Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Green Party convention to the real world: Drop Dead! (Frontlines coverage) From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 11:36:58 -0400
To all the (unavoidably, if you pull the lever for Kerry) _prowar, pro-Democrats_, we say to you that with the Camejo choice, Nader looks a lot better. Now if Nader ditches the notion of playing footsie with the (quasi) independent Right, he'll be totally OK with me. It's the same issue as with the Democrats, who are every bit as Arab-hating racist, and this is the crucial racism of the moment - there's a difference between wanting an independent rightist campaign like Perots', that would take votes away from Bush, and actually _working_ for it. The latter is wrong on principle, the same principle that is applied to the Democrats or any other rightwing party.
Frontlines has it largly right about the Greens, who are in serious trouble:
Nader's tactics in relation to the greens are often ascribed to his supposed lone wolf individualism. Others speculate that he simply --and consistently-- miscalculated, that he is tone deaf or politically clueless.
However, there is another interpretation that makes sense. And that is that as a result of his long association with the Greens and his discussions with the national leadership last fall, Nader came to see that, at least as currently configured, dominated by a middle-class "realo" faction in the leadership, the Greens are becoming an obstacle to the emergence of a much more vigorous alternative to the two party system, and he decided to place no obstacles in the way of their self-destruction, at least as a *national* party, to clear the way for something better in the future.
And the truth is that the middle-class social layers that provided the base for Nader's previous runs and the Greens have succumbed to an "Anybody but Bush" hysteria, making them totally unfit to serve as a core around which to structure an independent political movement.
Actually, a big problem with Nader (and to a lesser extent, Camejo) is that they are far too American individualistic. In fact, Frontlines criticized Camejo for a similiar behavior in the California recall election. Without consulting with the Cal Greens, Camejo went ahead and supported having the recall election itself - this, though being a thoroughly rightwing movement. The principle thing to do was to oppose the rightist recvall drive itself, but, should it pass, prepare to run an independent progressive left candidate. This latter move came off pretty well except that I believe Camejo didn't bother to consult the Greens here either. The former move was wrong.
As for the Greens, theirs is but a part of the crisis that the movement for an independent progressive left has been thrown into, due to the fact that the large majority of the American Left - Doug and Michael Moore included - has fled rightward to establish unprincipled liasons with that branch of the (almost completely) rightist regime they feel more comfortable with. So, however wrongheaded, it is understandable that in this sort of fetid political enviornment, if Doug and Mike could "do it", why not Ralph?
-Brad Mayer
Michael Pugliese wrote:
> The demogreen "realo" faction at the stacked "electoral college"
> Green Party Convention in Milwaukee has voted to deny Ralph Nader and
> Peter Camejo its ballot lines by nominating shamefaced Kerry
> supporter David Cobb for President.
So what do our pro-Nader people make of this?
Doug