The Coming Takeover Of The Greens

Gordon Fitch gcf at panix.com
Wed Oct 25 07:59:44 PDT 2000


Nathan Newman wrote:
> > Of course it will be different in the US. Especially if the Greens get the
> > 5%, we have a good model for the likely outcome - the Reform Party, where
> > the takeover of the party by ruthless sectarians converted a goo-goo
> > budget-balancing party into a fascist conservative vehicle.

Michael Pollak:
> Perhaps. If Nader sticks around for another cycle, as he says he will, at
> least the Greens will have some high-powered legal counsel. And a guy
> who's main fault has probably been that he hates to lose control of an
> organization he considers his. On top of that, the Greens will have the
> advantage of the Reform example. They'll know what to prepare for, and
> they'll take the threat seriously. And lastly, for all their faults, I my
> guess is that the Greens are ideologically a little more savvy that the
> Reformisti, and therefore a little harder pickings. We'll see.

Yes -- the original Reform Party had very little ideology outside of an intuition that something was wrong with a supposed democracy that offered the voters two styles of the same thing. By contrast the Greens appear to be full of people who have very specific ideas about what's wrong with the major parties and what to do about it. If the Green Party gets the money, the first part of Nathan's prediction will certainly occur -- that is, numerous ruthless sectarians will immediately turn to trying to take it over. But they will meet many ruthless sectarians already there, and they will also have to compete with yet other ruthless sectarians trying to get in the door. The ensuing conflict will likely be over ideology as well as personality, and many presently suppressed issues could be raised. The disorder might remind one of the Democratic Party of a now bygone era, when it was the locus of serious political struggle over such issues as Civil Rights and imperialism. Think of all the things which are under the lid today.

One possible outcome is that in 2004 there could be a viable national political party not responsible for the depression _and_ opposed to the War in Colombia, not quite yet bought and gift-wrapped. A very long shot, it's true, sort of like a lottery ticket, but if one were tempted to vote at all it might be worth considering.



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list