[Marxism] Count Elaine Brown out

[Ethan Young <ethanyoung@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

 ELAINE BROWN WITHDRAWS

FROM GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL RACE 

Renounces Green Party Membership

http://www.elainebrown.org/

 For Immediate Release

Brunswick, Georgia,

December 28, 2007

OPEN STATEMENT TO THE GREEN PARTY

 

            As of today, I am no longer a candidate for the Green Party 
nomination for president of the United States, and I hereby resign from all 
affiliation with the Green Party.  I believe the leadership of the Green Party 
of the United States has been seized by neo-liberal men who entrench the Party 
in internecine antagonisms so as to compromise its stated principles and 
frustrate its electoral and other goals.  They have made it impossible to 
advance any truly progressive ideals or objectives under the umbrella of the 
Green Party, and, thus, rendered it counterproductive for me to go forward as a 
Green Party candidate or member.

            I believe this  small clique that has captured control of the Party 
has transformed it into a repository for erstwhile, disgruntled Democrats, who 
would violate the Party's own vision and sabotage the good will and genuine 
commitment of the general membership.  Indeed, these usurpers foster a 
reactionary agenda, supporting partisans in and backers of the Bush wars and 
disavowing the Party's more progressive tenets in favor of promoting 
high-profile participation in the politics of the establishment.

            This became clear to me almost from the moment I announced my 
candidacy in February of 2007.  I intended using my campaign to bring large 
numbers of blacks and browns into the Party, particularly from the hood and the 
barrioâas would come to be reflected in the lists of supporters and delegates 
I've submitted in connection with my candidacy.  As I asserted I would use the 
respect I enjoyed as a former leader of the Black Panther Party to do so, some 
in the hierarchy seemed utterly fearful of the prospect of a massive influx of 
blacks and browns into the Green Party.  Soon, there was wide circulation of 
false rumors that I was a one-time "government agent," which was intended to 
discredit my history in the Black Panther Party so as to undermine my potential 
influence.-And, since then, I have had to devote significant time and energy to 
addressing these lies.-What this effort revealed, though, was how the Green 
Party, while advocating "diversity," remains dominated by whites.  Indeed, the 
Party is able to count less blacks, browns and natives in its membership than 
our national population percentages and certainly less than the Democrats 
themselves.

            In effect, the present Green Party leadership promotes a kinder, 
gentler capitalism, a moderated racism, an environmentally-sustainable 
globalism, which I cannot support.  They are dedicated to the underside of the 
Party's platform, which falls short of repudiating the capitalist state, source 
of all the social ills the Party would address.  They equivocate by promoting 
"an economic alternative to corporate capitalism and a socialist state," 
advocate a "re-formulation" of the IMF, NAFTA, so forth, and advance the 
institution of "stakeholder capitalism."

            On the other hand, they demonstrate a willingness to override the 
best of the Party's platform.  My sharp criticism of high-profile Party 
membersâ support for the "three-strikes" crime laws, the sole basis for the 
inhumane mass incarceration of people in the United States, particularly 
blacksâthe repeal of which the Party's platform advocatesâhas been met with 
outright enmity.  And, to divert attention from this and other critical issues, 
the leadership has employed chicanery in their promulgation of defamatory lies 
about meâwhich they finally extended to character assaults on my supporters 
and critics of their unscrupulousness.

            It is my sincere belief that the Green Party as it now exists has 
no intention of using the ballot to actualize real social progress, and will 
aggressively repel attempts to do so.  To remain in the fray or in the Party, 
then, would require a betrayal of my lifelong and ongoing commitment to serving 
the interests of black and other oppressed people by advancing revolutionary 
change in America.



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