I thank Bert Black you for refreshing my lessons in New York political
history; i seemed to have forgotten what i was too young to remember.
The valuable part of the lesson is that there was a brief time (late 60s
to early 70s) in another state, when an effective fusion system allowed
smaller parties to elect candidates to major offices both with and
without cross endorsements from the major DemoRepub parties. The local
significance of that lesson is that Minnesotans and Minneapolitans have
been deprived of a chance of such other viable choices primarily because
of the machinations of the DFL. Bert left out how the DFL has prevented
fusion in non-municipal elections. The DFL recently went to the U.S.
Supreme Court to prevent fusion candidacy. It was in the mid-1990s when
state rep. Andy Dawkins attempted to accept endorsements from both the
DFL and New Party. The DFL's central argument was that the State of
Minnesota had a right to protect the dominance of the two-party system.
The predominantly Republican Supreme Court happily collaborated with the
DFL to shut out third parties. Thanks to the DFL, if alternative party
members happen to prefer a major party candidate, they have no
alternative but to work with that party, and have to climb a possibly
insurmountable hill to leverage their own political viability. As for
the Minneapolis electoral system that similarly shuts out third parties,
i do not accept Bert's sleight of hand in trying to write it off as the
work of Tony Scallen rather than the DFL. Is my knowledge of
Minneapolis history correct in stating that Toney Scallen was a DFLer?
He was certainly a DFLer at the recent 9th Ward convention. It seems
highly unlikely a coincidence that a DFL official in a DFL municipal
government devised a system for only DFL candidates to effectively
compete. The debate about blame, however, could be far less significant
than the realization by all that the system does not make sense. How
about a discussion of a new system that opens the process to all
parties?
As for Bert's statement that the Green Party and DFL parties are
competitors rather than colleages, I hope that is true. There is little
point in having different parties that do not compete (as is usually the
case with the Democrats and Republicans). The real question now
presented is HOW do does the DFL want to compete? 1) Does it want to
attract members of competing parties by demonstrating that it has a
better platform and a better plan for implementing that platform?; or 2)
does the DFL want to compete by using its control over the political
system to exclude and marginalize anyone who does not demonstrate
complete party loyalty? Approach #1 is characteristic of a DEMOCRATIC
system. Approach #2, which the DFL regularly utiltizes and Bert is
basically promoting, ensures that we will continue to have a system run
by money and manipulation rather than a DEMOCRACY. (It is interesting
that Bert compared the Greens to Trotskyites, given that his own
advocacy of the primacy of party loyalty).
The choice of whether to examine the Democratic Party based on its
national 200 year history or the last eight years in Minneapolis seems
to be DICTATED by the rules of this list. I would say that attempts to
label it as the party of the people is unfortunately fantasy, at best.
(Which party most presided over genocide of Native Americans? Which
party defended slavery to the point of starting a civil war? Which
party instituted legal segregation and a Ku Klux Klan-dominated
political system in the south? which party was in power during the
growth of industrial robber barons and constantly used the power of the
state to repress unions? which party got us into World War I and
imprisoned and deported political dissenters? which party escalated the
war against Vietnam? which party - if i got more detailed, this would
take forever.) While Bert wants to detract attention from the recent
local DFL reign by looking at the party's larger history, the local DFL
might only be able to look good by comparison to a lot of its larger
parties' history. I think that the important point is that if there is
agreement that the recent DFL reign Minneapolis has not been desirable
(Bert refers to "internal problemms" and "cult of personality,") then
the response of a responsible democratic citizen and activist should be
to welcome efforts at reform and change, both from within and outside.
This would lead to the welcoming of participation from other parties
rather than promoting a closed system.
As for the resumption of the Nader-Bore debate, the list manager
declared it off limits before i saw Bert's post. It is fortunate that i
already won this debate before Bert joined the list. The DFLers
acknowledged this almost as quickly as Gore conceded to Bush. (he he)
Jordan Kushner
Powderhorn, Ward 8
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> Thank you for acknowledging my 'rant.'
>
> In point of fact, in New York, the Conservative party elected Senator James
> Buckley (brother of William F. Buckley, Jr.), who defeated the incumbent
> Senator, Charles Goodell (Republican) and a Democrat, in 1970 (I think it was
> Liz Holtzman). As for the Liberals, John Lindsey was elected on the Liberal
> and Fusion lines to his second term as Mayor of NYC, defeating both a
> Republican and Democrat. Both of these parties have also elected on their
> own, state legislators and NYC City Council members from the 60's until
> today. You could look it up.
>
> As to the cockamamie system we have in Mpls., please do not blame the DFL for
> this. We were doing just fine until Tony Scallen did this on his own. It was
> adopted by the citizens of Minneapolis as well, as I recall, back in 1985.
> Since then, the DFL in Mpls. has had lots of internal trouble as, instead of
> Republicans, we face ourselves in the general election. It has led to the
> cult of personality now insidiously ruling the Council and city politics
> generally. By the way, the Green Party would be better off, too, if we had
> the old system, where at least each party was guaranteed a candidate in the
> general election.
>
> I am not paranoid about the Green Party. I simply believe that you cannot be
> both Green Party and DFL at the same time. We are competitors, not
> colleagues.
>
> As to the city government in Mpls in the last eight years, if that is the
> standard by which you are going to judge the 200-year history of the
> Democratic Party, that's not a very broad or random sample, is it? In the
> totality of the Democratic Party it HAS been the voice of workers, such as
> there has been one in this country; the voice of liberals (at least in the
> 20th century) and the party that believes in collective action. Certainly the
> Republicans don't and they brag about that.
>
> If we are going to judge only upon recent events, let me say that I find the
> arguments used by Mr. Nader and the Green Party in the past election
> reminiscent of the Trotskyites. I sensed a "let's make it worse before we
> make it better" mentality, a recklessness, a willing to play with history and
> a divisive attitude. Mr. Nader said (paraphrasing here) "If Al Gore can't
> beat this incompetent Texan, what good is he?" The point, however was that
> due to Mr. Nader and his Florida voters (and elsewhere), we are stuck with a
> government that looks like it will cruise full steam ahead to do some
> terrible things. While VP Gore is certainly responsible for his own campaign,
> I am sure that there would have been 1,000 Nader voters who would have
> otherwise voted for Gore.
>
> Anyway, I'll be looking forward to Mr. Kushner's next response.
>
> Bert Black
> King Field
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