>>Lastly, the Greens are indeed a small force now, but they _can_
>>become bigger. But if liberal & leftist folks kept saying that they
>>wouldn't work with them because they were now small, well, then, they
>>would _never_ become bigger! The same goes for any social movement
>>-- at the beginning, any movement is minuscule. We shouldn't issue a
>>self-fulfilling prophesy ("it's a tiny movement, so I won't join, and
>>I _discourage_ everyone from joining" & later "see, it ain't growing,
>>it's still tiny, I told you so!") that would doom any movement.
>>Yoshie
>From a purely pragmatic approach, then, the Naderites should be far more
courteous towards those progresive activists supporting Gore, since if they
want Dem supporters to abandon that strategy, they need their goodwill not
anomosity.
>From a personal level, as someone with good friends in the Green Party with
only a strategic disagreement with the third party strategy, I have moved
during the Nader campaign from disagreement to an emotional opposition to
the whole Green-Nader strategy because of the disdain shown towards myself
but more broadly the general progressive supporters of Gore - NARAL, the
unions, the NAACP, and Sierra Club etc.
Sure, the Naderites feel abused themselves, but the reality is that those proposing new strategies always have the onus on them to prove that everyone else is wrong and should expect some shit thrown at them. I learned that pretty much the first day I became a left activist. Leftists and oppositional activists have to be more civil on the personal level than those of the status quo, since they are making a tough political argument for abandoning the safety of traditional practices, so they can't afford to alienate folks through personal attacks, since the straight political attack being mounted by such left oppositionists is going to be challenging enough on its own.
The Naderites will fairly call this a double standard for civility, but I am just pointing out the pragmatic reality. If the Green strategy is based on getting more than a small percentage and growing in the future, they will need the folks they are pissing on. Conversely, the Dems don't "need" the Nader 5%, since all they need is for the Greens to fall apart and go back to taking the left for granted or just move to the right to make up for marginal losses from the Naderites. The Greens don't have the same opportunistic luxury.
I don't have to like Leo's attacks, but I also don't have to like the attacks made on him either since I have gotten some pretty personal attacks questioning my personal commitments on this list because I had a different political analysis from others. As I said, emotionally my reaction to the Nader campaign has moved from rational disagreement to what I think is a counterproductive animosity because of this. I'll get over the animosity myself, since I am ideologically committed to a "no enemies on the left" position, but a lot of progressive Dems may not. And I think we all need each other, whatever strategy we are pursuing.
I was at the National Lawyers Guild this weekend (which was very successful and gives me great hope for growth of the leftwing legal community), where the same Nader-Gore tensions were in some dramatic ways, but because everyone recognized that there are too many non-electoral places we are fighting and need each other, it was never used as a stick to question anyone else's political commitment or integrity.
ChuckO will also be happy to know we spent much more time discussing issues like mass defense of protesters than the elections. We also established a formal national mass defense committee to ramp up and strengthen the legal defense work for the expanding mass movement activity we are all anticipating.
While I violently disagree with the Naderite Green strategy, building the mass movements are ultimately the more important. I just think we will do better building under a Gore administration, but that is a strategic discussion, which I always wish we could have without accusing those we disagree with of bad faith politically.
So win or lose tomorrow, all I can say is - can't we all just get along :)
-- Nathan Newman