Iconoclasm: Don't run, Ralph, don't run!

So, all us Democrats have a hard case of PTSD when it comes to Nader and a Green candidate of any sort.

On the other hand, there's more pervasive and subtle damage. I believe that the Greens (and specifically Nader, or his strategists) made it the *heart* of their campaign to drive a wedge between Democrats and independent progressive voters. They made it a perfect accepted truth, common wisdom, and FASHION to believe that there is no difference -- zip -- between the dems and the republicans.

This wasn't a NEW idea. But no one on the left had ever worked so successfully to make it so fashionable, so permanent. Those of us dems who protested sounded shrill (to borrow a term from feminism...).

Now, personally, I hate the DLC (the smug centrist neoliberal forces in the Dems) with a passion, but the DLC is a passing fad in the history of Democratic politics. Every 20 years, there's some new flavor of sure-fire snake-oil strategy that the Democratic Party elevates to infallability, and then as they ossify and as the years pass, they leave their cake out in the rain, and some new flavor rises.

Centrism isn't permanent, but it's got the DP cowed pretty bad at the moment. Because, you know, the last election convinced them that they have lost the left entirely.

Greens and progressives and various whiny independent liberals don't vote, traditionally. They tend to be more postmodernly cynical about the system. They tend to be younger, hipper, and too cool to play the games the system requires. Or too damned ignorant. And I genuinely believe that those nonvoters were the majority of the green votes in most states.

So these neogreenies look at the funding situation, and they say, "Republicrats!" and they vote with their feet. Or they don't vote. Or they vote for a third party. It never occurs to them to subvert from within -- which is what democracies are designed for.

They vilify folks who are trying to turn things around pragmatically, and would have called us collaborators and quislings if they'd studied any political history. But instead folks like me got accused of being "not really left" "posers" "sell-outs" and a number of things I can't recall because I don't like holding on to really distasteful memories. Including, at least once, just being *hissed* at and stonewalled in the middle of a restaurant, in the middle of dinner, with six friends. I was NEVER as rude to a Green before the election as any number of Greens were rude to me. They consistently hip-ly and coolly and cynically opined that there's no difference between the Republicans and the Democrats -- and that made me the enemy.

I still staunchly believe that taking over the Democrats with traditional Democratic values has more potential than forming a third party. But I defend these guys' right to form a new party and run with it.

People who really participate in the political game see it as just that -- a competitive, sometimes ikky game among often unpredictable forces, using tools that are often more art than science. It's incredibly complex, and folks like Jim and Viv and Julie/Jim and me in my spare time...we're working the system with a depth of knowledge that has scars to go with every lesson learned. Sometimes the cost of a mistake in the political world really *is* that people die, even if it's because you feel you failed to save them. It takes guts, and literacy in history/law/strategy/tactics/..., and a huge understanding of the human condition.

If forming a new party and just fixing everything overnight were possible, by god we would have done it a long time ago if we could have figured it out. And I don't think the Greens have anything new to offer in that context.

So these folks emerge from nowhere, often enough, and decide to participate and do something new. Because it has to be new or else it won't work, or would have already worked...

So when they finally decide to participate, they don't stage a popular insurgency and revitalize their local Democrats, because that would sully their values. No. They are too cool. They are too idealistic, and think that if people only had a choice that was radically different, that somehow that would build a third party, magically, from 3% up. Unlike people like me, they will not sell out. They will not compromise. They don't have to make deals with anyone.

Or do they?

Here is a clue. We do not live in a parliamentary system. The only way a new political party has ever risen in the US was by displacing a party that was falling apart.

Here's a piece of history for you:
http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/aae/side/bullmoos.html

That's what happened to the Progressive Party (a splinter of the Republicans, btw).

For more perspective, try this more lengthy piece:
http://gi.grolier.com/presidents/nbk/side/polparty.html
which says in part
Unlike many other countries, the United States has a two-party system. Third parties have developed, but a balance of more than two strong parties has never lasted.... And the Green Party has formed as an outgrowth of the environmental movement. Like earlier third parties, these groups have helped focus attention on important social and political issues.

Now, if the Greens had been satisfied to split off 5% the vote and raise issues for the Dems and Republicans to have to react to, that would have been lovely. But to my mind, the thing they did that was worst was to sour an already suspicious American public to the democratic process entirely.

By stating that:
......(a) Republicrats. No differences.
......(b) We can't win, we can't place, but we can sure enough show.

...the Greens left a lot of progressives with this message: The Democratic Party are a monolithic bunch of neoliberals from root to leaf, and you shouldn't even try to talk to them. However, if we yell loud enough, the world will get better by magic.

The reason the Greens were often not invited to debates was because the established parties saw that they had no stake in the system, and therefore no restraint on their attacks. Face it, if a Republican savages a Democrat too badly, his or her party is going to face just a bit more uphill the next time they need something from the other side of the aisle. The Greens had no stake, and therefore were almost guaranteed to be less civilized, even, than traditional negative campaigning would lead one to expect.

Nader did not disappoint in this aspect. He oversimplified complex issues, and knew he'd never have to worry about implementation of any of his glib proposals. Of course he looked like Alexander with a Damoclean wit coming down on a snarl in DC like a fury. And of course, his solutions seemed so much more acceptable to a naive and unseasoned left.

I believe he used the political naivety of the previously unparticipating left, every bit as manipulatively as Bush jerks the Christian Right.

Daydream: If the voters who the Greens claim had never voted who came out for Nader had walked into their local DP central committees and said, "We care about leftist issues, and we're willing to work for change, and screw the centrists. We can get the traditional progressive base to register and get them to VOTE."

Well, then it would have been an insurgency, of a sort which the party is designed to absorb and internalize. And all politics is local. You change the city councils and you change the state legislatures. And you learn about real politics that involves compromises and deals and finding liveable middle ground. But every year you elect a few more real goddam progressive green-minded people to the dominant party of the left. And you turn out more and more voters who'll vote for these more left people. And you start moving the party left.

That's what I would have loved to have seen.

But you know what? It's ALWAYS going to be easier to bitch about the system from the outside, and then complain that you're disenfranchised. It's always going to be easier to organize a semi-spontaneous march via indymedia than it is to organize all the complicated aspects of Hempfest, or to elect a pro-medical-MJ legislator.

And you know what? It's always going to be of less effect and less lasting benefit, doing the easy thing. Sad to say, if time is money, a peace march's energy is like stacking up a million dollars of passionate time, and burning it. It might make us feel warm, and like we found a place for our passion, but it probably doesn't change much of anything outside of the immediate reach of the flames. Maybe the smoke smells sweet to some gods somewhere up there, and they will grant us peace.

It does expend a lot of energy, and it does give people the impression that they are working for change. So then, they don't do something else. It plays into the Republicans' hands.

Oh, sure, it raises a few issues. Like Nader. He educated a lot of folks in the Green Party about the threats of globalization and various things. But you know what? He'll never get to do anything about it now.

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Shava Nerad, News and Opinion Correspondent:

Shava's column, Iconoclasm, published irregularly and frequently to Gather Essentials: News, is an examination of the provocative ideas emerging in media and world culture behind the news.

ShavaNerad has been working on the Internet for over twenty-five years, at the boundaries of Internet and social issues. She is CEO of Indigenis, a consulting group working at the intersection of virtual worlds, social networking, and gaming communities, and recently left her position as development director of The Tor Project to work on a book tentatively titled How to Raise a Risk Taker.

She lives in Somerville, MA with her teenage son, her fiance (a professional magician and fundraising coach), and a corgi/dachshund mutt named George.  Her wedding in Second Life was recently featured in Business Week, and even she finds this surreal.

Opinions here have nothing to do with my consulting and so on.

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