Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Howie Hawkins via Marxism]

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Since this Open Letter responded to a CounterPunch article of mine last month, 
I submitted response to the venues that ran the Open Letter.

Here’s my response in the LA Progressive: 
https://www.laprogressive.com/every-state-is-a-battleground/ 
.

I have a longer, more thorough response on my campaign website: 
https://howiehawkins.us/every-state-is-a-battleground-howie-hawkins-response-to-an-open-letter-to-the-green-party-about-2020-election-strategy/
 
.

— Howie Hawkins
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Just a couple points.

The assumption that inept, incompetent, dishonest, and pointless electoral
activism must necessarily be something other than working class is
mistaken.  Maybe we should even expect that working class electoral
politics has to be so if there's no mechanism for collectively evaluating
experience.  We have to work with what we've got.

More importantly, the discussion always seems to veer from the most
fundamental concern we have: to foster self-organized, independent
political action. Talk about parties, candidates, labels, and abstract
"positions matter only insofar as they advance (or retard) the development
of the only force that can address these issues.  That's keeping our eyes
on the prize not dogmatism, blueprints, etc.

That might mean something different for those who have a vehicle that can
seriously make a real bid for power and something else when we don't have a
vehicle in electoral politics to get anywhere near power.  But the idea
that we can address we address the weakness of that power by voting against
it doesn't make sense.

My objection isn't to voting for Sanders in a primary, though I wouldn't
put much time, energy or effort into what's surely a doomed attempt.  My
objection is that, in the end, most of the people making that argument
always wind up supporting Biden, Clinton, etc.

But here's an idea.  Everyone in any and all socialist groups agree to shut
down the treehouse in terms of electoral politics.  Get together and agree
on a few points as the basis of a class platform.  Pick candidates.
Doesn't matter what club they're in, so long as they agree to campaign on
those points.  Vote, pull the names out of a hat, do it in alphabetical
order, but put together a united labor ticket and stick to it until
November.

Cheers,
Mark L..
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Tristan Sloughter via Marxism]

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Same arguments every four years. I wish either side could convince me their 
strategy was the best because then I'd at least feel like I knew there was a 
path forward.

I've voted Green every presidential election since I've been old enough to 
vote... though that is only 4. Each one I've lived in a different state (South 
Carolina, Illinois, California and now Colorado), and each time they don't 
matter.

Trump did not win California, so what is there to regret about my vote there?

I'll be voting for Sanders in the primary, (I'm now in Colorado), but I've been 
donating to Howie Hawkins and will vote for him in the general, whether Sanders 
gets the nomination or not.

If I ever live in a swing state I'd likely vote Democrat. The people hurt by 
Trump and the people emboldened by Trump is by far enough reason to do so. 

It was before my time (I mean, I was alive, just not voting) but the attempt in 
the 90's for a new party that fell apart partly because of the "don't run in 
swing states" issue makes me also realize building a new party that isn't 
trying to win will not work.

It has always felt there is way more to do outside of presidential election 
voting that is more important for building a working class movement, and that 
voting Green in a swing state does nothing to help with this goal (at this 
time, or any other time I've been voting).

Yet so much energy is spent on it.

Tristan
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/25/20 11:04 AM, David McDonald via Marxism wrote:

So far none of this makes any difference. The people currently committed to
voting independent in 2020 are betting that Sanders can't win the
nomination, or they think it wouldn't matter if he did. I think he can and
I think it does. I like Louis' straightforward trashing of calling for a
labor party (the one political constant of every Trotskyist organization)
but the Green Party is just a slightly less stinking corpse in the middle
of the road. To think otherwise is nostalgia.


In the interest of transparency, David should have mentioned that he is 
a Sandernista.

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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[David McDonald via Marxism]

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Mark Lause, who has supported the Green Party earlier and longer than
anyone I know, admits that his local operation is a piece of shit and hopes
it's different somewhere else. John Reimann points out that the Green Party
2016 ticket was a nest of Assadists and that he should have paid more
attention. Someone pointed out that the Occupy forces are occupying Bernie
for Prez, not Howie. Michael M points to the already catastrophic Trump
impact on climate and the wholesale unleashing of the extractive sector.
Louis offers 150-year-old tactical advice from guys who went on to destroy
the International they said everyone should support, and they destroyed it
for tactical reasons. At least Mark finishes with "Get the Democratic
nomination for a socialist and then we'll talk." But he leaves himself the
out that Sanders may not be a socialist in his definition, otherwise why
not say "get the democratic nomination for Sanders" and then we'll talk.

So far none of this makes any difference. The people currently committed to
voting independent in 2020 are betting that Sanders can't win the
nomination, or they think it wouldn't matter if he did. I think he can and
I think it does. I like Louis' straightforward trashing of calling for a
labor party (the one political constant of every Trotskyist organization)
but the Green Party is just a slightly less stinking corpse in the middle
of the road. To think otherwise is nostalgia.
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Dayne Goodwin via Marxism]

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Howie Hawkins has a working class political perspective unlike the signers
of the 'open letter.'  Hawkins is vying for the presidential nomination of
the Green Party of the U.S. which, as John Reimann says, is historically a
petit-bourgeois political formation.  IMO this was proven in 2003/4 when
the Green Party rejected the candidacy of Ralph Nader (individually a
middle-class reformer but allied with the fledgling Labor Party organizing
effort, who had opened up a significant challenge to the capitalists'
two-party political system in the 2000 election**) in order to support the
Democrat presidential candidate, using the same capitalist-centric
rationale manifest in today's 'open letter.'

Open letter signers, like other defenders of the capitalists' two-party
political monopoly, argue from a narrow-minded 'zero-sum game' framework.
I think that the participation of strong independent working class
candidates in capitalist state elections increases the progressive vote
generally, including for the mainstream capitalist parties (Democrats in
U.S.) which posture as fighting for the working class.  In the case of the
protest vote for the weak middle-class Green Party in the 2016 presidential
election, i don't think the voting result would have been significantly
different if the Green Party hadn't existed, electoral results would have
remained the same.

IMO there has not been a significant potential national working class
presence in the U.S. political system since the mid-2000s crumbling of the
Labor Party effort that had been led by Tony Mazzochi (d. 2002, btw
longtime Nader ally).  If Howie Hawkins is able to win the Green Party
presidential nomination it might be an indication that the Green Party is
beginning to develop into a working class party.

Obviously i think the political outlook for working people is pretty
dismal.  Touche' Mark: "We don't have a lot of alternatives.  Everybody in
a socialist group that hasn't done anything to create such an
alternative--and going through the motions hasn't sufficed--bears some
responsibility for this. You don't like the Greens, but haven't done diddly
to forge something better."

And as Mark says: "The path to Trump was paved by Democrats [as] much as
Republicans.  That's the nature of the system both serve."  The open letter
signers are mistaken to think that voting Democrat will make a qualitative
difference in implementing 'real solutions' for the growing crises of the
capitalist system.

**The myth that Nader cost Gore the 2000 presidential election, now 'common
knowledge' in the mainstream media and also apparently with the 'open
letter' signers, was created by defenders of the capitalist two-party
political system to attack Nader and pressure the Green Party's leadership
not to run Nader again in 2004. The reality is that half of Florida's
registered Democrats didn't bother to vote in 2000 and 12% of them - over
200,000 - voted for Bush.  In addition to Nader/Greens, each of the other
seven third party presidential candidates on the Florida ballot in 2000 got
more than the 543 votes that supposedly made the difference, see <
http://www.cagreens.org/alameda/city/0803myth/myth.html>.  In addition to
voter suppression and related Republican dirty tricks, Gore (longtime
fixture of the capitalist system) didn't even put up a fight for a full
Florida recount.



On Fri, Jan 24, 2020 at 3:12 PM Louis Proyect via Marxism <
marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote:

>
> On 1/24/20 12:06 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:
> > The Greens are not a working class party; they are a petit bourgeois
> party.
> > They did not develop out of a movement of the working class and have no
> > base in any part of the working class movement.
>
>
> Yeah, petit bourgeois. That about sums up this kind of politics that
> refuses to get behind a candidate like Howie Hawkins, who was a
> warehouse worker for decades and a Teamster union member. If this was
> 1934, we'd all be pushing for a labor party because there was a class
> dynamic that made it possible. We are not in 1934, comrades. Time to
> wake up and smell the coffee.
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/24/20 12:06 PM, John Reimann via Marxism wrote:

The Greens are not a working class party; they are a petit bourgeois party.
They did not develop out of a movement of the working class and have no
base in any part of the working class movement.



Yeah, petit bourgeois. That about sums up this kind of politics that 
refuses to get behind a candidate like Howie Hawkins, who was a 
warehouse worker for decades and a Teamster union member. If this was 
1934, we'd all be pushing for a labor party because there was a class 
dynamic that made it possible. We are not in 1934, comrades. Time to 
wake up and smell the coffee.

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[Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Gilbert Schaeffer via Marxism]

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Louis, On the matter of Marx's Address of the Central Committee to the
Communist League in 1850, things aren't so absolute. Just a few years
after the Address, Marx and his Communist League colleague in New
York, Joseph Weydemeyer, abandoned their effort to form an independent
revolutionary workers' organization in the U.S. and threw their
support behind the Republican Party and the struggle against slavery.
Obviously, there are vast differences between that political situation
and ours today, but the Address is not the final word on how to
operate within the U.S. political system.
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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Yeah, it's absurd to describe something as not a working class formation
because it doesn't label itself as such.  Equally to think that something's
not a working class formation because that it's run by sellouts and/or
idiots.  I've long severed ties with the coalition of flakes and Democrats
in the local party.  The last person they supported as  a "Green" was also
running as a Democrat and I just got an email endorsing him from one of our
big name local machine politicians.

This doesn't mean that the Greens elsewhere might be genuinely independent,
though I think it's politically suicidal for them to retain ties with state
and local parties that don't really exist except on paper and function
primarily as a stopgap measure to bloc any viable independent alternative
from taking form.  But, since it's gone on since the last century, I don't
have high hopes for any corrective.

I won't bore anyone with historical examples.  Electoral politics grows
from an overall principle of fostering independent class self-organization
and self-reliance with its fulcrum resting not on campaign promises and
rhetoric but issues of power.  It's not related to electoral promises or to
pragmatic considerations about the rivalries between Democratic
slaveholders and Whig slaveholders.  (Oops, historical examples are
slipping in, apparently.)  And, btw, the emphasis on Trump as some sort of
meteor strike that came out of nowhere is just silly.

Look at the impeachment with open eyes and you see a crisis inseparable
from Democratic decisions to rely on executive rule by Obama rather than to
fight in the court of public opinion . . . to give Dubya a free pass over
WMDs and Bushdaddy repeated free passes for high crimes and misdemeanors of
all sorts.  And Regan.  And even Nixon, into whose work the Democrats
essentially dropped the investigations after his resignation.  The path to
Trump was paved by Democrats and much as Republicans.  That's the nature of
the system both serve.

Bernie Sanders will be irrelevant in a matter of months.  Despite all sorts
of developments, the party and the media is beating the drum for nominating
Joe "Lock 'em up" Biden or the nearest stand-in they might have to install
to replace him.  And when that happens, the people who offered the Greens
such brilliant "advise" will beat the drum for whoever the Democratic
hierarchy wants, denouncing those of us who aren't buying the kool-aid as
closet fascists.  Heard it all before.

Just to make a practical observation.  We don't have a lot of
alternatives.  Everybody in a socialist group that hasn't done anything to
create such an alternative--and going through the motions hasn't
sufficed--bears some responsibility for this.  You don't like the Greens,
but haven't done diddly to forge something better.

Cheers,
Mark L.
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[STEVEN ROBINSON via Marxism]

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The role of David Cobb in the Stein campaign was troubling to me, although I 
voted the Green ticket anyway.

The lack of [Democrat] Party loyalty of the Sanders base may be the motivating 
factor of the "Open Letter."  See this:

https://www.newsweek.com/bernie-sanders-poll-warren-biden-2020-nominee-emerson-college-1483831

SR 

> On January 24, 2020 at 9:06 AM John Reimann via Marxism 
>  wrote:
nt.
> 
> In 2016 I voted for the Green Party candidate for president. That was a
> mistake.  First of all because at that time I did not see the importance of
> their VP candidate's support for Assad.
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Re: [Marxism] An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[John Reimann via Marxism]

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Louis Proyect quotes an address from Marx in which Marx advocates the
working class running its own candidates, even if that candidate stands no
chance of winning. In the first place, that was in a completely different
situation. Second, and more important: Marx was talking about candidates
coming from a working class movement, and that is exactly the difference.
The Greens are not a working class party; they are a petit bourgeois party.
They did not develop out of a movement of the working class and have no
base in any part of the working class movement.

In 2016 I voted for the Green Party candidate for president. That was a
mistake.  First of all because at that time I did not see the importance of
their VP candidate's support for Assad. And as for Stein - I didn't see the
significance of her flirtation (to say the least) with Putin.

More to the point, I had thought that a layer of the Sandersnista youth
might turn to the Green Party and transform it, give it some real life.
From there, given the huge political vacuum in the working class, I thought
the GP might actually become a working class party. This is as opposed to
in Germany, for example, where they seem to have become a capitalist party
on the "left" margins of the spectrum. I went to a few GP meetings here in
Oakland. There was no sign of those youth here. I don't think the Greens
will be transformed; I think they will remain a petit bourgeois party, and
I would not vote for their candidates again.

This is not meant to advocate voting for the Democrat; it's just meant to
say that I think the Greens don't deserve the support of socialists.

John Reimann

-- 
*“In politics, abstract terms conceal treachery.” *from "The Black
Jacobins" by C. L. R. James
Check out:https:http://oaklandsocialist.com also on Facebook
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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Marx and Engels were writing in the world where the "historic mission" of
the Bourgeoisie was to develop the productive forces sufficiently to make
it possible for the curse of necessity to be banished from the earth --- a
development of the forces of production that made true civilization
(ultimately communism) possible.

Yet because socialism did not defeat capitalism in the 20th century,
capitalism having long outlived its ability to merely develop the
productive forces and having reached the stage of devouring the planet
itself we are faced with an entirely different set of issues

(I have argued -- and I know I get lots of flack for this -- that we got a
taste of the changing reality with the rise of fascism and its particular
German version, Naziism --- made possible IN PART by the inability of
communists and socialists to unite against it --- with the regional and
individual (for Jews, gypsies, gays, slavs, etc.) disasters ---)

That set of isssues involves planetary destruction --- Many argue that the
ONLY way to save the planet is to have a socialist revolution --- I argue
that that MIGHT be true but since such a change seems more unlikely than
getting the Democratic (and "democratic" with a small "d") to take the
necessary steps to save the planet, it's better to bet on the Dems vs.
Trump (and take your set of choices in the rest of the world as well) than
to remain pure ---

Don't think quoting Marx and Engels advances the argument given the current
set of challenges

BUT --- we are not talking about a "few reactionaries" -- we are talking
about fascism .

>
>
>
>
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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Mark Lause via Marxism]

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The essence of this is the usual liberal BS of blaming left.

If I believed what these people seem to believe--and I sure don't--I'd
focus my efforts on trying to persuade Democratic voters to go for Sanders
or some other "progressive" rather than  crapping on radicals.  I regularly
defend Sanders and Warren against media misrepresentations and the lies of
the DNC types who prevail there, but I don't put time, energy or money into
what I see as a hopeless bid to get the Democratic hierarchy to permit the
nomination of such candidates.  I see this as being as hopeless as trying
to get the Republicans to nominate a socialist in 2020.

I don't base this on abstract theories or "dogma" but on half a century of
watching Democratic politics and a study of how politics worked before I
was here and alert enough to follow it.

These people who are so free with their "advice" to--actually accusations
against--we pathetic mortals  with the audacity to try to learn from
experience and observation is equally of waste of time and effort.  If they
want to win this argument, they should focus their Jedi wisdom on proving us

Get the Democratic nomination for a socialist and then we'll talk.

Of course, I'm still waiting for them to levitate the Pentagon.

Cheers,
Mark L.
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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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On 1/24/20 8:55 AM, Michael Meeropol wrote:
Sorry, Louis --- I agree 100% with the argument in this letter. Working 
for the Green Party Is taking the gamble that Trump is SO LITTLE "worse" 
than the Democratic opponent (and let's grant the worst case scenario 
that BIDEN --- or -- gasp (!!) BLOOMBERG --- is the Democratic nominee) 
would not make the difference in terms of long term destruction of the 
planet via global warming --- Let's assume that there is a 1% chance 
that Trump vs. generic Dem will make the difference between the survival 
of the planet and some (better than nothiing) amelioration --



Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Address of the Central Committee to the 
Communist League, London, March 1850


Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers 
must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to 
gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and 
party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the 
empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ 
candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of 
reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final 
analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the 
proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is 
infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the 
presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the 
forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the 
reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the 
election will already have been destroyed.


https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm



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Re: [Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Michael Meeropol via Marxism]

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Sorry, Louis --- I agree 100% with the argument in this letter.   Working
for the Green Party Is taking the gamble that Trump is SO LITTLE "worse"
than the Democratic opponent (and let's grant the worst case scenario that
BIDEN --- or -- gasp (!!) BLOOMBERG --- is the Democratic nominee) would
not make the difference in terms of long term destruction of the planet via
global warming --- Let's assume that there is a 1% chance that Trump vs.
generic Dem will make the difference between the survival of the planet and
some (better than nothiing) amelioration --

A 1% chance of an INFINITE damage (do the simple math) is still INFINITE
damage ---

(you can turn that 1% probability into any low number, even .01% and
the result is still INFINITE damage --- that's what the concept of infinity
means)

Since it is IMPOSSIBLE to be 100% sure about the future, I think all of us
alive today (except young people who will live through disasters in the
next 50 years ALREADY BAKED IN no matter what is done in the next 10 - 20)
are being very selfishly arrogant about our predictability skills 
since we won;t live to see the damage we are inflicting on our
grandchildren (and young people all over the world) ---

I think at least having SOME humility about our ability to predict the
different futures created by a BIDEN (BLOOMBERG?) vs. TRUMP presidency --
(I won't even mention a Sanders or Warren presidency which I believe would
be a qualitatively positive difference ) requires us to err on the side
of caution and that means NO ONE should take any steps that will make a
second Trump term even a TINY BIT more probable --

The letter from these folks in this context makes cogent strong points and
they have certainly convinced me ---

(I am writing this assuming that Louis was referring to the letter signers
as "a bunch of idiots" rather than Green Party people contemplating running
in all states)



> (What a bunch of idiots.)
>
>
>
>
> We offer this open letter in hopes of prodding discussion of the issues
> raised
>
> Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron
> Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert
>
> 
> 
> 
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[Marxism] » An Open Letter to the Green Party About 2020 Election Strategy

[Louis Proyect via Marxism]

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(What a bunch of idiots.)

Greens will pay a price for not running in contested states. Our advice 
to Greens would be to notice the infinitely bigger price that millions 
and even billions of people will pay for Trump winning.


The stance says “Greens don’t spoil elections. We improve them. We 
advance solutions that otherwise won’t get raised. We are running out of 
time on the climate crisis, inequality, and nuclear weapons. Greens will 
be damned if we wait for the Democrats. Real solutions can’t wait.”


But real solutions require Trump out of office. Real solutions will 
become far more probable with Sanders or Warren in office. Real 
solutions will become somewhat more probable even with the likes of 
Biden in office.


To conclude, is a Green candidate running for President after the summer 
really going to argue we shouldn’t vote for Sanders in contested states 
not just to end Trumpism but also to enact all kinds of important 
changes including urging and facilitating grass roots activism and 
thereby advancing Green program?


We offer this open letter in hopes of prodding discussion of the issues 
raised.


Noam Chomsky, Bill Fletcher, Barbara Ehrenreich, Kathy Kelly, Ron 
Daniels, Leslie Cagan, Norman Solomon, Cynthia Peters, and Michael Albert


https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/an-open-letter-to-the-green-party-about-2020-election-strategy/
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