August 17, 2004 Cut and Run The Green Party 2004 Convention By Peter Miguel Camejo Just prior to the opening of the Green Party national convention in June of 2004 David Cobb, the soon to be Green Party presidential candidate, stated on Democracy Now, "you can't cut and run" in response to a question from Amy Goodman on why he calls for continued occupation of Iraq by the United States on his campaign web site. Cobb repeated a phrase "you can't cut and run" made famous by both Bush and Kerry, to justify continued US occupation of Iraq. How did it come to pass that the Green Party, pledged to support peace and to oppose the Democrats and Republicans occupation in Iraq, nominated a candidate who only days before the convention was defending imperialist occupation of Iraq on national radio? Cobb's position stood against 99% if not 100% of the view of Green Party members not to mention the overwhelming majority of the people on our planet. The Green Party 2004 convention itself was a turn away from its founding principles, it represented a move by forces within the Green Party to "cut and run" from its own platform under the attacks of the Democratic Party to silence the Green Party. The Green Party was founded because the two major corporate run parties do not represent the interests of humanity. Their policies continue to support an endless march away from democracy towards war, promote oppression and global exploitation, and are destroying the ecological systems needed to sustain life. The Green Party’s goal was to offer an alternative to the two major parties, and to do so it developed a set of Ten Key Values upon which the party platform was based. In the 1990's, thousands joined the Green Party and a few Green candidates were elected to city councils and school boards. Then in 2000, Ralph Nader a nationally known figure with great popularity became the Green Party’s presidential candidate. Millions voted for the Green Party and everything changed. Tens of thousands joined the party. The number of candidates elected to office began to rise sharply. Suddenly the Green Party went from a curiosity to a threat to the two party system. DEMOCRATS ATTACK The Democrats launched an offensive against the Green Party and Ralph Nader accusing them of being responsible for the victory of George Bush. Green Party members have reacted in many different ways to these attacks. Some think we should run candidates only in local races while supporting a "lesser evil" strategy of voting for Democratic nominees in State and National elections. Others have taken a stance that the attacks on the Green Party represent an attempt to silence us and curtail democracy, and that therefore we should fight back. Of the two currents that have appeared in the Green Party as a result of these attacks, one offers capitulation and the other resistance as the solution. These two opposing views have divided the Green Party. This riff has been widened by the intensity of the Democratic Party's attacks against Ralph Nader. These attacks reached a level never before seen in American history when Nader announced he was again running for president instead of capitulating, on a platform in harmony with the Green Party. THE POLITICS OF CAPITULATION David Cobb, a relatively unknown figure in the United States and also in the Green Party, began a campaign whose central purpose was to disassociate from Nader and try to dodge Democratic Party attacks by disappearing under the radar. His campaign strategy of encouraging Green Party members to vote for the Democrats in contested states is a not so subtle form of capitulation. He called this strategy the "Safe State" strategy. This position was backed by a group of 17 Green Party members, including some long time leaders, in a statement urging Greens to adopt a "lesser evil" voting strategy. Cobb went further and suggested a "Safe State" strategy would actually help build the Green Party. He concluded that by avoiding attacks from the Democrats, the Green Party could grow at the grass roots level. Cobb promised supporters he would use his campaign to disassociate Greens from Nader and help the Greens grow by focusing only on local campaigns. In the past year, he has traveled throughout the nation, giving press interviews attacking Nader and letting people know he wants Kerry to win. He made a point of going to small Green state organizations, assuring them that he was the only candidate really concerned about grassroots organizing. Cobb developed the slogan "Green and Growing" using the empirical fact that the party was growing, to make his campaign appear pro-Green as opposed to simply anti-Nader. His analysis, however, completely turns reality upside down. The party has grown precisely because it rejected his views and ran Nader for President in 2000, stood up to the Democrats charge of spoilers, and has run aggressive campaigns for statewide offices, U.S. senate, congress, mayor and other local offices. The Green Party primaries revealed the overwhelming majority of Greens did not support Cobb. In those states where primaries were held, representing the majority of registered Greens, Cobb received only 12.2% of the vote, while candidates supporting Nader received over 80% of the votes cast by Green Party members. Most Greens knew the party had grown like never before precisely because of Nader's national campaign. Nationally there was a great deal of suspicion to his "Safe State" strategy so he began calling it different names such as "Smart States", "investing your vote", "voting your conscience" but in every case it simply means voting for John Kerry. As the Democrats intensified their attacks many Greens became aware that building the Green Party was not so easy. The Democrats have an enormous influence on liberal intellectuals, who have joined in a massive campaign against Nader and the Green Party. Something called "Green Democrats" began appearing on special web sites as part of a campaign to silence the Greens. Cobb soon found a strong base of support for his campaign among the Kerry backers within the party. The Democratic Party media began to see him as an ally in their campaign against Nader and to domesticate the Green Party. Cobb's running mate Pat LaMarche gave her own "cut and run" strategy in an article in Green Horizon, published just prior to the convention, in which she wrote, "Maybe the entire green movement can slip under the radar while folks monitor all this hullabaloo about the presidential race." In her first interview LaMarche stated she would vote for the Democrat, Kerry, not Cobb even though she was Cobb’s vice presidential candidate. LaMarche later said she had been misquoted. ALLIANCE WITH THE DEMOCRATS Medea Benjamin, a Green Party member from California and a supporter of the "lesser evil" strategy made an appeal for Greens to support Cobb and called for a coalition with the Democrats. Greens are involved in coalitions with Democrats and some times Republicans on specific issues all the time. Occasionally a local Democratic Party group will endorse a march for Gay Marriage or for peace. In fact, Medea's work through Global Exchange, a non-profit, is itself supported by a coalition of people with various political viewpoints; i.e. Greens, Democrats and independents working together on specific issues related to Fair Trade. But elections and the question of who should govern are different then forming coalitions on issues. Political parties have platforms and represent social layers. The Democrats represent corporate America. That is a fundamental reason why the Green Party exists. The one alliance we cannot make with the Democrats is on who should govern because we believe that people not money should run the United States. People who join the Democratic Party or who call for people to vote for it are crossing the line between people and money. That is why I call it capitulation to call for a vote for Kerry. Democrats often make it a general condition that for them to minimally support progressive causes, progressives must accept voting for the Democratic Party. This often leads to organizations like trade unions and environmentalists groups becoming prisoners of the Democrats. They can protest their hearts out but when the chips are down they have to vote for pro corporate candidates like Kerry and Edwards, otherwise the Democrats will turn on them. WHY NOT JOIN THE DEMOCRATS? David Cobb and Medea Benjamin do not agree with Dennis Kucinich's call that all Greens abandon their party and join the Democrats and work to reform it. Instead they want the Greens to become an ally to those working within the Democratic Party. They see the Green party agree not to run against certain Democrats, endorsing other Democrats, and in some cases voting for Democrats such as Kerry and then in turn the Democrats will agree not to attack us. In that sense they see the Green Party as a pressure group on the Democrats, as part of the Democratic Party family and an ally to the more "progressive" Democrats. That is why Cobb's victory at the Green Party convention was hailed by Democrats and supporters of Kerry generally from The Nation to the Milwaukee daily newspaper. The problem with this - make peace with the Democrats view - is that to create systematic change, progressives have to break with the Democratic Party. That is becoming clear to millions of people. Twenty five (25%) percent of the electorate is no longer registered Democrat or Republican. Tens of millions of people are leaving the two party system. The youth are starting to break. In fact, one out every eight youth, 12%, say they will vote for Nader. The Green Party 2004 convention chose formally to turn their backs on the youth who are rebelling against the two parties of war and backing Nader. The Cobb/Benjamin supporters favor an alliance with the Democrats not with the anti-war youth. The Green Party cannot be built under a strategy of coalition with the Democrats. We will not inspire young voters to join our party by calling for voters to support pro-war, pro-corporate candidates like Kerry. The New Party tried to use the strategy of developing an alliance with the Democratic Party to build a third party movement. They supported the Democrats and the Democrats let them exist. But members who wanted to support Democrats found it easier to simple join the Democratic Party and those who wanted a third party went towards the Greens so the New Party collapsed. A similar end awaits the Green Party if it continues to follow a "lesser evil" voting strategy. THE GREEN RESISTANCE The good news is that a majority of active Green Party members do not agree with David Cobb. The broader membership voted massively against him in the primaries. Cobb's victory at the convention itself is an issue the Green Party will have to struggle with. It highlights the fact that the Green Party does not follow its own views on democracy. The Green Party theoretically stands for one-person one-vote, yet in its internal decision making process at the convention it opposed one-person one-vote. The Green Party opposes the electoral-college, yet imposed an extreme electoral collage system in determining how delegates were chosen. At the 2004 convention the Green Party allowed whoever could make it to the convention to be seated as a delegate. Many of them voted for a presidential candidate without any respect for the wishes of the rank and file expressed in the primaries and State conventions. Such methods allow a candidate to pack meetings and conventions to turn a minority into a majority as occurred at the 2004 convention. AVOCADOS In response to the capitulationism wing of the Green Party another wing called the "avocados" has arisen who support the Avocado Declaration and oppose supporting Kerry. This wing of the party was inspired, not turned off, by Ralph Nader's courage not to bend to the relentless attacks by Democrats against the Green Party. Instead of "cut and run" under the radar, Nader chose to stand against the war, the Patriot Act and defend working people throughout the United States as visibly as possible. The polls show 8 to 10 million people backing Nader. The majority of active Green Party members side with Nader, refuses to turn their back on the ten million people backing Nader, and is working to help Nader's campaign. This includes some of the best known Greens such as Matt Gonzalez President of the Board of Supervisors in San Francisco and Jason West the Mayor of New Paltz. PARTY UNITY The avocados offered a unity proposal at the convention so that both points of view within the party could co-exist and debate over the different approaches could continue. The lesser evil current, the supporters of Cobb, would not agree to the unity proposal because their agenda was to deal Nader a blow. To them a dual endorsement for Nader and Cobb was still an endorsement of Nader. The Cobb supporters showed no remorse that they were winning the convention against the will of the majority of Greens. Quite the contrary they were overjoyed at their success in working the undemocratic system within the Green Party to over come the majority view and achieve a minority victory for Cobb. The Democrats immediately congratulated them for their efforts. The convention adjourned and Cobb supporters like Medea Benjamin went off to campaign for Kerry. LaMarche went off to assure the Democrats she would vote for Kerry and Cobb went off to try and strengthen the pro-Democratic Party wing of the party. The Greens resisting the Democrats went off to campaign for Nader, starting with a rally of 1,000 supporters in San Francisco that was hosted by Matt Gonzalez, to affirm their commitment to the Nader/Camejo campaign for peace, and social justice. ORGANIZATIONAL ISSUES There were several important issues regarding democracy at the convention. One issue was a loyalty oath. It turns out the Green Party proposed delegates had to sign a loyalty oath that they would not oppose whoever got the party nomination. The idea that Greens should ever sign loyalty oaths on issues of ones political views is alien to the very idea of the Green Party. Pressure from various states forced the oath to be dropped. An effort not to allow some of the presidential candidates to address the conference was over come by opposition from delegates. The Cobb supporters tried to oppose allowing some candidates to speak, especially the two women candidates, Lorna Salzman and Carol Miller both Nader supporters. When faced with strong opposition Cobb himself proposed that the solution was to have no candidate speak at the convention! The rules at the convention allowed a candidate that did not have a majority to win the nomination. This was also supported by Cobb backers. But under pressure from Matt Gonzalez, Cobb backed off, and said he would not accept the nomination without a majority of delegates. It is amazing that the Green Party, which opposes allowing any candidate to win without a majority and supports IRV elections, considered allowing a their nominee for president to be picked without a majority of the voting delegates. There are many other issues that need to be dealt with to turn the Green Party into a democratic organization that respects the votes of its rank and file and does not allow a minority to over rule the majority as happened in 2004. (See the report presented by Forrest Hill and Carol Miller available at www.greensfornader.org). The Green Party will either become an internally democratic organization, develop a clear separation from the Democratic Party, or it will decline. For the Green party to continue to grow it must actually be Green, independent and democratic. The victory of a minority faction that supports capitulating to the Democrats in the 2004 elections is a major threat to the future of the Green Party. The next few years will undoubtedly be a period of internal struggle for democracy and to defend the original purpose and platform of the party. Posted by gfn at August 17, 2004 08:28 AM