[Texgreen] Will the Greens Seize the Moment?

[margaret]

http://www.counterpunch.org/walsh07092007.html
July 9, 2007

Will the Greens Seize the Moment?
The Democrats Have Failed
By JOHN WALSH

"Americans' View of Most Important Problem Continues to be Iraq."  
"Americans' Confidence in Congress at All-Time Low." "Congressional  
Job Approval Dips Again This Month." Thus read three major headings  
in the Gallup Poll Weekly Briefing of June 22. And the crisis has  
started to consume our liberties, with the police state growing in  
power to the point where even that most ancient of protections,  
habeas corpus, has been suspended in some cases.

The core of the crisis is that the political system is unable to  
respond to the demands of the people for peace. And everyone knows  
it. Cindy Sheehan said it as well as anyone last May 26 in a letter  
addressed to the Democrats in Congress: I will now "try and figure a  
way out of this 'two' party system that is bought and paid for by the  
war machine which has a stranglehold on every aspect of our lives. As  
for myself, I am leaving the Democratic Party. You have completely  
failed those who put you in power to change the direction our country  
is heading. We do not condone our government's violent meddling in  
sovereign countries and we condemn the continued murderous occupation  
of Iraq. We gave you a chance; you betrayed us."

The present crisis appears comparable to the state of affairs in the  
1850s when the question of slavery dominated the national  
consciousness and could not be resolved with the compromises of 1820  
and 1850. But there was no anti-slavery party. Then in 1854 under  
pressure from both abolitionists and northern capitalists, the  
Republican Party was formed. In 1856 it ran its first presidential  
candidate who lost, and in 1860 it ran Lincoln who won. Six years was  
all it took--even without the internet. The point is that in times of  
crisis things can move faster than anyone might imagine.

What greater opportunity could there be for the Green Party? The vast  
majority of the public knows by now that neither mainstream party  
wants to end the occupation of Iraq. And they are making noises, both  
of them, about going after Iran, Sudan and others. After the 2006  
elections and Democratic votes to continue the war funding, few can  
deny that the Democrats are a party of war and empire. This fact is  
abundantly evident to one and all for the first time since the end of  
the Cold War, which masked the reality of the U.S. empire. But we  
have no large antiwar party. The crisis seems to be as close to that  
of 1854 as historical analogy permits.

In this moment, how have the Greens done? It is true that the Greens  
alone among the non-Socialist parties have stuck to principle in  
opposing the war--and that puts us light years ahead of others. But  
in practice the Greens appear distracted, disorganized and downright  
dysfunctional, this last word all too often applied to our Party. We  
are not widely known as an antiwar party, and too often we have kept  
the antiwar movement at arms length. In certain states in the 2004  
and 2006 elections we caved to the Dems. Some of us have seen  
ourselves as no more than "better" Dems, a complete missing of the  
mark. As a consequence we have failed to draw pointed distinctions  
between them and us, and to be sharply critical of them, thus hiding  
the truth from the people. Ralph Nader in contrast has been very  
combative with the Dems, and his approach should be a lesson to the  
rest of us. As another example, look at the announcement for the  
coming Green National Meeting in Reading PA. In it, there is no  
mention of the war!! In fact the most space went to a campaign to  
prevent the privatization of water resources, a laudable goal, but  
hardly the one most on the minds of the people. What happened to the  
idea of bringing our principles to the people using the issues that  
concern them most? Are we ready to move aggressively on the issues of  
war and empire? Or are we going to spare the Dems the kind of  
criticism coming from Nader and Sheehan?

So here we stand on the eve of the Green Party National Meeting on  
July 12-15 in Reading, PA. What will happen there? Will it be  
business as usual? The time is ripe, and the people are with us. We  
have a responsibility to get organized and get going. Failure to do  
so will mean millions more will perish in present and future  
conflagrations, which the empire holds in store for us. Will we take  
matters in hand or let the moment pass?

John V. Walsh can be reached at John.Endwar@gmail.com. He is a member  
of the Green/Rainbow Party of MA, the merger of the MA Greens and Mel  
King's Rainbow Coalition.