I watched Ralph Nader on Amy’s show today with Dennis Kucinich and was struck by how much I miss Peter Camejo. Ralph, simply by virtue of standing outside the duopoly, has way more credibility with me than any Progressive Democrat and gently took Dennis to task for his capitulation. Camejo, Ralph’s running mate in 2004, was significantly to the left of Nader and one can imagine what he would say in a debate with Dennis. To Nader’s credit, he knew Peter’s political principle and ability were strengths and proudly shared the ticket with him. It was Peter’s presence that convinced me, and many others, to work for that campaign.
Peter was seeking a road to working class independence and power; he was schooled by a Marx he never repudiated. He knew the enemy was imperialism and that capitalism’s ills were inherent, the system irreformable. Even if I might not have agreed with Peter on any number of things (and some things quite strongly), his consistency with his own positions and the courage in which he defended them stands in sharp contrast to those like Kucinich who bargain theirs away. One can imagine pretty clearly what Peter Camejo would say about the Obama administration and the current quandary “progressives” in and around the Democrats find themselves in. We need not imagine everything though. These videos, recorded just a few months before Peter died in 2008 as the Presidential election was in full swing, give some indication what he might say now. Parts two, three and four here. Peter Camejo, Presenté!
Rustbelt Radical 
One thing I’m sure Peter Camejo would NOT have done, unlike the members of the ISO, was celebrating in the streets when Wall Street’s favorite son, Obama, won the election…regardless of how many of the “masses” may have been doing so.
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During the Vietnam war, Camejo would explain: there are three groups in society who can end the war. One is big business, because they control the government anyway. They can end the war any time they want. The others are the working class and the GIs themselves. The GIs can end the war by refusing to fight. And the working class can shut down production and the economy, so that no military supplies are made or transported, no recruits are transported, and big business’s profits are interrupted. He went on to explain how our antiwar strategies have to be designed to bring the working class and GIs into action against the war, and that confrontational tactics by student radicals were ineffective by themselves. In effect, they amounted to asking the ruling class to end the war and threatening to misbehave if they did not. He turned out to be right: it was opposition to the war within the military that ultimately caused the war to be ended. Generalized mutinies didn’t happen, but they would have if the war had continued, and Nixon knew it.
Camejo explained that large peaceful legal demonstrations were the best way of organizing so that the labor movement and antiwar GIs and veterans could participate and make their opposition to the war known. Once they were involved in the antiwar movement, Camejo argued, they KNEW how to take more militant and effective action, and would do so when they were ready.
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Amen! There’s no doubt in my mind that Peter would have emerged as a leading educator and agitator in the midst of the Great Recession. He would have helped educate a whole new generation of radicals. His autobiography will be released soon. Info at: http://www.HaymarketBooks.org.
Peter Camejo, presenté
Todd Chretien
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Todd,
Completely agreed. He passed just days before the crisis went super nova in September 2008. Cruel for our side, lucky for theirs. Look forward to the autobiography!
RR
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