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On 10/1/16 11:00 AM, Clay Claiborne via Marxism wrote:
the Green Party is still a white party.
So was the SWP in 1967 with a few exceptions that could be counted by the fingers on one hand. If I wanted to join a left group where racial composition was a litmus test, I would have joined the CPUSA that had lots of Black members including Angela Davis. But sometimes Black people make mistakes. The CPUSA had a very mixed record on Black liberation. While being on the front lines of the civil rights movement, it was hostile to Black nationalism--accusing Malcolm X of dividing the working class, etc. It also propagandized for supporting Democrats just like Clay is doing now.
If the Greens have a mostly white membership, it is not because of its program. For example, Jill Stein favors reparations for slavery as opposed to Hillary Clinton supporter Adolph Reed, who despite his brief membership in the Trotskyist movement, argues that the call for reparations will divide the working class.
Furthermore, the Green Party cannot transform the USA. It is not a revolutionary party and does not pretend to be one. However, it offers an opportunity to serve as a framework for Marxists to work together to advance the class struggle in the same way that the Corbyn-led Labour Party does. We cannot choose the organizational forms on the basis of Platonic ideals. You have to work with the material at hand. With that it mind, supporting the Democratic Party candidates in 2016 would make me feel irreparably damaged. Clay of course is entitled to his own opinions.
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