Why Vote Green?
So... I voted for the Green Party again... What's the point? They aren't going win ! ...I hear you say.... Well, I just want them to get a decent percentage... This is the third presidential election in a row that I've voted for the Green candidate.
I found an article on the internet, which I will excerpt here:
US Presidential election 2020: An uphill struggle for the Greens
Alan Story
Fri 31 Jul 2020
(snip the beginning)
the three main planks in his “life and death” platform are:
A Green New Deal to respond to the climate emergency ...
A full package of social and economic measures to challenge the growing class and racial equality in the world’s richest and most powerful imperialist country ...
A whole series of “peace pledges”, including cutting the US military budget by 75 per cent...
But wait a minute. Who is Howie Hawkins? You’ve probably never heard of him before reading this article. ...
The real problem is that the overwhelming percentage of American voters haven’t heard of him either ... because the US is a “two-party corporate state”, says Hawkins. “And it is not very different to a one-party state, just slicker because they give the illusion of choice.”
(more snip)
... candidates like Hawkins are said to just be “spoilers” and make it even harder to get rid of Donald J. Trump who many say is absolutely the worst president in US history.
(snip)
The sole pro-environment and left-wing choice
Hawkins and Walker have also gained the nomination of the Socialist Party USA. In 2016, Walker was that party’s nominee for Vice President. In 2012 and 2016, the Green Party’s presidential candidate was well-known physician and activist Jill Stein.
Meanwhile in April 2020, after popular left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders was defeated by Joe Biden in the Democratic Party presidential primaries, Hawkins offered to stand aside and give Sanders a clear run at the Green Party nomination. That move would have been transformative to the 2020 electoral contest. But Sanders refused. Instead he is backing Biden and says he will keep “working from within” the Democratic Party.
He is not being too successful.
(snipppp)
You can choose from 32 different types of cereal
Hawkins and Walker have an electoral mountain to climb in a huge and complex country of 331 million people. Its ruling elite has created a voting and overall political system that is becoming even more discriminatory against smaller parties, such as the Greens. ....
Indeed, it has been almost 30 years since a third party candidate, Ross Perot, made any serious dent in the Democratic and Republican vice grip. Perot, a multimillionaire and definitely not a progressive, got nearly 20 per cent of the presidential vote in 1992. In any event, Hawkins and Walker are not striving to promote their own individual careers, but to build a party and represent a movement.
Perhaps comedian George Carlin described best the Tweedledum and Tweedledeeness of the US electoral charade: “In America you can choose from 32 different cereals but can only choose between two people for president."
(snip)
Both the Republicans and the Democrats are errand boys for US corporate capital. There are essentially no limits on how much money multinational corporations, such as those making up Big Pharma, can funnel to these two parties. Why? In part, it is because any and all limits on election contributions, including from corporations, are viewed by US courts as infringing constitutionally-protected free speech rights and, again, America is the land of the free. “The corporate speech doctrine is a huge problem in elections,” says Hawkins in our interview.
(snip)
The ‘lesser evil’ issue
There is no need in this article to talk about how reactionary, how racist, how anti-people and how downright dangerous Trump has been as a president and what might happen if he is re-elected. Take this as given.
And without denying there are differences, and some big differences, between Trump and Biden, there are many questions to be asked about both Biden’s campaign and his possible presidency. Should everyone - well everyone who despises Trump - simply line up behind Joe Biden and consider him the lesser evil?
First, it is far from certain that turnout of anti-Trump voters will be massive on 3 November, especially if the pandemic worsens. There are serious limitations to an election campaign focused on one theme: “I am not Trump.”
Second, Barack Obama selected Biden as his vice-presidential running mate to please Democratic moderates. No one could be more pro-establishment than Biden. He is weak or downright reactionary on leading US and global issues that animate progressives: climate justice, racism, structural inequality, and health insurance. This is how US journalist Jeremy Scahill summed up Biden’s career and current competence in an April 2020 article for The Intercept:
“Biden has an abominable public policy record on a wide range of issues. He has a penchant for lying - about his role in the civil rights movement and about being arrested in apartheid South Africa. He continues to lie and mislead about his support for the war in Iraq, the most consequential foreign policy decision of the post-Vietnam era. He has been accused by eight women of misconduct… Biden’s cognitive health and mental acuity is, to say the least, questionable, particularly when you compare his current performance with videos from just a few years ago. He frequently rambles without a clear point, forgets what office he is running for and has to rely on teleprompters and notes to make it through interviews and speeches without saying something embarrassing.”
To title a book on Biden “Yesterday’s Man” seems particularly appropriate. Is he really a candidate for this fast-moving era?
Third, political analysts say that voting Green in about 40 of 50 US states will have no effect on whether Biden or Trump will win those states and determine their all-important Electoral College votes. If you are a Green voter in New York State or California, for example, you can feel very confident your Green vote will not let in Trump via the back door.
Moreover, why should Green voters in the US be called “spoilers” due to the negative effects of the wretched American voting system or the fact that the Democratic Party chooses such baggage-burdened candidates - to be charitable - to be their presidential candidates in 2016 and 2020 against Trump? Prize winning US journalist Chris Hedges takes up “this Greens as alleged spoilers” issue in more detail in this May 2020 interview with Hawkins.
Finally, as Hawkins explains in this lengthy 2019 article, ”If the Left in America is to challenge the capitalist two-party system, it will have to build a political party based on working-class independence from the corporate rulers and their political representatives in the Democratic and Republican Parties.” If 2020 is not the year for progressive forces to take a step forward towards a green and red alliance, when is?
Those of us watching from afar wish you well on your journey.
Alan Story is a regular contributor to Green World and a member of the Green Party of England and Wales.
I found an article on the internet, which I will excerpt here:
US Presidential election 2020: An uphill struggle for the Greens
Alan Story
Fri 31 Jul 2020
(snip the beginning)
the three main planks in his “life and death” platform are:
A Green New Deal to respond to the climate emergency ...
A full package of social and economic measures to challenge the growing class and racial equality in the world’s richest and most powerful imperialist country ...
A whole series of “peace pledges”, including cutting the US military budget by 75 per cent...
But wait a minute. Who is Howie Hawkins? You’ve probably never heard of him before reading this article. ...
The real problem is that the overwhelming percentage of American voters haven’t heard of him either ... because the US is a “two-party corporate state”, says Hawkins. “And it is not very different to a one-party state, just slicker because they give the illusion of choice.”
(more snip)
... candidates like Hawkins are said to just be “spoilers” and make it even harder to get rid of Donald J. Trump who many say is absolutely the worst president in US history.
(snip)
The sole pro-environment and left-wing choice
Hawkins and Walker have also gained the nomination of the Socialist Party USA. In 2016, Walker was that party’s nominee for Vice President. In 2012 and 2016, the Green Party’s presidential candidate was well-known physician and activist Jill Stein.
Meanwhile in April 2020, after popular left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders was defeated by Joe Biden in the Democratic Party presidential primaries, Hawkins offered to stand aside and give Sanders a clear run at the Green Party nomination. That move would have been transformative to the 2020 electoral contest. But Sanders refused. Instead he is backing Biden and says he will keep “working from within” the Democratic Party.
He is not being too successful.
(snipppp)
You can choose from 32 different types of cereal
Hawkins and Walker have an electoral mountain to climb in a huge and complex country of 331 million people. Its ruling elite has created a voting and overall political system that is becoming even more discriminatory against smaller parties, such as the Greens. ....
Indeed, it has been almost 30 years since a third party candidate, Ross Perot, made any serious dent in the Democratic and Republican vice grip. Perot, a multimillionaire and definitely not a progressive, got nearly 20 per cent of the presidential vote in 1992. In any event, Hawkins and Walker are not striving to promote their own individual careers, but to build a party and represent a movement.
Perhaps comedian George Carlin described best the Tweedledum and Tweedledeeness of the US electoral charade: “In America you can choose from 32 different cereals but can only choose between two people for president."
(snip)
Both the Republicans and the Democrats are errand boys for US corporate capital. There are essentially no limits on how much money multinational corporations, such as those making up Big Pharma, can funnel to these two parties. Why? In part, it is because any and all limits on election contributions, including from corporations, are viewed by US courts as infringing constitutionally-protected free speech rights and, again, America is the land of the free. “The corporate speech doctrine is a huge problem in elections,” says Hawkins in our interview.
(snip)
The ‘lesser evil’ issue
There is no need in this article to talk about how reactionary, how racist, how anti-people and how downright dangerous Trump has been as a president and what might happen if he is re-elected. Take this as given.
And without denying there are differences, and some big differences, between Trump and Biden, there are many questions to be asked about both Biden’s campaign and his possible presidency. Should everyone - well everyone who despises Trump - simply line up behind Joe Biden and consider him the lesser evil?
First, it is far from certain that turnout of anti-Trump voters will be massive on 3 November, especially if the pandemic worsens. There are serious limitations to an election campaign focused on one theme: “I am not Trump.”
Second, Barack Obama selected Biden as his vice-presidential running mate to please Democratic moderates. No one could be more pro-establishment than Biden. He is weak or downright reactionary on leading US and global issues that animate progressives: climate justice, racism, structural inequality, and health insurance. This is how US journalist Jeremy Scahill summed up Biden’s career and current competence in an April 2020 article for The Intercept:
“Biden has an abominable public policy record on a wide range of issues. He has a penchant for lying - about his role in the civil rights movement and about being arrested in apartheid South Africa. He continues to lie and mislead about his support for the war in Iraq, the most consequential foreign policy decision of the post-Vietnam era. He has been accused by eight women of misconduct… Biden’s cognitive health and mental acuity is, to say the least, questionable, particularly when you compare his current performance with videos from just a few years ago. He frequently rambles without a clear point, forgets what office he is running for and has to rely on teleprompters and notes to make it through interviews and speeches without saying something embarrassing.”
To title a book on Biden “Yesterday’s Man” seems particularly appropriate. Is he really a candidate for this fast-moving era?
Third, political analysts say that voting Green in about 40 of 50 US states will have no effect on whether Biden or Trump will win those states and determine their all-important Electoral College votes. If you are a Green voter in New York State or California, for example, you can feel very confident your Green vote will not let in Trump via the back door.
Moreover, why should Green voters in the US be called “spoilers” due to the negative effects of the wretched American voting system or the fact that the Democratic Party chooses such baggage-burdened candidates - to be charitable - to be their presidential candidates in 2016 and 2020 against Trump? Prize winning US journalist Chris Hedges takes up “this Greens as alleged spoilers” issue in more detail in this May 2020 interview with Hawkins.
Finally, as Hawkins explains in this lengthy 2019 article, ”If the Left in America is to challenge the capitalist two-party system, it will have to build a political party based on working-class independence from the corporate rulers and their political representatives in the Democratic and Republican Parties.” If 2020 is not the year for progressive forces to take a step forward towards a green and red alliance, when is?
Those of us watching from afar wish you well on your journey.
Alan Story is a regular contributor to Green World and a member of the Green Party of England and Wales.