Socialist Action: ‘Vote Socialist’

Socialist Action has told given its take on the 2008 elections in two articles, one entitled The 2008 Elections: The Socialist View and the other The 2008 Elections: Does it Pay to Back the ‘Lesser Evil’.

The Socialist View could apply to any given election, defining them in terms of class interests. It focuses on the relationships between major party candidates and their backers – namely, the “ruling rich” whose ilk include the country’s major banks and corporations – and a concept the SA calls “working class independence,” summarized by the climactic statement that “The historic socialist rejection of political support of any kind to the parties and candidates of capital is embedded in the core program and every activity of the socialist movement.”

Does it Pay, on the other hand, focuses much more closely on the present election cycle. Framed as a response to a call to support Obama over Ralph Nader & Cynthia McKinney (the quoted selections provide cliched “spoiler” and “division” arguments), the article puts down such notable figures as Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky for their current support of Obama, despite their previous endorsements of a safe-state Nader vote in 2004. The SA argues that the Democrats, being a capitalist party, can never have the support of socialists or progressive activists, and provides historical examples of socialists, communists, and other leftists participating in “capitalist government” and what fates befell them.

Moving on to the third party field, the SA clearly does not think much more of Nader or McKinney than Obama, despite the earlier rhetorical use of their campaigns as examples. Referencing Nader’s Peace and Freedom nomination victory and a speech given by Peter Camejo at that party’s convention:

They were spurred on by the demagogy of Nader’s last vice presidential running-mate and Green Party leader, Peter Camejo, who told those who needed a solid “left” reason to vote for a capitalist candidate that “the ruling class wants you to choose anyone but Nader.”

Camejo continued, “Just because he doesn’t use a certain word [socialism], listen to the content. It’s the essence that counts, not the form.” Unfortunately, for Nader and Camejo, the essence is lesser evilism, or a vote for Democrats, when they need it.

This is the same Ralph Nader who accepted in 2004 the ballot status in seven states of the Reform Party of right-wing neo-fascist Patrick Buchanan. As this newspaper pointed out at that time, the agreement reached with Buchanan revealed Nader’s “essence” was far from the supposedly radical agenda that he espoused.

Moving on the McKinney, the SA paints a picture of her congressional record and current campaign not unlike that presented by the Socialist Workers Party, from which Socialist Action split (or was purged) in the early 1980s:

McKinney, as a Georgia Democratic Party congresswoman in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, voted to authorize the bipartisan war on Afghanistan, and in May 2005 voted in favor of the Homeland Security budget. She is today the presidential candidate of the Green Party, a largely electoral vehicle for disillusioned middle class reformers who seek the conversion of today’s rapacious capitalism into a milder, gentler form. Green Party affiliates across the country, as a matter of course, support “liberal” Democrats in local, state and national races while simultaneously declining to enter their own candidates.

Having so critiqued the candidates they cannot the support, the SA (which has never run a presidential candidate) explains what it sees as the principled alternative:

However, there are a few groups who have entered the 2008 presidential race with a socialist platform and have refused to endorse the candidates and parties of capital. These are the Party of Socialism and Liberation, the Socialist Workers Party, and the Socialist Party. They are all seeking formal ballot status in 12 to 20 states.

Despite important disagreements we have with the program and practices of all three parties, we recognize that they stand against capitalist exploitation and oppression and offer working people a principled alternative. Socialist Action urges our readers to “Vote Socialist” wherever the candidates of these parties appear on the ballot or to write in the names of their candidates when they don’t.