[CUGreens] Revote or Revolt? and Greens (fwd)

[Klocke Brian V <klockeb@sobek.colorado.edu>]

I received this from a discussion on the Progressive SOciologist NEtwork.
I thought you might find it interesting.

Brian Klocke

"Let us make the risk of peace and not impose the risk of war upon the
world"

----------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 14 Nov 2000 04:35:47 -0600
From: Doug Morris <being@enteract.com>
To: psn@csf.colorado.edu
Subject: Revote or Revolt? and Greens

Hi all,

Some reflections on the Greens in USA and on election protests follow.

First, here are links to two excellent articles on the election battle.
This one analyzes election justice and technical issues:
         13 MYTHS ABOUT THE RESULTS OF THE 2000 ELECTION
         http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/13-myths.html

This is a personal account of the Nov 11 protests in NYC with some
reflections on anti-globalization activism vs. election issues from a
self-avowed radical. I find my self agreeing with the sentiments here and
yet still engaged by the potential of the election issues above:
         REVOTE OR REVOLT?
         http://www.free-radical.org/
                 (This one is included at end of this note)

By the way, just as for Nov 11, protests are planed for Nov 18. The Nov 18
protests in some cities may be a good deal larger as the Nov 11 protests
and associated website got press coverage in NY Times and other papers.
See:  http://www.countercoup.org

A few comments on Greens and Nader:

Green party members often engage in activism outside of Green organizations
such as by joining in the anti-globalization protests and various
progressive movements.

However, some Greens as Greens want to get into the Florida mucky-muck.
See Greens for Gore: http://www.greensforgore.org/

There are various Green party organizations in the USA. I was present at
the 1990 Greens national gathering when the national Greens and state Green
parties formally split. The resultant organizations play different roles.
Some background...

The Greens/Green Party USA, which is mainly a network of local green
parties, is the more radical Green national organization. They advocate
structural change along socialist lines. See their current platform is
here: http://www.greenparty.org/Platform.html
The above is not a binding platform.

Here is the platform that Nader and LaDuke endorsed (compare the economic
democracy sections in first platforms with economic sustainability in
second--the socialist points are stronger in the main Green platform and
scaled back in Nader-LaDuke version):
         http://gis.pair.com/asgp/platform/gpp2000.html

Radical Greens work toward social transformation while often following a
social anarchist model of local organizing. The aim is social
transformation from the grass roots in participatory democratic way. To
quote the first platform above:
"The Greens/Green Party USA is the original [and largest] Green Party
organization in the USA. It carries forward the radical vision of the early
Greens based on grassroots political and economic democracy, nonviolence,
social justice, and ecological sustainability."

The Greens are gradually becoming a political presence in the USA--with 60
or so persons elected to positions in local government. Yes, the local
organizing isn't always democratic and candidates' positions don't always
work out to support party planks. The Greens/Green Party USA is more of a
movement network of diverse locals with a platform and yearly gathering
than a coherent party. For USA Green's theory and articles see,
_Synthesis/Regeneration: A magazine of Green Social Thought online_:
         http://www.greens.org/s-r/
Small donation to Greens gets you a print quarterly subscription to this
and a quarterly Green newspaper and a newsletter of events.
http://www.greenparty.org/

The Association of State Green Parties organization is necessarily more
reformist in seeking to promote Greens in state and national elections.
See: http://www.greenparties.org/

(A scholarly journal with anarcho-socialist bent and some Green theory is
_Democracy and Nature_: http://www.geocities.com/democracy_nature/
A Greenish academic organization is the Institute for Social Ecology:
http://www.tao.ca/~ise/ )

So, anyway. Nader is not fully a Green in terms of theory. He was recruited
by the Greens in 1996 for ballot exposure and in 2000 for same reason.
However, the Greens and Nader share plenty of overlapping concerns.
To read what Nader is saying now go to Nader's official website:
         http://www.votenader.com/
and see these articles:.
         Gore is Responsible for Gore's Electoral Problem
         The Green Party is Alive and Well

Also see these articles at above website for why people voted for Nader:
         20 Reasons to Vote for Ralph Nader
         Prominent Feminists Support Nader Campaign News
         The Supreme Court Balance

Nader is a cool old dude. But, he is not the conscience or leader of the
Greens. (Though he might have become that if the USA ballots had first and
second choice options for president: Then Nader-Laduke probably would have
gotten over 10% of vote.) Not getting 5% will not hurt Greens at local
level. Nader got the Greens a lot of exposure and a 280,000 person mailing
list of small donors. The party will continue to grow itself.

The NY election protest account is below...  Protest does matter a great
deal if the education and networking lead to movement and party building
aiming at fundamental structural change... The Greens are such a party or
part of the movement for that.
Doug

========================================================
FREE RADICAL: chronicle of the new unrest
by L.A. KAUFFMAN
www.free-radical.org
========================================================

REVOTE OR REVOLT?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Issue #12

Wait a minute: Weren't *we* the people who were supposed
to push the American system into a crisis of legitimacy?

By "we" I mean those small but feisty pockets of U.S.
society dedicated to rabble-rousing, trouble-making, and
fundamental change. For a shut-it-down radical like me,
the election mess in the United States has been altogether
too surreal, coming at the end of a raucous year of
politics in the street.

I'm one of those who believe that our political process is
thoroughly corrupted by moneyed interests and that the two
major parties often differ only in which corporate masters
they serve. The heated battle underway between Democrats
and Republicans strikes me as wildly out of proportion to
their actual political disagreements - a classic example
of what Freud famously called the narcissism of small
differences.

Yet still I find myself drawn into the vote-counting
drama, as if an accurate tally would constitute a
democratic outcome, in an election between two plutocrats
hand-picked by ruling elites. I cheer the African-American
students from Florida A&M University who took over the
state capitol building for nearly 24 hours to protest the
voting irregularities. I'm moved by the stories of
Holocaust survivors weeping at the realization that they
voted for Holocaust-denier Pat Buchanan. I'm stirred by
accounts of protest rallies in Florida whose fervor echoes
the black voting rights struggle of the 1950s and early
1960s. And I realize that - despite having voted for Ralph
Nader, with zero regrets - I really do dislike Bush more
than I dislike Gore.

Over the weekend, I walked over to a hastily organized
protest in Times Square, one of many taking place around
the country. Promoted almost entirely on the Internet, it
had a very homespun and spontaneous flavor. Nobody had yet
created buttons or t-shirts. The signs were nearly all
hand-lettered. The crowd had clearly not been mobilized
either by the Democratic Party machine or any of the usual
protest organizers (labor unions, advocacy groups, college
organizations, whatever).

The protesters, who numbered perhaps 700 at their peak,
came up with chants full of faith in the basic political
process:

"No fuzzy ballots"
"Will of the people"
"Every vote counts"
"This is about democracy"

The signs were in a similar vein:

"Let Grandma's Vote Count"
"No Jim Crow Voting"
"Isn't this a Democracy?"

But that ultimate question - is the United States in fact
a democracy? - was something that no one was really
asking. And that virtually no one is discussing during the
topsy-turvy process of battling over the vote.

That evening, I went to a screening of "This Is What
Democracy Looks Like," a remarkable new documentary on
last year's Seattle WTO protests, which takes its name
from the most famous of the chants coined there on the
streets.

It was on the third day of the protests that I first heard
that chant. Having successfully disrupted the WTO's
meetings through a nonviolent blockade, we had variously
been tear gassed, pepper sprayed, shot at with rubber
bullets, deafened with concussion grenades, beaten,
arrested, and chased. Martial law had been declared, and
all of downtown Seattle had been decreed a "no protest
zone," where it was illegal even to carry a sign opposing
the WTO.

Thousands of people - including many Seattle residents who
had not originally joined the protests, but who were
outraged by the complete decimation of civil liberties -
decided to defy the ban on public assembly and began to
march through the city. Our numbers swelled as we crossed
downtown and then headed uphill toward the jail where
those arrested for protesting on the previous day were
being held. As the enormous and defiant crowd neared a
spot where I had seen the police viciously gas seated,
nonviolent protesters two days before, the chant went up -
"This is what democracy looks like" - and moved me almost
to tears.

For what this brave and extraordinary crowd was saying -
echoed by every crowd that has since taken to the streets
for global justice - was that real democracy is not
confined to the voting booth or the halls of government.
Democracy is when those without power join together to
hold the powerful accountable; when people refuse to have
basic decisions about their lives taken out of their
hands. Democracy is loud, often unruly, and always public.

The outcome of this election certainly matters. But it's
dwarfed in importance by a great many other fights taking
place through direct and collective action: for campaign
finance reform; against racial profiling and police
brutality; against corporate domination and the
privatization of public goods; and so on ad infinitum. For
democracy will not win, no matter who goes to the White
House.
--30-

************
The film "This Is What Democracy Looks Like" draws on
footage from over 100 activists who took to the streets in
Seattle. It's phenomenal, and not to be missed. To find
out when and where it's playing, or to organize your own
screening, visit http://www.thisisdemocracy.org

For info on election-related protests, see http://www.countercoup.org

There's a great photo of the Florida A&M students' sit-in
at http://www.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=8686&group=webcast

************
FREE RADICAL is an e-column on the current upsurge in activism, written by
L.A. Kauffman (lak@free-radical.org). It aspires to weekly publication but
in practice appears irregularly.

This issue is archived at http://www.free-radical.org

--
# To unsubscribe, send a message to cugreens-request@flwyd.dhs.org with the
# word unsubscribe in the body.  For assistance, mail tstone@flwyd.dhs.org