The ISO in the Nader Campaign

By Marie Medeiros

In relation to the Nader campaign, this meant promoting it as a break with the two-party system while explaining that the system itself needs to be changed. Any lasting solution to the problems of capitalism must come from a mass movement of the working class. This includes organizing workers, the oppressed and young people on a class basis, in a workers' party independent of the two parties of big business. The Green Party will prove incapable of fulfilling this demand (see article on page 16). This was the position promoted by Socialist Alternative.

Many activists might have met the International Socialist Organization (ISO) while campaigning for Nader. In this column, Socialist Alternative raises several criticisms of the ISO, not to shame them but to clarify a Marxist strategy and explain the differences between our two organizations. Overall, instead of adopting a Marxist strategy as described above, the ISO chose to lower its own banner so they could work without overt conflict with the Green Party.

Until May, the ISO had a sectarian position, arguing that Nader was a middle-class candidate unworthy of support. However, as support for Nader grew in the student and labor movement, the ISO reversed its position without explaining why. They jumped into the campaign, mostly working hand in glove with the Green Party. They seldom identified themselves as socialists or explained the difference between the Greens and themselves.

These flip-flops result from the ISO's failure to use Marxist methods to understand events and their possible outcomes.  As Socialist Alternative we became involved in the Nader campaign because we saw the strategic importance of the campaign in building a political movement independent of the Democrats and Republicans, and opening a debate among activists about the control of these parties by big business. Lacking that analysis, the ISO could only respond to events reflexively and became involved when the success of the campaign took them by surprise.

The ISO put recruitment at the top of their list of priorities. They hid their politics to obtain high profile positions within the Nader campaign. This is the definition of opportunism. While Socialist Alternative also prioritized recruitment, we argued for and implemented dynamic tactics within the campaign and explained how to best take the movement forward after Nader. We recruited people who agreed with this broader strategy. Recruitment, for us, is linked to building political clarity in the movement by demonstrating Marxist methods in practice.

Because the ISO did not want to specify their differences with the Green Party, they acted as henchmen for Green politics even when these politics held the movement back. For instance, the ISO supported the Greens' conservatism about the campaign, sought to stifle discussions of some Greens' support for local Democrats, and backed up the Green Party's insistence that the Nader campaign be led by them, a move that limited the growth of the campaign.  In Seattle, they argued that socialist organizations should not be allowed to put their names on Nader coalition literature as endorsers.

The ISO failed to live up to their obligation as socialists to provide political leadership. In Nader meetings organized at college campuses, they did not give political presentations to orient the activists involved and lay out the key issues of the Nader campaign. Students who didn't learn from these meetings often went away and didn't come back.  While the ISO may have grown through the Nader campaign, their participation did nothing to advance the ideas of socialism.

Socialist Alternative is always open to working with the ISO, or others on the left. In fact, in San Francisco Seattle, and Oberlin, Ohio we approached the ISO with proposals for joint work to advance the building of a workers party alongside the Nader campaign. The ISO either rejected these or failed to even reply. Despite this rebuff, we will continue to work with all organizations on the left to advance the workers' movement, while continuing to build our own organization.