[Marxism] PFP today

[Anthony Boynton <northbogota@xxxxxxxxx>]

What Mark writes (see below) about the Peace and
Freedom Party today is true, but for one brief moment
it represented a note of sanity n the left in the
United States..

In my view it just goes to show that being on the left
does not require permanent mental disability, even in
th United States.

Maybe someday there will be enough sane people on the
left in the USA to try again. Who knows, maybe the
Green Party casn be the vehicle of sanity. 

Like Mark the PFP was the first third party I was
attracted to. In my high school anti-war movement in
1968 the split was three ways: the "left Liberals"
supported Bobby Kennedy, the "progressives" support
'clean Gene McCarthy", and the radicals supported the
Peace and Freedom Party, even though we were not sure
what the hell it was.

We tried to invite them to come to our high school and
speak to our US Government class. The only problem
was, we could not find any PFP representatives to
speak. We settled on a dope smoke enclouded
representative of the Resistance as the alternative.
(What a loser)

He was vetoed by the school principal leading to a
high school version of the Free Speech Movement. We
won a victory of srots. We were allowed to have the
guy speak  in the school auditorium at 6:45 AM one day
before school. The prinicpal figured no one would
come.

The place was packed! Even most of the teachers showed
up. It was the largest audience the poor guy had ever
talked to.

Anyway, the potential the PFP had in 1968 was blown
out the window by the sectarian in-fighting of the
left, the sabotage of the Communist Party, and the
work of the FBI. By 1972 it's real life was gone, but
it remained on the ballot as the vehicle for protest
voters in California.

It is an empty electoral shell. If the Greens did not
exist, it could be revived, but now there seems to be
no point.

Anthony

I hope so, 

Anthony


Mark Lause wrote,

"The Peace & Freedom Party was the first third party
movement I supported, back in 1968, long before I
heard of anything like the Socialist Workers Party.  
It is with sincere regret that it must be noted that
the PFP went down the same yellow brick road to Oz as
the SWP.  Without any help from the SWP. 

"Today, in California,  it has refused to cooperate
with the Greens, any existing socialist parties, or
even to think of itself in any context but its own
private Idaho.  No less than the SWP, it can't seem to
think of itself in any terms other than  its own
immediate organizational self-interest.

"It seems to me that  the  madness of secltarianism is
endemic in this asylum.   Their tones might be
different, but it's the same howling at the Moon."

ML



      
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