From: cliftonr@netcom.com (Pope Clifton)
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Reply-To: 74170.3676@compuserve.com
Organization: t.b, t.p.d, & a.d
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 06:24:28 GMT

[As before, posted for my wife until she gets news posting access.]

Dale McMillen (dmcmillen@igc.apc.org) wrote:

>This statement is purely false:

>>Leftist Greens have captured the national leadership of the
>>Greens/Green Party USA.  They organized as the Left Green
>>Network, outside the regular Green meetings and then used their
>>organized clout to take over.

>The Left Greens were organized well before the formation of the
>G/GPUSA.  They were one of many factions which came together in
>Elkins, WV in August 1991 to organize The Greens/Green Party USA.

Dale, my statement is false ONLY if one accepts your self-serving
statement that there were no Greens before August 1991.  In fact,
there has been an organized Green movement in the US for more than
a decade.  I joined the national Greens four years ago, well before
your mythical August 1991 "founding."  The Leftists grabbed a
functioning organization, complete with mailing list, publications,
and dues paying members.  As a member of the national Greens, I was
never notified that the old organization had been dissolved and
invited to join a new Marxist group; my membership was continued
and I continued to receive the national magazines, which dropped
the old Green slogan, Neither Right Nor Left, and starting arguing
for the abolition of private property.  I was then notified that
the old magazines would be merged with the Left Green journal,
Regeneration, and sent a copy of Regeneration, to which I had
certainly never subscribed.  

You describe this process as "democratic."  I never participated in
it.  No one from Hawai'i participated in it.  We were too damn busy
getting on the ballot, and we didn't have the money to send any
delegates to a meeting thousands of miles away.  I've been told
that the Leftists were able to take over because the meeting was on
the East coast, the Leftists are strongest on the East Coast and
were able to pack the meeting.  I've also heard stories about
Leftists refusing to accept the results of meetings that they
didn't like, and reconvening meetings until they won.  

>some of the members of the GPOC were not willing to work in this
>new arrangement.  They have used bogus claims of leftism and
>sexism to justify this behavior.  However, many have felt that the
>real reason they were not willing to go along is because they
>enjoyed their personal power in the old organization.

I don't regard the claim of Leftism, at least, as a bogus claim. 
(I can't speak to the claim of sexism ... yet.)  You are an avowed
Marxist.  Your group has radically changed the content and tone of
the national publications in a Left direction.  You have adopted a
platform calling for "democratic ownership and control" of the
major sectors of the US economy.  If some of the most prominent
members of the Greens have refused to accept this or work with you,
then they can be accused of nothing more than fidelity to the
original aims of the organization.  Your claim that they "enjoyed
their personal power" is a slander that evades the real issue.

>The mistake is to assume that anyone who acknowledges the validity
>of Karl Marx' analysis of capitalism automaticallly promotes a
>Bolshevik style revolution, a Stalinist style of rule, and a
>Breshnevian [sic] style of bureaucracy.  I vehemently reject
>violent revolutions, ruthless dictators and intransigent
>bureaucracies.

You may not intend these things, Dale, but they are the natural
consequences of the Marxist naivete about political power.  You
believe that the government is corrupt because it represents the
interests of the ruling class. You believe that if you abolish the
ruling class, the government will become the incorruptible guardian
of the interests of the people.  Wrong!  As has been shown time
after time, the people's government becomes the bureaucrats'
government.  Those who manage, manage in their own interests, not
in the interests of the people they presumably represent. You may
assure us that you've fiddled with the formula, that this time
you're going to make it work.  I think we'd all be fools to trust
those assurances.  

I could go on, but I fear that no one would want to read a long,
detailed rebuttal.  I suspect that most of those reading this
newsgroup see through your statements, in any case.  To those
readers, I simply say: Mr. McMillen does not represent all Greens. 
Please do not judge us by his postings.  

Karen Lofstrom
--
cliftonr@netcom.com     Home: +1 808 521 9073  Work: +1 808 625 3234
Clifton Royston, Pope of the Church of the Subgenius in Paradise
"Some lives are like that." - attributed to Mark. Gooley
Newsgroups: alt.politics.greens