It has been 20 years since the Green Party of California was founded in Berkeley and 25 years since Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra published "Green Politics". This coming weekend, Greens will gather again in Berkeley to celebrate the occasion.
I wish that I could be there to listen to Spretnak, or at least catch her via video. It should be interesting to hear what she thinks of the current state of affairs and what might she think of the Global Promise today.
The GPCA Plenary is being organized by the Santa Clara County Greens and will be held on March 6 and 7. There are also opportunities for other outreach at the same time. Saturday, March 6, is the chosen time for an International Women's Day March and Festival in San Jose.
This could be an great opportunity for outreach and presence. On time County Council member, Charlotte Casey, sent the following announcement to cover at our next County Meeting.
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March and Festival Title: Womyn United…: International Womyns’ Day San Jose, Ca March 2010
Logistical Details: Saturday, March 6, 2010
11am Rally Begins
Route Details
12pm START: Roosevelt
1pm END Biblioteca
Festival Details
1pm Festival Begins
4pm Festival Ends
Points of Unity
Create a network among women based organizations in San Jose.
Educate and create awareness on our projects, services and campaigns.
Use as stepping stone to support each other’s work in the future.
The march is dedicated to migrant rights and anti-war efforts
Route Narrative
We will rally at 11am at Roosevelt Park (19th Street and Santa Clara Street) and have some simple programming available and use a megaphone for creating momentum to celebrate the centennial anniversary. We will then march at 12pm with banners and signs in hand. No amplified sound will used except the megaphone.
We will have volunteers to clean up park after we leave and we will have volunteer security to make sure marchers stay on the sidewalk. Previous security for traffic and safety will be provided. We will also be working with the police to notify them of our intentions.
We will then march towards downtown along Santa Clara Street. We will make a left turn on First Street and finish our march at 1st Street and Oak Street at the Biblioteca LatinoAmericana address. We will ensure that volunteers pick up garbage along the route and do a 2nd screening of the park once the route is over.
Participating Organizations:
Cihuatl Tlatocan, FOCUS, DEBUG, San Jose Peace and Justice Center, CodePink, SJSU Wowi (Women on Women’s Issues, Santa Clara County’s Office on Women’s Policy, LGBTQ Youth Space, SOMOS Mayfair and more to confirm.re to confirm
Inglewood's Democratic 'Mayor-for-Life' Pleads Guilty to Corruption
The California Democratic Party Hack du Jour is Mayor Roosevelt Dorn of Inglewood. Inglewood is a traditionally working-class suburb of Los Angeles and the onetime home of the Los Angeles Lakers which relocated thanks to the (of course) taxpayer-subsidized Staples Center in downtown L.A.
Notice how even now the corporate MSM praises the "perp" as a "tough guy" judge who "kept juveniles on probation for longer than other judges" and for "delivering on his pledge to make the city more attractive to retailers." In fact, Mayor Dorn was a shameless flack for Wal-Mart and every other "big box" chain.
Inglewood has no term limits, and so, if this guy had just kept his hands out of the cookie jar he might have been 'Mayor-for-Life.' It's another example of my reality: In Los Angeles some of the worse political hacks look like me and why we need the Green Party as the 2nd Party in the big cities.
Roosevelt F. Dorn, who earned acclaim and criticism as a juvenile court judge and was an equally polarizing figure in more than a decade as Inglewood mayor, pleaded guilty Monday to a public corruption charge.
The plea ends a political career that saw significant drops in crime, as well as Inglewood's attempt to bounce back from the loss of the Lakers and the Kings. But while supporters hailed Dorn's leadership, critics said he ran the city as a fiefdom.
Dorn, who stepped down Sunday evening, is barred from holding public office for the rest of his life as part of his guilty plea to a misdemeanor conflict-of-interest charge. He was also placed on probation for two years and fined $1,000. Dorn entered his plea as prospective jurors were set to be called for trial in connection with his acceptance of a $500,000 loan through a city housing program.
As a judge, Dorn won praise for his tough-love approach toward young offenders. But others viewed him as imperious, accusing him of stretching the law to fit his personal mission. The 74-year-old jurist displayed the same zeal in trying to reverse the slide of a city mired in debt and shedding retail businesses. He developed a reputation for doing things his own way.
Prosecutors alleged that Dorn betrayed his constituents in a scheme that allowed him to benefit from a low-interest city loan program he helped extend to elected officials.
"He got greedy," said Deputy Dist. Atty. Max Huntsman. "He used every tool in his considerable arsenal as a lawyer and former judge to convince people that he was entitled to this public money."
There are debates which rise to the fore that have not been addressed following elections of Green campaigns and numerous campaigns throughout the country. The question asked in Wes's post: "Who killed the Progressive movement?" should be preceded with the question: "Who created the Progressive movement?" The term progressive, like the term liberal, is the latest whipping boy in the media and was no more then an effort to avoid the label of liberal by substituting words. The strongholds of progressivism are the same strongholds of liberalism. The priorities of progressives are the same as the priorities of liberals.
The self-definition of the Green Party has not recognized the real social forces behind the political priorities of a green party. It has not matured sufficiently to distinguish between Greens and progressives at the political level. This accounts for the constant fusion issue and party jumping of activists, former candidates and elected public officials. This is no small obstacle. There are many who fear openness in this discussion. Acceptance of a third party strategy has to move to the point where we develop language in our campaigns, priorities in our issues work and reconstruct our own strategic political map and vision for the future. Our independence is our ballot line, our Platform, our base of support and our distinct ties to the communities that we live in.
There is a separate discussion to be held as to strategy, vision and priorities. It involves assimilating our electoral experiences, considering the political landscape and mapping out survival tactics in heavily Democratic states. If we see family farmers as a potential base of support in a given campaign, then we need to identify what are the critical issues of concern to them that are not represented by the Republican Party and are consistent with the Green Platform and Key Values. If we are addressing an urban context, we can provide leadership only if we present a distinct agenda of policies that differentiate the Green Party from the urban Democratic Party machines.
This goes back to my post on redefining the politics of bioregionalism. Resource management and renewable energies are critical areas where the Green Party is able to address both urban and rural residents with distinct policy proposals. They are also significant issues on the current political agenda. Our presentations need to be distinct; otherwise, we will be exposed as Bill Richardson did against the Green candidate for Governor. He said: “I am greener then the Green” because of his position of stopping the project on Otero Mesa. The Green Party candidate simply stated his desire to review the issue. On the one hand, this can be dismissed as a gaff that was seized on by Richardson, but on the other hand it demonstrated that Democrats can out-green Greens if we do not distinguish our positions fundamentally.
Today Richardson has been doing things on the state level that present him as a greener then Green and the Green Party of New Mexico has fallen off the ballot. There are windows of opportunity, but the windows are not open for long and there is a need to demonstrate the relevancy of the Green Party in concrete victories. Visibility and viability are based on our real role in politics and not simply our rhetorical flourishes condemning the other parties. Being called spoilers will be neutralized only if we demonstrate our relevancy in decisions being made and show our base on Election Day. You cannot be a spoiler if you are contributing to the decisions being made in demonstrative terms.
Democrats in California are losing a significant base of support in regards to the peripheral canal and the California Delta. But, without the concepts of adaptive governance and regional water planning being incorporated in the debate the distinctions between the Green Party and the Democratic Party will not prove sufficient to engage Delta stakeholders in the local Green Party work. Likewise, failing to distinguish the concerns of farm workers and family farmers in the Central Valley from corporate agribusinesses will only push those stakeholders into the arms of the Republican Party.
All of this requires a party organization much more rooted in our communities than is currently the case. It means seeing our electoral politics as connected to our distinct vision. It means recruiting candidates that have deep roots locally and have the capacity of presenting the need for structural reforms needed to implement a Green agenda. It means being there with the people when they are expressing their anger and frustration, while presenting new options that address the underlying concerns.
We are the only game in town capable of doing this. But, it does mean deciding as an organization how we can do this. Our state Water Planning Platform plank presents the vision, http://www.cagreens.org/platform/platform_ecology.shtml#water but it does not give us a roadmap forward. The window of opportunity is closing and if we cannot act decisively now, we will not be able to do anything when the window is closed and locked.
Campaign Finance after SCOTUS Decision - Citizens United.
I have managed to insert comments in multiple blogs on the subject of yesterday's SCOTUS decision. However, you will probably learn more from this discussion between Tom Hartmann and David Cobb.
Well, I am not sure that the progressive movement is dead… or if it even really existed. But Princeton's Cornell West is trying to breath life back into it and told Obama so. West's Letter to Obama was broadcast on BBC World News America this week and asks a fundamental question about the focus of Obama's administration."How deep is your love for poor and working people?"
I think that the events of the last 12 months have shown that there is much which the President can not control, Professor. Was it Obama's fault that Max Baucus (D-MT) allowed the medical insurance companies write the health care legislation? Obama saw what happened to the Clintons when they went outside of Congress and wrote their own version of the legislation.
Determined not to make the same mistake, Obama ended up with an indigestible sausage whose making was all too transparent. We saw just how much the U.S. Senate marches to the tune of corporate protection. Offered a wide range of health care funding options from many countries with better systems than we have, they chose none of them.
Put aside the problems with health care legislation and try to imagine what will happen to climate change legislation this year. Once again, we will have legislation written by the very industries whose excess exhalations we need to control.
So, here is a list of reasons why Obama has not lived up to your hopes, Professor.
Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Harry Reid…
need I go on?
Pete Stark, CA-13; Dennis Cardoza, CA-18; Jim Costa, CA-20
Beginning to get picture?
Max Bachus, Evan Bayh, Richard Dubin, Charles Schumer.
Here is a reminder, Professor. Change from the top is always about power. The direction of change must come from the people. To the extent that we, the people, can rally around a few fundamental ideas, then we might accomplish what you desire. Place your hope in the people, not the President.
Greens have a stake in redefining our political philosophy. The existing premise of progressivism is simply not sufficient to establish a stable and broad-based ecological party. The political climate of the American people needs to be addressed as much as the global climate does. Working for grassroots democracy is not the same as upping the ante on the Democratic Left. Working for ecological wisdom is not the same as increasing a Federal role in environmental protection. Blending grassroots democracy with ecological wisdom means establishing new political entities, new sources for revenues, new local initiatives and new constituencies.
If we dare to take California as a model for the existing political paradigm of green politics, we see it fails the tests for viability, sustainability and financial responsibility. The problems that confront the state of California are the products of unsustainable growth, political structures that are dysfunctional and a lack of prioritization of goals at the state and local levels. It is worth saying that mismanagement, political nepotism and corruption are in there as well. We should recognize that structural reform is absolutely necessary to rebuild the system of governing and the mechanisms for administration in this state. The recent upsurge of popular opposition in the Tea Party and the message of the Republican victory in Massachusetts are not simply demonstrations of a resurgent right wing. In fact, they are a demonstration of the failure of progressivism to have a link with the real needs, concerns and aspirations of the American people.
I have explained on prior posts my experiences in regional water planning in the Middle Rio Grande region of New Mexico. The depth of that experience flowed from the demonstration that its process established a working model that was able to integrate open input and transparency with a broad range of local stakeholders united around a common Mission and Goals. Its weaknesses illustrated the flaw in removing this process from political entities capable of implementing its wide range of recommendations. http://www.waterassembly.org Its strengths united community people, public officials, water users and advocates, specialists and managers towards a dynamic review of the water resource in the region. Its weakness led to the failure to get the blueprint off the drawing board.
There is a wide range of political discussion in regards to strategy, tactics and vision that Greens have not been able to grasp the significance of. Urban Greens would do well to recognize that the appeals by candidates might be better off in addressing constituencies who: 1) Promote brownfield restoration and public infrastructure maintenance and development; 2) Establish local sustainability, as distinct from Federal policies or huge state spending efforts through diversions; 3) Redefine growth in the context of renewable resources; 4) Establish local political entities that define stakeholder engagement and input.
Rural Greens need to be more cognizant of: 1) The positive role of family farms; 2) The diverse character of rural resource issues; 3) The integration of ecological awareness at the local levels that are often reflected by rural Republican representatives; and 4) The conflicts that exist between regions when water is diverted from one rural region to an urban or farming region.
It is not our goal to change people. We should focus more on taking people where they are and analyzing what are the fundamental issues that underlie their current outlook. Urban residents are Democratic simply because they promote the interests of the cities, and not because the diverse ethnic groups are inherently providing real input. People are not simply members of a given ethnic group. The problems they confront are not simply the inevitable product of the lack of economic or environmental justice. We do not live in such a one-dimensional world. Hispanic farmers and farm workers do not have the same needs and concerns as Hispanic urban dwellers simply because they are all Hispanic. The political bases of the existing two parties have carved up the pie of constituencies based on the political fait accompli that exists.
To address this is to redefine constituencies as a Green Party can do. As a political party it is up to us not to preach to people that they have to give up everything in order to live. It is up to us to re-carve the pie of political constituencies in a way that can bring together urban and rural dwellers by establishing a common framework for decision-making and a common set of principles where it is no longer a matter of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The discussions include: how can urban areas be restored to reduce sprawl, how can resource issues be effectively administered, managed and structured locally, how can rural needs be addressed absent a traditional urban-rural water war, how can Greens provide leadership in the development expanding the political base of the Green Party and how can we politically define and organizationally represent new constituencies.
We have to get out of the mindset of advocacy groups. This means not simply setting one group of stakeholders against the other. This means looking to regional planning for the value that it has in being able to present distinct differences in the context of community people working together. Structural reforms means being willing to give the people the benefit of the doubt in regards to the decisions that impact on their future. This means not having things fall out as WE would have done it. This means defusing debates while recognizing the substance of the concerns of all.
It should come as not surprise to anyone that there are major lobbying efforts going on all the time, that these lobbying efforts are well funded, that very large public relations firms make fortunes in running campaigns against the future. What should wake people up is the ease with which these organized attacks can insinuate themselves into public discourse, easily gaining media coverage while the rest of us struggle to be heard. I provide a good example.
Take a look at the web site for the AB 32 Implementation Group. The banner on their home page says that they are "Working Towards Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions and Enhancing California's Competitiveness." The site lists all of the group's members, starting with the always retrograde California Chamber of Commerce. However, journalists at California Watch have found that even this list is very suspect, some of them being no longer in existence and others surprised that their names were even mentioned.
It should also be no surprise that the list contains 22 of California's largest carbon polluters, as ranked by California's Air Resources Board, the organization responsible for the implementation of AB 32. So, the "implementation group" is, in reality, an effort to slow down, minimize or even prevent the implementation of CA state law, all in the name of economic effectiveness.
This issue is going to loom large in the upcoming gubernatorial election. California has an economic crisis, there is not enough revenue for state government to provision all of the programs currently in place. Republican candidate Steve Poizner has endorsed an initiative measure called the California Jobs Initiative that would set aside implementation of AB 32 until California's economy recovers.
Meg Whitman is only a little less strident in her opposition, limiting the suspension to a 1 year moratorium on "most" of AB 32's rules. That is a position that has gotten her in trouble with some Republicans for not being aggressive enough.
Now, let me come back to the AB 32 Implementation Group and ask why it took an independent investigative reporting effort to publish this story. All of the state's major papers have written something about the politics of the governor's race but none of them have taken the effort to go beyond reporting what candidates said and giving us some hint as to what facts were being ignored.
Let me conclude by giving everyone a fact. AB 32 was designed to reduce carbon emissions and help forestall the type of future you can see on the big screen in The Road. But that is a long way off in most people's minds. AB 32 will also help clean up the air pollution that makes the San Joaquin Valley one of the more medically challenging places to live in the country. Add in the South Coast and the cost to the CA Economy is $28 Billion per year.
This is what Whitman and Poizner want for CA. Just keep on letting all businesses do what bad business do, continue to pollute because clean up is too costly. Well, the health effects are too costly as well. They cost every one of us, every time we have to visit a doctor or a clinic. They cost every business that provides medical coverage for their employees. But then Whitman and Poizner don't really care about the public.
In contrast, Green candidate Laura Wells puts forward a platform with a range of actions on climate, energy and clean air. AB 32 is just a good first step towards getting what California needs. The Cap-and-Trade system that is at the heart of AB 32 must not be allowed to become an excuse for continuing to pollute and raising consumer costs to pay for it. Wells says that …
A community already burdened by these emissions should not be harmed further as the result of a dubious industry-concocted market-based cap & trade plan.
Statistic: According to the CSU-Fullerton study linked above. CA's dirty air causes 3,812premature deathes of adults over 30 every year. That compares to the 2,976 lost in the 9/11 attacks. Yet, we would do nothing because it costs too much?
It should also come as no surprise that demagogue millionaire politicians will twist every event to their partisan advantage, playing off the emotions of a public that wonders if their job is secure or that they will be able to stay in their homes.
For far too long, I have heard Greens talk about being given short shrift by main stream media. It has become such a truism that most Greens don't even try.
Let me show you something what can be done if you try. Laura Wells in the Sacramento Bee. It can be done. All you have to do is become the story. In Laura's case, part of that story is having been the top vote getter for any Green in a CA partisan race. That was as a candidate for Controller in 2002 when she out polled the top of the Green ticket, Peter Camejo.
There is no secret to this. Mainstream Media is always looking for a story. So, give them one. If you like this about Laura, then go visit her web site, become a fan of Laura on facebook, follow her on twitter.
More importantly, take some time to Feel the spirit. Bill Moyers had it right. We don't have the money to compete with a Meg Whitman or a Steve Poizner or a Jerry Brown with maybe $7 Mil in the bank. But now one works their ass off like a Green. We have to, but that is what is going to win elections and, who know, maybe make a heroine out of Laura.
Special Session 7 of the State Legislature was supposed to deal with California's Water problems. All during the session, the media, both print and TV, kept telling us what the politicians were saying or they were showing us farms that were drying up... but not showing us the farms in the East side of the San Joaquin Valley that got 100% of their water allocation. The media coverage on this issue would not win even a Columbia Scholastic Press Association award... normally given to High School newspapers.
As we learn more and more, it is not from the media. Rather, we have to build up our own network of trusted sources who just might get it right. This is what an inquisitive citizen found.
We know that the water legislation was basically written by large water users... Metropolitan Water District and Westlands Irrigation District. Knowing that, it is easy to see why they did not allow any input from those who live and work in the Delta nor from the legislators that represent them. All of this was kind of covered by some of the media. There are even follow up stories on the political ramifications for State Sen. Lois Wolk or the next actions by Assembly member Alyson Huber (though she had to write it herself.)
But, this highly touted legislation is really not worth much. Consider the requirement to determine the "flow criteria" for maintenance of the Delta. The initial hearings on this have begun, but it is only a show for the public. Brian Poulsen of the law firm Somach, Simmons & Dunn provides more news than the media.
In late 2009, the California Legislature passed legislation requiring the State Water Resources Control Board (State Water Board) to develop new flow criteria for the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta (Delta) ecosystem to protect public trust resources. As an initial step towards complying with this mandate, on January 7, 2010, the State Water Board held a pre-proceeding conference to prepare for and discuss procedural aspects of its upcoming informational proceeding to develop flow criteria for the Delta ecosystem.
OK, so they met on this big project and what did it mean? Not much. Poulsen (but not the media) reports what happened.
It is unclear at this time what impact the Proceeding will have on water users since the Proceeding may not ultimately result in numeric flow criteria for the Delta. Further, and as explained by several Board members, whatever criteria are developed will not be binding in future proceedings.
I don't care how much Assemblyman Jared Huffman puffs about this bill, in the long run, it is a waste of taxpayer money holding hearings on something that is not binding, may or may not be used but boy did we every have a great show. Too bad that Huffman is seen as the progressive leader of the 6tj District. With Progressives like Huffman, we will soon be back in the 20th Century. It is too bad that none of the Green office holders in the 6th AD chose to run against him.
State Senator Lois Wolk gave her 5th Senate District constituents a sobering assessment of the 2009 special session water legislation.
Now we are left with a new water policy full of loopholes, irresponsibly financed, and replete with vague promises unlikely to produce a positive outcome.
California Greening authors would agree with that as well as her call for a complete re-structuring of the process.
The problems with the recent legislation are easy to document.
The 5 delta counties were not part of the negotiations that led to Steinberg's grand compromise sell out.
There is no enforceable definition of the flow of fresh water required to keep the Delta from becoming a salt water marsh. That has major consequences for all CA agriculture and even SoCal urban water sourcing.
This significant increase in bonded indebtedness is irresponsible when the state is blocked by Grover Norquist aides in the Republican Party from balancing that with tax increases. You can not continue to add to the indebtedness without providing a method of paying it back.
The only way that the Safe, Clean, and Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2010 made it through the state legislature was to load it up with more pork than an Iowa hog farm special projects so that each member could go back home and say "see what I got for you."
We can not agree with Wolk when she addresses the highly politically charged system of priority water rights that is currently the law in California. Wolk mentioned water rights first in her list of problems.
Respected legal experts representing Northern California water agencies warned that the package lacked water rights protections and would uproot the decades old priority system of water rights, risking the municipal and agricultural water supplies of Northern California for the benefit of water exporters to the South. These legal experts were discounted and the protections were omitted.
She also made the continuation of the status quo as the key item in her list of actions required to set things right, combining it with the ecological protection requirement.
Water flows necessary to sustain the Delta's ecosystem and communities must be protected. Historic safeguards, including the priority water rights system, must be upheld to protect Northern California communities, save California's largest salmon runs, and restore the health of the fragile Delta estuary.
That only confuses the issue. We agree that we need to manage the flow of fresh water through the delta with an eye toward preventing the entire estuary from becoming too salty for use. But, the question of preserving historical water rights is quite separate and needs to be addressed separately. I suggest starting to read the comments on this from co-blogger Martin Zehr here.
Green Party positions on water planning are based on regional water plans that consider all of the uses and potential uses within a water shed. That will surely challenge the water rights of some. But anything less than that only puts off the water wars for the next decade and we show no signs of becoming magically smarter.
