[diggers350] Voting Green?

[David Bangs]

There are lots of other options as well as voting Green. Respect is standing 
in a number of seats and has a strong chance in at least two of them. Their 
positions on green issues are good, and make far more robust links between 
the anti-capitalist struggle and the green struggle. TUSC (The Trade 
Unionist and Socialist Coalition) are also standing in up to 60 
constituences and have good and robust green positions and strong links with 
the RMT and some other militant unions. They are standing in Brighton in my 
constituency neighbouring the one that Caroline Lucas is standing in. 
Additionally, in a few places there are excellent surviving ecosocialist 
Labour Party candidates, such as John McDonnell, who has been so outstanding 
in his opposition to the expansion of Heathrow...and folk like Jeremy 
Corbyn, of course.

The issue is not even that simple in Caroline Lucas's constituency, becos 
the Labour candidate, Nancy Platt, is on the left and is robustly pro-trade 
union.She is supported by the RMT. I would, despite that, vote for Caroline 
if I was in that place, but it is not a cut-and-dried decision, becos 
Caroline's politics are not clearly socialist, despite her calling herself 
one, at least recently. The local Greens did not support us in our long 
struggle against council housing privatisation (except in a half-hearted 
way, just before the ballot) and the green cllrs (except for one) took a 
decidedly un-green position recently (in a vote on the council budget) vis a 
vis building on the South Downs adjacent to the new National Park .

Don't make the mistake of flopping from a position of abstention from all 
bourgeois democratic electoral processes to one of voting carte blanche for 
an option which takes up the green agenda, but without making a clear link 
between those struggles and struggles against capitalism. Climate change and 
the mass extinction event we are going through cannot be addressed without 
the most drastic anti-capitalist re-organisation of society.

"Vote as left as you can", as Bob Crow (the RMT Gen Sec) said at our rally 
yesterday to kick off our local TUSC election campaign...

Dave Bangs



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Pratt" <andyprattt at hotmail.com>
To: <diggers350 at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 8:17 PM
Subject: [diggers350] Voting Green?


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> I would ask people alienated from the main political parties to consider 
> voting Green.  Yes they are not perfect but I think in a different 
> dimension from the rest and about the only radical Diggeresque choice at 
> the polls this time.  We urgently need proportional representation in the 
> UK to improve democracy but even under the current system we might get a 
> Green MP in Brighton (etc) which would be a big step forward.
> I used to believe  that I was too radical to vote.   But I don't think we 
> have very long to address the key issues of environmental and social 
> change.  I think we should use all the tools  we can, including voting for 
> the options that are best/least negative
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> With thanks
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> Andrew Pratt
> 07980 602088
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> To: diggers350 at yahoogroups.com
> From: crisscross at evendine.eclipse.co.uk
> Date: Mon, 8 Mar 2010 12:03:27 +0000
> Subject: [diggers350] Landless Peasants Party
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>      I admit to not having come across this before....but
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> A political party in the current travesty of representation seems an 
> inapropriate route. It strikes me that it might be more sensible to 
> somehow mobilise the 40% of people who don't vote, more than ever do vote 
> for any of the parties who then dominate everything without a twinge of 
> conscience, (I am hoping it might go above 50% this time) towards a 
> citizens constitution. But until someone works out a non-violent way of 
> getting the rich to give up their wealth and power, even that is a waste 
> of time.
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> and members of THE LAND IS OURS landrights network based in the UK 
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> The list was originally concerned with the 350th anniversary of The 
> Diggers (& still is concerned with their history). The Diggers appeared at 
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> TASH FROM THE HILL
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