> The New Democratic Party was founded by the Cooperative Commonwealth
> Federation and the Canadian Labor Congress. In contrast, the
> Democratic Party was founded by slave masters and Indian haters.
True. But I don't think their different origins have much effect on their current policies and membership, which are similar.
> The New Democratic Party is a political party, with individual
> members who pay dues and affiliated members (predominantly trade
> unions but also farm groups, co-operatives, women's organizations,
> etc.) that pay per capita fees (twenty cents per member per month as
> of January 1, 1985, payable to the Federal Party). Its leader is
> selected by ballots cast by party members, with 25% of the votes
> allocated among affiliated members by the party constitution ...
> The Democratic Party leader is selected, however, neither by votes of
> rank-and-file activists nor block votes of trade unions. The
> proliferation of primaries has made Democratic Party Conventions
> irrelevant, except as shows for the general public.
It's more progressive to have a dues-paying membership with formal constitutional rights, as in the NDP. But I'm not sure how that plays out in practice. The methods of selecting the party leader (I assume you're referring to the presidential candidate rather than the DNC chair) don't appear to be that different. The primaries mobilized a lot of Democratic activists representing different factions plumping for their candidates, although in the end the will of the party leadership prevailed. That's a lot like the NDP, where the party leader is now selected by individual mail ballot after a series of debates rather than by delgates at convention (which is more democratic), and the leadership favourite also usually wins. The influence of the unions and other affiliates has been much reduced in the new NDP constitution.
> In short, the Democratic Party isn't exactly a political party --
> it's like a collection of candidate-centered fund-raising machines,
> connected with 527s and other non-profits which are also fund-raising
> machines that occasionally double as top-down mobilization machines.
> Therefore, working-class Americans -- directly or indirectly through
> unions and non-profits -- can choose to volunteer for goals set by
> the owners and managers of fund-raising machines, but they cannot
> change them or set new ones, nor do they control the strategies and
> tactics determined by the owners and managers of fund-raising
> machines. Working for the Democratic Party is not a little like
> working for a corporation, except that, when you work for a
> corporation, you probably get paid better and, if you don't, at least
> you can try to get unionized and bargain collectively.
You'd unfortunately get the same answer from generations of left NDP'ers who have expended much effort trying to change or set new "goals, strategies, and tactics", and who also consider that the party mostly functions like "a collection of candidate-centred top-down fund-raising and mobilization machines". You'd hear the same complaint from activists in the British and Australian Labour parties, and the European social democratic parties. But this is part of the dog work of electoral politics, and there are occasions when real issues are discussed and debated, including in the Democratic party, as during the New Deal, Vietnam, and this past year. Julio Huato and others from this list who participated in the US election have indicated that there was more political life at the base of the DP than those who abstained like to make out. And the campaign doesn't seem to have halted the polarization in the party and the country, only sharpened it.
In the end, whatever the formal differences in party organization, these are less significant than the political similarities. If the DP is to the right of liberal capitalist parties elsewhere, it is because it has to accomodate to a more chauvinist and less class-conscious electorate and, like any political party which aspires to govern the US in present circumstances, to the interests of US imperialism. I note this only to illustrate there's nothing inherently different about the DP's program and membership which fundamentally sets it apart from the NDP and the others, as you assert.
MG