What's your opinion on the green party

[billydan225]

Yeah I'll be graduating in 2015

[Lucretia]

I think in general any emergence of a challenge to the Democrats from the left would be at least somewhat valuable and maybe even a step forward.

The Green party had a shot at coalessing the left-of-democrat frustration (their supporters ranging from liberals/progressives upset at the neoliberal direction of the Democratic party to social-democrats generally) and got to a certain point, but then retreated undre pressure of Bush-era lesser-evilism.

There was a debate in the party over if they should present a hard challenge to the Democrats at the risk of "spoiling" or if they should have a "safe state" strategy where they will only challenge the Democrats where the Democrats do not risk loosing to a Republican. This strategy may have helped them keep liberal supporters in local elections, but it made the entire appeal and reason for the party's existance redundant. A left-populist challenge to the Democrats that only challenges the Dems where there is no threat of their loosing the election is a little like some of the lifestyle anarchists and utopian socialists whose plan for communism will work perfectly as long as the ruling class doesn't try and maintain its rule.

If the primary goal of a socialist organization is simply to weaken the Democratic party, then this might make sense. If it is to advance workers revolution, the idea of weakening the Democrats in order to empower a petty-bourgeois reformist social-democratic party is just re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic. You'll be as closer to revolution as Europe is compared to the United States. What an accomplishment to spend years of activist manpower fighting for as a goal unto itself.

The whole premise of creating a non-revolutionary "alternative" to the democrats as a serious revolutionary strategy actually indicates a conflation of class and non-class politics. And what I mean by that is that democrats are economic liberals wedded to capitalism every bit as much, if not moreso, than republicans. They combine this with more tolerant positions on social issues like abortion and gay rights. Does this place them to the "left" of the Republicans, thereby rendering them a lesser evil? I suppose so from the perspective of non-class issues. Does it place them on the left in terms of class issues? Absolutely not. Objectively they are equally pro-capitalist, but have a different understanding of how best to save capitalism. Some adherents to democratic party ideology may manifest discomfort over the way capitalism currently functions, thus creating an illusion that they can be won over more easily to revolutionary socialism. But this is just an illusion. They still think that these problems within capitalism can be overcome within the confines of capitalism. To repeat: they are as pro-capitalist as the supposed "right-wing" of the Republican party is, just in a different way.

I actually think it's just as easy for a rev. socialist party to recruit people from the right of the mainstream political spectrum as it is to recruit people from the "left." The *only* exception to this trend are the religious fanatics on the right.

[redblood_blackflag]

Maybe rather than calling a fellow poster (especially one who is appearently under 16-17 years old) an "authoritarian" and making assumptions about their viewpoint, you can explain why you don't think voting is a useful strategy.

I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing FOR electorialism, rather than about any stratigic value of 3rd parties and whatnot. If you think it has no stratigic value then that's a valid argument and you should make it, but the above seems like a cut-and-paste argument, not organic discussion.

It's a meaningless superstitious ritual. I would have thought that was obvious.
And I didn't call anyone an authoritarian specifically- but, yes, I'd say they believe in authority and support it if they are thinking about "voting" in some "political election."
That isn't meant to be a personal attack specifically against this individual, just an argument against "political authority." I made the post so the individual thinking about "voting" could read it and think about it themselves.

Really, though, if you werent an authoritarian, why would you vote?
If you didnt believe in authority, why would you even vote against?
The state imposes regardless of how an individual votes. It's meaningless superstition. It's a trick.

[redblood_blackflag]

I don't think anyone in this thread is arguing FOR electorialism**, rather than about any stratigic value of 3rd parties and whatnot.

strategic value in what regard?
the strategic value of NOT electing** "third parties" ?
not trying to sound rude. but, seems contradictory. the entire thing is absed on "electoralism."

political parties are necessarily based on and dependent on state power. they have no "strategic value" in anything other than trying to get people to believe they are the state, the "government," whatever, and then imposing "law."

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

The greens are probably more anti worker then the social democrats.
They believe that by driving down our consumption of goods the environment will be under less pressure.

And this is incorrect how? The natural Science profession basically reaches a conses that resource depletion is real, that it's happening right now and will drive commodity prices (most crucially oil) up the next two decades as natural resources become more laborious to find and production developes below humankind's' needs for energy. The year 1970 globally is seen as generally "resource sustainable" consumption. But in 1970 even more people than now were starving in the third world, and some living in poverty the first world for that matter.

So, if natural resources are not to be depleted (besides the obvious issues today of pollution) we must implement an internationally planned alliance of economies, a socialist bloc, to stop Capital accumulation, growth, and necessarily lower consumption in the west. However Comrade, the richest 5% of the US population consume 37% of all US consumer goods. To put it more globally: 20% of the world's population consume 86% of the world's resources.

The solution to the capitalist environmental crisis is Class War, and the inevitable depression of the western capitalist economies, as we are seeing in Greece where industrial production has crashed by 30% since 2010.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I would like to point out that the Green Party is just another sign of the contradiction of Capitalism. A small part of the Bourgeoisie see that climate change is real, a danger to the Capitalist system, and fund the Green Party. It is the tiny sprout of inter-bourgeois division that spells times of crisis and revolutionary periods.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Aim so low, that you can't miss your mark.

Really though, given that your country is a two-party deadlock forever, why bother with parlimentarianism? Uh, unless you're going to reform the Democrats lulz.

[thethinveil]

I come from one of the only areas where the Green Party has a majority. And they are pretty bad when it comes down to it. In fact, the area had a problem, that they were often disconnected from the surrounding community. The area was a college town that had high property values and made it harder for others to join. So it was kinda a way for middle class lefties to exclude the laborers of the community. They suffered from either being seen as latte drinking, local organic co-op eating, tree hungers who are snobbish about their lifestyle choices.

They also have trouble getting their act together like most left organizations, they can't seem to agree on much because in the US the green party acts as a sponge for everybody left of the Democrats which leaves a wide variety.

So if you can get past who they are, and their general lack of organizing muscle, you can eventually come away liking some of their policies like a living wage and maximum wage.

I like them enough to vote for them as a small protest to the two party system since they are the most organized of the unorganized left in America.

[Goblin]

A lesser evil bourgeoisie party that will never win an election.

[Jimmie Higgins]

If the primary goal of a socialist organization is simply to weaken the Democratic party, then this might make sense.

What would a goal of "to weaken the Democrats" look like - weaken them to what ends? Sabotage and trickery could weaken the Democrats, however it is doubtful that a wedge into the corporate consensus or help physically organize and mobilize people disatisfied by the Democrats and neo-liberalism.

A party or popular or protest campaign can actually help mobilize some more general sentiments and a structrual break from the Democrats (even when not explicitly or fully articulated as socialist in nature as was the case with the anti-globalization movent, some of the more popular 3rd party challenges, and of course Occupy).

If it is to advance workers revolution, the idea of weakening the Democrats in order to empower a petty-bourgeois reformist social-democratic party is just re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

That would be true, but it's also a straw-man in this case because I do not know of any revolutionary groups with this goal and in the case witht he ISO and the Green party, the argument on our side was that we relate to this as a social movement, our goal is to help create this official break from the Democrats, not to help build the Green Party for the sake of building it (hence supporting the "not build the party" side in the Debates about "spoilerism" after 2000 and the hence not supporting the Green party, but Nader, in 2004).

And it is also a straw man because this was not a strategy purly of choice, but one based on trying to figure out how working class dissatisfaction with the Democrats after Bill Clinton would manifest itself. Our decision to support this campagin was largely based not on the professed politics of the group, but of the potential to galvanize and organize on what we saw an insurgant mood (lacking organization) towards the end of the 1990s.

You'll be as closer to revolution as Europe is compared to the United States. What an accomplishment to spend years of activist manpower fighting for as a goal unto itself.

Except the ISO has sucessfully participated in such a campaign and we are not "tainted" by the smallpox of electoralism and repating this strategy mechanically. In fact our assessment was that it was wishful thinking to believe Nader in 2004, could have helped refocus the flailing anti-war movement. Some believed local campaigns could have done the same thing in spontaniously reviving the ailing Occupy movement, but we disagreed with that viewpoint, in part from our experience in the past in Nader and the anti-war vote.

The whole premise of creating a non-revolutionary "alternative" to the democrats as a serious revolutionary strategy actually indicates a conflation of class and non-class politics.

No because again this was not the goal - just as we might support some limited reform demands that we think may have the potential for organizng and mobilizing some of the class anger. The goal is not to settle at this wage or that or this benifit or that, but to build the capacity of workers to fight. The "revolutionary strategy" comes into into it on the level of trying to help create poltical space outside of the ruling class parties, "a Left", supporting a campagin we thought had the potential to begin to mobilize these elements is a "tactic" not some principle or mechanical strategy.

You speak as if the ISO created the Green party and their increase in popularity in 2000, but this was not the case. How are revolutionary politics going to resonate with people, what will cause them to maybe begin to adopt our strategies and political understanding? One by one through propaganda? Well this is certaintly important, but it is inherently limited. Struggle produces the larger movements and questions and potential for radicalization and sharpening of the class struggle. But the low-level of class struggle in the US means that most of the time when people mobilize it will be like Occupy and have a mix of liberal and radical poltics with radicals generally being a small minority.

So the "class confused" nature of such movements is unavoidable for any emerging movement in the US.

And what I mean by that is that democrats are economic liberals wedded to capitalism every bit as much, if not moreso, than republicans. They combine this with more tolerant positions on social issues like abortion and gay rights. Does this place them to the "left" of the Republicans, thereby rendering them a lesser evil? I suppose so from the perspective of non-class issues. Does it place them on the left in terms of class issues? Absolutely not. Objectively they are equally pro-capitalist, but have a different understanding of how best to save capitalism. Some adherents to democratic party ideology may manifest discomfort over the way capitalism currently functions, thus creating an illusion that they can be won over more easily to revolutionary socialism. But this is just an illusion. They still think that these problems within capitalism can be overcome within the confines of capitalism. To repeat: they are as pro-capitalist as the supposed "right-wing" of the Republican party is, just in a different way.

I'm not sure what you are arguing here. The Democrats are a ruling class party of capitalism - yes.

I actually think it's just as easy for a rev. socialist party to recruit people from the right of the mainstream political spectrum as it is to recruit people from the "left." The *only* exception to this trend are the religious fanatics on the right.

I disagree because I think we see "recruitment" totally differenty: while it is posible and necissary to recruit people on the basis of logical and reasoned argument and propaganda, this will not create a socialist movement in the US - it may in a nickle-and-dime way help increase the numbers of organized radicals, but it will not build a movement. It has been necissary in a time of declining union struggle and working class confidence and expectations to recruit people in this fashion - but people tend to get discourged from the left in such an atomosphere almost as fast as all the left groups can organize them. As a result is the radical left we all know - small, inward looking, and working on modest projects trying to build small bases in workplaces, schools, and communities.

Trying to organize a vanguard presupposes a larger movement from which the most revolutionary elements can come together to coordinate their efforts. So what does it mean to be in the Bolshevik view, the Leninist, Trotskyist traddition today when there is not a mass reformist movement that has been established in decades of fighting the Tsar? How do we counterpose the real revolutionary path to the reformist path when the working class is bedridden and shoeless? Without struggle, then we can not convince people: it's a contradiction to overcome the "ruling ideas of the age" through a battle of ideas alone. Things like Occupy or the Civil Rights Movement or past reform struggles did more to open things up for radical ideas and organizing than any hard dedicated work (in isolation of a larger shift among workers) by groups of socialists could have done alone.

[Jimmie Higgins]

It's a meaningless superstitious ritual. I would have thought that was obvious.

It's not a superstition because I have actually seen people vote once or twice, so it's empirically "real". What you may mean is that the idea that voting can make the kinds of changes workers need is a myth, then yes I'd agree that the "democratic" naturure of capitalism and of capitalist governments is an absolute deception.

Do elections "matter"? Maybe not in the way they are supposed to matter (popular input in governance of society) but they do matter - even if only in the negative. If they didn't matter, in fact, you wouldn't make any arguments or quote libertarian books and whatnot about it. If it only matter in wedding working class consiousness to the limits of the capitalist parties consensus--- then it matters. I think in a limited way is can also matter in the posititive in that it can shed light into where class consiousness is at - are people willing to settle, are people voting for protest candidates out of anger at the system, etc.

Because the fact is while elections don't matter for actual politics or who runs society ultimately, about half of workers are still pulled into that orbit meaning that even if we are dennouncing voting, we are still orienting towards where a chunck of working class attention is and trying to make some kind of appeal. I think therefore protest candidates and whatnot can have a role to play - many just outright reject any orientation on elections at all. I think this is a mistake, but I also agree that elections are not a way for workers to actually gain power, it is not a field in which we have any power or can ever really make meaningful change. But, again, it can be a platform or a way to counterpose capitalist poltics with working class demands.

[Lucretia]

What would a goal of "to weaken the Democrats" look like - weaken them to what ends? Sabotage and trickery could weaken the Democrats, however it is doubtful that a wedge into the corporate consensus or help physically organize and mobilize people disatisfied by the Democrats and neo-liberalism.

A party or popular or protest campaign can actually help mobilize some more general sentiments and a structrual break from the Democrats (even when not explicitly or fully articulated as socialist in nature as was the case with the anti-globalization movent, some of the more popular 3rd party challenges, and of course Occupy).

That would be true, but it's also a straw-man in this case because I do not know of any revolutionary groups with this goal and in the case witht he ISO and the Green party, the argument on our side was that we relate to this as a social movement, our goal is to help create this official break from the Democrats, not to help build the Green Party for the sake of building it (hence supporting the "not build the party" side in the Debates about "spoilerism" after 2000 and the hence not supporting the Green party, but Nader, in 2004).

And it is also a straw man because this was not a strategy purly of choice, but one based on trying to figure out how working class dissatisfaction with the Democrats after Bill Clinton would manifest itself. Our decision to support this campagin was largely based not on the professed politics of the group, but of the potential to galvanize and organize on what we saw an insurgant mood (lacking organization) towards the end of the 1990s.

Except the ISO has sucessfully participated in such a campaign and we are not "tainted" by the smallpox of electoralism and repating this strategy mechanically. In fact our assessment was that it was wishful thinking to believe Nader in 2004, could have helped refocus the flailing anti-war movement. Some believed local campaigns could have done the same thing in spontaniously reviving the ailing Occupy movement, but we disagreed with that viewpoint, in part from our experience in the past in Nader and the anti-war vote.

No because again this was not the goal - just as we might support some limited reform demands that we think may have the potential for organizng and mobilizing some of the class anger. The goal is not to settle at this wage or that or this benifit or that, but to build the capacity of workers to fight. The "revolutionary strategy" comes into into it on the level of trying to help create poltical space outside of the ruling class parties, "a Left", supporting a campagin we thought had the potential to begin to mobilize these elements is a "tactic" not some principle or mechanical strategy.

You speak as if the ISO created the Green party and their increase in popularity in 2000, but this was not the case. How are revolutionary politics going to resonate with people, what will cause them to maybe begin to adopt our strategies and political understanding? One by one through propaganda? Well this is certaintly important, but it is inherently limited. Struggle produces the larger movements and questions and potential for radicalization and sharpening of the class struggle. But the low-level of class struggle in the US means that most of the time when people mobilize it will be like Occupy and have a mix of liberal and radical poltics with radicals generally being a small minority.

So the "class confused" nature of such movements is unavoidable for any emerging movement in the US.

I'm not sure what you are arguing here. The Democrats are a ruling class party of capitalism - yes.

I disagree because I think we see "recruitment" totally differenty: while it is posible and necissary to recruit people on the basis of logical and reasoned argument and propaganda, this will not create a socialist movement in the US - it may in a nickle-and-dime way help increase the numbers of organized radicals, but it will not build a movement. It has been necissary in a time of declining union struggle and working class confidence and expectations to recruit people in this fashion - but people tend to get discourged from the left in such an atomosphere almost as fast as all the left groups can organize them. As a result is the radical left we all know - small, inward looking, and working on modest projects trying to build small bases in workplaces, schools, and communities.

Trying to organize a vanguard presupposes a larger movement from which the most revolutionary elements can come together to coordinate their efforts. So what does it mean to be in the Bolshevik view, the Leninist, Trotskyist traddition today when there is not a mass reformist movement that has been established in decades of fighting the Tsar? How do we counterpose the real revolutionary path to the reformist path when the working class is bedridden and shoeless? Without struggle, then we can not convince people: it's a contradiction to overcome the "ruling ideas of the age" through a battle of ideas alone. Things like Occupy or the Civil Rights Movement or past reform struggles did more to open things up for radical ideas and organizing than any hard dedicated work (in isolation of a larger shift among workers) by groups of socialists could have done alone.

Jimmie, we've had this discussion many times before, so I'm not really going to rehash the details. The root of our disagreement lies in what you misleadingly call a "strawman." The primary goal of the ISO right now is to build a broad left that acts as a "wedge in the corporate consensus." You stand by this goal and defend it on this forum and in this thread. As envisioned by your party, it is a discrete stage in the goal of trying to create a revolutionary party. If it weren't, you could easily dispense with all this talk of "weakening Democrats," "building wedges," and so forth, and just state that the goal is building a revolutionary party-- since, after all, they are supposedly the exact same thing. You can't do this, because they aren't the same thing. The first series of euphemisms are a process that you and your party hope will militate in the long-term goal of the second. It's stageism, stageism, stageism, 100%.

If anybody here wants to see the truth behind these motivations, I advise readers to consult the thread "Lev Bronsteinovich: A Call-Out" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lev-bronst...763/index.html), wherein you openly defend the creation of social-democratic reformist parties. To quote you directly about ISO involvement in the Nader campaign, "So the goal was not party-building (other than the hope that some good people who were convinced of our politics might join) but trying to help develop an independent left in the US." Notice here that your intervention in the GP's electoral activities is counterposed to building a revolutionary party, not synonymous with it. You also defend the goal of creating European-style social-democratic parties explicitly, saying "But in many of these countries the existence of these other reformist parties allows a greater audience for revolutionary ideas and consequentially there is more of a revolutionary left in many of these places." How can anybody read this as other than you defending the creation of these parties as a conduit, or stage, to revolutionary growth and as important goals in their own right? You can scream strawman all you want, but I'm stating nothing but facts here.

[MarxSchmarx]

Which Green Party? This is an international forum.

The Green Party of England & Wales is the most left-wing out of the main political parties, the German Green Party is more like centre-right.

You think the German Green Party is bad, the Mexican "Green Party" has made quite a name for itself as being the only party in congress that has called for restoring the death penalty, even for kidnappers.

[Skyhilist]

My opinion on the green party: meh.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Jimmie, we've had this discussion many times before, so I'm not really going to rehash the details.

And if you continue to say that the goal was to get the Green party elected or that we see whatever left-formations as some kind of mechanical and required step, then I will have to continue to refute these misunderstandings or misrepresntations. If our goal was to build a reform party, then we would have stuck with the Green party, no? But this was not our goal and so we initially switched to Nader in an over-hopful attempt to rally anti-war activists who might have been pulled away from pro-Kerry lesser-evilism. We underestimated that pull and so we didn't rush to make the same mistake in thinking a protest campaign would do the same for vague anti-austerity sentiment in the last election.

The root of our disagreement lies in what you misleadingly call a "strawman." The primary goal of the ISO right now is to build a broad left that acts as a "wedge in the corporate consensus." You stand by this goal and defend it on this forum and in this thread.

OK, yes, in the near-term what is necissary for a revolutionary movement in the US is class struggle which could devleop through a rank and file upsurge or in a more general upsurge in social struggle. The pull of the Democratic Party is a big immediate barrier to this.

So in the short-term there are many various movements and strategies which may help the situation in any number of ways from workplace struggle, to social movements, to new political formations and so these kind of have to be judged for support on what the possible outcomes from struggle might be, if it will increase consiosuness and struggle and so on. In the medim-term, we need resistance in the US, we need people to be mobilized and begin to struggle so that revolutionary politics are even relevant to people. This is what I mean by "the Left". It's a basic understanding of "party" vs. "class" that more people in the class are going to be drawn to struggle than are going to immediately draw revolutionary conclusions. But through these struggles it is possible for a new wave of revolutionary workers to develop.

All these claims of "we have a goal to build a reform party" are based in an understanding that reformists will betray the struggle. This is true, but this is also not where things are at right now - the question is not reform or revolution, but passivity/Democrats or general struggles.

As envisioned by your party, it is a discrete stage in the goal of trying to create a revolutionary party.

No, this is where you strech your argument. There is no "stage" and this is not a mechanical requirement. Again, the Green party in 2000 was already begining to appeal to people who were angry at the Democrats and unionists tiered of seeing their unions support New Democratic politicians. Was it mixed and imperfect and pretty low in political consiousness, yes. But that is the condition generally in the working class and in struggle right now. So it is not that we see a labor party or any kind of formation as "The Step" or the thing that will rebuild conditions for possible mass radicalization, we just attempt to relate to the actual existing movements that we think might be able to tap into that. We try and support the left-wing side and argue for what we think will push the movement forward which is informed by an understanding that the more a movement can hit at the fundamental issues of US capitalism, the more class consious it might become, the more effective it will be.

If it weren't, you could easily dispense with all this talk of "weakening Democrats," "building wedges," and so forth, and just state that the goal is building a revolutionary party-- since, after all, they are supposedly the exact same thing.

Yes how is a revolutionary party of any meaning built? It isn't just on the basis of the correct analysis, and besides a correct analysis is practically impossible to develop without real roots in class struggle.

The narrowness of "official" poltical debate (even at the grassroots), the sway of the Democrats (on union leaders, urban churches, and activist groups, specifically), are all barriers to struggle in the US and help reinforce passivity. Things like Occupy or a 3rd party mobilizing the left against the Democrats could be able to explode that situation which would create many more opportunities for class struggle and political propaganda and agitation for marxists. Honestly, I think the most the ISO strategy can be criticized for in 2000 is being overly optiomistic and over-estimating popular frustrations with neo-liberalism. However, that's retrospect and there was also no way to anticipate something like 9/11 and the way it was able to disorient all of the little stirrings of a left that had emerged at the end of the 1990s.

You can't do this, because they aren't the same thing. The first series of euphemisms are a process that you and your party hope will militate in the long-term goal of the second. It's stageism, stageism, stageism, 100%.

How is it stagism. I have argued that the ISO didn't zero-in and create a campaign around the Green Party out of nothing, we saw this as possibly a way that the emerging globalization movement might make an organizational break away from dominent politics and we thought that would help create better conditons for struggle and political possibilities. But we do not believe that some labor party is a NECISSARY or inevitable or even the BEST way a new left in the US might develop.

No group on the US left is really able to initiate a meaningful movement - it might happen accidentially, like if PSL had organized the first Occupy or something, but they would have then been over-run by the movement just as Adbusters really didn't have much influence once the organic movement developed.

If anybody here wants to see the truth behind these motivations, I advise readers to consult the thread "Lev Bronsteinovich: A Call-Out" (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lev-bronst...763/index.html), wherein you openly defend the creation of social-democratic reformist parties.

AS you say, I argue in that thread what I also argue above in this thread... so I really really don't appreciate the implications and suggestions that I am not being forthright or honest.

To quote you directly about ISO involvement in the Nader campaign, "So the goal was not party-building (other than the hope that some good people who were convinced of our politics might join) but trying to help develop an independent left in the US." Notice here that your intervention in the GP's electoral activities is counterposed to building a revolutionary party, not synonymous with it.

Wow, I am honored and flattered to be taken out of context. Now I know how Lenin feels when he surfs the internet.1

I suppose I should have said "the stratigic goal" wan not party-building. I go on in that quote to talk about how the ISO was not trying to "caputure" the party organization or enter into the Green Party in order to transform it into some kind of electoral vehical for the ISO.

But the goal was also not "building a refomist party" for the sake of a refomist party as you imply.

You also defend the goal of creating European-style social-democratic parties explicitly, saying "But in many of these countries the existence of these other reformist parties allows a greater audience for revolutionary ideas and consequentially there is more of a revolutionary left in many of these places." How can anybody read this as other than you defending the creation of these parties as a conduit, or stage, to revolutionary growth and as important goals in their own right? You can scream strawman all you want, but I'm stating nothing but facts here.

Yes and I stand by the observable fact that in countries where these kinds of parties were established (which came out of bigger movements and are sometimes the sort of beurocratic husk remining from past periods of struggle) there is more political space for radical politics and militantcy. It is just as true that these same reformists are proabably the biggest barriers to struggle in their own countries and are often the ones pushing austerity. This is why I don't think these forms can be seen in some mechanical way, they have different effects depending on the circumstances: is there a movement, what is the level of class consiousness and militancy, etc. In the US where struggles are confused and people are sort of passive and beaten down and the people who might fight are politically tied to the Democrats, an anti-Democratic party challenge would be a step forward.

But I do not argue is that this is a necissary step or stage or some kind of required "goal". Concretely, I do not support the idea of a Labor party in the abstract, however, if the left and rank and file groups in the labor movement created a political challenge to business-union practices and support for the Democratic Party, then I think it would potentially be benficial for radicals to support this development, even though it would obviously be incomplete.

[Yuppie Grinder]

It is a liberal party. Calling them social-democrats or reformists is a bit of a stretch. I voted for them so I could get extra credit in english class for voting.

If I had to do this I would for sure vote for the Prohibitionist party.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I'm pretty sure nobody has ever voted for the Green Party while not on drugs.

[Lucretia]

And if you continue to say that the goal was to get the Green party elected or that we see whatever left-formations as some kind of mechanical and required step, then I will have to continue to refute these misunderstandings or misrepresntations. If our goal was to build a reform party, then we would have stuck with the Green party, no? But this was not our goal and so we initially switched to Nader in an over-hopful attempt to rally anti-war activists who might have been pulled away from pro-Kerry lesser-evilism. We underestimated that pull and so we didn't rush to make the same mistake in thinking a protest campaign would do the same for vague anti-austerity sentiment in the last election.

OK, yes, in the near-term what is necissary for a revolutionary movement in the US is class struggle which could devleop through a rank and file upsurge or in a more general upsurge in social struggle. The pull of the Democratic Party is a big immediate barrier to this.

So in the short-term there are many various movements and strategies which may help the situation in any number of ways from workplace struggle, to social movements, to new political formations and so these kind of have to be judged for support on what the possible outcomes from struggle might be, if it will increase consiosuness and struggle and so on. In the medim-term, we need resistance in the US, we need people to be mobilized and begin to struggle so that revolutionary politics are even relevant to people. This is what I mean by "the Left". It's a basic understanding of "party" vs. "class" that more people in the class are going to be drawn to struggle than are going to immediately draw revolutionary conclusions. But through these struggles it is possible for a new wave of revolutionary workers to develop.

All these claims of "we have a goal to build a reform party" are based in an understanding that reformists will betray the struggle. This is true, but this is also not where things are at right now - the question is not reform or revolution, but passivity/Democrats or general struggles.

No, this is where you strech your argument. There is no "stage" and this is not a mechanical requirement. Again, the Green party in 2000 was already begining to appeal to people who were angry at the Democrats and unionists tiered of seeing their unions support New Democratic politicians. Was it mixed and imperfect and pretty low in political consiousness, yes. But that is the condition generally in the working class and in struggle right now. So it is not that we see a labor party or any kind of formation as "The Step" or the thing that will rebuild conditions for possible mass radicalization, we just attempt to relate to the actual existing movements that we think might be able to tap into that. We try and support the left-wing side and argue for what we think will push the movement forward which is informed by an understanding that the more a movement can hit at the fundamental issues of US capitalism, the more class consious it might become, the more effective it will be.

Yes how is a revolutionary party of any meaning built? It isn't just on the basis of the correct analysis, and besides a correct analysis is practically impossible to develop without real roots in class struggle.

The narrowness of "official" poltical debate (even at the grassroots), the sway of the Democrats (on union leaders, urban churches, and activist groups, specifically), are all barriers to struggle in the US and help reinforce passivity. Things like Occupy or a 3rd party mobilizing the left against the Democrats could be able to explode that situation which would create many more opportunities for class struggle and political propaganda and agitation for marxists. Honestly, I think the most the ISO strategy can be criticized for in 2000 is being overly optiomistic and over-estimating popular frustrations with neo-liberalism. However, that's retrospect and there was also no way to anticipate something like 9/11 and the way it was able to disorient all of the little stirrings of a left that had emerged at the end of the 1990s.

How is it stagism. I have argued that the ISO didn't zero-in and create a campaign around the Green Party out of nothing, we saw this as possibly a way that the emerging globalization movement might make an organizational break away from dominent politics and we thought that would help create better conditons for struggle and political possibilities. But we do not believe that some labor party is a NECISSARY or inevitable or even the BEST way a new left in the US might develop.

No group on the US left is really able to initiate a meaningful movement - it might happen accidentially, like if PSL had organized the first Occupy or something, but they would have then been over-run by the movement just as Adbusters really didn't have much influence once the organic movement developed.

AS you say, I argue in that thread what I also argue above in this thread... so I really really don't appreciate the implications and suggestions that I am not being forthright or honest.

Wow, I am honored and flattered to be taken out of context. Now I know how Lenin feels when he surfs the internet.1

I suppose I should have said "the stratigic goal" wan not party-building. I go on in that quote to talk about how the ISO was not trying to "caputure" the party organization or enter into the Green Party in order to transform it into some kind of electoral vehical for the ISO.

But the goal was also not "building a refomist party" for the sake of a refomist party as you imply.

Yes and I stand by the observable fact that in countries where these kinds of parties were established (which came out of bigger movements and are sometimes the sort of beurocratic husk remining from past periods of struggle) there is more political space for radical politics and militantcy. It is just as true that these same reformists are proabably the biggest barriers to struggle in their own countries and are often the ones pushing austerity. This is why I don't think these forms can be seen in some mechanical way, they have different effects depending on the circumstances: is there a movement, what is the level of class consiousness and militancy, etc. In the US where struggles are confused and people are sort of passive and beaten down and the people who might fight are politically tied to the Democrats, an anti-Democratic party challenge would be a step forward.

But I do not argue is that this is a necissary step or stage or some kind of required "goal". Concretely, I do not support the idea of a Labor party in the abstract, however, if the left and rank and file groups in the labor movement created a political challenge to business-union practices and support for the Democratic Party, then I think it would potentially be benficial for radicals to support this development, even though it would obviously be incomplete.

Jimmie, there's little new here to respond to, and what "response" you've provided doesn't directly address the substance of my post. You invariably have to spend paragraph after paragraph spinning rhetorical webs because you don't have an argument to directly refute the things I am saying. Instead you pile on euphemism after euphemism to pretty up (and defend) what we both agree your vision is -- creating a "broad left" as a conduit to, at a later point, creating a broad revolutionary left. One happens first, then the other. Notice this doesn't mean that you don't, incidentally, recruit people to your revolutionary party every now and then. Nor does it mean you don't occasionally say revolutionary-sounding things when you're engaged in building your "broad left." These are straw men you have invented on your own. It means that organizing an explicitly revolutionary left is not the immediate primary focus/goal of your present activities. Your reply basically amounts to trying to slap new labels, through introducing all sorts of tortured discussions on "lesser-evilism" and the like, on what we both agree, functionally, you and your party are doing. It's a waste of everybody's time here.

I think the way to proceed here is by asking a simple question that requires a simple answer of no more than single sentence. Does this "broad left" you're creating contain people who are liberal, social-democrat, or otherwise pro-capitalist?

[Mackenzie_Blanc]

The Greens are only marginally better than the democrats, but in the U.S.A. they're considered socialists and commies by lumieres such as Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity.

[DoCt SPARTAN]

I would vote for them for change but we need a new system to improve a better tomorrow!