The Green Party assembled in the counterintuitive location of San Francisco recently for its presidential debate, wherein ex-Dem Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was joined by this cast of luminaries:
The other three candidates included Jared Ball, a hip-hop scholar and assistant professor of communications at Morgan State University in Baltimore; Kat Swift, a 34-year-old dread-locked activist from San Antonio who said she will "be just old enough to be president by the time of the next election"; and actor and filmmaker Jesse Johnson from West Virginia.
The debate was marked by vigorous agreement among all parties, along with hosannas from the assembled choir:
"I had hoped for a higher caliber of interaction on the issues," said [San Franciscan Mini] Kahlon. "There was a lot more cheerleading than I had expected. But I like the idea of a debate that doesn't only include Democrats and Republicans."
Ah, the idea. I like it too. The reality, not so much.
It is a legitimate and unfortunate problem in our two-party system that when both parties agree on an issue, it is effectively removed from the political discussion. Compounding the problem is the fact that many of those shared positions are execrable (see: drug war). Frustration is understandable.
The question, though, is how to re-open the issues. The Green strategy takes several wrong turns on that road. For one thing, it has become a kind of gutter that catches every issue swept off the American political roof -- anti-imperialism, anti-globalism, civil rights, identity politics, the drug war, slavery reparations, indigenous rights, and a variety of conspiracy theories. Some of this stuff I'm all for -- notably a sane drug policy and a much harder line on civil rights -- but some of it is economically daft and some of it is just wacky. It doesn't add up to a coherent critique.
The way to go, it seems to me, would be twofold. First, build the party at the local level (as the Greens have done in some cases), using critiques and programs that resonate with local voters. Get a grassroots thing going. Second, reign in the platform. Focus on a few big issues, the ones with most crossover appeal. Connect the grassroots with mainstream spokespeople -- people who come with pre-established credibility, who are familiar and comforting to the American people (think Sam Waterson). Let those spokespeople serve to legitimate these select issues (say, better drug policy), and use the grassroots to amplify the message. That might create some actual movement.
Instead, the whole project seems driven by a romantic notion of revolution, overthrowing the entire System in one massive uprising. Inspiring for a certain sort of person, maybe, but totally outside the realm of reasonable possibility.
Whatever. The point is, this tactic of throwing dreadlocked fruitloops into a totally quixotic national campaign is the worst of both worlds. It only serves to further delegitimize those issues that have a potential constituency outside the choir. Enthusiasm is no substitute for a realistic communications and power-building strategy.
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Comments
View as Flat
GreenEngineer Posted 6:13 am
16 Jan 2008
Your gutter analogy is quite apt, and I think it's more than an analogy: it's a description of how the existing green constituency was established. People who are disenchanted with the mainstream political position go looking for a political home. The Green Party has raised a flag on the radical progressive side of the spectrum, so the liberal politically homeless flock to that. And each of them brings with them their own personal baggage and pet issues, which is why the party is so schizo.
I really doubt that an effective political party can be crafted from the leftovers in this way. Some people are outside the mainstream because they have thoughtful, well-considered positions. But at least as many are outside the mainstream because they are just plain nuts (organic nuts, to be sure, but nuts nonetheless). And in the inclusiveness and tolerance that characterizes liberalism, all of these viewpoints are assumed to be equally valid.
My sense is that effective progressive political opposition, if it comes at all, is going to have to come from a new party that, as you said, develops a platform that focuses on specific issues. I don't think that's going to happen within the existing party, because any attempt to impose discipline will be resisted by everyone who's pet issue isn't on the platform.
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wesrolley Posted 6:38 am
16 Jan 2008
Thank you for acknowledging that the Green Party exists and giving the issues some thought. I think that you might not have been so dismissive had you listened to it live, or even as webcast by KPFA last night. The latter was a bit more revealing as it was followed by an hour of call in and commentary featuring KPFA's Aimee Allison and San Francisco Mayoral Candidate Matt Gonzalez.
Had you done so, you might not have dismissed Kat Swift as a "dreadlocked fruitloop".
Had you paid attention, you might have noticed that Kent Mesplay fits none of the categories that you describe. He has a considered agenda in which he is positioning Global Warming as both a security issue and a social justice issue. He has a grasp of the facts of Health Care and understands that relationship between ecology and health from a very real level. His PhD is in biomedical engineering and he works for San Diego's Air Pollution Control District.
However, with your characterization he gets dismissed as a loony before you even know what he said. Again, if all you read was the Chronicle, then what you get is normal main stream media infatuation with celebrity.
Maybe I am too much of a policy wonk but shouldn't this be about policy?
Wes Rolley
CoChair - EcoAction Committee
Green Party US
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wiscidea Posted 6:43 am
16 Jan 2008
"My sense is that effective progressive political opposition, if it comes at all, is going to have to come from a new party that, as you said, develops a platform that focuses on specific issues."
I prefer Thom Hartmann's suggestion that progressives will be far more successful if take over one or the other current parties. Most new -- and successful -- parties emerge in this manner. Start by showing up at local Democratic or Republican meetings and voicing your opinion.
Please visit http://www.thomhartmann.com/ for more information.
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Orval Osborne Posted 8:20 am
16 Jan 2008
#1: I agree with the Green Party platform far more than Dems or Repubs.
#2: We do NOT have a "2 party system" according to the constitution. Third parties have historically been the source of new ideas in the American political system. For instance, Social Security started out as a Third Party proposal.
#3: The Democratic Party is reform-proof. Their leadership uses campaign financing among other rules to keep that Party as supporter of corporate power. It is not democratic (small "d").
#4: Many countries have improved the rules of democracy, and we would do well to adopt Instant Runoff Voting (preference voting) and others. See Steven Hill's books "Fixing Elections" and "10 Steps to Improve Democracy."
I simply have no confidence that a Wall Street-funded candidate will be able to betray the calss interests of their funders. Follow the money! Vote Green Party!
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GreenNPR Posted 11:15 am
16 Jan 2008
Hour One
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKHr-azwtso
Hour Two
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72k1ElvwBKI
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bookerly Posted 12:02 pm
16 Jan 2008
There are two issues with the Green Party, one is that of ideology, the other is tactics. We should not confuse them.
In a landscape where the media speaks with one voice, there is little room for dissent except on the margins. (Why doesn't GRIST close down and urge everyone to just write letters to their local newspapers instead, more mainstream, nyet?).
The Green Party serves as an incubator for new ideas and critics of the current system. Some of those ideas will eventually be adopted by one of the two frozen parties (defenders of the status quo), but only because they start to resonate among their supporters, and this only because someone is making noise about them.
We need noise from a progressive point of view. At the moment, the Green Party is the largest (albeit tiny) party on the left. It is the natural home for people with a wide variety of issues.
(It is especially ironic that critics of the Green Party often seem to wish for less democracy (ie, less issues) and more marching in lock step (pick a few issues, squash dissent and concentrate on them)).
Many of the people who work in the Green Party would not go to one of the two main parties if there were no Green Party, they would do something else with their lives.
Now tactically, I agree with some of the criticisms. The Green Party needs to work on 1) local races 2) becoming the other party in one-party districts (those where the mainstream candidate faces no opposition from the so-called "other" mainstream party).
The national races are mostly a waste of time, since the party can't get included in the debates.
But, those who wish to work on them should do so. What is needed is for others to go out and work on the local races. It is encouraging that in a number of places people are doing just that.
And what is of further interest, is that over the last ten years, it has become possible to run and be elected as a Green locally, without being laughed out of the room. This is an important change.
When people vote Green instead of Democratic (or Republican), it is a mistake to think that without a Green choice they would vote for candidates they consider useless. More likely, they would stay home.
I changed my registration to Green after the 1996 election. I had just seen a headline about a Senate vote to fund Star Wars research (an unmitigated evil in my mind), the vote was 99-0. No one voted against it. It made me ill. I was registering voters at a conference for poor women who were looking to enter the workforce. I filled out my form to change my registration, and so did most of the other people working at the table. We felt betrayed.
When I look at the three leading Democratic Candidates, none of them are very good on the environment (corn ethanol), immigration (gutless appeasers of the racist nativists), Iraq (they all hem and haw too much, it is not clear what they would do), Iran (no clear statements), gay rights (hiding out and hoping not to talk about it), and many other issues I care about.
I may decide to vote for one of them at last, but I may vote Green.
They need to WIN my vote with positive proposals, not tell me that if I don't vote for them, it's my fault that all the bad things happen.
Heck, I voted Democratic in 2006, and the war ended, right? Mass transit was funded, right? Kyoto was signed, right? The safety net for the poor was repaired, right? We have universal health care, right?
Global Warming could be sold to me as an overriding issue, if any of them were REALLY GOOD on the issue. But they all talk as much about national energy security as anything else, and they ain't the same.
So far, not a positive year in my view... Sigh..
But, it is interesting!!!
In the meantime, GO GREENS!!!
patrick in Beijing
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lorna salzman Posted 3:48 am
17 Jan 2008
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randino Posted 3:55 am
17 Jan 2008
The key to any successful movement is to develop a strategy that is tailor made to fit the society it is working in - not to ape someone else's movement.
I think the overall progressive movement in the US needs to take it right down to the joists and studs, and remake itself to fit the realities, limitations, possibiities and opportunities that exist in the USA, 2008. Then, for the first time in our existence we just might find out what it feels like to be relevant and successful.
Anything else is just bull shit.
Randy Cunningham
Randy Cunningham
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tboggia Posted 4:50 am
17 Jan 2008
I would not be surprised if Exxon Mobil and Sallie Mae gave anonymous donations to the Green Party.
Build a movement, then run your candidates. All you are doing now is shooting down the least of two evil.
Focus the Nation on January 31st 2008
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bookerly Posted 5:07 am
17 Jan 2008
Randy,
While your general thrust is clear, you should offer more specifics. To be honest, I am not sure exactly what you mean. Sometimes it is hard to separate the wheat from the fertilizer (grin).
Seriously, some detailed talking points, please.
Tboggia,
Join, organize something in the time between the presidential elections. Your local Green Party would be delighted, I am sure!!
Some of us are sick of evil, lessor and greater (and the thin, thin wall of sleaze that separates them).
patrick in Beijing
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s5 Posted 8:46 am
17 Jan 2008
The bottom line is that the Green party fails to understand that in order to enact an agenda, you need (a) a coherent agenda and (b) a path to obtaining powering. Whether or not the Greens have (a) is arguable, but it's clear that they lack (b).
The best mechanism for bringing "third party" issues to center stage is during the party primaries. Dennis Kucinich has been successful at this, acting as the default "Green" candidate in the Democratic primary. Even though I don't vote for Kucinich, candidates like him help include other points of view into the debate and into the party platform, but without acting as a spoiler.
It's the whole "crashing the gate" strategy. If you don't like the dominant power structure, take it over from within. You'll never get anywhere by sitting on the margins and grousing. Which is exactly what the Green party does.
So in that sense, the Green party does not participate in democracy; it heckles democracy, from a safe distance. If we had a different political system, like a parliamentary system, then fine, vote Green till the cows come home. But that's not the system we have. So use the primary process to get your candidates and ideas into power, or at the very least, get them into the debate.
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willa Posted 9:46 am
17 Jan 2008
I love this. Can I quote this as my email sig?
I am a registered Green because in Santa Fe there have been actual green candidates to support for local elections, and they were by and large not crazy. I accept that in national elections I will have two parties to choose from, and I accept that being a registered Green means I will never get to help choose the Democratic candidate.
This is fine with me, because when it comes right down to it, on a cynical day I would say the potential candidates are all evil bastards but the Dems are a little less so. On a less cynical day, I would say that basically the Dems are all fine, and the Republicans are all evil bastards. So I don't care much who the nominee ends up being, usually. I actually care more who the Republican nominee is, because I'd rather have the least electable candidate to compete against, but it's not worth registering to vote in their primaries.
Instant Runoff Voting would be great. It'll never happen, though.
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wiscidea Posted 1:05 pm
17 Jan 2008
"The basic problem is that throughout history the American left has been a bunch of mecca watchers who are quite fluent in telling you how social change is made in other countries, and utterly illiterate in how change is made in their own society."
Throughout history???!!!
These probably aren't the best books, but I learned quite bit from them...
Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"
http://howardzinn.org/default/index.php?option=content&am ...
and
Susan Jacoby's "Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism"
http://www.susanjacoby.com/
The left had more than a minor role preserving civil liberties, fighting for civil rights, fighting for women's right to vote, the rise and resurgence of feminism, bringing about the 40-hour work week (though it is currently being eroded), and numerous other things we now take for granted. Indeed, they have not just described social change in other countries, they inspired social change in other countries. However, we've lost our way while other nations continue to move forward.
The basic problem, perhaps, is that the "right" has convinced American voters that the left has nothing to offer. The "right" has done everything possible to cover up the role of the left in creating and preserving basic American values. This struggle between the left and right started before the American Revolution and continues to this day.
We need a resurgence of progressive values in BOTH major political parties. I vaguely recall some quote about how liberals are in the government to make sure no one gets left behind and conservatives are there to make sure we do it in the most cost-effective way. Sounds good to me. It is, however, time to turn the aristocracy and robber barons into a distant memory. They served their purpose. There is no place for such social classes in the modern world.
Once again. I urge Greens and other progressives to take over the Democratic Party. Surely it is easier to seize control of a political machine and its network across America than to build one from scratch.
FORWARD!
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trock Posted 1:08 pm
17 Jan 2008
It's good to see the positions and proposals to mull over and have interesting discussions.
But in winner take all elections with more than 2 parties, the parties that are closer to each other take votes from each other and they lose.
And so it will always be.
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Wren Posted 5:44 pm
17 Jan 2008
save the world, one click at a time: http://www.thehungersite.com (and link to their other sites while there!) : )
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bookerly Posted 10:35 pm
19 Jan 2008
Dear S5,
What left party?? Left of what?? Both Clinton and Obama are center-right. It is true they are to the left of the far right, but really that doesn't say much.
Let me repeat, I changed my registration shortly after the US Senate voted 99-0 to fund Star Wars research. I realized then that there was no "left" among the two major parties.
And nothing I have seen since then has changed my mind.
patrick in Beijing
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LegumeSam Posted 12:37 am
20 Jan 2008
The national races are mostly a waste of time, since the party can't get included in the debates.
Actually, the national races aren't a waste of time, since they are a "stand-in" for electoral Green politics in places where there is no electoral Green politics to be had, i.e. in most of the US. You might be able to find some serious local Green candidacy in three states (and if anyone here hasn't been counted, let them stand up now): 1) California, 2) New York, 3) Illinois. For the other 47 states and DC, there are the national races, leading (hopefully, and despite some pretty onerous ballot access laws) to the possibility of local strength.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 12:54 am
20 Jan 2008
Instead, the Democratic Party has taken over the "greens" and the "progressives." "Progressive" politics in this era, a white, Euro-American construction from the beginning to be sure (for all the short shrift it gave W.E.B. DuBois back in the day), has gone from the George McGovern nomination in 1972 to Dennis Kucinich's 4% showing in this month's elections. This trajectory passes through the domains of folks like Jerry Brown and Jesse Jackson, so the "progressives" haven't quite been credible.
So, no, they're not taking over the Democratic Party. In fact, the reverse is occuring -- the party is taking over them, and every election year, through appeals to brute conformity, they line up behind the #2 neoliberal candidate in slim hopes of defeating the #1 neoliberal candidate. Vote for Obama -- he's the only one with any hopes of defeating Clinton! Remember, if you don't vote for the "lesser of two evils," the "greater of two evils" will win.
The Green Party at least preserves the notion of standing on principle when voting. Or, rather, it preserves the notion of standing on principle past the primaries, where Dennis Kucinich is the principled king. Now, if only this notion would "take off" in American politics rather than being swallowed up by the morass of voter conformity...
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 1:04 am
20 Jan 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 1:33 am
20 Jan 2008
on a cynical day I would say the potential candidates are all evil bastards but the Dems are a little less so. On a less cynical day, I would say that basically the Dems are all fine, and the Republicans are all evil bastards.
I'm with you, Willa. The problem is that one can be "all fine" and yet support neoliberalism, which is dismantling our planet's ecosystem resilience.
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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LegumeSam Posted 1:38 am
20 Jan 2008
http://www.dailykos.com/User/Cassiodorus
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Backcut Posted 1:46 am
20 Jan 2008
Scenic pics at http://Lhfotoware.blogspot.com
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willa Posted 10:33 am
23 Jan 2008
Santa fe is its own little island of crazy. It's great, don't get me wrong, the diversity of people and opinions is stunning, people actually talk to people of other political persuasions, but reality it ain't. That's the only reason we get things like Green City Council members.
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