When the Levee Breaks Again.

Yesterday, I published my opinion on the need for more a great focus on the problems of the Delta. It is in almost every regional paper to the point that you begin to wonder why it does not resonate with readers more than it does. I will give you a list of stories and editorials since last Friday (Jan 27th) at the bottom of the page.

A portion of the problem lies with the media themselves. Too often, as did the Sacrament Bee, they buy in to a prevailing meme that something must be true if enough people keep on saying that it is. This is sort of like believing Rush Limbaugh when he talks bout Democrats not having any ideas. In fact, it is exactly like believing Rush Limbaugh.

The Sacrament Bee repeated this idea in the editorial liked below.

The environmentalists, who oppose just about everything the Bush and Schwarzenegger administrations do when it comes to water policy, have yet to offer a specific, coherent plan on how they would run things if they were in charge.

They generalize about a nebulous group of environmentalists instead of getting specific. If they had mentioned the Sierra Club, that organization could have pointed to their organized efforts to put delta land into conservation trusts. It just isn't so. I have watched enough of the editorial comment that comes out of the Sacrament Bee to know that this is just sloppy work and deserves to be challenged.

I can think of no single set of issues where Green Values can be of more use than here. It touches everything, from Social justice for indigenous nations to sustainable Economic Development, from Environmental Wisdom to Personal and Global Responsibility. If the Republican won't and the Democrats can't then maybe the Greens should.

• 01/30/2006 - San Francisco Chronicle: FLOODPLAIN DEVELOPMENT QUESTIONED
  
• 01/30/2006 - Sacramento Bee: As the Delta Turns
  
• 01/27/2006 - Levee work awaits disaster funding.
  
  

When the Levee Breaks

Californians should not have needed the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans to force us to pay attention to things in our own state. We had the flooding of the Jones Tract in 2004 that cost California nearly $100 Million in property damage, repair costs and lost income. In 1997, we had flooding in the San Joaquin Valley that damaged or destroyed 30,000 homes and 2,000 businesses.

Why, then do I still read, as I did in a Visalia Times-Delta editorial this week, that “Tulare County's levee system is a disaster waiting to happen, and no one is taking the lead in addressing it.” The facts that the Times-Delta brings to light would be frightening at any time, but given the examples that we have, border on the criminally irresponsible.

Most of California's vast levee systems are maintained by local, underfunded Levee Protections Districts. As the Times-Delta noted, the last steward of one district retired this month at the age of 80 and there is no one taking his place.

Do not think that these are minor issues confronting a small city in a rural county. The health of the water in the Sacrament – San Joaquin River system is arguably the single most important issue that we have. This water supply supports not only the largest food growing region in the United States, it supplies the drinking water for 20 million people. The loss of reliable, drinkable water from the Delta would have a devastating effect on California's economy and the quality of life of its citizens. In testimony before the House Committee on Resources, California Secretary for Resources, Mike Chrisman referred to a “ticking time bomb for flood management in California”

The response of our governments, Federal, State and local have been predictable. No politician ever found a reason to do sound planning when you have the opportunity to demonstrate that you are doing something about the problem by calling for a major project. That is exactly what Governor Schwarzenegger is doing with his planned infrastructure bond issue. This calls for $68 Billion to be spent on roads, new school construction, water development and levee repair.

There are other solutions to the Delta's problems that do not require big projects. It does not make sense to put new housing in flood plains, yet that is exactly what is happening in the Central Valley. Since the floods on 1997, 30,800 new homes have been built in flood prone areas of San Joaquin County. When the State Reclamation Board decided that they would examine all new proposals for building in the flood plain, Schwarzenegger fired the entire board and replaced it with political appointees. It seems better to spend a lot of money on levees than to refrain from building in a flood plain.

You can not expect much from the Democrats. The current favorite to face Schwarzenegger in the general election this year, Phil Angelides is a developer himself whose company participated in the development of suburbs along Laguna Creek in Sacramento County flood plain areas. This from a company that some have the audacity to call environmentally responsible.

Responses from the Federal Government have also been lacking. In September, 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger sent a letter to Senator Feinstein and Representative Pombo that identifies 12 priority projects where federal funding was required to avoid a New Orleans style disaster. Feinstein and Pombo took a lot of credit for doing very little. When this year's Energy and Water bills passed through Congress and were signed into law, the Delta agencies, especially Feinstein's favorite CalFed Project received $750,000 to study the problem.

The land is the delta is sinking. Increased development and over pumping of underground water increases the rate of subsidence. The rate of subsidence on some Delta tracts is as high as 18 inches in ten years. We also know that the ocean level is rising, slightly, due to the melting of the polar ice caps, but still it is enough to increase the erosion effects of waves on the levees.

The are solutions available that do not required building Netherlands style dikes around then entire area. It does not take a genius to understand that it is not a good idea to build more housing on flood prone land. It does take political will to go against the rich developers who contribute so much to our politicians: Angelo Tsakopoulos made Phil Angelides. Tsakopoulos and Angelides are major contributors to Democratic officials, including Feinstein. Alexander Spanos and Fritz Grupe, both major Stockton area developers with plans for delta tracts, are major supporters of Pombo.

As long as our politicians are funded by developers with a vested interest in developing the cheapest flood prone lands and then having the tax payers pick up the tab to protect them, we are not going to have sensible solutions to the problems of safe and sustainable water supplies. As long as we are willing to settle for studies when low cost planning solutions are easily implemented, we will end up paying, again and again.

The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is under attack by a group of extreme Republicans, led by CA Rep. Richard Pombo and AK Rep. Don "Open ANWR" Stevens. The one local action that I have seen in California is happening right now in San Mateo Country. There, Supervisor Jerry Hill has introduced a resolution "continuing support of the act and pressing the necessity to keep it intact."

This ia a great idea. It is one that Greens all over the state should be trying with their own County Board of Supervisors or City Councils. It is time that Greens once again stood up for something that makes environmental sense. This is a chance to do just that.

The San Mateo Daily Journal carried the story today. This is just one of a number of areas that cry out for Green leadership...if only we had enough people to do justice to them all.

Candidates and Commissions

The most up to date listing that I know of Green Candidates in California has 34 entries. Of these, 5 are for City Countil and 4 are for various other boards (School, Supervisors, Equalization). That means most are running for major offices.

The one place where it is possilbe to inject uniquely Green Values into the local political process is in the decisions that are made concerning growth, development amd enviornmental regulation. The contol point for that is generally the City Planning Commission, and this is most often an appointed office. Many have argues that Greens can be more effective and gain more experience in governance by participaing at the local level than by running for higher offices where we fail, time and again. Maybe the best place to be is on the Planning Commission.

To be effective on a planning Commission is a lot of work. It goes far beyond reading the staff reports and going to meetings. It means educating yourself on a number of issues. You have to be dedicated. I know this from experience on the Parks & Recreations Commission in Morgan Hill. It means getting really involved in the community and understanding what gives your community its unique character. The problem with most Greens is that they are much more interested in dealing with things that they can do little about (the War in Iraq, whether Judge Ailoto is confirmened as a Supreme Court Justice) and not so interested in whether the next new building in town is a Safeway or a Trader Joe's, whether the town should have an urban growth boundary or not and how property owners outside that boundary might be compensated for the fact that the value of their property is diminished by such actions.

All of this means that Greens have to be providing solutions to every day problems and not just voicing opposition. Proposing Soultions: what a concept. Just right for Greens.

States States States

With all of the talk of Red States and Blue States we should note that the other primay color is Green. One question we have is that of turning California into a Green State. After a short time in the middle of some discussions on this subject, I have come to conclude that we don't yet have it right.

Part of the problem may be the way that the concept of grasroots organizing is implemented. There seems to be a notion that the party should be reacting to aspects of organization that currently exist. This often means waiting until activists in some area organize themselves and then decide to associate with the Green Party. Often, we don't even give any signal that we are interested in having them organize as Greens.

The core of existing Greens is in the urban areas: LA County, San Francisco Bay Area. Still the success that we have had are also in smaller communties: Moro Bay, Sebastopol, Arcata, each of which has Greens on the City Council.

At the same time, the fastest growing areas in this state have relatively weak Green Party organizations. That growth also means that all political organizations are rapidly changing due to the assimilation of the growing population. The issues of rapid growth, especially where the land has ecological importance or is currently agricultural use are important issues for Greens and we should be focusing attention on these areas. I am specifically talking about Riverside / San Bernardino, Stockton / Lodi, Fresno and Bakersfield.

A Spinal Transplant

I watched Meet the Press on NBC this morning. Two of Time Russert's, James Carville and Paul Begala, have written a new book about the Democratic Party and what it needs to be doing. Take it Back: Our Party, Out Country, Our Future dissects the real reasons that Bush beat Kerry in 2004 ( and it was not cheating in Ohio, not matter how much you want that to be true.) It also lays out a perscription for what is needed for the Democrats to win in 2008. Their analysis: the problems is not ideological but rather anatomical. The Democratic Party needs to get a Backbone. Let the public know, in clear uncertain terms what you are about.

One of my ongoing criticisms of the progressive movement in general is that it seems always to be against everything and not for anything.

This is a crucial year for the Green Party in California. The party as a whole is facing declining registration numbers. The surges is registration that accompanied strong populist campaigns by Nader for President in 2000 and Camejo for Governor since then have not translated into gains for the party as a whole. It is clearly time to rethink what we need to do to build a stronger party.

I suggest that Carvill and Begala's perscription for the Democratic Party applies equally to the Green Party. We need to have a clear message of what we are about and articulate that message throughout all of our campaigns. Each candidate will have their own particular emphasis and specific issues. Two things must be clear:

• the differences between our Green candidates and all the others is that we are working directly from the ten key values that define what it means to be a Green.
  
• Greens are not just negative whiners, angry over what the bad guys are doing, but are offering a new way for our country with well defined goals.
  

The history of the progressive movement is one of protest. You do not build political parties on protest. The strength of Camejo's appearances in the gubernatorial debates was the fact that he had a graps of the problems and told the public audience directly what he was going to do about it. This was a characteristic that he shares with Tom McClintock, even though their perscriptions could not have been more different.

I firmly believe that the average voter is tired of big money, pay to play politics and that a hard fought Green campaign for responsible political process will resonate far more than most believe. The Stockton Record has a very conservative editorial policy. They have consistently backed Republican Richard Pombo since his election in 1992. Pombo's district is solidly Republican in registration. With Pombo involved in the Abramoff investigation, the Record published a series of Letters to the Editor about Pombo in Saturdays paper. They were 100% negative, not just against Pombo but against the entire corrupt practices of lobbyist driven Washington.

In contrast to the Democratic Leadership's tweaking of the rules and not really changing anything, Green Candidates up and down the slate need to call for fundamental reform, inclding public financing of elections, that puts control back in the hands of the people rather than lobbyists.

Pete McCloskey

Pete McCloskey, one time Republican Congressman from California, will officially announce his candidacy for the 11th CD seat now held by Richard Pombo. McCloskey, sometimes a speaker at Green Party associated events, is, at the age of 78, returning to the political fray to engage in "a fight for the heart and soul of the Republican Party." McCloskey is well known as one of the authors of the original Endangered Species Act and is a strong proponent of decentralizing government and environmental stewardship, two very Green values.

I know that it will upset some of my Green friends, but I believe that supporting McCloskey is the right thing to do. He represents the best alternative in a district where the Green Party is nearly non-existent and the Republicans hold a >5% registration edge over Democrats. While there are strongly functioning Green Party organizations in Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties, the portion of the 11th CD that is in these counties is so small as to make this election a minor issue. The majority of the voters in the district reside in San Joaquin County which has at best a very weak, nominal local Committee.

The prospect of a Pete McCloskey (R) vs. Jerry McNerney (D) campaign would be a win-win for the voters in this district. However, at this juncture, I think that supporting McCloskey is what a Green should do.

A Web of Values

That heading is a play off of the title of Fritjof Capra's book, The Web of Life which has greatly influenced my thinking about the reasons things are the way that they are. The rest of this is to point out the interconnections that have far reaching effects about which we know little.

I was introduced to the question of water availability on the Hopi Indian Reservation in Arizona because I was tracking what the Resources Committee of the House of Representatives was doing about water. Most of the story and it's political connections is posted at PomboWatch. It is enough to say that the Peabody Coal operations at Black Mesa were draining the aquifer under the Hopi Reservation in Arizona. It had gotten to the point that the Hopi were having to truck in drinking water. Having been to the Hopi Reservation, I know how much that must cost just for transportation.

The Peabody Coal operations have been shut down. The reason? They lost their major customer, Southern California Edison's Mojave Power Plant, Laughlin, NV. At the end of 2005, SC Edison followed a court order to shut down the plant, a major source of air pollution. This plant had produced 7% of the electricity used by the utility, much of that used to pump water into the Los Angeles area.

You might think that everyone would be happy. The fact is, they were not. There are many problems left behind as SC Edison and Peabody walk away from the situation. While using up the aquifer, the Black Mesa mine was a source of reservation jobs and of royalty income for the tribes. The Navajo and Hopi are two tribes that have not deemed it necessary to go into gaming to resolve their economic difficulties.

One of the players in this has been the Sierra Club. They were a party to the law suit that was intended to stop the air pollution problems from the Mojave Plant. I have been critical of the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations for taking such action and then walking away themselves. In this case, the Sierra Club has gone further. I quote from Carl Pope's blog of Jan. 13, 2006.

And state leadership and initiative do not necessarily have to stay within state boundaries. Earlier this month, Southern California Edison shut down its Mojave Power plant, rather than clean it up as it had been mandated to do in a lawsuit brought by the Sierra Club and other environmental groups. By shutting down, Edison got the right to sell its "pollution credits" for the air pollution it will no longer be emitting. But the company is also eliminating a large number of jobs on the Navajo and Hopi reservations in Arizona where the coal for the plant was being mined. The Sierra Club and other environmental groups, working with leaders of the Navajo and Hopi, have advocated a creative funding mechanism for ensuring a "Just Transition" that would help create new, clean energy jobs on the reservations to replace the jobs lost when Mojave shut down. In this proposal, $40 million a year would flow from Edison to the tribes.

"It's wrong to allow [Edison] to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in new, unearned revenues from the sale of sulfur allowances," said Leonard Selestewa, a Hopi with a group called the Black Mesa Trust. "Millions of people have benefited from Mojave; now it's our turn."

PUC President Michael Peevey, who met with Selestewa and other coalition members, said he was sympathetic with the tribes' grievances.

"We've never been confronted with anything like this," he said.

See what's happening here? California is seriously considering helping to remedy injustices done years ago under federal license in another state to Indian tribes in a way that would help accelerate the transition to new energy solutions. And yet the federal government is utterly unwilling to embrace any of these goals.

The Green Party and it's candidates traditionally advocate for Green energy solutions. But, it has to be done in a way that makes things work for all. I was please to see that Kent Mesplay's opening comments about his campaign includes statements on both the need for renewable energy solutions and to "Stand up for Native American rights and sovereignty issues." They are connected.

It is all connected in one big web of life and we need to have answers from a connected web of values. Sometimes, in pushing only for incomplete solutions we become part of the bigger problem.

Green Cleaner for Washington

I have followed the Abramoff scandal with a lot of interest and more than a little digging on my own. My interest arises out of the connetion between Abramoff, Indian Gaming, and Congressman Richard Pombo about whom I have written a lot.

My point here is that, while both major parties are getting a lot of press over making cosmetic changes in ethics rules, neither is in the position of the Green Party with a well known aversion to corporate money. David Baldwin (NY GP) thinks that this may be the Green Moment.

I am not sure that I totaly agree with him. I am not sure that Green Candidates are in a position to take this on, focused on their particular grand stand issues. It is clear that even Pelosi is as much a part of the problem as she is a mouthpiece for partisan advantage. Yes, it is time for a Green Moment. I hope that we have the will to make it happen rather through concerted action, through vocal opposition to all of this obscene largesse.

If there is a single word of advice that I would have for our Green Party candidates, it is to concentrate on what the Green Party will do. Baldwin criticizes Washington for "A near-total vacuum of ideas, of will, of basic integrity has thus enveloped Washington, and politics loves a vacuum no more than Nature does." That is a thread that I have seen many time recently. Just go to any of the Red State type blogs and you will see that the major criticism leveled against the Democrats is that the "have no ideas" and can only lash out at others. These bloggers are right (both meanings). If Greens are to grow, it is by blowing the fresh wind of our ideas into that vacuum.

Traffic Court

I had to go to traffic court yesterday. It was a trivial matter. I had sent my money to the DMV and did not receive any stickers to put on the license. Then, I forgot about it.

The interesting thing for me was to observe the action of the judge and the way that the effect played out on different people. In general, the judge was administering the court in such a manner as to encourage an immediate settlement: minimum fines, easy arrangements, for those who plead guilty or "no contest." This was especially the case when there was a problem that had been rectified: a repair order, driving without proof of insurance, etc. In these cases, all fines were suspended as long as there was some proof that it had been fixed.

This was a similar case for those who had a moving violation. They were encouraged to say "I want school". The judge gave extra time to pay the school fees and allowed a lot of flexibility as to where they could go to driving school, even out of state for the one speeder who was in the military.

However, for those who were charged with an offense and did not have the proof that it was taken care of, the fines escalated rapidly. The one group of people most affected were Mexican citizens, often needing the help of the court tranlsator, who were caught driving without a license and then had to face the stiffest penalties.

So, did this have a racists, anti-immigrant motivation? I don't think so. The motivation and the talk that the judge gave seemed to be driven more by the effecient operation of the court. But the outcome was definitely punative against illeagal workers from Latin American.

This is a reminder of the problem with driver's licenses for guest workers that needs to be fixed, has been fixed and then messed up again. Camejo made it part of his campaign before. It is an area where we have common interests with organizations like the UFW. Fixing the licensing process is the real way to cut down on court costs.

BTW: I walked out with no fine what so ever and did not even have to show the cancelled check proving the date on which I had originally paid the registration fee.

The following post was denied at Cal Forum with no reason given. It was copied to the two CoCoordinators for the Green Issues Work Group, as this also involved Green Issues Business. If having a CC was the reason, OK, just tell me.

Most of the discussion on this list involves either internal party politics or BIG issues like the Iraq War.

I have accepted a responsiibility within the Green Issues Working Group to define and articulate withitn the party (and to the public) those issues which are exclusively rural, or at least those which have a direct effect on rural residernts. The latter includes such questions as water resource protection (especially in San Joaquin / Sacramento River Delta) and the effects of growth and increasing sprawl on rapidly growing rural areas, such as San Joaquin or Riverside Counties.

I am not sure how a group might work on these problems. However, if we are going to build the Green Party in the more rapidly growing MSA's we need to understand how to articulate our goals and values in terms that resonate with those users. I am watching one Congressional Race with interest, and it an eye opener to see just how high a divide the Altamont Pass is between the way people see themselves and others. We need to learn to talk to both sides of the divide.

I am asking anyone on this list who lives in a rural area, or has lived there long enough to understand these issues, to contact me by email outside this forum We may need to set up a sepaarate email group as a working sub-committee.

So, let me repeat this in a wider forum. The Green Issues Working Group in California has agreed to establish a sub-group on Rural Issues and I volunteered to head that group. If you want to help out, email me or leave a comment here.

Medea in the Spotlight Again

Medea Benjamin is always had the knack of finding the spotlight. She seems a genius at creating incidents that ensure the cameras will swing her way and, once they do, she is never at a loss for words. At one time, she would have been identified to the public as a member of the Green Party. This was at a height during her Senate Campaign. That seems no longer the case.

Yesterday, Nancy Pelosi's Town Hall style meeting in San Francisco was disrupted by anti-war protests and again Medea was the one getting interviewed, but the identification on CBS affiliate KPIX was strictly as an anti-war activist and a member of Code Pink.

I am not critical of Medea on this. I just comment as it offers one possible contributing factor in the decline of Green Party registration in California. Even when Greens are in the media spotlight, which is hard enough to accomplish, they are not identified as Greens. Without that, the part fades from the public view. There is an oft repeated comment that, "If you don't like the news, go make some." Perhaps that is what our party leadership and leading candidates need to be doing more of.

GPCA Coordinating Committee Dysfunctional???

The Cal-Forum is now featuring the discussion of another sign of the fissures in the Green Party of California that I have talked about. There has long been a thread of dissent that found the Coordinating Committee (CC) to be "dysfunctional." At times, it appears that there is a disconnect between what is really happening and what the CC is doing. Nowhere is this disconnect more visible to the public than in the fact that it is almost NEVER the public face of the party.

To make a comparison with other political parties, when the press wants to get an official party position on a given situation or issue, they either go to an elected official of that party, or to someone from the official party organization. For Republicans, this means the Governor, possibly a leader in the state legislature like Tom McClintock or Duf Sundheim, the party chairman. Sundheim gets a lot of TV time. For Greens, we almost never use the official party structure as the source for even our own internal communications: Green Focus or the press releases. That gives the CC a cloak of invisibility behind which they can do whatever they want. I would be that most Greens do not even know who the Co-Coordinators of the CC are (Susan Peterson and Jared Lahti).

I know that volunteers can not afford either the time off from jobs or the travel expense to always be everywhere at every meeting. But, I was surprised this year at how disconnected some CC members are from real events. In late July, I asked a CC member about what had happened in Tulsa at the National Meeting. We all now know how rancorous that meeting had been. This member admitted that they did not know and would have to ask somone who had been there. I know that had I been a CC member, I would have wanted, no required, immediate feedback had I not been able to attend.

I want to give some transparency to the internal operations of the party. Some things should take place behind closed doors, but, for the most part, decisions as to whether a given committee should be established and the solicitation of volunteers to that committee should be public. I know that when I was appointed to the Parks and Recreation Commission in my town, the entire interview process was public and my application statement was a matter of public record. In the Green Party, with our focus on concensus decision making and open governance, I would expect no less.

In the interest of gaining some increased transparency as to what is going on in the CC and why it is happening, I am offering Susan and Jared the opportunity to be additional authors on this blog so that they can speak for themselves.The Cal-Forum is now featuring the discussion of another sign of the fissures in the Green Party of California that I have talked about. There has long been a thread of dissent that found the Coordinating Committee (CC) to be "dysfunctional." At times, it appears that there is a disconnect between what is really happening and what the CC is doing. Nowhere is this disconnect more visible to the public than in the fact that it is almost NEVER the public face of the party.

To make a comparison with other political parties, when the press wants to get an official party position on a given situation or issue, they either go to an elected official of that party, or to someone from the official party organization. For Republicans, this means the Governor, possibly a leader in the state legislature like Tom McClintock or Duf Sundheim, the party chairman. Sundheim gets a lot of TV time. For Greens, we almost never use the official party structure as the source for even our own internal communications: Green Focus or the press releases. That gives the CC a cloak of invisibility behind which they can do whatever they want. I would be that most Greens do not even know who the Co-Coordinators of the CC are (Susan Peterson and Jared Lahti).

I know that volunteers can not afford either the time off from jobs or the travel expense to always be everywhere at every meeting. But, I was surprised this year at how disconnected some CC members are from real events. In late July, I asked a CC member about what had happened in Tulsa at the National Meeting. We all now know how rancorous that meeting had been. This member admitted that they did not know and would have to ask someone who had been there. I know that had I been a CC member, I would have wanted, no required, immediate feedback had I not been able to attend.

I want to give some transparency to the internal operations of the party. Some things should take place behind closed doors, but, for the most part, decisions as to whether a given committee should be established and the solicitation of volunteers to that committee should be public. I know that when I was appointed to the Parks and Recreation Commission in my town, the entire interview process was public and my application statement was a matter of public record. In the Green Party, with our focus on consensus decision making and open governance, I would expect no less.

In the interest of gaining some increased transparency as to what is going on in the CC and why it is happening, I am offering Susan and Jared the opportunity to be additional authors on this blog so that they can speak for themselves.

Party Affinity:

I monitor more than a few blogs and forums, maybe more than I really have the time to deal with. I would like to tie some comments together to make a point that I think is critical to Green Party growth.

The Cal-Forum list has had a short thread on National Party direct mail report for Dec 2005. That report prompted someone to comment that "To me, that says that your average registered Green has no tremendous affinity with the party as an institution..." If that statement is true, then we are having a real difficulty communicating our message.

As part of the camaign to retire Congressman Pombo, I monitor both lefty and conservative blogs. On one, SanJoaquinBlog, I read a core complaint that may apply to the Green Party as well as the Democrats in this race.

I would like to see ONE post dedicated to how any of the challengers would make Valley residents better off than they are now.

There are multiple implications in this challenge, which was aimed at the activists who are challenging Pombo (3 Democrats and Pete McCloskey).

• While negative messages seem to arrouse the pasions of activists, they may not be as effective in building sustained party loyalty.
  
  
• Many of the new registrants in a party are pulled in more by the appeal of a charismatic candidate than by the party message.
  
  
• Most effective action has derived from ad hoc associations of people from various backgrounds and affiliations (or non-affiliation) around single issues: affordable health care, Iraq War opposition, California Fair Wage Initiative. Even with Green Party leadership, as the Fair Wage Initiative has, it does not translate to party loyalty.
  
  
• The Green Party has failed to differentiate itself as fundamentally different from other political parties. Even though Nader's message was that both the Republicans and Democrats do terrible things, that did not translate into the perception that Greens were somehow different.
  
  
• In areas where the Democrats are comparatively weaker, like the Central Valley, the Green Party is not in a position to fill the void as an alternative to the Republicans. This is due to a great extent in the urban, coastal focus of the party and lack of organizing efforts in high growth commities of San Joaquin or Kern Counties.
  
  
• We have not fully learned the lessons of Tip O'Neil. All politics is local. We have our best results where local Greens are dealing with solutions to local problems as in Arcata, to choose one example.
  

OpEd in Morgan Hill Times

This week, I had another OpEd piece published in the Morgan Hill Times. The Times gave it this headline: Don't Rely on Growth to Increase the Tax Base

The MH Times also allows me to publish it on my personal BLOG so you can read it there. To read it at the MH Times, you have to register.

This is just self advertisement in a way, but I think that what I say about Morgan Hill applies to a lot of communities in California.

Green Focus Needs Improving

One of the problems of the Green Party in California has been the lack of an ability to get recent copies of Green Focus online. But the time that something got posted to the state web site, it was such old news that no one was interested anymore. I stepped in and volunteered to help and, finally got the Winter, 2005 issue published.

What I found was that the setup was so labor intensive that it took much too long. Given the current state of web publishing, this was a disaster. So, look to see further changes for the Spring, 2006 issue. Not only do we intend to have it online by the time it is published on paper and distributed but we want to allow public commentary on the pieces.

I would also like to get some feedback on what other changes users of the state web sites would like to see. I can't do the work, but I think that I can influence getting it done. Maybe just documenting what would be useful is a way to focus attention on it from the party's various committees. So, weigh in

Senate Primary is a directional divide.

As I mentioned before, the Senate Primary is a directional divide for the Green Party of California. When announced candidate Todd Chretien posted this invitation to the Green Party Cal-Forum list, he invited everyone to his campaign and to his WWW site:

As most of you have probably heard, I am running for the Green
Party nomination for U.S. Senate so that I can challenge Dianne Feinstein in November. This will be a contested primary, which is, in my opinion, a very good thing. Tian Harter and Ken Mesplay are also running and I congratulate them on their decision to do so. I welcome a free exchange of ideas between the primary candidates and I am willing to accept any invitation by any Green Party entity to appear with one or both of Tian and Ken.

You can check out my website at www.Todd4Senate.org to get an idea of my bio and my past political work, my campaign ideas or (here's the plug) to make a donation or volunteer. I feel that my experience as an ISO organizer and a Green Party campaign worker, as well as my deep involvement with the anti-war and anti-death penalty movement, have prepared me to be a strong candidate in November and so I hope you will consider joining my campaign.

Very shortly I will be announcing a schedule for a statewide speaking tour in February that will include campus appearances, house parties, and public meetings. If you would like to invite me to come to your area on a certain date, or have an event in mind that I should attend, please call or email me.

And, please feel free to contact me personally with any questions, concerns or ideas.

Well, one San Francisco Green, Marc Salomon, took him up on it and went right to the heart of this debate. As I metioned in my previous post, one focus on this race is going to be Todd's ongoing membership in the International Socialist Organization (ISO). The question is being raised as to whether Todd is a Green who finds common cause with the ISO or, at his core, is a Socialist who is trying to make the Green Party into the electoral arm of ISO.

To illustrate that difference, Marc pulls material from the ISO definition of Where We Stand. He quote the entire page, but I will only quote the following call for a Revolutionary Party.

The Revolutionary Party

To achieve socialism, the most militant workers must be organized into a revolutionary socialist party to provide political leadership and organization. The activities of the ISO are directed at taking the initial steps to building such a party.

Marc, who has never backed off from a fight that he pursues with a single minded intensity. Cal-Forum will see a lot of emails from Marc before this is over.

From my own view, this is one of the two most important directional issues that the Green Party faces. The other involves the tension between our professed belief in developing concensus from grassroots inputs and our reliance on charismatic leadership. I will take on this issue later. As to the direction, I feel that it is essential that our party derive its authority to speak from the moral rightness of our 10 key values and not by trying to out-race the Democrats to the left. This latter will only further marginalize the party. We are not the electoral voice of the progressive movement. We are the public manifestation of Green Principles.

Failures of Prop 13.

I have exchanged notes with California Controller Candidate Laura Wells. She says that she is making the failures of Proposition 13 a major part of her campaign. I can only say that it is about time that someone told this state the truth about why home owners pay such high taxes.

I recently posted my own view on this at my personal blog, Reflections. This has been submitted to my local newpaper as an OpEd piece. If Laura starts to get some traction on this issue, we should press that advantage. Most of the other candidates look like they would consider the Controller's office as a place to keep their name in the public view while that look at higher office.

Camejo will speak on the Role of the Green Party:

It appears the Peter Camejo is begining to give some structure to his campaign and the start is a campaign to shape the Green Party of California to his vision. He is speaking to his local Alameda County Greens this evening and talking about his vision of the role of the Green Party. I am sure that there are many who will agree with him, and possibly just as many who will disagree. I wish that I could be there. I hope that someone will give us an objective reporting, not only of Peter's talk but of the range of ideas that might come out of the discussion.

There are deep fissures in the GP CA and Peter has both the position and the ability to widen or close the cracks.

Reaction to State of State Speech:

I was not happy with the immediate press release that our Green Party Media Committee came up with following Schwarzenegger's State of the State speech last night. I would give you a link to it, but it will not show up on our official state web site for at least another week. That is a second problem, but not the main focus now.

I understand the causes for having a weak reaction type press release. That does not mean I have to like it. I know that I am not the only one who wanted to have it come from Camejo.

Here is a question for all. Do these press releases have any impact at all on the grassroots of the Green Party in California? If not, then they should be targeted only to the press, which means that they have to be more substantive. Reporters desparately need a "story" and someone to do the leg work. We should give them their story every time we have a chance.

Why did no Democrat take Tom DeLay to the House Ethics Committee over the Abramoff scandal?

If you want to an answer to that question, ask Nancy Pelosi. At the Talking Points Cafe Melanie Sloan lays it out. It was because Pelosi did not want any ethics questions brought up. There is a truce in the House on ethics matters, enforced the Pelosi and the Republican Leadership.

When I stated on Cal Forum that I would like to see a Green challenge Pelosi, I got a private email telling me to back off and not challenge anyone with such liberal credentials. That may be true, but it looks like she has DeLay's ethics and that is enough for me to want to see her go.

Green should go after anyone who is ethically challenged.

Green Direction:

The probability that California will go through a contested primary for a major political office (Senator) will surely create discussion over the direction of the party. California has the most registered Greens of any state and that fact alone gives meaning to any race. In the 2004, the national party had a difficult time coming to grips with the positions of two Californians, Peter Miguel Camejo who ran with Nader, and David Cobb. It still has not recovered and the fissures are quite deep.

There are three named candidates from Senate: Todd Chretien, Tian Harter and Kent Mesplay. Of those three, Todd's campaign seems to be the most advanced. He has an active web site. I have already had both telephone and mail solicitations of support. Harter and Mesplay are somewhat behind in this, though Tian has a web site and spoke about his campaign at his most recent Santa Clara County general meeting. I think that we will be hearing more from Kent shortly.

The contrast between Chretien and Mesplay is the most interesting to me. Todd makes no bones about his ISO background and membership.

Soon after, Todd joined the International Socialist Organization and has been an active member since.

At this point, he seems to be essentially a single issue candidate. That issue is the Iraq war and Feinstein's support of everything that progressives find wrong with it.

I would think that Mesplay would offer a strong contrast. While he has not yet done much with his campaign, based on what I saw from him as a presidential nominee, he will not be a single issue candidate, no matter how important that issue is. He will also not run from the position of being the most progressive candidate, but from being the Greenest candidate, relying on the full range of Green Values rather than just those that get progressives all excited.

I left out Tian, not because his candidacy is not valid, but because the contrast between Todd and Kent illustrates the basic discussion that needs to be taking place. What is the Green Party? Camejo said that

"The Green Party is the electoral expression of living mass movements, like the peace, women’s rights, gay and lesbian, social justice, civil rights and civil liberties movements."

I think that Kent would hope to have a broader appeal. He did as a presidential candidate and I expect no less this time in running for the Senate.

Candidate Sites: Forrest Hill and Todd Chretien seem to have made a decision to get professional help on setting up a web site. They even seem to have the same site developer, use the same authoring tools, have the same template, and even have the same endorsements. In a similar manner, they are both essentially one (important) issue candidates: Hill on electoral reform and Chretien on the Iraq war.

The question I have is whether one issue candidates can manage to get any media exposure except on that one issue. Lacking that, will they be able to advance that single issue as we would all want to happen.

Will the other state wide candidates take their campaigns to the internet and in what fashion? From what I have seen, Donna Warren still has her old site up and it needs updating to show that she is actively running. Tian Harter has a personal site for his campaign. The rest have not gotten to it yet, but they should.

One of the comments that I have heard from press professionals is that they use the internet to search out information for stories and that it is very difficult to find good, current information about the Green Party in California and what we stand for. There is no one place to get the "official word." Greens like to complain about the lack of media coverage, and then ignore doing the few thing that would make it easier for the media to include them. We are sometimes our own worst enemy. If you don't believe that, go to the GPCA web site and get the official party position on any issue, like affordable health care. How easy is it?

California Candidates: I hope to be able to keep an updated list of all Green Party Canidates for office in California with links to their web sites, if they have one. So far, I have added the candidates for state-wide offices in the right side menu. This was copied from another source so I can not confirm anything, except that the links do take you to a valid web site. I chose to do it this way rather than just link to the other site because I wanted to order it by office, not by the candidates name.