That's an Emma Goldman quote.
When I look at the Nader/Gore debacle, I see a lot of DNC type people whining about Nader, and left wing people that I like and who are farther to the left than the DNC and Zell Miller (Michael Moore, Noam Chomsky, Phil Donahue, Barbara Ehrenreich, Studs Terkel, plus various labor leaders) supporting Nader. I feel like I'm in good company.
There's three strategies that can be employed. One is if you know you're casting the deciding de facto vote for Bush voting for Nader, you would vote for Nader. Another is you'd vote for Gore in that case, since Bush is worse than Gore is worse than Nader. Or you can buy into the strategy of the neoliberals who deride all efforts of the left wing to harm "their" Democratic party which they have taken over with the DLC fifth column. I chose the second path, which seems the strategic, practical leftist one - Whether I'd vote for Gore or Nader would depend on what state I'm in.
The Green party introduces an element of *risk* into elections. The real question is - how important is it that a DLC neoliberal like Gore win against a compassionate conservative like Bush. It's preferable, but I don't think Gore's loss is a tragedy, especially since the drive to the right boomeranged with Jefford's defection. Reagan passed lots of insane tax stuff that would take effect years hence in the early 1980's - which, you'll remember, was mostly gotten rid of a few years later before they kicked in.
And what is gained from the Greens? Well, you get a left-wing candidate who can walk up to people and say that he opposes $2-an-hour Mexican drivers on American highways. Buchanan, Keyes and company have been rabble-rousing for years, and the "new" Democrats have about as ass-backwards a party as you can have - financially moderate/conservative, socially liberal. Gramsci said social liberalism needs to be a part of the left economic movement, he didn't say jettison left economics for social liberalism.
Nowadays, the charge that the Republicans are in the hands of the rich in a system of open bribery is softened by the accurate rejoinder that the same is true of the Democrats. With the Greens you have a party that this argument falls flat on. Enron could have buried the Republcians except for the small fact of all those donations they made to those folks who the Nation put on the cover (the usual suspects, Lieberman, other DLC'ers).
People are exposed to far right wing ideas all the time, there is an enormous absence of far left exposure, or even left exposure. It's easy for working class people to buy into conspiracy theories and the line that the left is only interested in helping the blacks and homosexuals and raise your taxes. The economic theories are never explained. Noam Chomsky doesn't talk about racism or feminism or socially liberal causes, he talks about how the American working class is being screwed over by the (wealthy) right and how foreign policy serves their interest, not ours. THAT's the message that has to get out there, which the right wing has obscured. Everywhere capitalism is discussed as a great thing with perhaps some minor bad tendencies that some reformist lefty changes can fix. The average working class person is constantly exposed to pro-capitalism messages and maybe some minor reformism, how often does he hear someone come after capitalism with an ax and explain how i! t ! hurts the working class and how to fix it without going down the Stalin boogeyman path? Chomsky does, which is one of the reasons he's so popular. I meet people without much interest in politics all the time who are blown away by Chomsky's writings. He is a great propagandist, among other things, and has brought people into the active left out of the immobile, non-voting blob.
In that vein, a Green party with federal matching funds after getting 5% of the vote will help spread the left-wing message. The real battle is for the mind, not for the vote or the election or whatever. If the 90% or whatever that constitutes the working class wanted to go on a general strike and seized the means of production tomorrow, it would happen. The real battle is who will win the most minds, the left or the right. Political parties, unions, churches, corporations and other organizations have no importance in and of themselves, they simply serve to win the battle over mens minds. This must always be remembered, and it may be strategically beneficial to risk Bush being elected in exchange for enough people hearing true left wing ideas beyond the neoliberal DLC patsies that corporate media props up and say represent the left almost like a feast for O'Reilly and Buchanan to dine on.
As time goes by, I'd like to see where there are a few loyal Democrats, a few loyal Greens and then most people in the middle of that, voting for whichever is strategically smarter.
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