>On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
>
> Nathan Newman wrote:
>
>>Yes,you disagree with the strategy - so noted, but the "pwogwessives" and
>>"hacks" comment is just intellectually bankrupt and plain nasty.
>
> Nasty, but not bankrupt. There are "impeccably progressive activists"
> who constitute the "footsoldiers" (see article at URL below for the
> context of this word) of the WFP, but it's the brainchild of Dan
> Cantor, New Party national organizing supremo, and a bunch of
> union/Dem strategists. I'm very happy they're doing a living wage
> campaign, but as an electoral vehicle, they're an express train to
> the status quo.
And Cantor and many of those union strategists are progressive activists whose work, aside from your disagreement on electoral strategy, you would generally support, as your comment on the living wage campaign notes.
So if you want to trash their motives, you have to articulate why mindlessly pulling the lever for losing third party candidates beats the slightly less romantic strategy of strategic endorsements to pull the actually elected Democrats to the left.
> >Aside from the obvious lesser-evilism of fearing another vote to support
> >Trent Lott's filibusters in the Senate
>
> Oh yes. Vote for Hillary or the brownshirts are around the corner.
Who said anything about brownshirts. I specifically cited filibusters, not concentration camps. Three times in the last three decades (1966, 1978 and 1994), majorities of the House and Senate passed labor law reform with a Dem President ready to sign the bill. Three times, a GOP-led minority of Senators filibustered its defeat.
Much of your rhetoric is based on saying there is no difference betweent he Dems and GOP, usually citing the lack of gains during a Dem administration, but that only works if you ignore the entrenchment of GOP rightwing filibuster power in the Senate.
Subtract the GOP filibuster and here is what labor law would like based on the 1966, 1978 and 1994 labor law changes:
* Repeal of right-to-work 14(b) provisions from Taft-Hartley, assisting the organizing of the South * Expanded NLRB board membership to speed up processing of unfair labor practices * Mandated elections within 30 days of filing cards signed by majority of workers * 150% of back pay for workers fired for union activity * Mandatory equal time for union organizers to address workers for any anti-union management meetings * Denial of federal contracts to companies found guilty of violating labor laws * Award back pay to workers of any company that failed to negotiate in good faith with a new union * Ban on permananent replacement of workers in case of strike
These changes would have radically altered the balance of power between management and labor, especially the expedited election and equal time provisions.
You can dismiss the Democratic votes for all those provisions, but if you can explain to me why a vote for Granpa Lewis that may increase the ranks of GOP filibusters, I would be interested. Hillary may be a hack but she will not filibuster labor and a range of other progressive legislation.
Seriously, you can emphasize the areas where Dems are not progressive, and if you could make an argument for how voting Green would lead to a better candidate, I would be happy to hear it. But you never do. It's all moral righteousness, huffing and puffing and condeming of other peoples strategies, with no articulated strategy of your own.
And you also have to explain why gaining the votes to overcome those GOP-led filibusters should not be the priority in the real world of labor activists, where you don't need "brown shirts" to have single mothers fired on the job for trying to organize a union, whole communities destroyed by permanent replacements, and union organizers often literally taking their lives into their hands when they organize in the deep south. The Democratic-sponsored labor legislation of 1966, 1978 and 1994 would have helped workers tremendously. That is an indisputable fact.
So what are you peddling that is better? An ex-sitcom actor? New Mexico Green campaigns that have so far only helped to elect GOP Governors and Congressmen? The election of a Green state legislator who quit the party almost immediately so she could take corporate contributions?
The New Party has not had dramatic gains, but they have helped elect solid people in a number of local races, run living wage and other campaigns that have had significant policy impacts, and are helping to unite many labor and community activists in cities across the country. Working Families is a slightly different approach given New York state's different ballot access rules, but it comes from a similar strategic approach.
> >The interesting place to judge the WFP will be their more local
> races-- how
> >they use endorsements of Dems or independents to influence politics
> >throughout the state. Give it at least one or two election cycles before
> >you piss on other peoples strategies.
>
> This is exactly the same crowd that brought us the Dinkins
> endorsement in '93 <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/New-Party.html>
> and the Vallone endorsement in '98.
And Dinkins would have been a great improvement over Guiliani-- and the Vallone endorsement is exactly the strategic endorsement that got the Working Families Party ballot status.
Again, you disagree with strategic endorsement of Dems and you state it as if it's a self-evident crime. But you have yet to state one reason, one strategic gain that marginal races by marginal candidates will have.
> >And how running Granpa Lewis advances progressive or left
> politics is beyond
> >me.
>
> For one, Grandpa's a smart fellow and with pretty good politics, and
> he fits right in with your celebrity ballot-line-snagging strategy.
> Because of his gubernatorial run, the Green Party has a ballot line
> in NYS.
Yes, they do. And if they use it how the Green Party used theirs in New Mexico, the result will be a strengthening of rightwing power in New York state and nasty recriminations between mostly white Green activists and people of color in the state. New Mexico has the most developed Green Party in the country-- name anything they have accomplished so far that counterbalances the election of a conservative GOP governor and Congressmen?
-- Nathan Newman