1. marxmail@groups.io

Re: Green vote?

Dayne Goodwin
 

I think that marxists/revolutionary socialists engage in electoral
politics as a subsidiary tactic in a strategy of building a working
class organization/party that will eventually be capable of a
significant leadership role in mobilizing revolutionary mass action
(i.e. "mass strike" as Rosa Luxemburg described what she saw in Russia
(Russian occupied Poland) in 1905. Revolutionary socialists don't
engage in the capitalists' "democratic" political system looking for
eventual 'success' within that system but in order to overthrow that
system, replace it with workers' democracy.

Since imo there was no revolutionary socialist presidential election
campaign to support, i voted for the Green Party's Walker/Hawkins
ticket in the presidential election as my best choice. I found in my
limited (old age in a pandemic) social and political interactions that
saying i was voting for the Green Party Walker/Hawkins ticket often
opened up an opportunity to explain my views on the capitalists'
two-party political system and the need for a politically independent
working class party (sometimes even on socialism and revolution).

Although the Green Party's presidential candidates this year are
revolutionary-socialist-minded individuals, i don't think the Green
Party in the U.S. is today or ever has been a revolutionary socialist
party. As i understand Mark to suggest, there probably needs to be a
massive class struggle upsurge to make the creation of such a party
possible.

Dayne

On Sun, Nov 8, 2020 at 4:14 PM Mark Lause <markalause@...> wrote:

An emphasis on local and state action is not unreasonable, but the history of insurgent parties that do not field some sort of national ticket is not especially good. Rather understandably, the two dominant parties use the opportunity to rip any threatening third party to pieces.

As to building up a power base, any decision to run a lot of local candidates won't mean beans if you don't have enough engaged people to even fill the ticket, much what you need to actually elect people. None of it matters unless there's a serious organization with an engaged membership behind it.

Ditto the talk about a united front of the left in the elections. This should have happened fifty years ago but there were reasons it didn't. Those same reasons are there. They will never take any initiatives to cooperate. This will not happen until there's a genuine pull towards that unity from the outside of these groups. The great historic failure of the Greens actually lies right there.
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