[Sosfbay-discuss] [Fwd: [usgp-nc] Let's take heart]

Wed Aug 5 17:32:37 PDT 2009

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [usgp-nc] Let's take heart
From:    "John Rensenbrink" <rensen at suscom-maine.net>
Date:    Wed, August 5, 2009 12:16
To:      "The natlcomvotes ((aka National Committee Votes)) listserv is
for decision-making and management of GP-US affairs."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi everyone,

  Let's take heart. We had a superb ANM at NCCU in Durham. Very well
organized, high spirits, a lot got done there and for the future. We
repaired relationships, built new ones, celebrated ongoing ones. We
showed that we are an up and coming party. Huge thanks to those who
worked so hard to make it a success.  Champagne everyone -- loft a
toast to ourselves in cyber champagne!

  For me there were many high points. A personal high was the
Workshop Kat Swift, George Martin and I did, with Jan Martell
presiding, on "A Constructive Critique on the U.S. Green Party and
Recommendations for Improvement." We expected about 20 to come. Well,
there were over fifty, standing room only.

  I think this high number and the responsive atmosphere within the
Workshop are also reasons for taking heart. After the short
presentations, a vigorous and serious discussion followed. No
recriminating innuendos, no b.s., no blaming, not even any
inadvertent blaming. Talked a lot about leadership and about the SC.
Three members of the SC were present.

  I say, we can do this. We CAN engage in soul searching without
having to go through a lot of negative thrust and counterthrust.  It
also means that we do need these annual meetings, we need always to
recall, together and face to face, why we are here as a political
party, where we are going, and what we can do to get there -- things
practical, wise, envisioning and pertinent to our situation as a very
promising political party in the wasteland of American politics.

  I had jotted down notes of what I wanted to say before I spoke.
When I got home I wrote the piece below from the notes and from
memory. I figure I might as well append them to this post and you may
read them -- or not, as the spirit goes and the wind blows. I make
three points about how we hinder ourselves and then make eight
recommendations.

Be well,

John Rensenbrink

Maine

Presentation by John Rensenbrink at the Workshop on “A Constructive
Critique of the U.S. Green Party and Recommendations for
Improvement.”  July 24, 2009, at  The Annual National Meeting of the
Green Party of the United States held July 23-26, North Carolina
Central University in Durham, North Carolina.

First of all, congratulations to us all!  We are still here!  After
25 years we are still alive and kicking! Many new parties and would-
be new parties have come and gone since 1984, but not only have we
survived, we have grown and continue to grow.

We’ve done this in the face of enormous obstacles. It’s no secret
that we have been deliberately suppressed. Consider the deafening
silence about us by the New York Times, or the vicious distortions of
a Rush Limbaugh, or the patronizing put-downs of The Nation.  Not to
mention the tooth and nail efforts of the two dominant parties,
especially the leadership echelons of the Democratic Party, to kick
us out of the electoral process, and keep us out. I strongly
recommend reading Theresa Amato’s book just out, “Grand Illusion: the
Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny.” It is a damning
indictment, well written and thoroughly researched, of a corrupt and
broken political system.

We get that kind of treatment because we are doing the right thing.
We threaten that corrupt and broken political system and the
politicians who go to bat for the giant corporations and for the
banks who pay their way and line their pockets. We challenge them at
the core of their power, the power of public office. We are building
a political party for resistance and transformation – dedicated to
taking power away from the oligarchy and placing it in the hands of
the people in their communities.

But have we done enough? No we haven’t.  Could we do more? Yes, we
could.

Here are three ways in which we hinder ourselves. After that, I will
pose eight recommendations for improvement.

Three Ways We Hinder Ourselves

First, we tend to accept a marginal status for ourselves. We buy into
the culture of powerlessness that afflicts the public at large.  We
must define ourselves, not be defined.

Second, we are way too much caught up, as a national party, in
internal housekeeping matters and we exhibit a puzzling and almost
lethal obsession with rules. Not that rules are not vital and
important; there is always plenty to be concerned about in that
regard. But rules are not first. Relationships are more important.
Developing and projecting a focused, hard hitting, and holistic
message is more important. Building and developing a conversation
with the American people is more important.

Third, we tend to act more like an NGO (non-governmental
organization) than a political party. This is due, partly at least,
by the fact that most of us come from and continue to be engaged in
activism – activism for this cause, that cause, the next cause, and
so forth.  That affects how we think about Message and Action. But a
political party is a holistic venture and adventure.  It aggregates
the interests expressed by the various movement causes; it
consolidates and coordinates those interests; and, extremely
important, something the dominant parties never do, a political party
educates the public.  By education we don’t mean indoctrinate. We
mean informing and inspiring public consciousness. We do it through
our candidates, our media activities, the coalitions we build, and by
our party work generally.

Eight Recommendations (offered as illustrative of the kind of things
we can do to help ourselves).

We should strongly consider the use of mid-term party conventions to
further develop our platform and thus help make that a living and
timely document. Doing it every four years for a presidential
election is not enough and the platform tends to get lost in the
pressure of a presidential nominating convention.

We can and should use the odd-years for regional meetings (2011,
2013, 2015, etc.).  Both this point and the previous one are examples
of structuring ourselves to spark, enable, inspire the building of
relationships, so very necessary for our growth, confidence building,
and trust of one another.

I for one am very interested in the creation of an ongoing, though
informal, group (a non-identity "caucus") devoted to evolving a
holistic Green politics and policy.

It seems to me that the Steering Committee can and should initiate a
nation-wide process from the grass roots up devoted to developing our
national message as a Green Party.

We can, I firmly believe, if we put our minds to it, pick two
Congressional candidates in each election cycle for whom the national
party in conjunction with state parties provide resources with the
intent of winning those races.

I think we are ready now as a national party to come up with a
political strategy that unites short term goals, intermediate goals,
and long term goals.

Scott McLarty has often urged each and all of us to cultivate our
local media and for all of us to write letters and op-eds on the same
timely issue of the day  at approximately the same time– he points
out how powerful that can be, if we did this nation-wide on a
continuing basis.

It may be a very good and necessary thing for us to conduct a
national Green Party Constitutional Convention to take a hard look at
the structure of our national party.

My presentation was followed by presentations by Kat Swift and George
Martin -- Janet Martell presiding. A lively discussion followed the
presentations that focused mostly on leadership and the USGP Steering
Committee.

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