> > I would love to see the same fervor by left activists in taking
> > over the Democratic apparatus,
-You know, Nathan, I and a bunch of comrades and coworkers
>(movement activists) in Ann Arbor attempted this through the 1980s. ..
>The lesson I drew was that the Dems were not reformable. I joined
>Solidarity. You think I should have kept plugging away? After seven years
>of trying--isn't that a respectable run?--with nothing tos how for it,
>I figured it was time to fish or cut bait. jks
Basically, you got beat because you didn't have the numbers to outpack the meetings-- that's an organizational loss and if the argument is that the left should organize in the Greens because they get to play with fewer numbers of people, well that's an argument for marginalization. There is nothing to stop conservative union bureaucrats or rich folks taking over Green locals with the exact same tactics used against your local Dems. If the Greens ever became a real threat, they would be coopted in the exact same way as local Democratic groups-- that's not even speculation but the destiny of all the European Green parties that have now entered government, and in a legal and campaign finance environment far more friendly to parties controlling internal processes. In the US, party primaries are heavily regulated by the government, so it is nearly impossible to keep out anyone who might want to try to take over the local party, as the Peace & Freedom party found when the New Alliance types periodically grabbed their party lines.
The problem with your attempt is that seven years is too short an effort and it was too uncoordinated with other groups across the country. The Rainbow effort was pathetically short-sighted and short-term, largely due to Jesse himself pulling the plug on many of the more radical locals. The Christian Coalition set up a national effort the same year in 1988 based on years of local less, coordinated mobilization and it took a full-scale national movement to take over a number of state Republican party apparatuses. They have a lot of the same complaints of unfair tactics by party regulars that you mention but they were far more consistent in their efforts.
Seven year horizons for national organizing is exactly what is wrong with the Left. The New Right began their serious national efforts to take over the national political scene in 1961-62 when the Goldwater campaign was conceived. As far as taking over Congress, it took until 1994 to partially achieve their aims and even then they were symied in their more far-reaching goals by progressive opposition.
Not that lots of partial efforts aren't worthwhile-- some great Congresspeople are elected in every election cycle. But full control of the agenda of a party is a multi-front war that is tedious, long-running and will take a long-term time horizon.
One reason I find the Greens uninteresting is that they seem like a short-cut to feel-good fake sucess-- activists get the trappings of "winning" a nomination that gets them little because they need to do little real organizing to maneuver against opponents.
In many ways, my experience is the reverse of yours-- I spent a number of years working in an around left third party politics in the Bay Area-- was appointed to the Berkeley labor commission by the Green City Councilor, voted Green for Senate in 1994, worked on a Green party city council race in Oakland and so on. And it all seemed to add up to nothing politically. The farcical end was when the Greens elected the first and only state legislator ever elected nationwide, Audie Bock, and she promptly quit upon being elected and acted more opportunistically than any Dem imaginable. Most recently, she took the credibility the Greens had organized on her behalf by nominating and electing her to trash the Democrat Congresswoman Barbara Lee for her opposition to the Afghanistan war.
If probably the best organized Green party group in the country in arguably the most leftwing voting district in the country cannot politically discipline their nominees and prevent exactly the opportunism you complain about among Dems, why should it be any different anywhere else?
Politicians are treacherous beings-- once elected, they suddenly have access to sources of money, media and outreach independent of the original group that helped them into office. The opportunism that engenders is inevitable no matter what party label is used.
The key is grassroots power, numbers and as much money as possible with longterm strategy and organizing -- any serious electoral effort has to have those. The Green delusion is that there is a shortcut that can bypass those requirements.
-- Nathan Newman