On Fri, 8 Aug 2008, David Stevens wrote:
> John Holmes wrote:
>
>> Kind of like the Peace and
>> Freedom Party here in California. Remember when Benjamin Spock, the
>> baby doctor, ran for President on the Peace and Freedom ticket? He got
>> a lot of votes, mostly from people who thought he was the Spock from
>> Star Trek, and wondered about why he didn't have pointy ears.
>
> That campaign was cited as a positive example by Louis Proyect. His
> other favorite was the old SWP/US "Bill of Rights for working people"
> gimmick (our founding bourgeois fathers merely overlooked the
> question of offering state power to the proletariat, don'cha know).
>
> The "Peace and Freedom" party still has ballot status in California.
> Although P&F claims to be socialist (in a thoroughly non-Marxian
> sort of way), they chose their 2008 Presidential ballot candidate this
> past week: Ralph "I want to save capitalism" Nader got more delegates
> than ostensible socialists Gloria La Riva and Brian Moore combined.
> (McKinney, already on the ballot for Green Party, came in fourth).
>
> - David Stevens
>
Way back when the PFP seemed like a viable party, it did *not* claim
to be socialist. It does now for one simple reason: just about all PFP
activists are long-time socialists of one stripe or another, as nobody
else is really interested in the party anymore. The socialists in
control of the party machinery, such as it is, have not changed the
old party program in any significant way, but they run it, so they
tack on the word "socialist" occasionally here and there.
But, since the party is just barely still hanging on to its ballot
status, it has primaries, so for the presidential nomination at least,
it is the actual PFP registered voters who decide who the candidate
is, and they are not socialists. For other ballot slots, the machine,
such as it is, decides who the candidates are, as nobody really cares,
so they tend to be socialists of one stripe or another.
-jh-
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