But the ability of many leftists to continually insult anyone who disagrees with or questions their strategy is why the left is so marginal.
And the guy was opportunistic enough to call me asking me to help him on his election.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 5:50 PM Subject: Fwd: Re: bad nooz for Dems
Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 18:00:11 -0500 To: dhenwood at panix.com From: John Halle <john.halle at SNET.Net>
Newman:
"This is the typical definition of "success" by the Greens- adding a couple of more (usually white) liberal members of a city council where many if not most of the other Dems are already very liberal or left, but because they use the Green label, this is considered a magic moment of left transcendance. The Greens have been organizing in various ways for almost a decade and a half and they have no offices above the city council level. And those are only in the most liberal and eco-friendly cities in the country. "
Facts:
1) Two of three greens we have elected to office in Connecticut are non white and non male. 2) The majority of voters for Green candidates in Connecticut were non white. 3) The same goes for other large cities (San Francisco and Minneapolis) where we have elected candidates. 4) The Democrats we ran against here and beat in two cases, were hardly "liberal." These included a mob connected machine pol who supports the siting of an oil fired power plant next to his ward, a Walmart developer who planned on using his position to turn a large section of downtown in to a strip mall, a Democratic hack so out of touch with her ward that she didn't even know the names of the three victims of a gang murder which had occurred two weeks before the election, and a spineless ivy leaguer who recently was non-committal on a proposed campaign finance reform resolution. 5) New Haven "eco-friendly?" That's a laugh. Liberal? Doubtful for Joe Lieberman's home city. 6) Rather than advancing corporate welfare schemes which pay off his campaign contributors, the Democratic mayor is now forced to cover his left flank to prevent more defections to the Greens. His state of the city address virtually duplicated the Green party platform, not willingly you can be sure. I call that success. 7) The unions are coming on board (two of our candidates received de facto endorsements) having recognized that their interest is served by a party which is reliably pro labor. The unions can now hold over the heads of wavering Dems the threat of a pro labor Green challenge. This will have real consequences for the current organizing drive here in New Haven. I call that success. 8) It is likely that we will field three viable candidates for state rep. in November. And we have shown that we keep our promises.
Where this will all end up is anyone's guess. A small part of success involves the Newmans of the world being seen for the dishonest hacks they are. I'm pretty confident that this is in the cards. Kuttner was singing from the same choirbook as Newman and he's changed his tune. A lot more are sure to follow as the Enron iceberg reveals the extent to which Nader's fundamental criticism was completely on target.
Mainly, further "success" for the Greens requires people no longer allowing themselves to be satisfied with permanent observer status and getting down to business by becoming participants in real politics.
So what are you doing in your home town? -- John Halle Green Party Alderman Ward 9, New Haven, CT