Jill Stein calls for a ‘Green New Deal’

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As Bernie Sanders’ presidential cam­ paign gains increasing public support and respectful media attention, physician and Green Party activist Dr. Jill Stein has announced her own candidacy for presi­ dent. Speaking on “Democracy Now” on June 26, Stein, the Green Party candidate in 2012, vowed to run on a “Power to the People” platform that would sharply op­ pose the policies of the leading Demo­ cratic and Republican contenders.

As in the past presidential election, Stein is proposing a “Green New Deal,” a comprehensive program of social and po­ litical reform. Her platform emphasizes a national shift in resources from fossil fuels to renewable energy by 2030 and a jobs-creation program to make such change possible. Stein favors cancelling student college debts today and provid­ ing free college education tomorrow. The Green Party candidate also supports the $15 minimum wage and single-payer health care.

Stein’s reference to a “Green New Deal,” is an obvious allusion to Franklin D. Roos­ evelt’s Democratic Party “New Deal,” which was aimed at saving capitalism in the face of the emerging labor-based mass struggles of the 1930s. In truth, past Green Party presidential campaigns centered on offering reforms of capital­ ism on the one hand while not acting as “spoilers” for the Democrats’ chances in contests where the outcome was expect­ ... Sanders (continued from page 12: “Is Bernie Sanders a real voice of dissent?”)

National Antiwar Coalition conference would eagerly welcome new supporters.

Whether it is 15 Now, Black Lives Matter, local cam­ paigns against nuclear power plants, struggles for environmental issues, women’s rights, and more, important causes need the time, energy, and money that is being poured into the Sanders for President Campaign.

The biggest flaw with Bernie Sanders is not his fail­ ure to condemn capitalism as a system and call for its overturn. It may even be asking too much to expect Sanders to fight for the structural reform of capital­ ism, to demand the nationalization of basic industries, ed to be close. That is, “Vote Green!” only in states where it won’t usher in a Republican.

Stein concedes that her program shares “many similarities” with the campaign of Sanders, the “leftist” candidate in the Democratic Party primaries, though there are differ­ ences in regard to foreign relations. Stein forthrightly denounces the prime minister of Israel as “a war criminal” and, unlike Sanders, would not sell weapons to the Israeli re­ gime. Such distinctions aside, howev­ er, the overall likeness to the Sanders program is very much to the point.

The Green Party strategy antici­ pates that after the power of Wall Street ensures a Hillary Clinton vic­ tory in the primaries, Bernie Sanders will shepherd his flock into the Clinton cam­ paign. Disappointed followers of Sand­ ers, so this logic goes, will then become the enthusiastic supporters of Jill Stein. Further, her campaign would hope to turn these sympathizers into a new gen­ eration of Green Party recruits—that is, a grouping still in search of an electoral, as opposed to class-struggle, formula to attract voters to the project of reforming In the parched political desert that is America’s electoral landscape, the Stein campaign would appear to present a small but refreshing oasis. Instead, it is a mirage!

This can be seen in Stein’s statement on “Democracy Now” that her platform is “focused on reforming the financial sys­ tem—not only breaking up the big banks but actually establishing public banks” as well as “nationalizing the Fed” (the Fed­ eral Reserve System). To speak of reform of a financial system based on the rule of the corporate capitalist elite (the “one percent”), rather than abolishing it, tells us that her program, no matter how “rad­ ical” it might sound, amounts to accep­ tance of the system in its fundamentals.

The Greens proudly state that their campaign does not accept corporate funding, yet their campaign does accept the rule of corporate power. Stein’s cam­ paign platform differs little from that of the “successful” reformist Green Parties around the world that regularly partici­ as the British Labor Party did after World War II, in a platform that won a national election. The Sanders team will say the times are not right for such bold measures, that it is enough if Bernie only wants to soften some of the system’s worst excesses.

But the time has come—in fact, the time is long overdue—to show a new generation of activists just what the Democratic Party is and why it is necessary to move past it. Bernie Sanders fails to take that de­ cisive step. His campaign by its very nature misleads activists by asserting that the Democratic Party is a fit instrument for the kind of social change that is needed to transform America.

A socialist who truly merits the term “independent” once said, “Capitalism rules and exploits the working people through its control of the government. … And capitalism controls the government through the me­ dium of its class political parties. … The unconditional Spate in coalition capitalist governments and support their anti-labor policies.

Indeed, the Green Party in the U.S. is not much more than an electoral association of reformers with no roots in working-class organizations or mass social strug­ gles. The Greens have no perspectives of rebuilding today’s trade unions into fighting working class-based institutions that operate in the economic and political arena independently of and against the twin parties of U.S. capitalism. “Their government is not our govern­ ment!” Stein exclaims. But if this idea is more than an applause line, a mere rhe­ torical flourish, then it means not only a change in party—a Green Party victory in place of a Democrat or Republican Party victory—it means building the kind of organizations capable of leading a chal­ lenge for power.

Yes, their government is not our govern­ ment because it is a tool for the capitalist class to ensure its wealth and privilege, to guarantee, as far as possible, the con­ tinued existence of their rule and our ex­ ploitation.

The way forward goes far beyond the Green Party’s platform of “New Deal” reformism. It begins with a class break from all capitalist and pro-capitalist par­ ties, the Green Party included. The road ahead will likely include the formation of a Labor Party, based on fighting unions in alliance with all the oppressed. Obtain­ ing a real and lasting victory for working people in the United States will also re­ quire the construction of a mass revolu­ tionary socialist party aimed at the aboli­ tion of capitalism. n break away from capitalist politics and capitalist par­ ties is the first act of socialist consciousness, and the first test of socialist seriousness and sincerity” (James P. Cannon, “Speeches for Socialism,” pp. 339-340, em­ phasis added).

Sanders has been compared to a “sheep-dog” who herds people into the Democratic Party. A better analogy might be drawn from the world of sports. In the preparation for a championship bout, box­ ers hire sparring partners to help them train and get into shape for the real match. That opponent is there to fight but not fight too much. Though putting on a lively show before losing, the sparring partner should not cause the real boxer any serious injury, much less draw blood.

This type of dynamic is underway now in the Demo­ cratic Party primaries. Bernie Sanders is primarily a sparring partner for Hillary Clinton. n SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 2015 11

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SOCIALIST ACTION