Suchergebnisse

In this expanded text of remarks given at of the election debate the speaker presents the question "Should radicals work to realign the Democratic Party?" The speaker defines the debate as what political work in the electoral arena makes sense for the left, & which electoral path has the fewest divergences & can defeat neoliberalism & global capitalist politics. The speaker presents for proposals that identify and seek to surpass the inhibitions of the Democratic Party, and the creation of a Congressional progressive caucus. The Democratic Party is argued to be controlled by the center-right bloc that effectively freezes out the left. Creating a center-left coalition is argued to be an imperative action, despite the conflicts between unions, socialists, & the labor movement. The speaker argues that the fight over the Democratic Party's direction is the only consistently progressive form electoral politics can take in this era, placing Green politics as protest politics that now need protest voting. In closing, the speaker notes welcome exceptions of advances in grassroots offensives, & building progressives into a significant power block that reflects Marx's statement on historical conditions to the contemporary need to turn ideals into facts on the ground, and an opposition party into a reality. Adapted from the source document.

A comment on a symposium in this journal (2002) on the 2000 election campaign of Ralph Nader & the Green Party finds some merit in Jesse Lemisch's criticism that the campaign failed to adequately address the concerns of women, people of color, & gays. However, his contention that Nader & the Greens stand for a "parsimonious austerity politics. glorifying a small farmer & independent business utopia that never existed" is challenged. Larger issues surrounding class cultural politics are addressed. K. Hyatt Stewart

As part of an exchange on "The Democratic Party and the Left," it is argued that Jason Schulman (2002) misses the author's point about the exploitation by corporate powers of progressive Democratic politicians. Hawkins maintains that he did not claim that corporate campaign contributions control or influence these politicians' actions, but that progressive politicians "give a liberal veneer to the Democratic Party simply by being Democrats." Corporations then use these politicians to market the party to progressive constituents, hiding the fact they are completely under the control of corporate interests. For third parties, such as the author's Green Party, the goal is a radical transformation of the US political system, which can be best initiated at the grassroots level via progressive social movements involving the working class & people of color. K. Hyatt Stewart