From: joel kovel
Sent: Dec 23, 2003 8:08 PM
Subject: Re: [GreenAllianceUSA] Nader Declines Green Party backing. Please distribute

I have a somewhat different view of these events than most people on this list, and most greens. In my opinion, the third Nader campaign would have been a disaster for greens, and it is just as well to be rid of it. The 2000 Nader campaign had a tremendous internal drive to it - I know from personal experience, having been swept away by it in the primaries. The feeling then was that the green/nader linkage hadn't been fully developed in 1996 so that 2000 was the year it would come into its own. This time around, however, the campaign looked doomed to me from the getgo, for two interlocked reasons:

1.the embarrassment of once again having to rely on a star who wasn't going to join the party, has his own parallel organization, and really only gives token attention to who the greens are and what they can become before doing what he wants to do anyway. Frankly, I think that having to run with Nader a third time would have been a kind of living indictment of a weakness bordering on parasitism in the Green Party. Always hovering over the campaign there would have been the question of why greens can't generate leadership from within. Running Nader would have enabled this to be denied, but the reality would remain. It is better to face it now than after a poor showing next November.

2. I think this poor showing would have been guaranteed by perception of the green weakness, but most importantly, the power of the Bush fear-and-loathing complex. I also think that greens who want to run Nader again consistently underestimate the force of this factor and deny the effect it is going to have on a Nader race. They forever cheer each other up with brave talk about how the two parties are really the same, or how Dean is just as bad as Dubya, or how we have to fight "Bushism" rather than Bush, or some other variation on the theme. This forgets the following:

* that irrespective of what a few thousand greens say to each other, tens of millions of people, including a lot of radicals, believe that Bush's men are moving to rip up the Constitution and fundamentally restructure the American republic to destroy the slim chance of democratic renewal upon which green electoral politics, along with much else, rests.

* That there are some greens who have come to this point of view, including people like John Rensenbrink, with whom I have had serious political differences. But they think this way because there is real evidence and a real danger out there; and nothing is going to make that point of view go away, and allow Ralph to feel comfortable.

* Yes, there is real evidence out there that an American fascism is in the cards, and that four more years of Dubya is going to ratchet up the chances even further, given the judicial appointments he can make and all the other mischief at his disposal. Do I have to go into detail here?: the flagrant theft of the 2000 election, unlike anything else in American history; the overwhelming likelihood of even more serious skulduggery occurring around the events of 9-11; the aggressive war strategy itself, another turn in the march of US imperialism; the wholesale tossing out of constitutional guarantees in the Patriot Act, the internments at Guantanamo the rampant gerrymandering by DeLay in Texas and elsewhere, again unprecedented (they used to wait ten years, now they do it continuously): the looming voting machine fraud, etc etc; . . . These are qualitative shifts, the way quantitative changes become qualitative after a while, then create new configurations. It is very weak reasoning to point out how awful the Democrats are, how corporate, etc, and neglect to realize that a rogue faction of the ruling class, represented by the Bushies, can break loose even from the traditional Republican party, and set out to change the fundamental structures themselves. That is how republics can turn into dictatorships. Will it happen? Well, I don't know; nobody does. Is it more likely now than ever before? Oh yes, yes, and will become even more so if Bush gets in again.

* So there is a rational core to the fear and loathing complex, whether felt by worried liberals, substantial numbers of radicals, or a significant fraction, if not the majority, of greens. Let me add a personal experience. Our Congressman is a very liberal Democrat and straight shooter named Maurice Hinchey, in politics for 35 years, and someone I've known for 20 years (when I went to Cuba in 1994 with Pastors for Peace he took me aside, gave me his card and said that if the US gov't gave me any trouble I was to call him). We chanced to meet this past summer, and he immediately launched into a tirade about how he had never seen the equal of the current adminstration for violation of democracy. About a month later he spoke before a community group in Woodstock, and when someone asked him if he thought the Bush administration was capable of actually destroying the democratic fabric of American society, and intending to do so, his answer was: "Absolutely."

* People who are receiving information consonant with such views are going to be utterly unmoved by what greens talk about internally. They are also going to be utterly unmoved by the "scientific" opinion that Nader really helped Gore in 2000 and that it was only the latter's debility that cost the election. They are instead going to be very irritated by a retread of the 2000 ticket. They might see this as an exercise in petty selfishness and turf-protection when American society is facing an unprecedented crisis.

* Finally, Dean doesn't need Nader to push him to the left. Dean is moving to the left even as we speak, because the real base of his support is a remarkably democratised movement, pulled together by the internet, that should make greens - and Nader - weep with envy. Check out his Blog, and sense the thrill that pervades his campaign, as hitherto un-and a-political people are made to feel that they belong to and have a stake in a vital historical process. Remember, too, that Dean's campaign is mostly financed by innumerable small donations. In fact the Dean campaign is shaping up to be the sort of thing Nader asked the greens to do. Dean's dynamism stems not from being the corporate creature that the stereotypes prevalent on green lists make him out to be; it arises because he is rapidly becoming the creature of a lot of young, disaffected people who are yearning for fundamental change, and he is behaving accordingly. Note the remarkable ferocity with which the Democratic old guard is turning on him lately, as he questions the Clinton era, and speaks of "taking back our party." Note what the Black Commentator said recently about a speech he made recently on racial matters, that it was the best statement made by a white mainstream politician in 30 years. Remember, too, that FDR in 1932 was considered a rather backward politician calling for balanced budgets; and that no one would have mistaken Lincoln in 1860 for a Great Emancipator.

I have no intention of actually supporting Dean, nor do I think that it matters if any of us do. I think it remains important to stand back and demand more fundamental change - more fundamental, by the way, than Nader offers, or that can be offered by any, you should excuse the expression, bourgeois politician.

How are greens to do this in light of what has just happened? Guess what?

There are no blueprints. There is only an imperative to rethink fundamentals. No time to mourn the loss of an ambivalent relationship, time only to organize.

Joel Kovel

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