Re: Re: Racial Blind SpotContinuestoAfflictGreens

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> lnp3@xxxxxxxxx 12/02/00 12:25PM >>>
>CB: In our concrete circumstance , there are no reformist socialist or
labor parties, as in that situation.

This does not mean that we should support bourgeois parties now. If
anything, this is a reason to fight all the more harder for the existence
of such parties, starting with the Greens and the Labor Party. These are
the hopes for the future and deserve the support of all socialists and
Marxists, not the Democratic Party which has the blood of tens of millions
of workers and peasants on its hands.

(((((((((((

CB: I'd say it is a case by case basis of deciding whether or not to support Democrats (not the Democratic Party) in elections, local, state and national in elections. I disagree with the general rule expressed by some, like the Solidarity organization now, "never support a Democratic candidate in any election".  The vast majority of the time this decision would not be affected by any opportunity to vote for a Green or Labor Party candidate. The Labor Party doesn't run candidates now.

The taint of the crimes of Democrats like Wilson or Johnson don't quite get distributed to every last Democrat who joins the party down through the years in the way you imply. A Marxist approach to this issue is more pragmatic, concrete and less ...I can't think of a word.  The Democratic Party doesn't have an essence, the tainting of which by the crimes you mention stains anybody who joins it.


I agree with voting for left parties when possible, and supporting them non-electorally too, to the extent that the latter has any significant political substance. However, I disagree with the tendencies which make never supporting any Democratic candidate an important first principle upon what I gather is a kind of idea of weaning the masses of the working class from a bad habit of thinking the Democratic Party will save them. I think the vast majority of working class voters are very skeptical about being saved by the Democratic Party. So, I don't think a key job of the left is the weaning task.
Most of the working class doesn't vote most of the time, if I am hearing the stats that I hear right. So there is plenty of skepticism and cyncism about the two party system in the working class.

In "thousands" of different concrete circumstances facing workers at a given election today, local, state, and national, it might be appropriate for workers to vote for a Democrat, because there is no Labor or Green.  I don't think this vote will prevent the same workers from voting for a Labor or Green or other Left candidate at some time in the future when we get ourselves together and create actual electoral left parties.