Re: [Marxism] WHY NADER? by Peter Miguel Camejo

[David McDonald <dbmcdonald@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

The issue is neither abortion rights nor the right to terminate one's 
life. The issue is whether Nader's or McKinney's candidacy will best 
provide a vehicle for uniting, or igniting, a new coalition of forces in 
American politics that can begin for real to challenge the two-party 
hegemony of the Democrats and the Republicans. How? By uniting 
progressive whites and African-Americans in support of a candidate who 
proposes to end the Iraq War IMMEDIATELY and use the freed-up money to 
advance the needs of the most oppressed.

 From this point of view, I consider it astonishing that Pedro Miguel 
Camejo, the erstwhile author of
Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877, a socialist view of radical 
reconstruction in the United States, could pen an encomium for Ralph 
Nader's candidacy for Green Party presidential candidate in which 
neither the words "black," "racism," nor the words "African-American" 
appear.

Camejo CANNOT discuss race because if he did he would have to find a way 
to argue that Nader is a better candidate to advance the fight against 
racism than Cynthia McKinney, and that is patently impossible. He is 
therefore forced to gyrate around the issue of democracy in general, and 
the rights of people in general to vote for whomever they want. He is, 
in effect, trying to fight the campaign of 2004 in retrospect, to argue 
that because of the arguments raised against Nader's candidacy in 2004 
we should again nominate Nader to validate what he stood for then. 
Personally, I find all forms of political nostalgia noxious.

But the issue before the progressive community in 2008 (Louis Proyect's 
20,000 oughta be organized radicals, if you prefer) is different. The 
issue is, can we get behind a promising candidate of color, a Black 
woman who has just repudiated the Democratic Party, and forge some kind 
of new relationship with a swath of the African-American community 
through joint work in a political campaign?

 From this point of view, it seems evident to me that McKinney's 
candidacy offers a far greater potential for radical change and 
progressive regroupment than any conceivable outcome of a Nader 
candidacy, REGARDLESS of what one thinks the vote outcomes might be. By 
this I mean, I could concede (but I don't) that Nader might gain twice 
the votes that McKinney gains, and still argue that hers in the 
forward-looking candidacy, because of the decisive importance of 
African-Americans to progressive politics in America.

To espouse Nader's cause, in my opinion, is to be for the enlargement of 
the existing Green Party; to espouse McKinney's is to argue for the 
re-definition AND RE-COMPOSITION of the Green Party as a fighting 
instrument of America's oppressed and downtrodden.

David McDonald

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism