Third Party Alternatives in U.S.

Very brief thoughts stimulated by some RBB comments.

If one has a fairly solid grasp of American left rebel and radical history or, if you prefer, social justice movements, you aren't going to dismiss the rich and productive history of third party electoral efforts.

If you don't have that grasp, it's easy to write them off with -- "your man can't win" -- and/or talk about the "real race."

"Winning" can come in many good forms.  And if there's one word in the English vocabulary that I dislike with a pure passion, it's "can't."

For one thing, I don't see any real winners in the current two major party presidential contest.  Interesting that neither candidate talks about the Afghan debacle of eleven years, the very sorry shape of civil liberties in this country, or Federal Indian policy -- or a number of other matters of significance.

It takes a good deal of work to organize a third party electoral endeavor geared toward social justice -- but fortunately we always have people who do just that. And, despite the shabby opposition of the two old parties, and mainline media "blackouts," these Thirds can often secure ballot status. Their efforts obviously provide a context for those sensitive to certain basic social justice principles, they provide a training framework for political and other organizing, and they send forth significant justice messages -- general and specific -- which effectively educate any who are willing to listen.  And there's a good deal to indicate that there are certainly plenty of people who do listen.

And often, sooner or later, some of those significant justice messages can find fertile ground in the institutions of this country.  I mentioned the other day that both the Socialist and Communist parties developed ideas which FDR took into his New Deal.  That was pretty openly done but it's also eventually happened in more subtle fashion in many other "mainline" settings.  Long before Barack Obama's ascendancy, some third social justice parties were running Black candidates and women at the higher slots of their ticket -- and, more recently, we see Native and Chicano and other "minority" peoples likewise up at the fore.

As I'm prone to note, the role of the real justice rebel radical is to travel the "social frontiers" and beyond and cut new trail.  It's very easy to reside within the corral of respectability and conformity.  If that's what one wishes from Life, so be it.  But don't denigrate the courageous souls who jump that corral and look and work toward the Sun.

Hunter Bear


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Protected by Na´shdo´i´ba´i´ 
and Ohkwari' 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

"I Consider Myself a Real Red:"  The Social Thought of
American Civil Rights Organizer John R. (Salter) Hunter Gray
(from The Journal of Indigenous Thought (new material 9/12):
 http://hunterbear.org/Red%20essay%20on%20Hunter%20Gray.htm

See the Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded, and with more photos in Fall 2012. Material on our Native
background.)

For the new (11/2011) and expanded/updated
edition of my "Organizer's Book," JACKSON MISSISSIPPI -- 
with a new and substantial introduction by me.  We are now at 
the 50th Anniversary of the massive Jackson Movement of
1962-63:  http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm