{news} Fw: What about Nov. 3? Five Green appeals (ZNet)

[Justine McCabe]

What about November 3?  
 
 What's scarier than four more years of Bush?  40
 more years of 'Bush vs. Kerry.'
 
 By Scott McLarty
 
 ZNet (Z Magazine online), October 28, 2004
 http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=90&ItemID=6511
 
 
 In September, a group of journalists, political
 activists, actors, musicians, and other prominent
 Americans issued a short statement titled "Nader
 2000 Leaders Organize To Defeat Bush"
http://www.vote2stopbush.com>.  The statement
urges swing-state voting for Mr. Kerry with the
sole purpose of defeating President Bush's
 reelection, while admitting that they "strongly
 disagree with Mr. Kerry's own positions on Iraq
 and other issues."
 
 This essay is a response to the Nader 2000
 Leaders' statement.  It's an open appeal --
 actually, five appeals to join us in thinking
 beyond November 2.
 
 In June 2004, the Green Party of the United
 States held its national convention in Milwaukee
 and nominated David Cobb and Pat LaMarche.  The
 Green Party is not the Democratic Party, so we
 did not endorse Sen. John Kerry.  Like you, we
 oppose many of Mr. Kerry's positions.  Since the
 convention, we worked to get Mr. Cobb and Ms.
 LaMarche on as many state ballots as possible. 
 Running candidates for election is what political
 parties do.
 
 But many Greens also respect the fact that so
 many voters who support the same principles and
 positions that we do believe that the first goal
 of the 2004 election is to remove George W. Bush
 from office.  We agree that the damage inflicted
 by the current administration on human rights and
 well-being, the rule of law, and national and
 international security might be the worst in our
 lifetimes.
 
 Evicting the Bush regime should not be the only
 goal.  The Nader 2000 Leaders' statement suggests
 that its signers are as concerned as we are that
 a Kerry White House will maintain much of the
 Bush agenda.
 
 There's one thing scarier than four more years of
 Bush: another century of politics limited to the
 narrow debate between Democrats and Republicans. 
 If the best our political system can offer is
 variations on 'Bush vs. Kerry' every four years,
 we need to take some fast action.
 
 I invite the Nader 2000 Leaders and others
 worried about our nation's direction to consider
 and respond to the following five appeals.
 

 (1)  Please follow your 'safe state vs.
battleground state' appeal to its logical
conclusion.  If you live in a safe state (one in
which the presidential race is not closely
contested, such as Republican Texas or Democratic
Massachusetts), support David Cobb and Pat
LaMarche.

Throughout 2004, the safe-state strategy was a
source of contention within the Green Party and
among other voters who reject two-party
dominance.  Green candidate David Cobb is
generally associated with the safe-states
strategy, while Ralph Nader, running on
independent and Reform Party ballot lines, has
favored a scorched-earth campaign in every state.

But even Mr. Nader, when pressed, blesses
safe-states voting: 

Joshua Frank: Why, in swing states, where voters
may be worried about your candidacy tilting the
election to Bush, should people vote for you
instead of John Kerry?
Ralph Nader: If they are worried, let them vote
for John Kerry.  Voters should follow their
conscience.  ("The Outsider: A Talk with Ralph
Nader" by Joshua Frank, CounterPunch, August 7/8,
2004
http://www.counterpunch.org/frank08072004.html>)

Although David Cobb has campaigned in both
battleground and safe states, his message
throughout 2004 has been one of respect for the
decision of many voters to "follow their
conscience" and vote for the removal of President
Bush.

Mr. Cobb has repeatedly emphasized that the
purpose of his campaign is party-building.  "I
don't have any goals for votes except for states
in which we need a certain percentage to retain
ballot access.  In terms of tangible objectives,
I want to register more Green voters, support
local candidates and retain ballot lines."

What overrides the safe-states vs. all-out debate
 is that any political party or campaign must
 recognize and respect the fact that voters make
 up their own minds and vote on their own terms,
 whether they vote strategically or according to
 political ideals.
 
 Since the Nader 2000 Leaders' petition urges
voters in battleground states to vote for Mr.
Kerry, the implication is that some or all of its
signers also sanction voting for a real
progressive antiwar candidate in safe states, and
that a vote for Mr. Kerry in a safe state is a
vote wasted. 
 
 
 (2) Whether John Kerry or George W. Bush wins, we
can be sure of two things after November 3: the
occupation of Iraq and many other Bush policies
will be maintained, and the Green Party will
still be here.  Regardless of your vote for
 President this year, please join us in building
the Green into a major party with the power to
rival the Democrats and Republicans.

The US desperately needs a noncorporate
independent party.

In the 1850s, the Republican Party emerged as the
political arm of the movement to abolish slavery.
The abolition movement had such force that, in
1860, Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln took
the White House. 

Third parties have played a necessary catalytic
role throughout American history, leading the
struggles for the eight-hour workday, child labor
laws, women's suffrage, civil rights, and a
balanced federal budget.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Greens have
embraced a new historical imperative: a party
that challenges global corporate rule and the
drift of the US towards empire. 

Progressive Democrats have tried to fill this
role.  But more often than not, progressive Dems
have found themselves banging their heads on a
brick wall in a party unwilling to wean itself
off corporate money and influence.  (Greens know
this, because many of us used to be Democrats.) 
 Outstanding Democratic presidential candidates
 like Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jerry Brown, and Dennis
 Kucinich and dedicated organizations like
 MoveOn.org have served mainly to herd antiwar and
 progressive voters back towards a party that
 rejects their ideals.
 
 Since the 1980s, more and more of us have
 realized that, as Republican ideology grew more
 extreme and the Democratic Party more
 acquiescent, the only alternative was an
 independent noncorporate party.  The Green Party,
 whose counterparts in Europe had already begun to
 win elections, blossomed in the US.
 
 On November 3, the Democrats and Republicans will
 still be the parties of war and service to
 corporate lobbies.  The Green Party will still be
 the party of ecology, democracy, human rights and
 freedoms, economic justice -- including discarded
 Democratic planks like single-payer national
 health insurance and repeal of Taft-Hartley
 restrictions on workplace organizing -- and
 adherence to international and US constitutional
 law.
 
 Senator Kerry stated in August that he'd still
 have voted to transfer Congress's
 constitutionally mandated power to declare war to
 the White House, even if he had known that the
 Bush Administration's justifications for the
 invasion of Iraq were fraudulent. 
 
 Mr. Kerry voted for much of the worst Bush
legislation, from the USA Patriot Act to 'No
Child Left Behind.'  His platform is silent about
rejoining the Kyoto agreement and expanding its
measures to stem catastrophic global climate
change.  For all his talk about alternative
energy, he favors new drilling in Alaska, a new
pipeline through Canada, and coal energy, all of
 which will expand our addiction to fossil fuels.
 
 If elected, Mr. Kerry will maintain the
occupation of Iraq, the destruction of communites
and mass incarceration caused by the war on
drugs, corporate control (HMOs, insurance firms,
drug manufacturers) over US health care, and the
power of international trade cabals to override
democratically enacted environmental and labor
protections.

It's not accurate to say that there's no
difference between the two major parties.  No
serious Green Party member believes that Democrat
equals Republican.

It is accurate, however, to say that as the
Democratic politicians have retreated from their
traditional constituencies and principles,
they've given Republicans a license for ever
greater extremes.  November 3 will hold few
prospects for peace, democracy, and the rule of
law, regardless of the winner. 
 
 At what point do we declare, "No more votes for
the candidates of war and corporate power"?  Even
if the short-term choice in 2004 is Bush or
Kerry, the long-term choice must be Green or
business as usual.


(3)  If you decide not to vote for John Kerry, a
vote for David Cobb will build a permanent and
growing independent political party.

A vote for Ralph Nader in 2004 is a perfectly
valid protest vote against the Iraq war and
occupation, two-party dominance, and the
corporate corruption of our democracy.  No one
can match Mr. Nader's ability to command
attention or his genius for communicating our
ideals.  But Mr. Nader's independent campaign
will be history on November 3.  

When the majority of delegates voted to nominate
Mr. Cobb and Ms. LaMarche during the 2004 Green
National Convention, they did so for a variety of
reasons.  Some preferred a nuanced state-based
strategy.  Others wanted candidates who had
worked their way up through the party -- Mr. Cobb
had already run for Attorney General of Texas and
served as the party's legal counsel; Ms. LaMarche
had run for Governor of Maine. 
 
 Many Greens believed that the party had an
obligation to nominate rather than merely
endorse, after Mr. Nader decided in early 2004 to
run as an independent and announced that he would
reject a Green nomination but would accept an
Green endorsement.

For these party members, it was difficult to
reconcile "The Green Party must run a
presidential candidate" with "The Green Party
must back a candidate who is neither registered
in the party nor willing to run as a Green
 nominee."
 
 Some Greens worried that a Nader endorsement
would do little to expand the Green Party or
promote local candidates, or might cause ballot
line problems in certain states, especially after
Mr. Nader prohibited a few state Green Parties
from placing his name on primary ballots.  They
favored Mr. Cobb because of his pledge to use his
campaign to promote state and local Green
campaigns and registration in the party. 

The Reform Party's schism at the end of the 1990s
taught Greens the danger of investing a party's
destiny in a single personality.  In nominating
David Cobb, the Green Party repudiated the idea
that one political candidate in one election is
more important than the party itself.


(4)  Any discussion of voting, party politics,
and the future of our democracy must begin with
Instant Runoff Voting, auditable paper records of
votes, and other measures to ensure fair and
accurate elections.

For decades, Democrats and Republicans have
guarded their exclusive hold on public offices,
maintaining an at-large winner-take-all system,
passing prohibitive ballot access laws in many
states, and accusing third parties and
independents of 'spoiling' elections when they
attempt to participate.  
 
 In September, we learned that Florida Democrats,
while excusing the failure of Republicans to file
its Bush paperwork by the September 1 due date,
used technicalities -- and some allegedly more
underhanded means -- to block Ralph Nader's
access to the ballot in Florida and other states.


Greens have called for Instant Runoff Voting
(IRV), which allows voters to rank their choices
and ensures that the winner has the support of
the majority while accommodating third party
candidates.  In an IRV-based election -- the kind
that elected progressive Mayor Ken Livingstone of
London -- none of us would fret over battleground
states or the danger of spoiling.  (More on IRV:
http://www.fairvote.org>.)

Other necessary reforms include Proportional
Representation (especially in the selection of
state electors -- although Greens also favor
abolishing the Electoral College), Cumulative
Voting, clean election options, access for all
candidates to publicly owned airwaves, shorter
campaign periods, repeal of restrictive and
unfair ballot access rules, and public funding
for campaigns.  Greens have also demanded
enforcement of the voting rights provision of the
Constitution (14th Amendment, Section 2) and
auditable paper trails for all votes.
 
We can limit the political influence of
corporations through legislation overturning
several 19th century Supreme Court rulings that
granted them the status of 'persons' under the US
Constitution.  Repealing corporate personhood
would do more to clean up elections than
loophole-ridden legislation like McCain-Feingold
ever will.

Many of these reforms address complaints from
officeholders themselves that they spend too much
of their time raising money for reelection. 
Under the status quo, the public is being
shortchanged in the services we expect from
elected officials.

Unfortunately, Democratic Party leaders have
mostly ignored Green pleas to enact such reforms,
and instead directed their ire against
'spoilers', especially the Nader campaign in
2000.

Greens have contested the spoiler label, calling
it as much a carefully contrived smear by
Democrats as the 'flip-flop' label that
Republicans have pinned on John Kerry.  "What
they call spoiling, we call participation," says
David Cobb.
 
 Al Gore lost the 2000 election for a variety of
reasons: obstruction and invalidation of votes
(especially those of African Americans) by the
Florida Republican machine; a Supreme Court
decision denying the popular right to vote in
presidential elections; Mr. Gore's failure to
demand a recount in more than three Florida
counties; the refusal of any Democratic Senator
to stand in support of the Black Caucus's
challenge to the Bush victory (dramatically
captured in Michael Moore's 'Fahrenheit 9/11);
Mr. Gore's own weak campaign; and more than 8
million votes from registered Democrats that went
to George W. Bush -- four times the number that
went to Ralph Nader.
 
 If Mr. Nader's 2000 run was a contribution to Mr.
Gore's defeat, it surely falls at the bottom of
the list.
 
In fact, no consensus exists among Democratic
leaders on the Nader spoiler factor in 2000. 
According to Al From, chair of the Democratic
Leadership Council, "The assertion that Nader's
marginal vote hurt Gore is not borne out by
polling data.  When exit pollers asked voters how
they would have voted in a two-way race, Bush
actually won by a point.  That was better than he
did with Nader in the race."  ("Building A New
Progressive Majority: How Democrats Can Learn
>From The Failed 2000 Campaign", in the DLC's
Blueprint Magazine, January 24, 2001)  For
Democrats like Mr. From, the spoiler accusation
is a useful myth.

Even if Mr. From and the DLC have their own
strategic reasons, as their party's conservative
faction, for denying the Nader factor in Mr.
Gore's defeat, there's no doubt that the
participation of Greens and other third parties
changes the entire dynamic of any election.  But
it's difficult to quantify precisely how third
parties affect outcomes.  There's no reason to
believe that everyone who voted for Mr. Nader
would otherwise have voted for Mr. Gore, or would
have voted at all. 

 In 2004, Democratic Party chair Terry McAuliffe
encouraged an unprecedented and vicious effort to
bar Ralph Nader from state ballots.  In local and
state races, Democrats have tried to block Green
candidates like John Eder, who's seeking
reelection to the Maine statehouse.  Maine
Democrats tried to redistrict Mr. Eder out of
office, borrowing a ploy from Republican
legislators in Texas two years ago.

The real lesson of 2000 is that Democratic
politicians and their apologists apparently fear
an expanded field of political parties and
candidates more than they fear Republican
victories.

For all the fear that votes for Nader (or Cobb)
might throw the 2004 election to Mr. Bush,
current poll numbers (about 1% for Nader, a
fraction of a percent for Cobb) suggest that
their campaigns will probably have less effect on
the outcome than faulty felon lists in Florida,
defective voting machines in Ohio, or the weather
in Milwaukee might have.

As Gore Vidal puts it, "we have only one
political party in the United States, the
Property Party, with two right wings, Republican
and Democrat" ("State of the Union, 2004", The
Nation, August 26, 2004). 

 The US will either be a multiparty democracy, or
it won't be a democracy at all. 
 
 
 (5)  The White House isn't the only prize in
2004.  If you plan to vote for John Kerry for the
sole purpose of evicting George W. Bush, you can
express your opposition to the war on Iraq and
other ideals by supportng Green candidates for
local and state office, and by joining the Green
Party.

In the 2003 run-off campaign for Mayor of San
Francisco, Green candidate (and sitting president
of the Board of Supervisors) Matt Gonzalez
captured 47% of the vote, including a majority of
votes cast on Election Day.

Mr. Gonzalez, numerous other elected Greens, and
the many Greens about to win on November 2 are
evidence that electorates are ready for Green
officeholders.  They prove that Greens know how
to run for office.

No party ever succeeds by tying its future to a
single race.  The Green Party is achieving
permanance not through participation in the
presidential election spectacle every four years,
but through its growing base of registered voters
and elected officeholders. 

A half dozen Greens in Congress by 2010 would
ensure an uncompromising bloc of
progressive-populist-ecological votes, and a
gravitational pull against the temptation of
Democrats to rubberstamp Republican bills.  

 Ironically, elected Greens have kept alive some
of America's best conservative ideals in their
defense of small entrepreneurial business, family
farms, public ownership of resources and
services, local economic democracy and
self-reliance, and traditional ideas of community
and personal freedom.

Equally conservative has been the Green Party's
support for the Constitution in the face of the
USA Patriot Act, suppression of protest, and
other assaults, and adherence to the rule of law
against radical ideas like preemptive war and
international trade authorities.

The Green Party favors same-sex marriage rights,
abortion rights, and the repeal of draconian drug
laws that have criminalized hundreds of thousands
of African Americans, young people, and the poor
-- not just because these positions are standard
progressive agenda, but because the Greens call
the freedom to live one's life as one chooses as
basic a human right as all others.  (John Kerry
and other mainstream Democrats have shied away
from same-sex marriage rights and sane drug
laws.)
 
 Much of the Green Party's platform fits less
comfortably on the liberal vs. conservative
spectrum than it does on the liberty end of the
liberty vs. social-control spectrum.

Indeed, the 'traditional values' preached by
Republicans and capitulating Democrats aren't
conservative at all.  They're really a nostalgia
for the Robber Baron era, before the progressive
reforms enacted by unions and crusaders like
Teddy Roosevelt, before women's suffrage, civil
rights, and the environmental movement.

The Green Party gains more traction every time a
Green wins an election.  It moves closer to
permanence every time a progressive or
independent or disaffected Democratic or
Republican looks outside the two establishment
parties for solutions.


 Conclusion: What about November 3?

"How are we to proceed without Theory?  What
System of Thought have these Reformers to present
to this mad swirling planetary disorganization,
to the Inevident Welter of fact, event,
phenomenon, calamity?  Do they have, as we did, a
beautiful Theory, as bold, as Grand, as
comprehensive a construct...?" asks Aleksii
Antedilluvianovich Prelapsarianov, the "World's
Oldest Living Bolshevik" in Tony Kushner's play
'Angels In America'.

It remains to be seen whether the ecological
humanism of the Greens will take its place in US
history next to the beautiful theories of Tom
Paine, the abolitionists, the women of the Seneca
Falls Declaration, WEB Dubois, Eugene Debs,
Martin Luther King, Jr., and others.
 
 Establishing a political party is an act of will,
hard work, and risk -- as 2004 Nobel Peace Prize
winner Dr. Wangari Maathai learned when she
defied logging companies, organized Kenyan women,
began planting millions of trees, founded the
Mazingira Green Party, and ran for Parliament as
a Green.

Any list of the emerging crises of the 21st
century finds the Democratic and Republican
parties, to different degrees, on the wrong side:
catastrophic global climate change; wars over
resources (oil, water, food, access to medicine);
militarization of outer space; conversion of the
US from a liberal republic into a global empire;
erosion of civil liberties; collapse of
international laws and treaties; profit-driven
ownership of genetic information and other
'intellectual property'; concentration of
economic power under corporate bureaucracies; the
growing gap between the world's wealthy and the
world's poor.
 
The Greens are the only organized electoral
entity -- nationally and globally, with parties
on every continent except Antarctica -- that
takes these crises seriously enough to offer
positive solutions, or, in some cases, to talk
about them at all.
 
 The only other significant American contribution
 to political thought at the end of the Cold War
 is the one declared by the Project for a New
 American Century, parroted in the editorial pages
 of the Wall Street Journal, codified in NAFTA and
 other trade agreements, deployed militarily in
 the invasion of Iraq, and espoused by most
 Republican politicians with the acquiescence or
 blessing of most Democrats.  (I leave it up to
 you whether neocon doctrine constitutes a
 beautiful theory.)
 
 Perhaps the greatest danger is not
neoconservatism itself.  The real threat might be
that the answer to it is a movement based not on
ecology, democracy, human rights, and
nonviolence, but on blood, soil, and the
supernatural -- on the kind of sermons preached
by Pat Robertson and Pat Buchanan, a Christian
counterpart to radical theocratic Islam.  Outside
of the Green Party, the severest critics of
American empire can be found in the Buchananite
wings of the Republican and Reform parties.

The neo-cons have already anticipated such a
movement, knowing that their vision offers little
to anyone outside their own major-shareholder
class.  It's why they adore a President who
straddles both camps: George W. Bush, Crusader
and CEO.

Green candidate David Cobb will not win the 2004
election.  Neither will Ralph Nader.  With less
than a week left before Election Day, I'm less
concerned with who anyone endorses or votes for
president than with their plans for November 3.  

Bipartisan consensus, American Taliban, or the
Green Party.  Take your pick.


(Scott McLarty is media coordinator for the Green
Party of the United States.  He lives in
Washington, D.C.  The opinions he expresses above
are his own and not necessarily the opinions of
the Green Party.  He can be reached at
mclarty at greens.org>.  The web site of the Green
Party is <http://www.gp.org>; the Cobb/LaMarche
campaign site is <http://www.votecobb.org>.)