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This piece poses some very important questions. I'm not sure that we can clearly counterpose "a labor party that just so happens to not have a labor movement or is it the materialization of an eco-socialist movement that combines the praxis of environmentalism with socialism" Asking "the class question" about the Green Party echoes the arguments among socialists about the nature of the SDS half a century ago. And i remember hearing this about Occupy as well. It was always related to how existing groups wanted to relate to it. In the U.S., there are many problems with the traditional yardstick. There are even more vagaries about how to hold that yardstick. I'm not sure about Andrew's distinction between what he calls a left wing and a "parliamentary" one in the Greens. In many respects, the left wing is the parliamentary wing in the sense of wanting to function as a political party, while what he calls the more 'parliamentary" one consists of the flakes who think we're going to morally persuade the Democrats of our views. Too, when Andrew suggests we could have been "focusing our energies over the past six months on the matters we are only now getting to," it raises a time-honored but questionable juxtaposition. I don't know that what's "we're now getting to" that couldn't have been gotten to earlier. In the end, it's a question of alternatives. I'm in a particularly putrid local in a more conservative than average state party. But, in spite of that, the idea of an independent progressive alternative attracted 104,000 Ohioans in 2014 and around 3500 in this county alone voted Green in 2016. Neither this local nor this state organization has any desire to organize the Green voters. Suggestions for a broad socialist initiative to take up the slack have been regularly ignored. So it's genuinely perplexing what the next move should be. There are currently two initiatives from what Andrew calls the left-wing of the party--a formation to press for independent political action against those hoping to do deals with the Democrats and a drive to promote the organization of a membership party which will have the same effect. My inclination is to suggest that we lend what support we can to these and hope for the best, while involving ourselves in those struggles that are genuinely non-electoral social movements . . . at least in the germ. ML . _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
