Good Green Advice

I've been reading Green Collar Economy by Van Jones. In this book, Jones suggests that the environmental movement... and I am suggesting the Green Party... needs to change it's narrative. In biblical terms, Jones says that the story of environmental activism has been that of David and Goliath, of the individual against the big, bad corporation, Erin Brockovich, the career of Ralph Nader.

While there is a need for a David at time, he did not save the earth, Noah did. Jones suggests that we need to change our goals from those of David to those of Noah and offers a some principles to explain what that means. I would agree. I have challenged more than a few to consider global warming and to ask themselves "What would Noah do?" Click Read more! for a list and my interpretation of what that means for the Green Party of California.


Jones suggest that we need to deal with:

* Fewer "issues," and more solutions.
* Fewer "demands, " more goals.
* Fewer "targets, " more partners.
* Less "accusation, " more confession.
* Less "cheap patriotism," more deep patriotism.

This is a rich enough field that I will take his principles one at a time.

Fewer "issues".

Jones states the obvious when he says that "defining any cause based on a negative can lead to a great deal of negativity." Negativity may not get you to your goal. I offer the example of the efforts to stop all new nuclear power plants. While the rationale is obvious to those of us who would act on this, then answer is always "then how are you going to meet our energy needs." Would it not not be better to spend the effort on Green Solutions that make the nuclear option unnecessary?

If I look at the major problems facing California today: the annual conflagrations that sweep the state, the annual budgetary impasse in Sacramento as symptomatic of a failed fiscal policy, the every day growing problems to supply our state, both urban and rural with a supply of water for agriculture, industry and households, I find a singular lack of Green Solutions.

Jones quotes Julia Butterfly Hill as saying "Many of us have gotten so good at defining what we are against that what we are against has started to define us."

Over the next two years, we have an opportunity to make a major contribution in California by becoming advocates for sensible solutions at the nexus of global warming, energy and the economy. The risks of doing this are few. Politics as usual will not deliver solutions for the people, only carve up the economic pie in a different way. Republicans are afraid of the ghost of Howard Jarvis and will block any effort to introduce new taxes unless they are disguised as usage fees. Democrats will never back down on funding of government services where the service delivery is backed by large scale union demands.

In the past summer, California's legislature was over 90 days late in delivering a budget. When they did, we were already so far into a recession that they must have know it would not hold. However the pressure to pass a budget, any budget, was so great that they compromised by postponing the day of reckoning until they would all be out of office and someone else would have to clean up the mess.

While there is need to continue participating in the drive for equality under the law, something that those for Prop 8 lied about, we have to find the energy to do more than one thing at a time.

Perpetual Campaigns

One of the realities of contemporary political life is that the campaign for the next election cycle begins even before the last one completed. We are in a time of perpetual campaigns and, along with that, of perpetual fund raising. Case in point: When Jerry McNerney defeated Richard Pombo in 2006, his series of "thank you" meetings in communities across the 11th CD was really a series of fund raisers for 2008.

I don't think that most Greens are really comfortable in this mode. Long range planning rarely gets beyond next month, let alone the next year. There is something about the culture of the Green Party where perpetual fund raising must be unseemly. Maybe we would rather keep picking at the wounds of the 2004 election cycle than to plan for the next one, an exercise that I would rather see carried out as a personal mental process.

Given that, I was excited on seeing the suggestions for a 2010 election that Mike Feinstein posted to an internal Green Party email list (California Green Forum). Mike is saying that we need to start paying attention to the election of 2010 now, not in 2010. That we need to begin to study the causes of our problems now, not like a college student trying to cram for a mid-term and stuffing it all in at the last moment.

I believe that in addition to running and winning more municipal races, we need to focus upon becoming more relevant in partisan races in 2010, which I believe is more likely if we are committed to running primarily for state legislature (Assembly and Senate) instead of Congress, combined with a coordinated message with our statewide constitutional office candidates

Towards this end, I believe we need to demonstrate that we understand how land use and tax policy coincide in this state.

I fully agree with this.

Some observations on political behavior. The American voter responds well to those who provide a vision of a new future and not so well to those who dwell on the past. This country was settled by people who were looking for a new beginning. The is still part of the mythology of America and we ignore that at our peril.

The current election cycle started out to be about Iraq. It is now about paying the mortgage and keeping your job. To quote James Carville's scrawled message from 1992, "It's the economy, stupid." So why do we make a big deal about the ultimate truth of 9/11? That is never about the future. It will never win voters.

In California, we have an education system that does not meet our expectations, yet takes 50% of the state budget. We have an escalating cost of living and a declining tax base. We want to attract and keep good teachers and are cutting school budget by 10%. It does not make sense.

We are not going to become a player at any level until we start dealing with what is relevant to voters now. I think that we would all do well to follow Feinstein's advice and prepare ourselves for the battles ahead. It starts understanding just how Proposition 13 has worked (for some) but has basically failed as the guiding principle for tax policy in California.

Feinstein suggested reading the following series of articles from the LA CityBeat web site. I second the suggestion and post the same links here. Each could be the subject of a thread from which to weave a tapestry of victories in 2010.

http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/the_crushing_blow_of_howard_jarvis/6623/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/the_anti_tax_psychosis/6624/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/jiveass_jarvis/6620/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/tragedy_of_the_commons/6619/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/the_biggest_loser_schools/6618/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/wal_mart_vs_the_poor/6621/
http://www.lacitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/michael_gorder/6625/