Why the Silence? By John Rensenbrink 

There is a thundering silence about the Green Party. It doesn’t come from the right wing, nor from the so-called center. It comes from left and left-leaning intellectuals.

In one of her syndicated columns this past July, Molly Ivins exhorted fellow “desperate Democrats” (her phrase) to run Bill Moyers for president. Why? Because he’s been “grappling with how to fit moral issues to political issues” and because “He opens people’s minds.” “Can he win the presidency?” she asks. “No,” she says. “Can he be nominated?” “No”, is her answer.  But, she says, let’s run him anyway.  The title of the article in headlines at the top of the Bangor Daily News (July 26, 2006) op ed page reads, “The reality-based candidate is . . . Bill Moyers.”

“Reality-based?” Think about that for as long as you can suspend your skepticism. For me that’s about three seconds.

Yes, here we go again!  We’ve had a regular parade of progressive presidential wannabees in the Democratic Party going as far back as Fred Harris in the 70s. (Ah, he’s a good fellow, raising the issues, let’s back him for the Democratic nomination. He doubtless can’t win, but let’s do it anyway.) The same later for Jesse Jackson. The same for Dennis Kucinich. “Ach, we know he can’t win, but let’s do it anyway. We’ll send a message.. Make ‘em sit up and take notice.”

I feel that Molly and other folks we’ve been respectfully listening to for years are prisoners of self-induced illusions. They have become—not meaning to but nevertheless falling into the trap of becoming—stalking horses for the Democratic Party. They just can’t finally leave it and in consequence they are holding back the development of a serious, credible, and vision-expanding third party that can effectively contest for power with the powers that be. The silence is excruciating.

If this be true for Molly Ivins, it is also true for progressive publications – The Nation, The Progressive Populist, The Progressive.  Each has scores of thousands of readers – the kind of readers who could be a solid and critically important basis for an effective third party, one willing and able to contest for power in a serious way. Week in and week out, month in and month out, going on for decades, these publications perpetuate and deepen the illusion that somehow it’s got to be alright to stick with the Democrats. And, worse and worse, it’s got to be alright to smile disdainfully, or even kick in the teeth, fledgling efforts like the Greens to create a new third party.  Somehow, this is all o.k. to do and be in spite of many articles in their own pages detailing the crimes and constitution-bashing of the Bush/Cheney regime and lamenting the complicity of the controlling echelons of the Democratic Party in those crimes. 

The illusions are not limited to these now desperate supporters of a sterile Democratic party.  We find similar illusions in the seemingly non-partisan press—authors and publications that on the one hand eschew both major parties (and politics in general) and on the other hand write speeches, articles, and blogs copiously on a wide range of issues and of advocacy for solutions to the present crisis. But almost universally, they avoid mentioning serious political electoral action that can be taken to meet the crisis. The Green Party is ignored and the more it is ignored the more thunderous is the silence.

Howard Zinn was quoted as saying this past May, “People think there must be some magical tactic, beyond the traditional ones – protests, demonstrations, vigils, civil disobedience – but there is no magical panacea, only persistence.” What is missing is any reference to doing something that is also pertinent and where persistence could very possibly bring success: join and fight for a third party, help it become a major party, help it to dislodge the dominant power elite. Isn’t doing that just as pertinent as what Zinn calls “the traditional ones.” Why the silence?

For decades I have subscribed to Peacework, a wonderful monthly publication out of Cambridge, MA. During all that time, there have been lots and lots of excellent articles on social justice issues, peace issues, and community building, but no mention of building a third party, no mention of politics at all. Why the silence?

Sometime in the early 90’s, when the Greens were setting forth in a serious way to build a party, I wrote Noam Chomsky. I mentioned my visits to Poland in the 80s and said how struck I was that prominent intellectuals used their prominence to help sustain Solidarity during that bleak and dangerous decade in Poland, speaking truth to power. I entreated him to join the Green Party and speak up for a fresh, new politics.

He wrote back after a considerable interval. He urged me to join the New Party that Danny Cantor and Joel Rogers were initiating. I had been in touch with them and during the next several years I attended some of their planning events and Danny attended two or three of ours. But our basic strategies were very different. The New Party sought various forms of fusion with the Democrats. I warned that their party needed to become self-sufficient politically before they could or should even consider entering into electoral alliances with the Democrats.

The New Party eventually put all their marbles into “fusion” and lost out.  I never did get back to Noam Chomsky to ask him to re-consider his choice and declare his support for the Green Party. Perhaps I should.  Though why isn’t he doing it without having to be asked?  This is another disturbing example of a disturbing silence about pursuing a politics that strikes for political power on its own and has done with the Democratic Party. Does he, too, suffer from illusions, even after decades of evidence that the Democratic Party is the biggest obstacle to a re-birth of serious progressive politics in the United States?

Mark Hertzgard is The Nation” Environmental Correspondent. His Nation article for July 31-August 7, 2006 was entitled “Green Goes Grass Roots:  The Environmental Movement Today.” The theme of the article is that whereas environmentalists hitherto have shunned electoral politics, they are now at last beginning to think more positively about electoral politics and are showing this at the grass roots. Throughout the article I kept looking for the Green Party. Yet not once did he mention the Green Party, even though the Green Party is the most signal example of grass roots environmental electoral politics in our nation’s history. What, dear reader, is going on? Does anyone know? 

Why the silence?

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