On Aug 26, 11:35 pm, John Holmes <jhol...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On the below interchange between the Davids, a general comment.
>
> What this is all about is "progressive reform" of the political
> system, which California was a cornerstone of. We even had a
> Progressive governor, elected on a third party slate, one Hiram
> Johnson, who introduced referenda, recall, non-party elections for
> municipals etc., and cross-party primary voting, all to, or so it was
> claimed, take politics in California out of the clutches of the party
> bosses in their smoke-filled rooms and put it into the hands of The
> People.
>
> Where it has remained ever since, of course.
>
> On the details, I will note that it is curious that the P&FP party
> bosses in their smoke-filled rooms (marijuana smoke presumably) picked
> Nader, being as most of them are allegedly socialists of one species
> or another. If it was the voters, as I thought, that would be
> self-explanatory. But since it wasn't, just how did it happen? Who are
> "Nader's people" on the PFP CC? Which group? I'd have thought all the
> reform-minded socialists would be backing either McKinney or Obama.
>
> -jh-
>
You were not paying attention :). What I explained John is that the
process to does not involve the old P&F Oligarchy as much as it does
the CCs in each county and State wide. The CC has a few of the older
P&F folks like Tom Condit (who you know), TC Weber (out of LA) and
about a dozen people who have been there since 1968 or so. They wield
influence because the P&F IS their area of political activity (such as
that is).
The State CC holds a Convention. The Convention is composed of all the
County CC members. These members are chosen during the state primary.
To get elected it means visiting as many registered members of the
Party as posisble to get them 1. To go to the polls to actually vote
and 2. to vote for you over anyone else.
No one of the older P&F Nomenklatura sup****ted Nader and they
succesfully defeated the GP/ISO attempt to get him nominated in 2000
and 2004. This time the Nader/Camejo forces did it 'correctly' and
actually went after County CC positions during the primary election.
The Convention was thus dominated by newly minted P&Fers.
Others have tried this before and failed. The WWP routinely did this,
or tried, in the past but were always too weak to do it. The old soft-
Maoist proto-Feminist party and cult of Elizabeth Martinez, leader of
the "Democratic Workers Party" made a full on effort in 1983 to do
this. I was there at the Convention in Anaheim when they did a full
court press to pack on the State Central Committee. I worked with the
Morenoists to do battle with them to seize control of the P&F
"machinery". That was fun.
Later, not so much fun, was when the Fulani people of the New Alliance
Party tried a rerun of this in 1984, which was quite a serious effort
mobilizing almost a 100 black youth from LA to try a take over at the
Convention itself, which was also defeated by the then Morenoist IWP
(a certain irony here in that in 1976 or so when those that became the
NAP came out of Larouche's NCLC, the also called themselves the
"International Workers Party").
Anyway, that's the story. Hope you and David enjoyed it.
david
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