With All Due Respect – What About the Greens?

As the Green Party of New Jersey’s candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020, I disagree with the electoral solution proposed in the recent Open Letter: Dump Trump, Battle Biden to the people of the U.S. penned by Medea Benjamin and signed by some 50 people on the U.S. left. This sentiment has been voiced repeatedly in the past few months and is growing in intensity today. Yes, a strong movement of the people is needed to dismantle the war machine and to stop the U.S. from continuing to act like it has a right to “police” the world. A strong grassroots anti-war movement is the best hope we have for an end to the endless wars the U.S. is involved in. But Biden is not the political leader needed to make this happen.

I reject the effort by the authors and signers of this letter to predict that Biden will be open to public pressure after the election, should he win. First of all, Biden will never support the $350 billion cut in the military budget proposed as a resolution by a few strong members of the House of Representatives. I doubt that Biden would even support Sanders’ weak amendment to the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)  calling for a 10% cut in military spending..

Why do I believe this?

First, shortly after the murder of George Floyd and the national uprising that followed calling for “defunding the police,” Joe Biden said he thought the “solution” to the problem would be to increase funding for the police, the exact opposite of what protesters were demanding.

Second, he has been critical of Donald Trump for not being antagonistic enough toward China and has supported Trump’s every move to try to illegally and aggressively unseat the duly elected president of Venezuela, Nicholas Maduro, calling Maduro a “thug.” Tweeted Joe Biden, “Trump talks tough on Venezuela, but admires thugs and dictators like Nicolas Maduro.”

At the same time, Biden and the Democrats remain silent about the human rights atrocities occurring in Colombia on a daily basis under Ivan Duque — at least 800 community, social and indigenous rights leaders have been murdered since November 2016 when the Colombia Peace Accords were signed and scheduled to go into effect. 

Just recently, seven soldiers in Colombia admitted to the rape of a 13-year old indigenous girl from the Embera tribe. The charges are sexual abuse, not rape. Where is Biden’s or Trump’s outrage at these human rights violations?  Perhaps they are silent because BOTH want Colombia to help unseat Maduro in Venezuela. 

The calls to defund and demilitarize the police are raising key issues of spending priorities at a local level, even while these skewed priorities begin at the top. At least 53 cents out of every dollar is appropriated to the U.S. military by the U.S. Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike. In fact, for two years in a row, the U.S. Congress has given Trump more money than he has requested.

There are few issues more important than excessive military spending and U.S. imperialism. As long as we’re spending $740 billion or more on military maneuvers and hardware, we aren’t spending anywhere near the amount needed on community needs and programs, addressing climate change,  implementing a workers’ bill of rights, or providing single payer health care for all. 

The Green Party is different, but the Greens don’t even get an honorable mention. The fact that the Greens are organizing locally with those calling to “defund and demilitarize the police” and then building platform planks around the connection of those issues with the issue of  “defunding the military and demilitarizing U.S. foreign policy” is completely ignored. 

Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker are calling for a 75% cut in military spending. I am calling for at least a 50% cut in military spending. The Green Party of the United States has long  recognized U.S. foreign and domestic policy as an obstacle towards addressing climate change and creating genuine international security due to its endless wars. 

The letter does acknowledge that simply replacing Trump with Biden is not the answer.

But to continue to believe that this Democratic Party can be turned into a party of peace is, I believe, naive at best. Remember that under President Obama and Vice President Biden, the program (S1033) that allowed the Department of Defense to give police departments military equipment was expanded by 2400%. The Obama administration dropped more bombs than Bush before him and pledged to divert trillions of dollars over a decade for nuclear weapons “upgrade.” Have we heard either party oppose increased sanctions on Iran, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Syria, Venezuela, and others? Or oppose the assassination of Ghaddafi in Libya or condemn the burgeoning slave trade there? Most recently, 16 Democrats voted to thwart the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. 

With all due respect, the goal of this strong, powerful uprising to shift funding away from war and war’s enforcers, should not be and cannot be to elect Democrats. As voters and activists we have given into this pressure every four years for as long as I can remember. Where has it brought us?

I believe our goal must be to build an alternative political party that is not beholden to corporate PACs, and not wedded to capitalism. We must build a party and a movement committed to building stronger and healthier communities, one willing to challenge the mainstream parties, both electorally and in the streets. In this way, we can change election law, implement ranked choice voting, get big money out of politics and end a stream of domestic and foreign policies that are based on violence and war and that benefit the billionaires, not the people.   

Madelyn Hoffman, a seasoned activist, was director of the Grass Roots Environmental Organization and director of New Jersey Peace Action. She was Ralph Nader’s vice-presidential running mate in New Jersey in 1996. The following year she ran for New Jersey governor as a Green. She also ran as a Green for U.S. Senate in 2018, receiving 25,150 votes, and as of this printing is running for the same seat again in 2020.    

VOTE GREEN — WE DON’T NEED TO BE PUSHED TO THE LEFT

Voting for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will NOT bring about peace, end climate change or lead to the systemic changes needed to achieve racial and economic equality, peace or environmental health.

Not everyone on the left agrees with the premise that first we remove Donald Trump from office and then we’ll go with the idea that we can move Biden to the left.

It will be a long time before images of the U.S.’s illegal and fake hand-picked president of Venezuela, Juan Guaido, being greeted by a bi-partisan standing ovation at the 2020 State of the Union speech, recedes from our collective memories. That moment revealed all that anyone needs to know about the bi-partisan commitment of the U.S. government to the military-industrial complex and U.S. imperialism.

While I may appreciate and agree with many of the sharply critical policy points made in Medea Benjamin’s most recent article in Common Dreams, “King Joe and the Round Table: Biden’s America in a Multipolar World,” the article describes a world where only Democrats and Republicans exist – and attempts to convince the reader that it will be possible to persuade a President Biden to somehow act differently than his track record or than past history of U.S. presidents suggests. While I have much respect for Medea Benjamin, I must disagree.

This week’s revealing vote in the House of Representatives  on an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that proposed a paltry 10% cut in the U.S. military budget with 139 Democrats joining 185 Republicans in voting no, doesn’t help make me more optimistic.  I say only a 10% cut because as the director of a peace organization for almost 20 years, I know the peace movement consistently called for at least a 25% cut and could provide evidence as to how that could be accomplished. As the Green Party of New Jersey’s candidate for U.S. Senate in 2020, I am calling for a 50% cut in the military budget, and Howie Hawkins, the Green Party’s nominee for president “ups the ante” and calls for a 75% cut.

Only 92 Democrats and one Libertarian, out of the 435 member House of Representatives, voted “Yes” to making this very small cut in the $740 billion military budget. In the U.S. Senate, the vote was 23-77. The Democrats split almost 50/50, with 21 Democrats voting against making this very modest cut.  

I have long stopped making excuses for the Democratic Party. The U.S. has been at war for all but about 25 years of its existence. It is built on the genocide of the indigenous population on the one hand and 400 years of slavery on the other. I have, of necessity, given up thinking that more pressure from the grassroots will move the Democratic Party toward becoming a “peace party.”

Let’s just face the truth.

The Republicans and the Democrats are committed to a foreign policy of war —and a domestic policy of militarized police – even during a worldwide pandemic! If ever there was a time for the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to stop and re-evaluate their commitment to the military-industrial complex, this was the time! Clearly,  both Republicans and Democrats support an imperialist United States and are dangerously loyal to the military-industrial complex

It is long past time for discussion of the Green Party’s platform and the issues being raised by those pushing for change that both Democrats and Republicans continue to ignore. I understand why it’s important for those who support these 10% cuts to remain optimistic and committed to organizing to achieve this laudable, albeit extremely modest goal. But I am tired of those who have a different perspective on this issue being completely left out of the conversation.

I have signed two Peace Pledges to date — the first is that circulated by the Black Alliance for Peace. It calls for closure of all 800 foreign U.S. military bases and closure of Africom, an organization that has presided over construction of military bases in all but one African country. I have also signed the U.S. Green Party’s Peace Action Committee’s Peace Pledge for candidates for U.S. Senate. These are strong, well-reasoned documents explaining how U.S. foreign and domestic policy has to change direction in order for the world to have sufficient funds to address many major social problems while eliminating the threat or actuality of war — in Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Niger, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Venezuela, Colombia and more.

While I have long since given up on the Democratic Party, I take heart that more and more people understand the need for an independent grassroots and political movement against U.S. imperialism and for the demilitarization of police. I believe in an eco-socialist Green New Deal, one that protects workers’ rights and places protection of the environment and the need for peace at its center.

We should not let our animus toward Donald Trump and the Republicans block our ability to see that there are other alternatives available — alternatives that can pull our politics away from the same two tired political parties who clearly are not yet ready to challenge the military-industrial complex.

Let’s acknowledge that the Green Party is the only anti-war/ pro-peace party and make us a part of the conversation and debate. This recent vote and “debate” around a non-threatening 10% cut proves this point once again. If we wait for either mainstream political party to change direction, we’ll be waiting a very long time, and it will be too late to rein back in the “dogs of war.”

Remember that the administration of President Obama and Vice President Biden dropped more bombs than George W. Bush and diverted trillions of dollars over a decade for nuclear weapons “upgrade.” When did we last hear either party oppose increased sanctions on Iran, Nicaragua, Zimbabwe, Syria, Venezuela, and others? Or condemn the burgeoning slave trade in Libya? And what about the recent vote by Democrats to thwart the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan?

The peace movement can not sit on the sidelines waiting until after the election to raise issues of U.S. military spending and imperialist military action. We need to clearly oppose any moves toward increased military involvement here at home and overseas, regardless of which party is promoting it. We need to continually impact the conversation by calling out the vast majority of members in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate for continuing to kowtow to the military-industrial complex. We must challenge increased militarism whatever form it might take.

To continue to believe that this Democratic Party can be turned into a party of peace is, I believe, naive at best.