There's really only a "one-foot" difference between Bush and Gore.
Even though there is only a "one-foot" difference between Bush and Gore, there's a lot riding on that difference. For the mass of low wage workers, the difference is that Bush would veto a minimum wage hike, but Al Gore would sign it. For unions and their members the difference is that Bush will attempt to take away their right to participate in electoral struggles with legislation like the "paycheck deception" act.
For the mass of unorganized workers Bush would make it even more difficult for them to organize into a union. Bush would appoint extreme right wing justices to the supreme court, undoing years of progress towards equality.
Understanding all of this and more, most labor unions, community and civil rights organizations have endorsed Al Gore. They know that if Bush wins, our growing movement will hit a brick wall of right wing policies and we'll be on the defensive again. If we beat Bush and the Republicans back, our movement will be stronger. We will be on the offensive making proposals for new "right to organize laws," universal health care, and education.
I'm voting for Nader because he's the most progressive candidate and I want to protest the corporate dominated two party system.
Nader has a very positive platform. It's also clear that he can't win at this point. In this election the Nader vote could be the margin of victory for George Bush in key states like California or Michigan. That's why right wing billionaire Roger Millikan, who gives money to Pat Buchanan, also gives money to Nader.
If you have decided to vote for Nader, then you have made a calculation in your own head that you can live with Bush as President for four years. The victims of Bush's policies will mainly be the multi-racial working class, racial minorities, and single parent families.
The children of families below the poverty line will bear the brunt of Bush's right wing attacks. It may be a great political statement to pile up the protest votes for an anti-corporate candidate like Nader, but if your working family's immediate well-being hangs in the balance, then how you vote in November adds up a little different.
Working class political independence means a clean break with the parties of big business. We shouldn't be supporting any democrats.
It's misleading to think political independence means supporting anything that is anti-corporate. We have to be specific about what kind of political independence we want and how we get there in this winner-take-all electoral system. Working class political independence needs a political party that has the organized section of the working class as it's center.
The labor movement is making definite moves to establish itself as that center (see next question), but it takes time. The establishment of a third party led by the labor movement can't be forced. It's development is connected to the level of unity of progressive coalitions that include key forces of the labor and people's movements.
At this point those key players are unified on the need to end the right wing dominance of government that has continued since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Like it or not, that's the state of the overall movement. The main question for the Green Party remains: Is the pursuit of federal matching funds for their party worth the potential destruction of unity of the anti-monopoly coalition of labor, students, environmental, and civil rights organizations that emerged from Seattle?
There has been no serious left wing third party challenge to the democrats and republicans in decades. We can't wait any longer. "We have to start somewhere!"
It's true that a major left wing third party that can launch a serious challenge doesn't exist yet, but that doesn't mean that the process of building isn't already underway. Within that process, the Green Party and the Nader campaign are one development of many. In fact, important steps toward political independence are being taken by the labor movement and other progressive forces, including youth and students. Here's just a few examples:
1. Since the new progressive leadership took over the AFL-CIO in 1995, the labor movement has built up it's own grass roots political mobilizing structure, independent of existing political parties.
2. In 1996, the AFL-CIO launched a campaign to elect 2000 labor union members to public office by the year 2000. They have now surpassed this goal. Union members now hold offices on school boards, state legislatures, in the U.S. Congress and everything in between. Some ran as democrats, some as independents, but all are union members in office because of grass roots campaigns run by and for working people.
3. Independent parties are developing a base at the state level. One example, the Working Families Party of New York State, is a coalition party of progressive labor and community activists. It has built political independence by building broad multi-racial unity among those interested in defeating the right wing. Another is the new statewide Progressive Party in Vermont based on socialist Congressman Bernie Sander's electoral victories.
4. The Green Party has emerged as part of the overall growth of the movement against environmental destruction, corporate domination and globalization. It has a national structure and has elected many candidates to office.
5. Young independent candidates for local office like Ras Baraka in Newark, New Jersey are uniting labor and community and mobilizing the youth vote. (see related story)
The progressive intellectuals and professionals that are at the base of the Nader campaign are an important part of the coalition needed for real political independence, but by themselves do not have anywhere near the necessary strength and resources. Without major participation by organized labor and its allies among minorities, women, seniors, youth and students, there can be no real political independence.
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