My friend Paul Schechter has granted me permission to copy and paste, without much commentary, his reply to an email solicitation he received from the Green Party of the United States. The message features the photo and words of perennial candidate Howie Hawkins of Syracuse NY.
The only commentary I will offer is a bit of context: Paul is one of the co-founders of Houston Access to Urban Sustainability, a co-operative housing initiative in which I was involved for three years. He now lives in Madison WI, where he grew up, but he maintains a connection with the two HAUS houses: ownership. (He says he would very much like to sell the houses to the co-op, but this has proven more difficult than anticipated. Anybody want to help HAUS Project with a down payment?)
The main thrust of the GPUS message is that Democrats in Congress will get their paws on the Green New Deal and water it down. This watering down is already in progress, according to some reports, and progressive Democrat Pramila Jayapal of Washington is actively pursuing this Green New Deal Lite. So the Greens would like to make sure that the program on which they ran in 2012 and 2016 remains intact.
I don't agree with everything Schechter says here, but I also don't feel the need to rehash discussions we've had before. With only light editing and without further yada-yada, take it away, Paul!
The only commentary I will offer is a bit of context: Paul is one of the co-founders of Houston Access to Urban Sustainability, a co-operative housing initiative in which I was involved for three years. He now lives in Madison WI, where he grew up, but he maintains a connection with the two HAUS houses: ownership. (He says he would very much like to sell the houses to the co-op, but this has proven more difficult than anticipated. Anybody want to help HAUS Project with a down payment?)
The main thrust of the GPUS message is that Democrats in Congress will get their paws on the Green New Deal and water it down. This watering down is already in progress, according to some reports, and progressive Democrat Pramila Jayapal of Washington is actively pursuing this Green New Deal Lite. So the Greens would like to make sure that the program on which they ran in 2012 and 2016 remains intact.
I don't agree with everything Schechter says here, but I also don't feel the need to rehash discussions we've had before. With only light editing and without further yada-yada, take it away, Paul!
Howie,
Thank you for your email. I’m guessing that I received it because I gave a few hundred dollars to Jill Stein during her campaign in 2016. I think it’s somewhat ironic that you imply the Democrats for stealing your ‘Green New Deal’ idea, yet you are asking for $27 in donations which is a Bernie thing. True, Bernie may have similar ideas to you in some respects but he is not a Green. When Stein asked him to take her place as a third party candidate—he said no. The main difference between you and Bernie is that he looks at the whole picture with respect to what’s good for this country, and you only look at the issues. Having ideas that are not ‘watered down’ (your words) are great for galvanizing your base but are not realistic given the fact that we live in a democracy, which by definition, requires compromise.
Personally I love the non-watered down version of the Green New Deal, i.e your version. I am an environmentalist through-and-through, and I have been screaming about the climate crisis for decades. But what became apparent to me last election is if you ask for the moon you get nothing. They say that there is an infinite number of universes and if you can imagine a wild idea, there is a universe somewhere that embodies it. I’m sure somewhere in the cosmos there is a version of earth that elected Trump in 2016 and a green party president in 2020, but that is not our planet. No amount of $27 donations is going to change the ideology of 320 million people from the full spectrum political thinking, to a majority on the extreme left. As much as I would want that to happen, it’s for another universe not our own.
So are we resigned to an America run by corporations and lobbyist? Of course not, but we need to be strategic in our plan to take them down. Your head-strong approach of direct competition with the two party system, which has infinitely more resources, is naive at best and deadly at worst (as it often helps to elect the opposite of your dream candidate). But we do have power in numbers. All third party groups need to band together to make a stand for rank-choice voting. It’s the only way to topple the two-party system. If you change your strategy, I will start donating to you again.
Paul
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