June 23, 2003
Greens, Natural Law to Endorse Kucinich?
At a local political meeting yesterday, a couple of folks who appear to be in the know in California said they had been led to understand that both the Green Party (actually, Ralph Nader) and the Natural Law Party intend to endorse Rep. Kucinich. In fact, they intend to ask their members to re-register as Democrats to vote in the California partisan primary to give Kucinich a decent shot at the nomination.
I’m not sure I agree these events will take place or even that they should,
There is a distinct possibility that Kuchinich's name could appear at the top of the ballots for Democrats, Greens, and Natural Law voters. There is, after all, no rule against multiple parties nominating the same person for President.
Nader, whether because he's chastened by the last election and the blame and scorn unjustifiably heaped on his head for causing a Democratic defeat that did not, in actuality, happen, or because he just thinks it's sound policy, apparently does intend to endorse Kucinich. The questions are when and how.
Frankly, I have no idea how much clout or control Nader has in the Green Party any longer. And Greens tend to be fairly ornery cusses. I know, because I am one. Should Nader give Kucinich an unqualified endorsement and encourage all Greens to work and vote for the Ohio Congressman, I'd be sorely tempted to re-join the Democratic party, however brifely, to help Kucinich get the nod. I'm sorely tempted anyway.
But I have an idea that Greens are not going to knee-jerk agree with Nader if he calls for them to do something untoward like re-join the Democrats. But I do know this: if the Greens and the Natural Law folks join forces to help get Kucinich the nomination, the American people will face a clear choice. If, in the face of that, they choose the current regime, then at least we'll know we tried.
Posted by insiter at June 23, 2003 12:56 AMI don’t see a problem with Greens re-registering as Democrats to try and get Rep. Kucinich a shot at the nomination. If they really believe he’s the best candidate and they want him to be the nominee of the Democratic party, they should do whatever they legally can to bring that about.
In the 2000 election, I wanted to have a better choice than “Dubya” or Gore, so I took advantage of the open primary they have in Maryland (I’m a registered independent) to vote for John McCain—not because I necessarily with all of his policies, but because he seemed less a mouthpiece for corporate power than Bush. I found his stands on campaign finance reform and his willingness to challenge his own party refreshing.
Posted by: Scott A. Lawrence at June 23, 2003 02:27 PMThe jaqckasses and elephants are the ones that planed and ordered the attacks on the WTC so the only real choice for President is me because if I am elected I will have the guilty partieds of that attack and in the war on drugs charged with treason and war crimes and if you doubt it then try me I am a US Army vet and someone that can show you who and what and why it all happened and if you get connected into my computer I can send you files on the events as well as inform you what laws they have to obey to be in accordance with the declaration of independance > If elected the Crooks in Washington DC would have to all go to prison along with the big industries leaders that produce weapons of war and mass distruction as well as the people that are causeing the world wide problems from our country. So get me put on the docket and I can promise no taxes and the best health care plan in the world and real freedom .
Posted by: Alan Hastings AKA Graywolf Spirit-talker at June 23, 2003 06:32 PMThe Green Party fails to understand expanding government power only makes lobbying and political corruption more lucrative. Weakening the power politicians arbitrarily wield is the solution.
Posted by: LP at June 23, 2003 09:10 PMFor those within the Green Party who would like to discuss strategies for the Presidential campaign in 2004 I would recommend the following list:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/greensordems/
Nader is an independent and is not speaking now as a Green candidate. I have seen nothing to indicate any proposal coming from him for Greens to re-register for the primary, although I know this is happening in individual circumstances. In the only statement he has made that I have seen he continued support for third and fourth parties in 2004. I hope it is not your intention to misrepresent Nader’s position in this regard.
Those who want to support Kucinich and try to swing the Democratic Party over to their perspective are free to do so. Those who want to build an independent political party based on the Ten Key Values and the Green Platform will continue to work within the Green Party and to build its base. Within that option there are many things that can be considered and discussed.
If you are interested in joining this list, it will be expected that you are willing to give the moderator your background in the Green Party, so that we can begin from the premise that we are all Greens.
Mato Ska
owner and moderator
Greens or Dems
As to the first point, actually there is a law (in most states) that prevents a candidate from appearing on multiple ballot lines. The only exception I know of is New York.
That aside, I am reasonably certain that Dennis Kucinich will endorse the Democratic nominee, whoever that is. But I do know some Greens who are currently agitating on Kucinich’s behalf, and I guess I don’t begrudge them. Over the long haul, however, I don’t believe it is in progressives’ (be it Green, labor or movement of the oppressed) interest to try to replace what is the deeply corporate heart of the Democratic Party.
For things to move forward, building a genuinely independent party is a prerequisite.
Posted by: Mike McCallister at June 25, 2003 10:12 PMIn addition to sharing the Greens opposition to the war in Iraq, Kucinich lists his stands on ten key issues on his website that are remarkably similar to stands taken by the Green Party in its platform of 2000:
Universal health care - agree
Non-privatized Social Security - agree
Withdrawal from NAFTA/WTO - agree
Repeal Patriot Act - agree
Choice/civil rights - agree
Living wage/worker rights - agree
Free public education through college - agree
Anti-nuclear weapons/pro-diplomacy - agree
Support family farms - agree
Environmental policies - agree
I realize that supporting Kucinich does not help the growth of third parties in the U.S. However, if the Democrats run a candidate that reflects almost every single ideal of the Greens (unlike Dean, whose ideas diverge markedly from those of Greens), it is foolish to run someone against him for the single reason “to grow the party.” Not that it is the only indication of growth, but the only way I see the Greens getting more votes in 2004 than they did in 2000 is if they draft Michael Moore, and though I love his work, he lacks Kucinich’s political experience.
Some progressives are suspicious of Kucinich’s past pro-life stance. I think any politician or citizen should be able to change views on a subject; very few of us were born with the same views we have today. Secondly, he switched some time before deciding to run for president, so I don’t see it as being opportunistic. Those who vote for presidential candidates on the single issue of choice can feel free to look at other candidates, but both the Greens and Kucinich offer more than a stand on one issue.
One last thing - it’s great to see the Natural Law Party working with the Greens. I hope the two parties join with Nader to endorse Kucinich.
Posted by: Rob Fargo at June 27, 2003 04:52 PMThe Democrats won’t nominate Kucinich in any case, and he will not accept a Green party nomination. As for Nader, he seems to be leaning AWAY from endorsing any Democrat and is moving closer to running himself.
I’m really not interested in bickering with anyone. I can tell that Bush has many very worried, and I can understand that. He’s worrisome.
However, he’s hardly unique and cannot be divorced from the climate that produced him. Whether we like it or not, it is in his direction that the two major parties are traveling right now. The present electorate is an electorate that lends its consent to party primary processes through which the major
parties determine who shall best advance the concentration of wealth in fewer hands and growth in exploitable markets worldwide. Even a liberal saint like Jimmy Carter had CIA thugs in Iran brutally shoving electric cattle prods up the body cavities of dissenters against the Shah. Democrat or Republican, our next President shall also be- just as Carter was- a brutal bloody monster who
supports and enforces murderous policies for the financial benefit of a few. Some construe Bush to be fascist. I believe he is. I furthermore believe, however, that the Democratic Party has lent its assent to his fascist policies and shall only modify the direction of those policies. Fascism is an inevitable stage in capital’s trajectory.
My goal is far less to stop Mr. Bush specifically than it is to put an end to the processes, powers and principalities that made Mr. Bush possible as a politician in the first place. No matter who wins, we face grave danger simply due to the fact that the powers controlling both parties are very dangerous.
These powers shall emerge victorious regardless of November’s election results, simply due to the fact that our political primary process will once again have served the purpose for which it was created in screening out all candidates who shall not advance the wealthies murderous interests that own these parties.
What we must do, my friends, is to continue doing what we do best and what we have had some remarkable success in doing these past four years in spite of all the barricades that have been erected in our path. We must expand the nation’s electorate and thereby build the party. This will become increasingly dangerous work in the days ahead no matter who the wealthiest murderous interests install as their figurehead. It is work that must, however, be done no matter how many people shoot at us and no matter how many party activists begin to join the “disappeared.”
The Democrats will not expand this electorate. They’re very comfortable with the very small electorate we have right now. We, however, shall find our strongest base of support among those who have known no reason up to this point to get involved. There’s more than a few people who stayed home in the year 2000 having felt that their time was better spent trying to prevent the rats infesting their homes from gnawing on their sick infant’s face than in supporting a Democrat called Al Gore who would have done nothing whatsoever to help their situation. These are the people we need to build the Greens, and we need to mobilize and organize around their concerns in order to build the party.
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I couldn’t possibly support our bolting the Greens to support yet another Trojan Horse for the Democrats any more than I could support the Rensenbrink-Sevigny plan. For those who would accuse us of being “spoilers” or suggest that we should devote more time to building another party than to the one party that matters, I say this:
I could never, never, never support a Green endorsement of any candidate running for president under the Democratic Party banner. Let genuine Democratic Party progressives abandon the party that has consistently betrayed them and wage their campaigns from within the Green Party. Those interests presently controlling the Democratic Party’s direction and destiny shall never permit a progressive candidacy to survive.
Being realistic means understanding that the “front-loaded” Democratic primary season is intended directly to prevent any candidacy such as that of Kucinich, for instance, from ever becoming a threat to the controlling interests.
Kucinich has neither the funding nor the grass-roots organizational framework that will allow him to become even a credible “dark horse” within the Democratic Party presidential race. He will fail, and the candidacies of Mosely-Braun and Sharpton shall fail as well. They shall fail because they were fated to fail from the start. This thing is fixed. Not one of these three candidates can possibly counter the full weight of those established Democratic Party machines in each and every state that shall be brought to bear, poised against them. The Democratic Party’s own internal structure, together with the very design of the primary process, has already disqualified their candidacies.
So, yes, let us therefore please BE realistic. The Democratic Party will advance as its party’s own candidate he who can best promote the realpolitik interests of its financial backers. The party’s nominee shall persist in that party’s right-ward trend. Forget attempts at influencing that party’s direction. Progressives have tried and failed at that for more than thirty years.
That is why we created the Greens. The single most important and vital thing for Greens to continue doing is building the party, because it is THIS party- not any single other party- that is humanity’s final and last chance to stop the creeping fascism that the Democratic Party has quite knowingly become complicit in implementing. The Democratic Party has had its chance to prove its worth. The Democratic Party had the numbers in the Senate to prevent Bush from ever securing the White
House, and they failed. The Democratic Party had the numbers in the Senate to prevent Bush from ever having John Ashcroft as his Attorney General, and they failed. The Democratic Party had the numbers in the Senate to prevent Bush from ever having Gale Norton on his Cabinet, and they failed. The Democratic Party had the numbers in the Senate to prevent the Patriot Act from being passed, and they failed. The Democratic Party had the numbers in the Senate to prevent Bush from
eviscerating environmental regulations, and they failed. The Democratic Party had the numbers in the Senate to prevent a tax give-away to the rich, and they failed. The Democratic Party had the
numbers in the Senate to prevent a neo-colonial war with Iraq, and they failed.
They failed because they wanted to fail. They failed because they were paid to fail. They failed because their puppeteers told them to fail. If Greens support the Democrats in 2004, then the Greens will fail. We will fail because we will thereby lend our support and endorsement to the failure to challenge neo-conservative policy. We will fail because we shall thusly be lending our tacit support to fascism with a softer face. We will fail to be relevant. We will fail to be meaningful. We will fail to be the party that I joined. We will fail to become a party that is at all worth supporting.
The Democratic Party has had opportunities after golden opportunities to demonstrate that a Green challenge would be both counterproductive and superfluous, and they have failed. They have failed and betrayed their progressive base for more than thirty years, and have amply demonstrated a strong desire to fail again. This did not have to be the case. It wasn’t necessary for this to be the case. The Democratic Party could easily have deactivated the threat of a Green Party challenge. They merely had to pretend to be human. They didn’t do that. They failed.
I have been a great fan of the Lesbian Feminist thealogian, Dr. Sonia Johnson, now for many years- and it was with an eco-feminist ecosophy such as hers in mind that I became involved in the Green movement in the first place. I rather like what this pyromantic author had to say re: this-
“Some people were shocked that I didn’t vote in the 1988 election. I was shocked that they did. The day after, I overheard a conversation on a plane in which one man was lamenting to the other: `It seems to me that we never have a decent candidate any more, that we have to vote for the lesser of two evils every time. I can’t understand it.” If he had realized that by voting for the lesser of two evils, he helped create a world in which he would always have to vote for the lesser of two evils; if he had understood that by voting for evil at all, even if for a lesser evil, he was still voting for evil, and that since everyone who voted, voted for evil- either a lesser or greater one- surely there was no possible way to get anything but evil; if he had understood that what he was doing every moment of his life was determining future moments, he would have been shocked to see his collusion in the deteriorating political situation that he deplored. We cannot compromise our integrity and have a reality with integrity anymore than we can have peace by waging war.”
Voting evil encourages evil, and generates evil for years to come. Evil begets evil. As the first ecosophists of both the social and deep ecology movements had been inspired by the satyagrahi, so then am I. There can be no greater force on Earth than soul-force or conscience. I vote accordingly.
We’re not the spoilers, and no one understanding the role of the Democrats in implementing Bush policies and proposals can seriously suggest that we have ever been spoilers. Indeed, no one is accusing us of being spoilers beyond those who want our party to disappear from the national stage, period, in any case. Let’s not humor them.
Owen R. Broadhurst
Agawam, Massachusetts
