The Green Party Debates Ukraine

Like much of the ideological left and many peace groups, the Green Party of the United States is divided over how to respond to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In early October 2022, the Green National Committee adopted a resolution submitted by the Green Party Peace Action Committee (GPAX) calling for the United States to stop military aid to Ukraine, end sanctions against Russia, and negotiate with Russia to end the war. The vote was 48-44 with eight abstentions and 54 not voting, resulting in affirmative support from only 31% of the delegates.(1)

I will discuss below the content and debate on the resolution that yielded this close vote. First let me explain how the Green Party got to that point.

At the level of the Green voting base, which has been between 400,000 and 1.5 million in the last three presidential elections, my sense from talking to many rank-and-file Greens is that the majority view is more in line with that of most progressive- and peace-minded people.(2) They condemn the Russian invasion and demand Russian troops out of Ukraine. They affirm Ukraine’s right to self-determination.

They support economic and humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Like the bigger peace groups such as Peace Action and United for Peace and Justice,(3) some are uneasy about military aid to Ukraine, but neither are they campaigning to end it. They support negotiations to end the war.

Why the Disconnect?

If the position on Ukraine adopted by the Green National Committee is at odds with the views of the majority of the support base of the Green Party, it is because the Green Party in the United States is structured more like an informal social movement than a formal party organization. Like the Democratic and Republican parties, it is memberless.

Without individual members with democratic rights in the national party, there is no organized membership to whom leadership can be held accountable. The power in such memberless parties is concentrated in informal elites.

In the case of the Democrats and Republicans, wealthy and corporate donors largely determine who populates and works for the parties’ state and national committees, politicians’ campaign and legislative staffs, and the parties’ associated think tanks and lobbying firms.(4)

In the case of the Green Party, which does not have big donors or accept corporate funding, the party’s leadership bodies tend to be dominated by professionals and retired people with more personal means and flexible time.(5) The national party is a decentralized federation of state parties and Black, Latino, Lavender, Women’s, and Youth caucuses in which small parties and caucuses have disproportionate votes in relation to the number of people in their respective organizations.

State-level party organizations vary. A few state parties are based on dues-paying members. Most consider their membership to be whoever registers in the party with the state in order to vote in party primaries or, in states without party registration, whoever registers with the party itself. The registered membership is largely unorganized and unconnected to local and state party organizations.

The Green Party has national working committees such as Media, Peace Action, EcoAction, and International. Each affiliated state party can elect up to three people on such committees, although in practice most committee members are volunteers who take the seats without vetting or competitive elections.

In most cases, committee members do not consult with their state parties. The committees are free to initiate activities and make statements on their own as long as they are consistent with the Green Party’s national platform, the planks of which require a two-thirds vote of the National Committee.

Sharp Differences

In the case of the war in Ukraine, however, the national platform offers little guidance and sharp differences quickly emerged. The Media Committee was conflicted in drafting its statements just before and just after Russia’s full-scale invasion began.

As the war approached, the Media Committee drafted a release that emphasized the U.S. role in escalating the crisis. As the most recent Green Party presidential nominee, I was asked for my thoughts and a quote for the draft.

I said the release must add a statement demanding that both the United States and Russia respect Ukraine’s sovereignty. My quote called on the U.S. to address Russia’s stated security concerns with negotiations for mutual security and nuclear disarmament.(6)

A subsequent statement by the Media Committee about which I was not consulted was issued on the day after the start of the full-scale invasion. It condemned the Russian invasion and U.S. provocations, called for the withdrawal of Russian troops, opposed US troops or arms to Ukraine, and demanded a ceasefire and diplomatic solution.(7)

These statements just before and right after Russia’s full-scale invasion were similar in their perspectives and policy demands to the corresponding statements by the International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America.(8)

The arms question was the most contentious issue. In my weekly podcasts, the first of which was on the third day of the invasion, I supported arms to Ukraine for its self-defense. That soon drew criticism from some Greens. Discussions in the International Committee produced sharp disagreements that precluded any statement.

The Peace Action Committee (GPAX), on the other hand, was united around a perspective that viewed the Russian invasion of Ukraine as a “U.S. proxy war against Russia.” It was GPAX that submitted the Ukraine resolution that was narrowly adopted by the National Committee.

Before submitting the resolution in September, GPAX had already made seven statements on Ukraine in 2022, none of which condemned Russia’s invasion or affirmed Ukraine’s right to self-determination. It also chaired a webinar for Greens in May 2022 where the conflict was presented as a war against Russia “provoked” by the United States.

I was called out twice by the 2016 Green Party vice presidential candidate, Ajamu Baraka, for being “reactionary” and “disqualified” to run again for the party’s presidential nomination because I supported arms to Ukraine.(9)

Meanwhile, on April 30, I had received a letter of “constructive criticism” from GPAX that was full of Kremlin propaganda tropes about the war, including that Ukrainian bioweapons labs threaten Russia’s security.

My support for Ukraine’s self-determination was called “interesting” on the grounds that Russia’s invasion was in response to requests from the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics to defend their self-determination, and that Nazis control the Ukrainian government and “if Russia succeeds in ‘denazifying’ the Ukrainian government, it will benefit the Ukrainians and the world.”

I told them I would respond after several weeks because I was working full-time on a difficult petition drive for ballot access for the Green Party of New York.(10) I responded in detail in July, disputing most of the facts and perspectives in the GPAX letter. That soon led to a Zoom meeting with GPAX where we did not agree on basic facts about the war.

GPAX told me then that it was planning to submit a resolution to the National Committee and asked if I would want to comment on their draft. I said I would, but I did not see it before it was submitted to the National Committee.

Debate on the Ukraine Resolution

The debate on the GPAX resolution raged in September and October 2022 across the National Committee’s voting and discussion listservs as well as state party and other Green-oriented listservs.

Opponents of the resolution said they were offended by the introduction, which starts out by declaring “the United States is fighting a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.” They objected that such a characterization obscures the fact that the only imperialist army invading Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of troops is Russia’s.(11)

Next, the introduction says it is important for the Green Party to have an official position “because of the grave danger of nuclear war in which the [U.S.] government has placed our country and the rest of the world.”

Opponents said this statement veils the fact that it has only been Russian leaders threatening to use nuclear weapons. The United States has refrained from responding to these threats with escalatory changes to its nuclear posture and policy. President Biden has repeatedly stated that the U.S. military aid is not for use on Russian territory and that Washington is not seeking Putin’s ouster, nor does it want “to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia.”

Setting up the resolution by invoking the fear of nuclear war reinforced the proponents’ case that U.S. policy should use its economic and military leverage over Ukraine to force it to compromise land for peace in order to prevent a nuclear war.

Playing to the fear of nuclear war was the most effective tactic of the proponents. Some said openly that Ukrainians should sacrifice land to Russia to save us all from nuclear war. Opponents said that giving in to Russia’s nuclear blackmail to gain territory from Ukraine would be a disaster for nuclear non-proliferation, disarmament, and deterring wars of aggression that can escalate to nuclear war.

The lesson of that kind of “peace” for Ukraine, after it gave up the nuclear arsenal it inherited from the Soviet Union in 1994, would be the same lesson that North Korea, Iran, and other countries have taken from U.S. regime-change attacks on Iraq and Libya after they gave up their nuclear weapons programs: that countries need nuclear weapons as a deterrent against foreign aggression.

The GPAX resolution’s introduction concludes by “condemn[ing] the present violence in Ukraine by all sides.” Opponents pointed to the moral bankruptcy of not distinguishing between the violence of the aggressor and self-defense by the victims of that aggression.

The resolution then raises four specific concerns. The first claims that the “militaristic approach” of arming Ukraine is “demonstrably flawed” because “Ukraine is losing the war” and “does not reflect a sincere interest in the well-being of the Ukrainian people, but rather the geopolitical and financial interests of Western elites.” Opponents objected that it is also morally bankrupt to choose sides based on who is winning.

At the time the resolution was submitted in September, Ukraine had already taken back over 30% of the land Russia had occupied. During the debate, Ukraine took back most of Kharkiv province. By mid-November Ukraine had liberated Kherson province east of the Dnieper River, bringing the total land taken back from Russia to over 50% of what the Russian army held at its peak advance the previous March.

As for arms to Ukraine not being in the interests of the Ukrainian people, opponents posted appeals for solidarity from the Ukrainian progressive movements, including Greens, socialists, anarchists, feminists, environmentalists and trade unionists. In all these appeals, Ukrainian progressive movements included calls for arms to defend themselves from the Russian invaders.

It became clear in the debate that the authors and proponents of the resolution had not sought, or were deaf to, the views of Ukrainian progressives. Some proponents made baseless smears against the Ukrainian progressives, calling them Nazis or stooges for the CIA or USAID.

Opponents argued that if Ukraine is disarmed by a cutoff of foreign military aid, there is no reason to expect Russia to stop its war to recolonize Ukraine. The concluding words to the “Right to Resist” manifesto by Ukrainian feminists were cited by opponents: “We stand for the right to resist. If Ukrainian society lays down its arms, there will be no Ukrainian society. If Russia lays down its arms, the war will end.”(12)

Questions of Sanctions and Diplomacy

The resolution’s second concern makes the case for ending sanctions against Russia, stating that there is a “long track record of previous failures of punitive sanctions regimes.”

Opponents pointed out that the Green Party national platform positively invokes the economic sanctions that contributed to the end of apartheid in South Africa in making the case to support BDS against Israeli apartheid today.(13)

The third concern is about the “unwillingness” of the U.S. to engage in diplomacy, and calls for the U.S. to “compromise” with a ceasefire that would lead to a negotiated peace. As opponents repeatedly pointed out, the resolution is demanding that U.S. imperialism carve up Ukraine in a “compromise” deal with Russian imperialism over the heads of the Ukrainian victims of Russian aggression. The focus is on what the United States should do to Ukraine, without considering the wishes and agency of the Ukrainians.

The fourth concern of the resolution’s proponents was the American media’s “dishonest portrayal” of the U.S. role in provoking the war and Ukraine’s democracy and military successes. Opponents tended to make their factual points with citations of credible news sources, while the proponents tended to assert their facts without citations — although one could often trace them back to Russian state media and its internet echo chambers in the West.

Some proponents provides links to articles and videos featuring rightwing commentators like Col. Douglas Macgregor, a regular on Fox News and Russian state media, and post-Left podcasters like the Greyzone and Jimmy Dore who advance conspiracist narratives in support of Russia and against Ukraine.

The four concerns were prefatory to the resolution’s concluding policy demands: the United States should end arms to Ukraine, lift sanctions on Russia, and negotiate with Russia to end the war. Opponents pointed out that these demands took no account of Ukraine’s wishes and agency.

Appended to the resolution were links to sources mostly as divorced from reality as the resolution itself. They included former Swiss intelligence office Jacques Baud. who has long promoted Kremlin narratives and conspiracies on rightwing and Russian state media,(14) and a now-deleted post on the blog of an anti-vax doctor that promoted the discredited claims of Ukrainian bioweapons labs.(15)

Supporters of the resolution have several motiviations, which overlapped differently in different people. Many voted for it from pacifist instincts. As I have found in gatherings of the broader peace movement, most confess to knowing little about the war in Ukraine. Their default position is that negotiations are always the best approach and that weapons, even for self-defense, never are.

This pacifist motivation was expressed differently by some who said Ukraine must be pressured to compromise with Russia in order to avert a nuclear war. Fear of Russia’s nuclear threats to themselves loomed larger for these people than the violence against Ukrainians by Russian aggression.

Another default position was an anti-imperialist instinct that defaults to the position that we must oppose whatever the U.S. military does. While understandable in view of the savage imperialist wars that the United States has inflicted from Vietnam to Iraq, it is wrong to apply that instinct without examining the particular situation in Ukraine, especially when the only imperialist army invading Ukraine is Russia’s.

Another solid bloc in support was the anti-vax contingent, which is about a quarter of the body, judging from the decisive defeat of their recent platform plank proposal to ban all vaccine mandates. The anti-vax proponents voted for the GPAX resolution. They tend to rely on “alternative” conspiracist online media that present both the public health response to Covid and the war in Ukraine as power grabs by shadowy Western elites.

A smaller but vocal group of supporters rooted for a Russian military victory, arguing it would be a defeat for U.S. imperialism. That was their primary consideration and the democratic right of Ukrainians to self-determination was secondary at best or not to be respected because they are all supposedly Nazis.

The Vote

Among the National Committee members who voted against the resolution, not many actually spoke up on the voting and discussion listservs to oppose it. When the resolution was introduced, I commented on the voting listserv that I thought we were divided on the question of arms to Ukraine, but that we might be more united around a resolution that called for Russian troops to withdraw, affirmed Ukraine’s right to self-determination, answered Ukrainian progressives’ appeal to campaign for the cancellation of Ukraine’s foreign debt, and called on the United States to negotiate with Russia for mutual security guarantees and nuclear disarmament.

Some proponents of the resolution objected to me posting on the voting list since I was not a voting delegate. I had been grandfathered on to the National Committee listservs as a former National Committee delegate more than a decade ago. Now my posting privileges to the voting listsev were revoked, although I could still read the list.

I continued to post on the discussion list, where I focused on arguing that the only consistent anti-imperialist position was to oppose Russian aggression against Ukraine as we oppose U.S. economic and military domination around the world. I presented factual rebuttals, with citations of sources to the pro-Russia narratives backing the resolution.

For my trouble, many proponents labelled me as pro-war, pro-Nato, neocon and so forth instead of addressing the facts and arguments I raised. A number of National Committee delegates who opposed the resolution let me know privately that they supported my perspectives, but did not feel informed enough to argue their case and did not want to be targeted for vilification as I was.

The online voting on the GPAX resolution concluded at midnight on Sunday, October 9, or 7:00 am Monday in Ukraine, which had just suffered the first overnight barrage of more than 100 air strikes in what became a months-long war crime of attacking civilian energy infrastructure as winter approached.

The resolution was adopted nine days after Putin gave his fascistic annexation speech against the “Satanistic,” homosexual, transsexual agenda of the West and called for negotiations, except that the newly “annexed” territories in Ukraine were non-negotiable.(16) Few on the Green National Committee were aware of these developments as they voted.

The Debate Continues

The day after the Ukraine Solidarity Network (US) that I helped initiate was publicly announced January, Ajamu Baraka sent a message to the Black Alliance for Peace members listserv entitled “Howie Hawkins and his Ukraine Solidarity Network (US) is an enemy formation,” which a friend on the list passed on to me as a courtesy.

Baraka also tweeted, “If the Green Party wants to maintain any credibility it must distance itself from Howie Hawkins pro-NATO, pro-U.S. imperialism, pro-democrat party, pro-’American’ nationalism.”(17)

Baraka soon expanded his message into a polemic in Black Agenda Report that called the network “The Highest Stage of White Western Social Imperialism.” “Individuals like the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins, Eric Draitser of Counterpunch, and Bill Fletcher … and the tendency they represent embody the worst of the arrogant, Western left that in so many cases (not all) objectively provides ideological cover (rightism with left phraseology) for the imperialist program of Western capital — they should not be allowed continued left respectability without challenge.”(18)

I had already given what could serve as a response in an interview that was published a few days later entitled, “The anti-imperialist position is to support the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people.”(19) I also responded on Green listservs, saying in part that “The social imperialists today are those who pit domestic needs (socialists in words) against Ukraine’s national liberation struggle (imperialists in deeds).

“Plenty of resources exist to do both if we tax the rich and make deep cuts in the U.S. military budget….Making Ukrainian liberation and Russian imperialism ‘secondary contradictions’ to the ‘strategic priority’ of defeating Western imperialism is itself an imperialist framework in which the big nations are the only ones that count.”

Meanwhile, GPAX returned to the National Committee with a proposal to endorse the Rage Against the War Machine demonstration on February 19, 2023 that was organized by a bizarre coalition led by the Libertarian Party and included the online People’s Party, the far-right LaRouche organization, and post-Left anti-woke “populist” podcasters like Jimmy Dore, Max Blumenthal, and “MAGA Communist” Jackson Hinkle.

Proponents argued the Green Party should be part of any anti-war demonstration and should subordinate other concerns to the all-important cause of peace. Opponents argued that the demonstration was not anti-war, because it did not demand Russian troops withdraw, only that U.S. aid to Ukraine stop. Opponents also said Greens should not be marching with organizations and speakers who were known for expressing racism, anti-immigrant bigotry, antisemitism, misogyny and transphobia.

The controversial speakers and endorsers made the vote close, but it passed in a narrow 54-50-11 vote. Jill Stein, the 2016 Green presidential candidate, spoke at the rally with a Russian flag and a [Jimmy] Dore ’24 placard behind her.

The Green debate on Ukraine continued when the Green Socialist Organizing Project held on online discussion on Ukraine with Margaret Kimberley, Matthew Hoh, and myself around the February 24 anniversary of the invasion. I was the only one advocating arms for Ukraine and while our discussion was respectful and substantive, the debate in the accompanying online chat was a flame war.

Ajamu Baraka posted that I should “resign or be expelled” from the Green Party, and Stein then added that “Howie’s views are outside Green values and removed him from contention” as a Green presidential nominee.(20)

GPAX came back to the National Committee with a proposal to endorse the March 18 demonstration led by the Party of Socialism and Liberation’s ANSWER Coalition and CodePink.

The lead slogan on the endorsement form was “End the $100 Billion in arms shipments to Ukraine.” But that was changed in the promotional material as the demonstration grew near to “Peace in Ukraine – Negotiations Not Escalation.” The slogan was similarly changed in the GPAX proposal. This time the National Committee approved the endorsement by an 88-7-5 vote.

I do not think this vote reflects a change in the perspectives on Ukraine in the National Committee. It was clear from the National Committee discussion that many members who voted against the GPAX policy resolution in October were voting to endorse this demonstration because they favor negotiations and do want the Greens to be missing from the larger peace movement.

Few delegates, however, have much experience with the peace movement. Few are cognizant of the fact that most of the peace movement, including national Peace Action and United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and significant local groups like Brooklyn for Peace and the Syracuse Peace Council, did not endorse this demonstration.

Many peace groups are put off by ANSWER-led demonstrations that feature speakers and slogans that praise militaristic authoritarian regimes like China, North Korea, and Syria.

Few Greens on the National Committee are aware of the problems many peace groups have had working in coalition with ANSWER due to its habit of announcing demonstrations with their own slogans and speakers, then calling for “unity” around their event.

This practice by ANSWER in the anti-Iraq War movement led the UFPJ Steering Committee to announce at the end of 2005 that it “rejects future work with ANSWER.”(21) Two of the three national co-chairs of UFPJ at the time, George Friday and George Martin, were Green Party members.

Like the Rage Against the War Machine demonstration, the ANSWER/Code Pink demonstration was small for a national demonstration, with a couple of thousand attending by the most generous estimates. Jill Stein was again the Green Party representative who spoke, this time with the Chinese flag behind her.

An Internationalist Future?

The Green Party debate continued in early April with an online debate on Ukraine between Jill Stein and me.(22) We had a back and forth on the facts about the conflict and what they mean for a Green response, as did the lively chat.

What struck me most was how nonviolence, one of the Green Party’s 10 Key Values, was being used by Stein and some chat commentators to mean an absolute pacifism that does not recognize the right to self-defense and to say that my support for arms to Ukraine puts me beyond the pale of the Green Party. I pointed out that the Green Party’s national platform description of the key value of nonviolence says “We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of others who are in danger.”(23)

A few weeks later Ajamu Baraka, on a podcast of the Revolutionary Blackout Network, said that I “should not be a member of the Green Party” because I have “violated the Green Party’s principles and values …regarding violence and militarism.”(24)

When I discussed the importance of the right of self-defense on a panel with members of the Deacons for Defense, which provided armed protection for civil rights workers in the Deep South in the 1960s, no Greens objected. But now the Green key value of nonviolence is being used by some Greens to say that I should be expelled for supporting Ukraine’s right to self-defense.

One irony here is that I can’t be expelled from a memberless party, and I have long advocated that the Green Party become a mass-membership party.

The Debate Has Just Begun

While the debate on Ukraine in the Green Party has its unique characteristics, it is similar to debates across the left and the peace movement nationally and internationally. Those of us who stand for international socialist solidarity with exploited and oppressed people, independently of the geopolitical interests of states, are still dealing with the legacy of campism in which many people on the left chose sides in the Cold War.(25)

On the one side was a pro-Soviet camp, which supported the authoritarian bureaucratic states calling themselves socialist, and, on the other side the pro-Western camp, which supported the capitalist democracies.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new cold war has developed between the U.S.-led Western imperialist camp and a competing camp of capitalist states led by China and Russia. Some on the left consider the emerging rival camp of capitalist states to be a progressive anti-imperialist camp that will replace the unipolar world order dominated by U.S.-led Western imperialism with a multipolar world that, it is claimed, will move “Through Pluriplurality to Socialism.”(26)

From the perspective of international socialism, this new cold war is the emergence of a multi-polar world of competing imperialisms generated largely by not only by the expansionist drive rooted in capitalism’s competitive structure. It is a return to the world of inter-imperialist competition that led to world wars in the 20th century.

The internationalist tradition of socialism, on the other hand, stands in solidarity with all struggles for democratic and socialist transformation in every nation in both camps of the new cold war.(27)

This kind of pro-democracy internationalism has been the tradition of Green politics around the world ever since original Greens like West Germany’s Petra Kelly and East Germany’s Rudi Bahro campaigned against nuclear weapons and anti-democratic repression on both sides of the Cold War in the 1980s.

Green parties around the world today have been unhesitating in their solidarity with Ukraine, including the provision of arms. But the U.S Greens are another case of American exceptionalism. It is the only Green Party in the world that is so divided on Ukraine.

An important part of the debate going forward will be developing a shared theoretical understanding of the nature and structure of the emerging world of multi-polar imperialisms, the bureaucratic and ideological as well as capitalist drives behind the imperialisms of different states, and how to build practical solidarity among progressive pro-democracy and socialist movements across borders.

Just as important will be challenging progressive and peace-minded people to become more informed about Ukraine. I have found that even the more informed Greens, socialist, and peace activists only know what some of the controversies are, but haven’t done their own investigation.

Was the 2014 Maidan revolution a U.S.-backed coup or a popular revolution? Were separatists movements in Crimea and the Donbas popular movements, or were they Russian military operations and coups? These activists tend to rely on the opinions of their trusted sources without doing their own source- and fact-checking. These educational tasks bring up the problem of convincing activists to get off the hamster wheel of endless single-issue mobilizations enough to engage in this educational work. Providing the institutional and cultural framework for this kind of political education is what the Green Party or any left party, should be doing.

That political culture should foster norms that keep debates over differences constructive instead of divisive, and make people with less experience and theoretical backgrounds welcome and comfortable participating.

Green leaders who vilify and call for the expulsion of other Greens with whom they disagree are not being the kind of leaders we need who are concerned for the good of the party as a whole. They are being politically immature at best or worse, being intentionally divisive for factional purposes.

Perhaps the most important debate for the Greens going forward would be over how to institutionalize political education and constructive debate into its political culture.

Notes

1. “GPAX/GPUS Statement On War In Ukraine,” https://secure.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=1113. The vote is recorded at https://secure.gpus.org/cgi-bin/vote/propdetail?pid=1113back to text
2. Mohamed Younis, “One Year Later, Americans Still Stand by Ukraine,” Gallup, February, 2023, https://news.gallup.com/poll/469328/one-year-later-americans-stand-ukraine.aspxback to text
3. The policy briefings of the biggest peace organization, Peace Action, reflect these positions. Peace Action, “Briefing & Action Steps on War in Ukraine,” March 28, 2022, https://www.peaceaction.org/2022/03/28/peace-action-statement-fact-sheet-on-war-in-ukraine/; Peace Action, “Congress Should Promote Diplomacy to End the Ukraine War,” August 8, 2023, https://www.peaceaction.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/ukraine-policy-briefing-7_22.pdf. United for Peace and Justice, the biggest national coalition of peace groups, acknowledges “some diversity of views” within its coalition, but its comprehensive resource list has strong representation from progressive Ukrainian and Russian sources and Ukraine solidarity activists. United for Peace and Justice, “The Ukraine crisis: commentary, responses, and background,” https://www.unitedforpeace.org/the-ukraine-crisis-commentary-responses-and-background/back to text
4. Kim Moody describes the informal power structure that governs the Democratic Party as a “memberless party” in Breaking the Impasse: Electoral Politics, Mass Action, and the New Socialist Movement in the United States (Haymarket Books, 2022).back to text
5. The way informal elites form in the Green Party as a “memberless party” is similar to that described by Jo Freeman in the late 1960s women’s movement in “The Tyranny of Structurelessness” (1970), https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htmback to text
6. Green Party of the United States, “Stop the Saber-Rattling! Greens Call for Immediate Diplomacy to Resolve Ukraine Crisis,” February 2, 2022, https://www.gp.org/stop_the_saber_rattling_greens_call_for_immediate_diplomacy_to_resolve_ukraine_crisisback to text
7. Green Party of the United States, “Green Party Calls for Ceasefire and Diplomatic Solution to Ukraine Crisis,” February 25, 2022, https://www.gp.org/green_party_calls_for_ceasefire_and_diplomatic_solution_to_ukraine_crisisback to text
8. Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, “DSA IC opposes US militarization and interventionism in Ukraine and Eastern Europe and calls for an end to NATO expansionism, January 31, 2022, https://international.dsausa.org/statements/page/3/; “On Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine,” February 26, 2022, https://international.dsausa.org/statements/on-russias-invasion-of-ukraine/back to text
9. The seven statements on Ukraine are posted on the Green Party Peace Action Committee website home page: https://gpax.gpus.org. The webinar is posted at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofuwdeTZ5Ek. I was not named in Ajamu Baraka’s comments but from the context given it was clear who he was talking about.back to text
10. Thanks to a draconian ballot access law passed by the Democrats in 2020, the ballot access petition now requires 45,000 signatures in 42 days. The Green Party petition along with the petitions of seven other parties failed. The result was that 2022 was the first election since 1946, and the only other election since 1891 when state-issued secret ballots were introduced, in which only the Democratic and Republican candidates for Governor appeared on the ballot. The requirement is the most difficult we can find in any state or country. It is three times harder than the petition to run as an independent for Russia’s State Duma, which is 15,000 signatures in 45 days. New York’s old standard was 15,000 signatures in 42 days. We joke with state legislators that we lobby for fair ballot access reform that we would be happy to get back to the “Putin standard.”back to text
11. Joseph R. Biden Jr., “President Biden: What America Will and Will Not Do in Ukraine,” New York Times, May 31, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/biden-ukraine-strategy.htmlback to text
12. The Feminist Initiative Group, “The Right to Resist. A Feminist Manifesto,” Commons: Journal of Social Criticism, July 7, 2022, https://commons.com.ua/en/right-resist-feminist-manifesto/back to text
13. Green Party Platform, https://www.gp.org/platformback to text
14. “Sur RT France, Jacques Baud coche toutes les cases du conspirationnisme géopolitique,” Conspiracy Watch, September 7, 2022, https://www.conspiracywatch.info/sur-rt-france-jacques-baud-coche-toutes-les-cases-du-conspirationnisme-geopolitique.html; Paul Mason, “Empower the people to win the war on disinformation,” New Statesman, May 4, 2022, https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/05/the-left-should-lead-the-fight-against-russian-disinformation-not-hinder-it; Ian Rons, “How Accurate is Jacques Baud’s Analysis of the War in Ukraine?” Daily Skeptic, May 22, 2022, https://dailysceptic.org/2022/05/22/how-accurate-is-jacques-bauds-analysis-of-the-war-in-ukraine/back to text
15. Dr. Jesse Santiano’s website has deleted his Ukrainian bioweapons lab post but still has many anti-Covid vaccine posts: https://drjessesantiano.com/category/covid-19-headlines/. Kremlin claims about bioweapons labs in Ukriane have rejected by the United Nations and Russia’s own biologists. “UN says no evidence to back Russian claim of Ukraine biological weapons program.” Euractiv, March 12, 2022, https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/un-says-no-evidence-to-back-russian-claim-of-ukraine-biological-weapons-program/; Robert Mackey, “Russia Is Lying About Evidence of Bioweapons Labs in Ukraine, Russian Biologists Say,” The Intercept, March 17, 2022, https://theintercept.com/2022/03/17/russia-ukraine-bioweapons-misinformation/back to text
16. Matthew Gault,”Putin Accuses West of ‘Satanism’ and Announces Annexations in Terrifying Speech,” Vice, September 30, 2022, https://www.vice.com/en/article/88qvep/putin-accuses-west-of-satanism-and-announces-annexations-in-terrifying-speechback to text
17. https://twitter.com/ajamubaraka/status/1614365465538600960back to text
18. Ajamu Baraka, “The Ukrainian Solidarity Network: The Highest Stage of White Western Social Imperialism,” Black Agenda Report, January 25, 2023, https://www.blackagendareport.com/ukrainian-solidarity-network-highest-stage-white-western-social-imperialismback to text
19. Howie Hawkins & Federico Fuentes, “Howie Hawkins (Ukraine Solidarity Network US): ‘The anti-imperialist position is to support the national liberation struggle of the Ukrainian people’,” Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal, January 28, 2023, https://links.org.au/howie-hawkins-ukraine-solidarity-network-us-anti-imperialist-position-support-national-liberationback to text
20. “Green Socialist Perspectives on Ukraine,” February 23, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz5ji_2k66gback to text
21. Steering Committee of United for Peace and Justice, “UFPJ Rejects Future Work with ANSWER,” December 12, 2005, https://web.archive.org/web/20051228223911/http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3162back to text
22. Green Party of Alameda County, “A Conversation About Ukraine & Peace,” April 9, 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKhZY6OWV_wback to text
23. Green Party of the United States, “Our 10 Key Values,” https://www.gp.org/ten_key_valuesback to text
24. Revolutionary Blackout Network, May 1, 2023, https://twitter.com/SocialistMMA/status/1653049468923817987. The Revolutionary Blackout Network is one of the post-Left populist circle of podcasters inspired by Jimmy Dore. In an interview I did with them last year, the host argued that Greens should say the neoliberal Democrats are as bad as or worse than the neofascist GOP, a position Ajamu Baraka has tweeted out many times. I argued that we should be honest with people that there are differences, which most clearly see, while still advocating voting for the Greens. Revolutionary Blackout Network, Third Party Summit, March 19, 2022, https://www.revolutionaryblackoutnetwork.com/thirdpartysummit. My interview begins on the 8th hour on the second day. The discussion of how to regard the differences between the Democrats and Republicans begins at 8:19:30.back to text
25. Dan La Botz, “Internationalism, Anti-Imperialism, and the Origins of Campism,” New Politics, Winter 2022, https://newpol.org/issue_post/internationalism-anti-imperialism-and-the-origins-of-campism/back to text
26. International Manifesto Group, “Through Pluripolarity to Socialism: A Manifesto,” September 2021, https://internationalmanifesto.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/through-pluripolarity-to-socialism-a-manifesto-final.pdfback to text
27. Kavita Krishnan, “Multipolarity, the Mantra of Authoritarianism,” The India Forum, December 20, 2022, https://www.theindiaforum.in/politics/multipolarity-mantra-authoritarianism; Promise Li, “Against Multipolar Imperialism: Toward Socialist Multipolarity,” Against the Current, January 6, 2023, https://againstthecurrent.org/against-multipolar-imperialism-toward-socialist-multipolarity/