Re: historical errors

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

I wrote:
> >It's not the accusations of being a spoiler that are important to
> >what I said above. Rather, it's the fact that the system is biased
> >by its very nature toward a two-party system. Then, people respect
> >power and tend to follow it rather than to "waste their votes." It's
> >the vote-wasting issue that I was talking about, not the spoiler
> >issue. On the latter, I think your analysis is correct: it's the DP
> >insiders who care about such things (believing, falsely, that Nader
> >threw the 2000 election to Bush).

Yoshie writes:
> The majority of Americans are already wasting their votes -- they
> either don't vote or live in one-party states like California, New
> York, and Texas.  Evidently, the vote-wasting issue doesn't matter to
> them at all.

I was looking at the issue from the voters' point of view, not from the leftist point of view. (If we ever want to have an impact, we have to learn to "put ourselves in the other guy's shoes"!) They don't see a vote for the Berry or Kush as a wasted vote. But most often they see a vote for Nader as wasted -- because of the structural bias of the electoral system.

From an "objective" point of view, it's likely that _all_ votes are wasted, given the way in which the system is fixed. As Marx said, "Les dés sont pipés." (Pardon my Freedom!)

I wrote: > >Surely, Nader's effort isn't a "real third party." It's an effort to
> >influence politics without having a base.

> Let's take the Green Party for example as a point of departure.  The
> Green Party should have maximally exploited Nader/Camejo 2004 to
> create a solid party base.

Yeah, it should have. But it didn't. Let's talk about the actually-existing Green Party.

> Getting organized at the grassroots takes a lot more work from a lot
> more people than the Green Party has so far been able to mobilize on
> its own.  How many ACTIVE members does the Ohio Green Party have?  By
> ACTIVE members, I mean members who regularly (let's say at least once
> a week) take PRACTICAL ACTIONS -- collecting signatures for ballot
> access, organizing actions on the social movement front [for economic
> justice, against the wars and occupations, for women's rights,
> against death penalty, for prisoners' rights, etc.] on their own or
> together with other organizations], organizing public educational
> events for the Green Party, etc.) -- rather than just signing up for
> the party on paper or even attending party meetings.
>
> In my estimation, the Green Party needs at least 30,000 ACTIVE PARTY
> MEMBERS nationwide, EACH of whom is NETWORKED with about 100-1,000
> non-Green activists sympathetic to and willing to support the Green
> Party, to be able to claim that it is BEGINNING to practice some kind
> of grassroots democracy.  The Green Party doesn't have enough active
> members yet.
>
> The question is how to get there.  In addition to existing members
> getting MORE ACTIVE on the social movement front, running a
> presidential candidate who has national recognition (someone who can
> draw as many people as Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore,
> Howard Zinn, Angela Davis, and so on) is one of the most important
> means of attracting new activists to Green-Party sponsored events.
> Four tools of party building: pens, sign-up sheets, clipboards, and
> flyers that advertise upcoming local Green Party actions and
> meetings.  The task of existing Green activists in the presidential
> election is to nominate/endorse someone who is in the same league as
> Nader in name recognition, organize events that feature his or her
> appearance, and make the best use of the four tools of party
> building, signing up as many in the audience as possible for local
> and statewide party activities....

it seems that the Party you describe needs to have an activity that they can get involved with in non-election years that can then organically imply some election-year activity, which may or may not involve running candidates. If they run candidates, we should be clear that it's for propaganda purposes, not to win. If they win, just remember Audie Bock... what could the Greens do about her?

 

The actually-existing Green Party, by the way, seems to be "subtly (or sometimes even pretty blatantly) designed to motivate people to support the Democratic Party."

Yoshie wrote:
> >>  But both those who can (like unions) and
> >>  those who cannot (like many non-profits that get tax exemptions of
> >>  one sort or another) WORK for the Democratic Party by using their
> >>  money and manpower to do "issue" campaigns that are subtly (or
> >>  sometimes even pretty blatantly) designed to motivate people to
> >>  support the Democratic Party.

me:
> >Maybe, but that's only an interpretation. A lot of them teach
> >working people to fight for themselves (as a group). That may help
> >the DP in terms of recruits, but I doubt that such recruits are
> >wanted by the DLC.

Yoshie again:
> The DLC want their money, manpower, and political influence on their
> members and sympathizers.  E.g., unions and the AFL-CIO alone are
> spending about $150 million, not counting their manpower contribution.

but the DLC people don't want grass-roots activists. They want passive followers. That was my point.

 

Yoshie wrote:
> >>  The US ruling class have a political triangle through which they can  get what they want:
> >>  1. The Republicans propose to attack the working class by a BIG
> >>  offensive which they MAY or MAY NOT be able to carry out.
> >>  2. The Democrats come out and propose an only slightly smaller
> >>  offensive against the working class.
> >>  3. Unions and liberal non-profits line up to support a slightly
> >>  smaller offensive against the working class, rather than fighting
> >>  against the ruling-class parties' offensive.
> >>
> >>  Then, the ruling class get what they want -- an attack on  the working
> >>  class (a smaller than what the Republicans propose but more
> >>  successfully carried out than by the Republicans) without  triggering
> >>  social and political conflicts (because unions and liberal
> >>  non-profits under the Democratic Party hegemony support it).

I wrote:
> >I agree, but how does voting for Ralph help break this triangle? How
> >does it tilt the balance of class forces toward good rather than
> >evil?

> Voting for Nader/Camejo strengthens the left wing of the Green Party
> who are supporting them against the right wing of the Green Party.
> Voting for Nader/Camejo or some other candidate to the left of the
> Democratic Party sends a message that there is a force in society
> numbering in millions who do not settle for what the ruling class
> parties offer.  But getting involved in the Nader/Camejo 2004
> campaign and networking other organizers, activists, and
> intellectuals who support them is far more important than voting.

I hope you're right. But I doubt it ... and have to get back to work.

JD