Is this guy a fucking idiot or a literal false-flag divide-and-conquer shill...

Is this guy a fucking idiot or a literal false-flag divide-and-conquer shill? I know some of you are paying attention to this.

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youtube.com/watch?v=uJTef82g3uE
thestranger.com/slog/2016/07/21/24371858/the-green-party-responds-to-dan-savage-says-hes-dead-wrong
draftbernie.org
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This is literally no reason for another progressive party to be made. The Greens are the only lefty/leftish party to survive over the past 30 years of third parties in the US. People have put vast amounts of their time fighting for ballot access over the years to build up an infrastructure that any progressive exiting the Democratic Party should want to take advantage of. I am convinced this guy is just trying to divide progressives between Greens and yet another party.

It's not as though Sanders is some nobody though, he is the most popular politician in the US. If he formed his own party, it could quickly surpass the Greens and absorb a large portion of their base. Greens have a reputation in this country for some pretty nutty views like being anti-vaxx. Even if they have dropped things like that from their platform, they still carry that stigma and have a very small base. You could also criticize them for not getting involved in local election, instead focusing too much on a national campaign every four years.

With the current political system in America, anything outside of perhaps entryism with respect to the Democrats strikes me as fruitless.

We really need electoral reform before any changes can be made via elections.

He seems to be under the delusion that the Greens would just up and merge themselves with his new party. After Bernie refused to fight election fraud and voter suppression during the primaries and is stoking this Russian hysteria and Syrian intervention shit.

And that argument that they don't fight for local candidates is a baseless smear and always has been. The presidential election is key for any political party to have a national presence because it helps coordinate a national platform and gets the votes to maintain ballot access in individual states. You don't just grow from the grassroots into a presidential candidate after electing people first to city council, then to state legislature, then governor, then US congress, etc; these levels of election heirarchy are a feedback system that enhance each other. That doesn't mean "they" don't fight for and elect local candidates.

This. You will never have meaningful third parties until you defeat Duverger's Law with either proportional representation or a voting system better than plurality or instant-runoff.

To be fair, I haven't seen this guy's video because the OP didn't bother to provide a link and I don't view Sanders as some hero to the American left. Regardless, I don't think the Green party base is as dedicated to their party that they wouldn't suffer significant losses if Sanders formed his own party.

Where have the Greens elected local officials?

The most intelligent outcome of this idea would be to piggyback off the Green's ballot access in the states it has them via leftelect.net. But you would end up with some states using a Green ticket and some states using this People's Party ticket.

Why do that when you could just join the Greens, fight and win access in the states the Greens aren't on, and have a consistent ballot and platform across all the states?

Greens have an image problem and I say that as someone who is registered with the Greens.

Sorry user, here's the video if you want to watch it:

youtube.com/watch?v=uJTef82g3uE

An image problem that is almost entirely created from corporate and Democratic smear campaigns. Do you think they won't happen to this other party?

Because he doesn't care about downticket candidates. This is entirely about slavish hero worship for Bernie Sanders.

The greens are fucking trash and their infrastructure is trash. They're not even explicitly anti-capitalist until very recently and could easily revert to Nader-esque "we just need good guy billionaires!" retardation. Hard fucking pass

thestranger.com/slog/2016/07/21/24371858/the-green-party-responds-to-dan-savage-says-hes-dead-wrong

Sanders is currently subjected to more smear campaigns from the establishment Democrats than anyone in this country, other than Trump. Yet, he is still the most popular politician in national politics. As much as I like and want to bone Jill Stein, the Greens don't have that popularity going for them. So I do think a possible People's Party could withstand smears better than the Greens.

anyone who is shilling for bernie at the level of wanting to 'draft him' for president or anything like that at this point is a delusional succdem. he was good for stoking consciousness and is marginally useful but people need to stop propping him up as a 'true leftist' or w/e. i see this all the time with depressed and former democrats… they still cling to shitty anti-communist rhetoric

And here is the problem with the entire "revolution." American politics can only be changed from the bottom up. Without massive amounts of state level action nothing will change. The DSA has done more than these clowns.

Honestly, that anti-capitalist plank is the one thing that made me decide to devote my time to building the Greens instead of some even smaller party like Socialist Alternative or Socialist Equality Party. I see party leadership getting used to Marxist ideas lately and it pleases me greatly. I think there will be even better reforms to the party to come. A proper dues system may finally become a reality very soon here.

Has the DSA restructured into a proper party? Last I heard they were looking into doing it, but I haven't heard seen anything pop up since. I think it should be the next logical step to keep up the recruitment momentum they've had post-election.

i agree with this, too. i voted green last election as a 'protest' vote and now i just regret not voting for a legitimate full communist politician. an hour after i was like 'wait what the fuck am i doing i am a fucking retarded burger mein gott'

teh greens, if they get in power, will be the 'opportunists' that lenin warned us about…mark my fucking words on that one.

and also, bernie is still a strong apologist for the democrats' massive failure. in general, anything that wreaks of democrat reformism like this i stay far away from. wanting to form a new 'progressive party' is such a dumb fuck idea, too, when there's alreayd tons of leftist parties and even the green party if you want milquetoast socdems

with their growing popularity i'm deeply skeptical. if they become increasingly marxist, then i may change my opinion, but i think in its current form it wreaks of libshit NGO shills that simply dress up their neoliberalism with """anti capitalist""" rhetoric

lol, well you couldn't be more wrong about the neoliberalism point at least. Even if there's lots of Keynesians along with the Marxists, most Greens actually know what neoliberalism is and fucking hate it.

Why are you registered with the Greens?

Meh, i agree in an objective sense, but it still makes sense to cast a protest vote in my opinion, so 'send a message'. I think when people see the numbers that a third party is growing and voters are increasingly pissed off, it sets off an alarm bell in other people's minds that its acceptable to jump ship. i think it has some good effects.

i think eugene debs was right to run, and he didn't come remotely close to winning, but for spreading class consciousness i think it was a great idea. it gave him a bully pulpit to shit talk all the people promoting the war at the time

I registered with them when I was 18 and haven't really felt like taking the effort to change it.

What would you change it to?

Duh, of course, what i'm saying though, is when push comes to shove, they will fold to neoliberal interests due to their NGO backing. Look into it, Jill Stein herself isn't necessarily some kind of model proletarian or anything.

if they get power, i can very easily seeing them folding to the establishment and becoming the 'syriza' or 'podemos' of the USA and sending the left into a permanent death spiral again.

just try talking to greens about guns even. most greens still are spooked as fuck on guns and violence.

'non violence' is even in their platform for fuck's sake. the republicans don't even pay this much lip service to liberal virtue signalling.

i'd argue that's a contradiction in itself. 'non violence' as a pillar and claiming to be 'anti capitalist' just reeks of idealism. they expect to overthrow the system without violence? (good luck i guess?)

and i am honestly arguing in good faith here. i want the greens to become more radical… but my vote for them last election might be the only one i ever cast for them again

the only change i see is if the party shifts to a 'dues paying' structure, where money is pooled for material ends. it'd be great if they could do something like group healthcare or some kind of benefits, like a union, but hopefully more accountable and not based on a single employer. in a way, like a more official version of the IWW. they might stand a chance if they could pull something like that off. i know they are doing this in georgia, and i think that's a great thing for building democracy from the ground up.

all i can say is that greens should be more skeptical of the party leadership and be looking for a way to make the party more accountable to the rank and file. even after last election there was some pretty strong shenanigans jill stien was pulling herself in demanding an election recount and joining the hillbots in calling for the electoral college to be abolished.

it just reaks of half measured liberalism when the party reps do shit like that. if you're going to bother screaming about the electoral college, why not start with the very structure of the government? the capitalist system? its not just the electoral college that is the problem but the way she used her popularity in the GP to pursue a recount made her seem like some kind of patsy for the clintons, whether she wanted it to appear that way or not

I think you make good points and my only defence is that this isn't the sort of attitude I see from Greens in my local community. I've got people contemplating getting guns in preparation for the future.

The best thing that can come out of the success of any third party is ballot reform significant enough to eliminate Duverger's Law. Once that happens, I would happily jump ship to a more hard Marxist party that perfectly represents my own views. But first we have to convince the Greens to dump their Instant-Runoff Voting garbage at a national level and fight for something better like Approval Voting and/or Proportional Representation.

Both of which were entirely justified. You know a broken clock can be right twice a day.

None of the ones that are available in my state. If DSA became a party, I'd register.

I think the fact that they aren't a party is precisely why they have so many members right now. People are too scared to join a party in those kinds of numbers and many would just run back to the Democrats the moment they decided to do that.

justified? yes. but a broken clock is a broken clock and that's what i'm calling it: a broken clock. syriza and podemos would do shit like this too, and i'm not willing to get fucked by a party like this, libshit virtue signalling be damned


like i say man, i voted for them last election. i WANT them to become more materialist and marxist in their analysis of the american system. they are close, but they need to keep pushing if they want to get somewhere. i think its important that they dont flounder to the dems like they did last year, EVER AGAIN. i pay attention to them because they're the most relevant third party at the moment. they seem to be growing faster and luckily they are pretty solid when it comes to wars and foreign policy from what little i can tell, and they also seem to be very good at uniting people and avoiding the all too common left sectarianism. so i think they have a good shot if they can make the right changes over the next few years.

however, this past year i'll say it really pissed me off to see jill stien send bernie an 'invitation' to run on the GP platform, as if he could just waltz into the party leadership without putting it to a vote. again, that's another one of those times where you think 'gee, this reeks of opportunism…'.

it just seems strange that she'd be so willing to toss out the party's democracy because some drone happy socdem gets some popularity

I agree w/ this and that's why i voted for them last election. In general, they were the most reasonably popular """"left wing""""" party and in the face of trump i think they were the only people capable of countering his rhetoric. the dems royally fucked us and i hope, at the very least, they no longer win elections. they have shown in the last few months that they are committed, radical centrists and will never budge on their policies. they are happy letting trump and his shills keep power while everyone suffers

finally, i agree w/ you that when i meet local greens, they are not committed libs. many of them are former butthurt anarchists or people that just decided they were the lesser of all the available evils and they vote for them out of hopelessness. i think i fall into that camp, to a degree. the gun thing i brought up because of the party history and wnating to sponsor various gun control legislation under the guise of 'public health' concerns. again, it becomes one of those 'wedge issues' for people like abortion and i think it comes off as anti-marxist that they would sponsor such legislation and not promote positive policies, like better training or something like that than just telling us 'guns r bad mkay' ..

He has fallen for the cult of personality. Sanders has done a lot of good but he is a worn out old man. "Drafting" Bernie wont do shit because Bernie doesn't have the balls to go after capitalist pigs.

So yes, this guy is an idiot. But he also exposes the negatives of Bernie's movement in that the majority of his supporters are sheep like this fool.

Bernie could very well die or retire before 2020.

draftbernie.org