of the formerly dominant left-leaning Green Party USA into the
?Democratic Party renegades? Association of State Green Parties (now Green
Party US ?you know, today?s GREEN PARTY) which won the factional fight 5
years or so ago.  
 
Basic Marxism and socialism calls for the creation of at LEAST a party
opposed to capital based on the working class.  The Green Party Platform
opposes such politics by abdicating basic working class independence and
power and instead supports ?community-based economics? and ?Ten Key values?,
a fuzzy-liberal conception that supposedly challenges corporate power while
maintaining a softer and kinder localized "Green" capitalism.  
 
Of course Todd will speak from a socialist perspective and in all truth; he
is likely to challenge such basic flaws in GP politics.  However, how useful
is such a trajectory?  How powerful will be his rallying point when he not
only takes on the Democrats and Republicans, but the majority of Green Party
members and the tenants of their platform?  How wise of a decision, as a
socialist, is it to work your politics in a party that fundamentally opposes
your own framework while ALSO being blind to the material realties of
capital and labor?  
 
For sure, Chreitns sinking into the swamp of Green Party Politics could
simply be a first step towards embracing the ever popular social democratic
?muddle? handed to him by Camjeo.   Shame on Todd for giving credence to GP
confusionism and their liberal flights of fancy.  The least Chretien could
have done is run as an independent and called for the creation of a NEW
party rooted in class independence and the liberation of the working class,
absent of the Green Party?s liberal and myopic stink.  Such a movement must
be started and can be discussed at 
 
 
 
-Douglas MacDonald
Former member and co-founder Solano County, Ca Green Party
Former National Secretary Treasurer Green Alliance
 
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