For quite a few years, I have been thinking about a new radical third party on the left. In November 2000, the job of organizing a third party seemed impossible and wasteful besides. So all this time, instead of thinking about a third party, I have been thinking of how to best fight Bush. In addition to my independent organizing activities, which I think are always essential to moving society in a leftward direction, I began to do some work with the Democratic Party. But now Bush is almost finished and the contradictions of the Democratic Party are again standing out in stark relief, reminding me of why I have been disappointed with the Democrats all these years. So again I'm having a hard time calling myself a Democrat, and again my thoughts have turned to a third party.

In a radical third party, supporters can focus down on what they consider to be the most serious issues facing society. To the Greens, protecting and healing the environment is key. To the socialists, collectivizing society so as to replace capitalism is the answer. To me, both of these goals are important. But neither is enough and neither will be attained as long as the hierarchical relations of patriarchal class society are in place, because these relations of domination themselves are the problem. Powerful men and women dominate and exploit the environment just as they dominate and exploit less powerful men and women. Because it's not just the end goal of peace and justice that we have to shoot for, it's how we get there on the way. If we don't address the relations of domination at the same time that we seek to create a new economic system, we will wind up as too many socialist countries have, with one form of domination replacing another.

So at this time, I am proposing that those of us who consider ourselves refugees from the Democratic Party USA organize a Women's Party USA with the purpose of achieving peace and justice for all people all over the world by replacing the dominator relations of capitalism with co-operative relations between all people. Why a women's party? Because the name, "women's party" suggests a goal of improving the quality of life for women which, if this were to happen, would improve the lives of all people, children and adult alike, because women are the mothers, the basis of the family, and the family is the basis of society. Yet, ironically, if society were reorganized to meet the needs of women, the family might no longer be such a critical unit of society because people would have the freedom to organize themselves into other groupings as they see fit, groupings such as tribes or clans which would be based not on common blood, necessarily, but on common values and goals in life.

So I am thinking about a revolutionary women's party as an organizing tool. Although the word "revolutionary" could be quite redundant, depending on the economic and social reforms that such a party would propose. Is this enough to get you started thinking about how we refugees from the Democratic Party might effectively organize to create peace and justice in the world? We'll see!