Re: [Marxism] Cynthia McKinney Supports Reconstruction Party

["cleon42@xxxxxxxxx" <cleon42@xxxxxxxxx>]

--- Mark Lause <MLause@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> David Picón Álvarez certainly knows some pretty odd Greens.  They
> worship
> strange gods and seem to be made mostly out of straw.

When I read his posts for the first time, my knee jerked quite a bit
too. But then I noticed that señor Álvarez is posting from an email
address in Spain.

It's worth noting that the European Greens are a completely different
animal than the USAnian party of the same name; in many ways, his
observations aren't all that far off the mark (if slightly
exaggerated).

I think it's also worth pointing out that the role the "Green Party"
plays in elections is vastly different. The reason many Marxists in the
US support the Greens has less to do with their program (or lack
thereof), and more to do with driving a wedge in the monopoly the
capitalist parties have over the electoral process. The European
bourgeois democracies are more pluralistic; there is more involvement
from "third" parties. (The fact that we USAnians even *have* the term
"third party" tells you something about the stranglehold the
Republicrats have over the entire process.)

So I would argue that the reasons we would give for supporting the
Green Party in the US are completely invalid when it comes to the
European situation. There would be no *reason* for European Marxists to
back the Greens there, as there are explicitly socialist and even
Marxist electoral formations that are more successful.

Adam


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