[GPSCC-chat] ANSWER is indeed a communist front group (was Re: Fw: GPSCC Meeting minutes -- 7PM Thursday, Jan 24, 2013)

Sat Jan 26 07:03:44 PST 2013

Drew,

Since you decided to use wikipedia as a source, please be aware that there are other tidbits of information available on there that contradict your position about the PSL vs ANSWER.

First, ANSWER was denied a permit to hold a speakout on the national mall at the same time as the inaguration so I don't know the significance of your claim that ANSWER was hijacking someone else's protest, since their only remaining alternative was to go on someone else's march that already had a permit.  For background on this see: 
http://www.answercoalition.org/national/index.html

While the ANSWER web site does not appear to have a direct link to PSL or any other backing organizations, that doesn't mean a whole lot if the PSL is not the entire source of their organization as implied here: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Party_for_Socialism_and_Liberation
where it is stated: 

Antiwar movement
The PSL is a member of the steering committee of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism Coalition (A.N.S.W.E.R.). As one of the most active members of the coalition, PSL has gained notice for successfully forging ties with Arab and Muslim American groups such as the Muslim American Society, Al-Awda and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.

and here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_organization

More recently, the Workers' World Party (WWP)[32] set up an anti-war front group, International ANSWER. (ANSWER is no longer closely associated with WWP; it is closely associated with a WWP splinter, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, but PSL plays a more open role in the organization.) 

I agree with Sandy Perry that your characterization of the current version of ANSWER as a communist front group and your desire to shun them because of this idea is nothing less than Mcarthyism.  I will continue to work with the Green party for now, but don't expect me to work with you on any of your pet projects.  I may still go ahead with organizing a debate or panel discussion on Iran-Syria-Palestine, but it won't be done under the Green Party umbrella or at your church or in any way involving Drew Johnson. 

John Thielking

--- On Sat, 1/26/13, Drew <rainbeaufriend at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Drew <rainbeaufriend at yahoo.com>
Subject: [GPSCC-chat] ANSWER is indeed a communist front group (was Re: Fw: GPSCC Meeting minutes -- 7PM Thursday, Jan 24, 2013)
To: "perrysandy at aol.com" <perrysandy at aol.com>, "sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org" <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org>
Date: Saturday, January 26, 2013, 3:59 AM

I feel extremely annoyed about the fact the ANSWER Coalition is not a coalition at all and conceals its leadership by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (ie. a communist party).
A group that is not honest enough to be upfront with who they are can be called a "front group" and that term is actually from the communists themselves,
not Hoover (although Hoover certainly took it and fear mongered with it, no doubt).  The creation of front groups that hide their affiliation with the communist 
organizers is a very deliberate tactic that is widely and openly discussed among communist party strategists.  So I see no reason to avoid the term. ( for more on fronts see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Front_group).

>From wikipedia re: the (communist) World Worker's Party and ANSWER: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workers_World_Party
In 2004,[21] the WWP suffered its most serious split when a few dozen members of WWP left to form the Party for Socialism and Liberation. The ANSWER coalition aligned itself with the PSL and Workers World Party then founded the Troops Out Now Coalition. The split included many of the top leaders of the WWP which included most of the membership of the WWP on the West Coast.

Although I am not one I do not object to working with socialists and communists.  There are many folks of these persuasions within the Green Party.
What I object to is dishonesty by people and groups who try to decieve others about their identity.  This is why I have such strong objections to ANSWER.
For thes reasons I do not care about their opinion and I resent the way they constantly glom onto and hijack other group's events, such as the MLK march
last Monday that I was at.  They've been showin up with their mass-manufactured pre-printed protest signs to the MLK march and other events that they
had no hand in organizing and trying to use it as a platform for their own agenda.  If they want to organize their own events (and they do hold their own
events, yes its true) then fine.  But don't go and try to dominate a civil rights march that others carefully constructed.

Green is GO!

Drew

~*~*~*~
Jill Stein for President -- A Green New Deal for America
Campaign website:  http://www.jillstein.org/
    First TV Ad http://tinyurl.com/JillStein1stAd

From: "perrysandy at aol.com" <perrysandy at aol.com>
To: rainbeaufriend at yahoo.com; sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org 
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2013 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: [GPSCC-chat] Fw: GPSCC Meeting minutes -- 7PM Thursday, Jan 24, 2013

Hi Everyone,

I have two cents to add to this discussion.

1) I think everyone, including Pete himself, would admit that his outburst was not constructive and did not help him win friends and influence people. To tell the truth, I can't remember exactly what he said or who he insulted, but I definitely remember it was not pretty.

2) I believe we were absolutely right to refuse to sponsor a debate between Pete and Sharat. I have been asked to work with a committee to help formulate plans for campaigns to build the Green Party, and IMHO hosting debates between different trends in the left or in the peace movement is definitely not the best way to bring in the masses.

3) I strongly object to labeling any group a "communist front group". This was a term developed by J. Edgar Hoover to discredit a whole generation of courageous Americans who fought for social justice in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, led to the ugly purges of Hollywood and the AFL-CIO, and crippled progressive politics in America for eighty years. Red-baiting has a nasty way of being turned around and used against us. Besides, I (and many of San Jose's best activists that I know) are very rose-colored ourselves, so I don't think this is a good road to go down.

4) I am not a member of ANSWER and do not agree with some of their positions (although I am not well-versed in them all). I have worked with John Bretton in the Hyatt boycott support work and have found him to be cordial, hard-working, and cooperative. If we have disagreements with a group I believe we should just leave it at that, agree to disagree, work together where possible and go our separate ways where not.

Peace!

Sandy

-----Original Message-----
From: Drew <rainbeaufriend at yahoo.com>
To: sosfbay discussion group <sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org>
Sent: Fri, Jan 25, 2013 12:20 am
Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Fw: GPSCC Meeting minutes -- 7PM Thursday, Jan 24, 2013

Yes I never actually made a real proposal about the "no brainer" event endorsements, etc. -- I merely raised the question and so no of course I didn't reply to the conversation that followed.

Also:

1) Note that at no point did anyone suggest we attempt to "raid" the Peace and Freedom Party member and at no point did anyone suggest we try to recruit them to the Green Party.  People we're only talking about inviting them to participate as allies.

2) I'm not sure anyone said that Pete was disrespectful of other's points of view, so I'm not sure where you (John) are getting that. 

However the problem I believe was that Pete's outburst where he implied that (newly joined Green Party member) Dr. Sharat Lin was an "imperialist" came across to many witnesses as being entirely unreasonable, illogical, without evidence, disruptive and entirely without merit..  That is not a way to win friends and influence people -- or frankly to demonstrate 

emotional safeness to be participating as a guest at Green Party events.  I don't think any of the rest of us Greens (besides maybe you John) had any doubt about Dr. Lin's credibility since
after all he has a very long track record that many of us have observed, whereas we are unfamiliar with Pete.  In my opinion it was Pete that undermined his welcome by his loss of temper.

And to the point that the communist party front group (that hides their affiliation) A.N.S.W.E.R. asserts that we should not criticize Iran -- who is A.N.S.W.E.R. anyway and why should anyone take such a rigid and doctrinaire tack.  That's not much 

different from progressive Dems who say we should not criticize President Obama because he's so much better than the Repuglicans.  Sorry I don't by the idea that any government is above 

criticism.

Green is GO!

Drew

~*~*~*~
Jill Stein for President -- A Green New Deal for America
Campaign website:  http://www.jillstein.org/
    First TV Ad http://tinyurl.com/JillStein1stAd

From: John Thielking <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>
To: Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com> 
Cc: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org 
Sent: Thursday, January 24, 2013 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: [GPSCC-chat] GPSCC Meeting minutes -- 7PM Thursday, Jan 24, 2013

A few clarifications:

When Drew proposed the County Council decision mechanism where if no one objects to a sponsorship proposal, it passes, both John and Spencer objected to that.  Spencer objected generally and John objected specifically citing how the default decision  making process was already attempted for the planning of the Iran-Syria talk and failed miserably.
It was my understanding that the proposal WAS DROPPED after that discussion and is not now in force.  Drew and others were tasked with making more specific proposals regarding how to make the meetings better? I'm not sure.

Post meeting discussions with Peace and Freedom Party member Pete O'Reilly yielded the following points and suggestions re: plans to "work with" the Peace and Freedom Party: 

1) It is not good politics to raid the list of Peace and Freedom Party members and attempt to recruit them to join the Green Party.

2) Pete is well aware of opposing points of view and while he did raise his voice in a way that may only end up breeding contempt from people who don't share his point of view, he at no point sought to exclude Sharat Lin from the Iran-Syria talk.  So to say that he is disrespectful of other's points of view is accurate only from the point of having his voice raised and not from the words that came out of his mouth. You should take a step back and try to percieve the difference. Pete has heard Sharat Lin speak many times on many topics, but Sharat Lin has not heard Pete speak on anything yet.  Pete would like it better to have a debate with Sharat and Answer about Iran and Syria that is a serious debate, as was promissed awhile ago (before John and Drew's most recent attempt at organizing an event).

John Thielking

--- On Thu, 1/24/13, Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com> wrote:

From: Spencer Graves <spencer.graves at prodsyse.com>
Subject: GPSCC Meeting minutes -- 7PM Thursday, Jan 24, 2013
To: "John Thielking" <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>
Cc: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
Date: Thursday, January 24, 2013, 9:19 PM

On 1/24/2013 9:10 AM, John Thielking wrote:

This is now the final agenda.  I will print copies to bring to the meeting.

John Thielking

--- On Wed, 1/23/13, John Thielking <pagesincolor at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: John Thielking <pagesincolor at yahoo.com>
Subject: [GPSCC-chat] Draft Agenda For The GPSCC Meeting 7PM Thursday, Jan 24, 2013
To: sosfbay-discuss at cagreens.org
Date: Wednesday, January 23, 2013, 6:24 PM

Draft Agenda for Thursday, January 24, 2013 Green Party of Santa Clara County 
GA meeting to be held at San Jose Peace Center 48 S 7th St, San Jose, CA. 
Final Agenda will be published at 9AM Thursday.

7:00PM -7:30PM Arrive, socialize. Guest speaker Brian Good on: 

A. developing new technologies. 

1. Many years I have been unhappy that there has been no high-tech reinvention of a Commodore 64, Texas Instruments 99, Radio Shack TRS-80, or Atari 800 that could plug into our TVs. 

2. For many years I have wanted a belt-pack flash-drive video recorder so I can plug my flaky old mini-DV video cameras into a tapeless recorder. 

3. Smart phone tech is bringing us a computing reinvention without Windows, without Apple, without Intel or AMD. It runs Linux, it's thumb-drive or credit card sized, it's cheap, and it's here. Google A10, A31, Raspberry Pi. 

B. third-generation California Disclose Act, SB52. Democrats hold 2/3 majorities in both Assembly and Senate so this year is likely to be the year we win. So join us! 

7:30 Meeting begins. Identify facilitator:  Jim Doyle  

note taker:  Spencer 

time keeper:  John Thielking 

vibes watcher:  self monitoring 

 and agenda preparer:  Caroline

 for next meeting. 

7:35 Introductions and announcements. Changes to agenda.
Caroline, 

Drew:  Working on 

Brian Good, Jim Doyle, John Thielking, 

Spencer Graves:  

Paul Rea, Newark:  Works with Sharat on a film series:  How to contact Greens near Newark?  **** (Drew can help make contact with other Greens in Alameda County)  (tri city area:  Newark, Union City, Fremont).  

Ed Campbell.  Lives in Willow Glen, retired chiropractor, coach basketball.  

Feb. 9:  Bowling for Columbine in Newark.  

7:50 treasurer's report. 
      $1,686.38  + $55 from November minus $50 to Secretary of State  

Jim Doyle. Hat passing. 
* Propose that we invite the Jill Stein team to put on a Green Campaign School in our area.  Jim Doyle, Caroline 

        *** Caroline to contact Jill Stein's team to get info about cost, etc., and post to the discussion list.  After we get the cost, we need to make a decision on whether, when, where.  

Wellstone Foundation:  Feb. 8-9 (Friday noon to Saturday 
"Camp Wellstone" at Sequoia Retreat Center 
$30 - $100 (sliding scale) plus DeAnza tuition (2 credit units at DeAnza?)  Drew will attend.  
How to facilitate a group?  Strategy for approaching a community?  See Drew's email on this on the discussion list

7:55 Report back on events that happened since the last meeting. Anti SS cuts protest in front of Lofgren's office, etc.      

8:00 invited speakers, criteria for. Sandy Perry, Jim Doyle 

      Currently, we have no criteria.  

      Sandy:  Invite speakers related to on-going campaigns.  

Campaigns:  Single Payer (Sandy, Caroline), DeAnza (Sandy, Drew), 

How does CA Single Payer differ from "Health Care for All"?  Campaign for a Healthy California is a coalition driven by nurses.  Health Care for All is their own organization, initiated in the 1990s.  Their drawback is mostly all white, ... .  

      Caroline:  We also need "climate" and 350.org.  

      Caroline, Sandy, Brian Jim, Spencer to form a committee to select topics for major campaigns:  phone conference?  Sandy has free conference calling.  Sandy to send email with suggested times.  

8:10 organised ongoing campaigns Jim Doyle, Sandy Perry 

8:20 udel - unincorporated district elections e.g., school, water, and fire districts Jim Doyle 

      Jim will bring the list of elections to the next elections.  Unincorporated districts come up in odd years.  

8:30 web site improvements Jim Doyle 

      Drew has already studied CiviCRM by Campaign Foundations, built on Drupal:  

Also need training on CMS (Content Management System) Drupal(?) 

8:35 making meetings interesting, efficient, and enjoyable Jim Doyle, Drew Johnson 
      Starting to invite speakers.  Good.  

      We operate too much as a committee as a whole.  We would be better, Drew believes, if we came together, broke into committees, and then came back together.  

      Sponsorship of events should be delegated to the County Council.  

      We could use Google Hangout to make our meetings virtual, so people can attend without traveling.  

      The exercise should be fun, energizing and productive.  

      Drew to propose more material and send to the email list and report a summary at the next meeting.  

      For sponsorship, Drew suggests it gets posted and it passes if no one objects.  

8:50 establishing a social media committee Jim Doyle 

8:55 recruiting with emphasis on females Jim Doyle 

      Betsy Wolf-Graves is now on the County Council.  

9:00 Obtaining other people for the County Council and to represent Santa Clara County on the statewide Standing General Assembly. 

Santa Clara County is allowed 5 representatives on the statewide Standing General Assembly. We currently have only 3. John Thielking is currently not on that list; we should put him on. That 
would bring us to 4, consisting entirely of our current County Council. 

Drew noted that our County Council is currently all male. Number 7 of the 10 key values of the Green Party is "Feminism and Gender Equity" (www.gp.org/tenkey.php). We could use some females. 
John Thielking and Betsy Wolf-Graves will be added to the "sga".  

* Endorse California Disclose Act (Brian), SB52.  Approved.  Brian to provide us with the info on what we have to do to get listed as an official endorser.  

9:05 PROPOSED: The Green Party of Santa Clara County will endorse the presentation of the movie "Enemy Alien" at the Peace Center, Saturday evening, March 23. Spencer 

DISCUSSION: "Enemy Alien" is a documentary describing the persecution of a Palestinian-American, Farouk Abdel-Muhti, essentially for being Palestinian and refusing to remain silent. The film was produced by a Japanese American, Konrad Aderer, whose parents had spent World War II in a concentration camp in the US (www.lifeorliberty.org/enemy-alien). The South Bay Committee Against Political Repression is organizing a presentation of this movie to be followed by a panel discussion 
featuring a Japanese-American and an Arab-American. 

9:10 Proposal to invite Peace and Freedom people to participate in our meetings and events. Caroline 

      Add to discussion of "on-going campaigns".  

9:15 There is also a Latino activity going on on Friday that I will send you details of so it can go on the agenda as well. Caroline 

9:20 propose a doing a cost benefit analysis of how we can make use of a new voters list. 
Jim Doyle 

Endorse:  Dalit Baum presentation, Feb. 15.  

9:30 Meeting ends.
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-- 
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph:  408-655-4567
web:  www.structuremonitoring.com

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