The Elusive Third Party of the People
The Green Party failed to regain ballot status in New York on Tuesday. With its superior budget and no threat to the two-party system, the Working Families Party easily retained its ballot line. We have a new, independent socialist Senator in Vermont, although his Progressive Party studiously avoided incurring the wrath of the Democrats by not contesting any major elections.
This is a disappointing time for supporters of an independent people’s party. The Green Party is clearly on the wane, with ballot status in a few dozen states and the mighty Nader campaign of 2000 a fading memory. Not to be too pessimistic, but I have been predicting it for six years now. The Greens will join a crowded graveyard of similar efforts to establish a third party, a party of the people, to supplant the Democrats. They come along every few election cycles. There’s Bob LaFollette’s 1920’s Farmer-Labor Party, Henry Wallace’s Progressive Party in 1948, the 1960’s Peace and Freedom Party of Eldridge Cleaver, the 1970’s People’s Party of Benjamin Spock, the 1980’s Citizen’s Party of Barry Commoner and the Green Party of Ralph Nader. There is no such party on the horizon, just the detritus of past efforts, which exist here and there scattered among the states.
I was not a supporter of the Greens at their height. In 2000, I managed the Socialist Party’s presidential campaign of David McReynolds. I drafted the candidate to run, raised about $20,000, put him on the ballot in seven states (including Florida, where his 622 votes eclipsed the 537 votes by which Bush officially triumphed; fuck you very much), got him in front of dozens of college audiences and garnered some pretty fantastic press coverage for a tiny little party.
Was I wrong in 2000 not to support Nader’s candidacy, one of the most energetic, high profile threats to the two party system in the late 20th century? The answer to that question is complicated. Certainly in a year when the burning question among liberal circles was whether a vote for Nader was, in effect, a vote for Bush, it was a tad awkward to explain to people that, no, I wouldn’t be voting for Nader or Gore but for someone they’d likely never heard of. It struck most listeners as typical sectarianism of the socialist left, and, indeed, it was.
In the Socialist Party’s defense, our crystal ball was just as clouded as the Green Party’s. Ralph Nader ran lackluster, quiet semi-campaigns in 1992 and 1996 (the former in the Democratic New Hampshire primary, the latter as the Greens’ drafted standard bearer), and there was no telling in late 1999 (when the SP had to choose to run or not) that Nader would, in fact, campaign seriously, energetically and in the face of such opposition from his liberal former allies. Had I known then that he would do so, I would likely have still supported running a Socialist Party candidate, but I’d have been wrong. But even that is complicated. As exciting as the 2000 Nader campaign was, as much of a blow to the two-party system that it had been and as many activists that it created, as many voters it ripped away from the Democrats and as many progressives it split away from the shrill, bankrupt liberals, a few short months later, only the barest hint of the Nader movement was left as many of its supporters were scared back into the Democratic fold. Meanwhile, the attention that the Socialist Party got for its campaign (we delighted in media attention; I got David on “Politically Incorrect” and “the Daily Show” and my sarcastic voicemail in response to the Florida vote controversy was quoted in the “Washington Post.”) increased our tiny membership by about 30%.
But that’s a sectarian justification. As little as there was, in the end, to show for the Green Party effort, the right policy would have been to support it, to strike a blow at the two-party system and gain the long-term loyalty of as many voters as possible for an eventual mass party of the people. The problem with an organization like the Socialist Party, that makes the running of candidates under its banner – even if done in only a handful of instances a year – its raison d’etre is that it inevitably leads to the priority of party building over movement building.
The mass people’s party that we need will not be able to meet the stringent ideological requirements of sectarian socialists. It cannot be Marxian, although it must be free of corporate money and influence. We need a party that will push for universal health care, oppose militarism, democratize the broadcast media, promote equal rights for gays and affirmative action for blacks, that will be feminist in its internal decision-making, promote unions rights, expand Social Security, tax the rich, fully fund our schools, open up our ballots and push for fairer systems of elections. We socialists should take our place within such a party as activists and allies of the major streams of progressivism, only splitting after major reforms have been introduced and we can take a sizable following that demands to go further with us out of the party. It would be far better to be left opposition to powerful social democrats than weak liberals.
Should such a party form, it is likely to happen only when a large number of the furthest-left liberal elements of the Democrats – including many officeholders – are willing to finally break with the Siamese twins of capitalism, and might perhaps be cobbled together by the patchwork of state ballot lines and parties – the detritus at past efforts to create a national people’s party – that have gained substantial followings. Which means that the “correct” electoral policy for a socialist to follow largely depends on the state in which you live. In California, it means being active in the Peace and Freedom party, or even the Green Party. In Vermont, it probably means Bernie Sanders’ Progressive Party. In New York, it might mean a policy of boring from within the Working Families Party and forcing primary elections against the worst of the Democrats in the best of the districts.
Should I join another socialist organization, it will certainly not be one that considers itself a “party.” I’ve spent too much of my life trying to recreate the conditions of Eugene Debs’ long-gone era. We need greater flexibility of tactics and openness to our natural allies, and less nostalgia and sectarianism.
Cultural Learnings of America
Your honor, it was the beer talking. Not me. It’s a lame excuse coming from Mel Gibson when he’s caught being himself (a sexist, anti-Semite yob), but even lamer when coming from drunken frat boys being drunken frat boys, on camera no less! The unnamed frat boys in question were the ignominious stars of “Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.”
I don’t need to tell you that Borat is the brainchild of comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, a fake TV journalist from a former Soviet republic who baits Americans to say outrageous things (that they likely believe) with his seeming innocence. On his TV show, he famously got a bar room full of country-western fans to sing along with a song called “Throw the Jew Down the Well.”
The movie is savagely funny. It has a fair amount of poop jokes and Jackass-style gross-out humor, but it also has a keen eye for mocking the elite and the powerful, and the racism and sexism of ordinary Americans. While everyone is baited, some of our fellow citizens pass their tests with flying colors, such as the driving instructor who responds to Borat’s “traditional” two kisses on the cheek with a grumbly, “Well, I’m not used to that, but that’s fine.” But most take Borat’s bait and reveal the ugliest tendencies of Americans. A crowd of rodeo fans applaud Borat’s speech, in which he wishes that Bush drink the blood of every Iraqi man, woman and child; a gun store clerk responds to Borart’s query of the best way to protect against Jews with the instant recommendation of a very large handgun.
Unlike these other victims of the fake foreign journalist, the frat boys in question – who are so embarrassed by the spectacle they made that they are suing the filmmakers to have their appearance removed from the film – needed no prodding at all. As soon as Borat hitchhiked his way onto their RV, they were extolling the virtues of slavery, the innate inferiority of women and how tough it is to be a white man these days where no one gives you any breaks.
I saw the new Borat movie on opening night with a raucous Times Square crowd, and the scene with the frat boys was the only part of the movie that hushed the crowd. It wasn’t funny. It was scary and depressing. These morons are the future of America. They’re probably future Congressmen.
Writing in the Nation, Richard Goldstein accuses Borat of double standards, of couching bigotry in humor in order to get away with the bigotry that Borat himself employs. Goldstein either did not see the movie, or did not get it. It is significant that the only black people (other than Alan Keyes, who deserves mockery) who appear in the movie are in on the joke, and help satirize genteel white racism. Everyone is not fair game, just the rich, the powerful and the intolerant.
Catching Up With Old Friends
I’ve discovered how old men are born. We get time demanding jobs, go to professional school, are subsumed by the demands of life. Our backs ache, our paychecks go to pay off the mortgage. We stop going to three concerts a week and buying a couple of new records every Tuesday. When we do buy a new record or go to a concert, it’s to catch up with an old friend, who’s, arguably (and you’d be arguing with us, comrade!) long past their prime. They don’t make rock-n-roll records like they used to. They never did.
I’m spending this evening with two old friends. Morrissey’s solo career turns off many. The solo careers of famous lead singer-songwriters (like Lou Reed and Paul Westerberg) are a fascinating part of the overall narrative of their lives. In Morrissey’s case, musically, this means pursuing his unique brand of classical rock which would have buried Johnny Marr’s guitars in violins and singing children, and, lyrically, a more literal exploration of his personal demons.
My friend and carpool comrade, Alan Amalgamated, insists that Morrissey’s lyrics have always been explicitly queer, while I believe that they were meant to be more ambiguous. A trusted former girlfriend once explained “Hand In Glove” as being a snide satire of self-absorbed lovers engaging in wretched PDA’s. Perhaps I put too much stock in her Masters degree in Literature, but it’s easy to hear sarcasm in a line like “And everything depends upon how near you stand to me.” Amalgamated finds a sense of daring and apprehension in the act of two men walking hand-in-hand, risking a bashing.
In any event, there’s less ambiguity now that Morrissey has dropped the pronouns. He just wants to see the boy happy. Is that too much to ask? That freedom, apparently, makes him so happy that the Moz is no longer wishing for a nuclear war to destroy him and the seaside town in which he resides. Instead, he’ll gladly sacrifice Pittsburgh for the chance to see the future when all’s well.
“Ringleader of the Tormenters” zips by with nary a clunker. Most songs are up-tempo, vaguely majestic with the usual pithy zingers. Even the repeated use of the children singers feels right.
Robert Zimmerman has a new record, too. Can three records released four and five years apart properly be considered a trilogy? “Modern Times” feels vastly less important than “Time Out of Mind,” which is to its credit. With his crack touring band behind him, Dylan seems determined to just have a good time.
He’s been thinking about Alicia Keys, which shows he is even more of an old man than me. I haven’t thought about Alicia Keys for at least two years. But I certainly feel that lyric, “This woman so crazy, I swear I ain’t gonna touch another one for years.” The spare ten songs stretch out comfortably over an hour etched on modified petroleum product. I’m sure there’s some deeper meaning to it all, but an old-fashioned record from an old-timer is a good time for me.
I’m almost encouraged enough to buy the new Paul Westerberg children’s movie soundtrack. That ‘un makes me nervous.
2006 Endorsements: Bring Back the Greens
Election time is around the corner, and I’m sure you’re dying to read my endorsements. This election, in truth, offers a rare opportunity to alter the political landscape for a progressive change.
No, I’m not talking about the increasing likelihood of a Democratic sweep in New York. That is a foregone conclusion since the Republican party has collapsed under the weight of Pataki’s bland presidential ambitions and the national GOP’s right-wing extremism. The Republicans have put up scarecrows against the Spitzer and Clinton steamrollers, and are poised to lose members of their Congressional delegation and perhaps even control of the state Senate, ushering in what could become a generation of Democratic dominance in New York State. Don’t get too excited. Spitzer and the Democrats will govern from the center, and much of the tax-cutting, welfare-slashing, tuition-hiking agenda that Pataki carried out over three terms is now accepted as status quo.
What potential change this election provides is the opportunity to reshuffle ballot lines – an opportunity that only comes up every four years and only in the gubernatorial election. Any party that garners 50,001 votes for Governor remains on the ballot for the next four years. Aside from the big two, there are three other parties seeking to retain their ballot lines and four more looking to gain a new line. Only two of these are of interest. One is the Working Families Party, the progressive fusion party that has disappointed for eight years. When the WFP was founded, many of its early activists invoked the hallowed name of the American Labor Party, which for a few decades around the Depression was a progressive force in New York state politics. That party helped elect scores of Socialists, Communists and Laborites to office, while cross-endorsing the “good” Democrats and punishing Democrats who were too friendly with business and Jim Crow by running spoiler candidates against them and splitting the vote.
For the past eight years, the WFP has only endorsed Democrats, and not just the good ones. There can be no clearer case of a Democrat who votes against the interest of working people in New York than Hillary Clinton and yet the WFP is endorsing her for a second time! I got an e-mail from Pete Seeger the other day that a vote for the war-monger Clinton is actually a vote to bring the troops home. Only a longtime fellow traveller of the CP could embrace such confounding wisdom. If the WFP won’t withdraw support from Hillary, then it is clear that they will never oppose bad Democrats with their own independent candidates, and all the WFP is is a tool to deliver progressive and union votes to the Democratic machine.
I remain a registered voter in the Working Families party, holding out hope for a rank and file rebellion. Under New York’s slow as molasses system, only a registered voter of a given ballot line can petition or contest a party primary, and a change in enrollment must be made before the previous election day. For example, if Jonathan Tasini had decided to run his insurgent campaign against Hillary Clinton within the Working Families party, I could have collected petitions among fellow WFP registrants to force a primary – one that Tasini could have won, giving Hillary a public rebuke and continuing the anti-war campaign into the general election. But, Tasini would have had to have changed his party enrollment to WFP before last year’s mayoral election. And, thus, I remain registered in the WFP in case somebody decides to try to force a primary next year. But I won’t be voting for Eilliot Spitzer on the Working Families ballot line, and neither should you.
I will be voting for the Green Party, and so should you. The Greens had a ballot line from 1998 until 2002, and in that time ran hundreds of candidates for federal, state and local office – garnering hundreds of thousands of votes on a platform of peace, environmentalism and economic justice. Remember that Mayor of New Paltz who initiated a political crisis by marrying same sex couples? Jason West was elected on the Green Party ballot line. We need more rabble rousing in our elections, as only the Green Party can currently deliver.
Vote for Malachy McCourt for Governor on the Green Party ballot line. Malachy is a semi-famous author who recruited to run for whatever name recognition he has (such celebrity-seeking is a frustrating tendency among certain segments of the Greens). Nevertheless, only a vote for McCourt can give the Greens a ballot line for the next four years.
Vote for Howie Hawkins for U.S. Senate on the Green Party line. Howie is a long-time environmental and trade union activist, and was working hard for election reform long before you ever heard about “hanging chads.” He’s campaigning for an immediate end to the war, money for renewable energy and universal health care.
Vote for the Socialist Workers Party candidate for Comptroller. The SWP is a laughable Trotsky-Castro cult by now, but it’s important to give a little love for the “S” word. Also, unfortunately, the Greens’ candidate, Julia Willebrand, is representative of the party’s worst sectarian trend that has held it back as a more welcoming party of the broader left.
Vote for Rachel Trechler for Attorney General on the Green Party line. At least she’s an attorney, while the SWP candidate is typically unqualified. If you must vote for Cuomo, do so on the WFP line.
In Queens, I recommend write-in votes for most of the remaining contests. The judges are, as usual, all endorsed by the Democrats and Republicans and running unopposed. Write in your favorite lawbreakers as a protest. In my Congressional district, Greg Meeks is running unopposed, significantly without the Working Families Party’s support. Write in your own name. Whoever you are, you could do a better job than him.