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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><FONT face=Arial size=2>My own predisposition is to
avoid building another tiny inward-looking clubhouse in a movement that already
has dozens of them. </FONT>
<DIV>I don't understand what the PFP sees as so special about itself. We
should suspect top-down announcement that a new group is starting with the right
approach. After all, it had the right approach, people not involved with
them would naturally have replicated that approach at some point in the 40-year
history of the PFP. Nor do I understand Cynthia McKinney's launching of
Dignity (a subject one would think would stir more discussion among
Greens). Members of existing or aspiring groups justify their own
separate existence with a kind of specialized language to distinguish
their own understanding from those not in the group. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What is needed is a current defined by
activity rather than dogmatic talk...one that doesn't have to remind
themselves continually about their values because they
are evident in how they functions. </FONT>The best thing
about the Green Party was that it did not pretend to have a full-blown dogma
that made it regard the rest of the movement as something like business rivals
and competitors. What we did most distinctively and well was to point
towards the ballot box as a means for getting the change we all wanted.
</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What I'm reading here doesn't reflect that older sensibility.
</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>People might have a clear idea in their
own heads about what they mean when they use terms like "New
Left," "socialism," "radical," "working within the democratic process," or "the
Millennials," but it usually isn't at all the same thing that others have.
The implicit understanding smacks of that same kind of specialized language that
reassures ourselves rather than communicate clearly to others.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Nobody has any exclusive monopoly over good
intentions, positive ideas, and sound political instincts.
</FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>None are keepers
of the True Flame...as opposed to the deluded Others shivering in the darkness
around us. Giving in to this tendency to build our own little treehouses
keeps the Cheneys and their ilk sleeping easily at
night.</FONT></DIV></DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>ML<BR></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>