I am a member of the PSL,before that I had been a Green for seventeen years,from 2000 to 2017.I joined the Green Party,in 2000,for three reasons.First,because of Ralph Nader,who many believe was the strongest candidate the GP ever had.Second because I did not want to see another Bush become president,and,third,because I felt Al Gore was,at that time,the weakest,most centrist,candidate,the Democrats had ever offered.Little did we know how bad things would get.
In that time,we have seen little to no growth in the Green Party,on a national level.Indeed their influence may have shrunk since 2000.We can talk about how the demonization of Nader,especially from liberals,who now love Dubya,elsewhere.In my seventeen years of working with the Green Party,in New Mexico,I saw little to no growth in the party,on any level.In fact the opposite was true.Our membership only continued to contract.For much of the 2000s,it was a struggle to even stay on the ballot.Then came 2016,where Jill Stein was smeared as a Russian asset,who was helping Putin throw the election to Trump.Where were others on the left,coming to Jill Stein's defense?Other than a few marginalized voices,like Jimmy Dore,they were few and far between. Then there is the class element.I'm sure things may be different in other parts of the country,but my GP branch,and others I worked with,were not made up of leftists,or ecosocialists.They were elitist upper class,or upper middle class liberals,who were unwilling to get out there in the streets,in the streets in class struggle solidarity with the poor and working class,and not at all interested in providing mutual aid to these struggling classes,the way the Panthers did,and the way communist parties all around the US did in the 1930s,and earlier.This,however,is exactly what the PSL does. The PSL has also experienced phenominal growth in the years since 2016.I think our overtly anti-capitalist message,and the fact we have such a stringent,and prolonged membership process may put some people off though.I argue this is a good thing.I think we could have been more aggressive as far as getting on the ballot in more states,both COVID,and Bernie had a lot to do with this.We don't need yet another party to die a tragic death,the way so many left and populist parties have.The history of American politics is littered with their carcasses,going back to at least the Populist Party of the 1890s,we need to build up the strength,and infrastructure of existing independent parties on the left,wherever they may be.Reformist paths,like those advocated by many in the DSA,are a dead end.It's not for nothing that the Demoocratic Party is called thr graveyard of social movements. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#1254): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/1254 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76628306/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES<br />#1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.<br />#2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived.<br />#3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
