A few scattered responses follow:
To Wojtek:
>"Running for US presidency as a party building strategy "from the
>scratch"?
The 2000 Nader presidential run significantly enhanced the profile of the Green Party. The number of registered Greens since then has gone up by a factor of four, I believe, if not more. There are also now over 200 local officeholders, one of whom, the second highest elected official in San Francisco nearly became mayor. While that is surely less than what one would hope for and, arguably, well below that which would be constitute a critical mass, and while Nader's failure to support the GP in the intervening years was, in my opinion, a mistake, it can hardly be said that the Greens are "starting from scratch."
To Jon:
>"It is logically possible to be in favor of party building and also not
>be particularly enthusiastic about a particular party or candidate."
Absolutely. My larger point was that those who are uniformly negative with respect to every particular strategy for party building they are confronted with typify a temperamental characteristic which is all too common on the left: they believe passionately in "grassroots organizing" in theory but manifest complete apathy or negativity when confronted with or asked to participate in most specific instances of it in practice. You will judge for yourself whether Henwood's response typifies reasonable skepticism along these lines or cheap, hip cynicism which-its worth mentioning- defines the essential tone of discourse across the board of the subsidized establishment left. (See Amy Wilentz' despicable article on Haiti in the the current Nation for a pretty good indication of what I'm talking about.)
In any case, those who disparage existing strategies for going beyond "activistism" need to propose reasonable ones of their own. Insisting upon the further development of "hyperintellectualism" in the left is not, in my opinion, a productive strategy. I agree with "Snuggles" (and lots of other indymedia participants) on that. (Thanks to Mike L. for forwarding these excellent posts.)
On to a specific instance:
> > I'll assume that your endorsement of Jonathan Farley, the likely
> >Green nominee for president is forthcoming.
>
>Never. I thought for a while there was some potential in the
>hitching-your-wagon-to-a-star strategy of running Nader for
>president, but that hasn't worked out. Running for president isn't
>the way to build a party - it has to start at a much lower level than
>that.
>
Never? Say Kerry is "caught with a live boy or a dead girl" two weeks before the election. Or the converse: Bush's approval rating sinks to the single digits. What is the pragmatic argument for voting for a candidate who you yourself have categorized as an imperialist warmonger when the outcome of the election is not in doubt? (As it will not be, incidentally, in a majority of states even in a close election.)
As for your description of Farley, well maybe he hasn't been appropriately introduced at Upper West Side coffee klatsches. Does this fit your description of a non-entity?
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20040216/003447.html
As for the strategic value of a potential presidential run, no, a party cannot be built from the top down. Why do I keep getting lectured on that from those who have been played either a destructive role or no role whatsoever in local politics?
Having said that, a presidential run can serve to introduce the Green Party (or more generally, a politics of minimum decency and rationality) to constituencies which would otherwise not have known about it. That was the logic of the Nader run in 2000, and it is no different now. If Farley wants, for example, to target his campaign in a bunch of machine dominated cities being challenged by viable local chapters, his appearances there could have a positive impact in the long run. There are additional positive and negative scenarios to be considered in making an assessment as to the strategic value of a presidential run, something which no one on the list has even begun to attempt, as recent posts have indicated.
>
> >and remember that Nader's best showing in 2000
> >came in Alaska.
>
>Now that's a real future - in a messy, complex society, three
>quarters of whose population lives in metro areas, the future can be
>discerned in Alaska?
Notice that you intentionally (from what I can tell) misconstrue my argument which was to suggest that a significant fraction of Nader's support (anecdotal data aside) derived from voters who were completely alienated from both the corporate right and (ostensibly) anti-corporate establishment left. Alaska is worth mentioning in that Nader's strong showing there is only understandable on that basis. The argument was (obviously) not meant to suggest that "the future can be discerned there." Only a fool would say such a thing.
Yet again, you assume that anyone who disagrees with you has to be an idiot.
As Orwell wrote famously on his death bed, it is any wonder why everyone hates us so?
John -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20040217/a3aead3e/attachment.htm>