Socialist Action /November 1999
How Green was their Folly!
By CHARLES WALKER
Some self-styled socialists, including members of the Peace and Freedom
Party and Solidarity, were ardent backers of Audie Bock's winning race last
March for a California Assembly seat.
Bock, running as a Green Party candidate, narrowly defeated a long-time
Democratic machine candidate and former Oakland mayor to become the Green
Party's highest ranking elected officeholder.
One of Bock's socialist supporters wrote in Against The Current (September-October
1999) that at least in the East Bay region of Northern California, "independent
political action has broken out of the margins and into the arena of mass
politics."
But that heady conclusion was seriously undermined in October when Bock
dropped her Green Party registration and registered as "decline-to-state."
Now the East Bay Green Party, as a vehicle for "independent political
action," seems splintered, and some supporters sound terribly demoralized.
Bob Marsh, identified as Bock's treasurer during most of her campaign,
told the Montclarian (Oct.15), an East Bay paper, that "he was disappointed
that Bock chose to turn her back on the Green Party, particularly without
consulting any Greens before she did it."
Green Party member and well-known Black community activist Gene Hazzard
told the San Francisco Bay Guardian (Oct. 13) that Bock had "lost her
integrity with the general public, with the people who thought there was
some hope with her."
Another supporter, Hank Chapot, said that Bock's declared reason for
defecting is "flimsy." Whereas Bock claims that her new registration
is a "tactical" move to help save money for the general election,
by avoiding a Green Party primary race, Chapot told the press, "No
Green Party member in their right mind would have run against her."
Chapot also pointed out that "without the Green Party affiliation,
Bock needs to collect thousands of signatures to get on the general election
ballot."
"The first sign of Bock's estrangement from the party," wrote
the Bay Guardian (Oct. 13), "came months ago, when Alameda County Green
Party members criticized her for accepting donations from corporations,
including oil and tobacco companies." Since then some of Bock's staff
members resigned and Bock dumped others. She has taken on a new campaign
manager, an aide to an Assembly Democrat.
Despite what she says, Bock's actions seem more strategic than tactical.
In just a few months, Bock appears to have succumbed to the temptations
of power (even so feeble and distant), and the attractions of public notice
(her victory was a national story for a short time). Bock appears primarily
to want to hang on to her rung up on the ladder. Hence her use of corporate
funding and Democratic Party professionals.
No one on the serious left should be disappointed, dismayed, or disillusioned.
That's because the real left understands that independent political action
means much more than formal independence from the two major parties of American
capitalism.
For genuine socialists, since even before the pioneering days of Eugene
V. Debs, independent political action meant working-class political action,
primarily based on worker's unions and parties. Up to now, labor's political
experiences have plainly shown that there is no substitute for the real
thing. More than that, many of the purported substitutes were (and are)
no more than covers, designed to lead workers and their allies away from
class independence.
Chapot says that he will publicly ask Bock to resign. More useful would
be if Chapot and others would turn their attention and resources to building
a genuine force that can be relied on to say what it means and do what it
says, all in the interest of building a society that rewards and respects
its workers, not profiteers.
A small section of the American labor movement is taking the first steps
in that direction, with the founding of the Labor Party. Genuine partisans
of independent political action can more certainly advance their agenda
within the Labor Party, than with the Green Party, New Party, and similar
outfits that posed as short cuts, but were proven to be dead ends.
As for those "socialists," who should know better than to get
themselves and others left in the lurch by so-called liberal reformers,
shame on you. Even if Bock was snookered by Democrats and has an "excuse,"
socialists do not.
Socialist Action /November 1999 |