Greenback Dollars

Lisa left a comment to my previous post re: Greens and Money. It seems that one anthem of the party may come from the old Hoyt Axton song, Greenback Dollar. We don't seem to have enough of them. We seem to despise those who do, and who use the power of those greenbacks to influence opinon.

There are two thoughts that come time mind, each in a way that points to doing things differently. There is an image of the Green Party as being a bunch of older, have it made urbanites who are playing politics. Like most, that image is partly true. The one thing that is definitely not true is the "have it made" part. I would say that there are many Greens who would participate more if it were not for the fact that they have to earn a living. At the same time, there are those who have participated in the work of the party even though it meant that they set aside doing what should have been done to make sure that they and their family well cared for. Being Green is a family decision.

Another thought is that we do not have the proper focus within the organization. We have a finance committee that appears to function primarily as a "budget" committee. I make that differentiation without knowing anything that goes on in the finance committee, only on the fact that the only interaction I have had with the committee was to participate in the preparation of budgets for various working groups (GROW and GIWG).

If we are serious about being a party, we need to find better methods of fund raising than just having 2 donate links on the GPCA home page. The lack of anything other than that is one more evidence that we are not yet ready for prime time (you do need money for getting into prime time).

So, it is in that vein that I am soliticing ideas for fund raising activities that can be conducted by GPCA or any of it's locals. Just add them here as comments. I will make sure that the GPCA Finance Committee gets a chance to see them. No promises that anyone will do anything, but you never know unless you tell us.

Suggestion #1: Subscription drive for Green Focus. We need to turn this into a revenue stream and paid subscription help.

Science and Public Policy

Just two additional comments here:

First, in yesterday's post I mentioned that I wanted to hear Al Gore's speech to the American Geophysical Union. Well, it is online, both text and video, at the KGO-TV. Maybe it is a bit long (52:18) on self-deprecating humor, and the audio has a large room echo, but interesting never the less. His point about the divergence of science and culture is well taken. He quoted someone as saying "John Stuart Mills was the last man to know everything."

Along with this disjunction, there comes the fact that we have politicized science so that (Yes, here he used that term.) inconvenient truths need not to be discussed. This is not a new, 21st Century phenomenon. The story of Gallileo attests to the fact that scientific truths, when convenient, are always challenged by some power structure. The question is rather what we do about it.

As Greens, we need to begin to take leadership in restoring a scientific view of the world as a basis for policy. What better basis is there for policy than a factual view of the world as it really exists, or as close to that as the best minds of our time can achieve?

I am not sure that many Greens are ready to do that. There is an orthodoxy in progressive thought that is just as rigid as the orthodoxy of church in Gallileo's time, one that would deny those truths that challenge their assumptions about how the world really is.

One of the things that I do is to watch the number of people who read this blog, especially those who read more than the latest post on the home page. Those numbers go up when I post about internal Green politics and go down when I post about ecology. From this I conclude that either people are not interested in the subjet or, conversely, assume that there is nothing that they can do about such big, not so easy to understand issues.

To return to Gore's speech, it is his view the the current "Climate Crisis" is only a symptom of a greater, underlying conflict between human kind as a species and our planet. If that is true, then there is no political structure that is better positioned to "frame" these issues and suggest solutions to the problems that they present, than the Green Party. I really pains me that we are not exerting any kind of leadership here.

A Scientific Basis for Public Policy

The idea of basing public policy, when possible, on the best of what we know through science seems so sensible that I can not imagine anyone who would do otherwise. Still, we have an administration in Washington that seems determined to do otherwise.

Chris Mooney, a journalist with a bent for science, has called this "The Republican War on Science." It is hard to understand what the government thinks they are doing, but when the Environmental Protection Agency is directed to shut down their libraries and to destroy the research that is currently available there, it is just about the last straw.

A few in government are fighting back in an organized manner. An organization of governmental workers called Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) sent out a press release last week that now says the EPA is "purging records from its library websites, making them unavailable to both agency scientists and outside researchers..". If it is toxic, if it can make you sick, better to not let anyone know about it. They might panic.

It is no wonder that the people of this country have lost their faith in our government.

Scientists, on the other hand, take it seriously in their own meetings. The American Geophysical Union is holding its 2006 Fall meeting in San Francisco this week. The lunch speaker on Thursday will be Al Gore. His topic is "Climate Change: The Role of Science and the Media in Policymaking".

With the Republicans waging their War on Science, we should find that the media would be representing the citizens, showing us where the truth lies. Instead, they find two experts with differing opinions, ask them the same question and call that "balanced coverage." I call it lazy journalism. We really need someone to identify for us just exactly where policy intervenes to alter the perception of fact.

This is one time that I would be willing to sit through an unexciting Gore speech, because he just might be one who will tell the truth.

Getting the Green for CA Greens

No one doubts that running in elections demand a lot of money. Greens don't have much. In fact, it seems to me that many Greens have moved from viewing "the love of money" as the root of all evil, to just "money".

The realist is that money has always driven politics. Will Rogers (1879-1935) had fun with this, as the following quotes are attributed to him.

• A fool and his money are soon elected.
• Politics has become so expensive that it takes a lot of money even to be defeated

Just remember that this was before the days of television and robo-calls. As regards the last quote, in the election that I am most familiar with, Jerry McNerney spent approx. $14 per vote to defeat Richard Pombo Pombo, on the other hand, spent just over $36 to lose. What is not included in this number if the amount of money that the Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters and the Humane Society dumped into the race in opposition to Pombo. That was easily over $10 for every vote for McNerney.

What do we need to think about as Greens? How serious are we about winning elections and how much money do we need to put in the bank to pull it off? If winning your election is going to take 80,000 votes, then you clearly need to think of raising $1 million to make it happen or have a very aggressive, very effective alternative strategy and friends with deep pockets.

The next thing to think about is where does the money come from. The Green Party has a formal position of not accepting money from corporations. That is reasonable. Other than that, I believe that we are governed by election law and individual conscience. Let me take the example of the Green Institute that was mentioned by a Humboldt County resident in previous comments.

Even in the non-profits that are beginning to show up around the Green Party, money is important to get started and keep it running. As a party we do not

• have a full time press secretary;
• have even a secreatary who can answer the phone, set up meetings, prepare agendas, etc.
• have any on going data analysis of where our votes are coming from or where / why we are losing registration.

Maybe, this party would do better if we learned how to deal with money and its ethical use.

When we look at the Green Institute and those who were characterized as "Cobb Cronies", we find the following people on the board of directors: Gloria Mattera, Malik Rahim, Anita Rios, Audrey Thayer. Every one of these, have made significant contributions to the Green Party in their communities and to their communities themselves through grassroots activism. And yes, David Cobb is on the Board also. There is also a Board of Advisors that is possibly even more well known, including Medea Benjamin, Sam Smith and John Rensenbrink. So, this is the list of people who are called shills for the Demcrats.

I still don't buy all of the arguements. While I was not happy with the Republican effort to support Greens as an election strategy in Pennsylvania (and last election in Monterey County, CA), I don't find that the fact Dean Meyerson accepted money from people who were registered Democrats when starting the Green Institute was unethical. I have looked at the publications and collective work that Meyerson's group has published as part of the Green Institute's efforts, and there is nothing that I find which is so antithetical to Green Values as to be destructive. In fact, some of the members of the Advisory Board were notable for advising Cobb NOT to run on a safe states strategy.

If we want to continue to run this party on a purely volunteer basis, then we are also saying that we want a bunch of rich people running the party, because those are the only ones who have enough money to provide the full time effort required to do something right. If we are satisfied with half measures and sloppy work, poor communications, etc. then we have to accept the consequences.

And do not expect the public to bail us out with public financing of campaigns. Post election polling done by the Public Policy Institue of California indicated that this is an idea that does not have very good reception with the voters of California. This was discussed by Frank Russo in the California Progress Report.

So, if we want to start winning elections, we need to figure out how to raise money, ethically, and then come up with a way to measure the effectiveness of our expenditures. Sometimes allowing everyone to get "their share" does not make good sense.

Turning on the spotlight

As my previous post indicated, there are still people in GPCA who are fighing Cobb / Nader. Or maybe they are fighting Cobb / GDI. Or maybe they are just fighting David Cobb. I can think of nothing that we is more detrimental to the operation of GPCA than continuing this fight.

I keep hearing the term "future focus" in Green Party discussions, but when it comes to politics, we seem to be intent on invoking the past, even re-living it. When we should be dealing with the issues that most voters are worried about we spend too damned much energy in a circular game of Russian Roulette.

Now, the question du jour is one of which group of Regional Reps to seat for LA County. While this has been bottled up in Coordinating Committee, Bylaws Committee and other internal discussions, maybe it is time to shine a little light on it for all to see. This is rather like sending the Florida Election to the Supreme Court with the ByLaws Committee acting as the court. I am not sure that they have that power, nor am I sure that the outcome of such a decisions would be any more universally accepted by Greens than that of the Supreme Court decision of 2000.

In the mean time, this controversy is tying up the entire operations of the GPCA so that not even the next GA can be scheduled.

So, here is a suggestion to get past it. Everyone else in the State should shut up about GP in LA. All six of the regional reps should resign pending the election of a replacement. Then the LA Green Party should invite the Carter Center to supervise a new election as a guarantee of fairness. Let everyone campaign for the role.

Then, as is only fair, we should start holding all Regional Reps accountable for their performance accoring to the job description. It is clear to me that most Regional Reps fail to perform at least 50% of the tasks. I know that I could not, which is why I have not run for such an office. But I still have the right to criticize the performance of others.

Some people still fight 2004.

Earlier, I wrote about a senryu contest. The one reply, and subject of this post, that I have received so far was:

Stop this cowardice
Stand up to Cobb's evil
Fight the Democrats ... by anonymous.

I found this a bit ironic, that one would talk of cowardice and refuse to identify themselves.

To which they replied.

Either stand up to the Democrats or be abandoned as irrelevant. It's your choice.

No, it is those who continue to fight the 2004 election all over again who are irrelevant. Developing policy on the basis of opposing what the Democrats are doing is giving them control over your actions. What a stupid thing to do. It is worthy of Karl Rove.

It is time to start a new Green Revolution in CA and, if the Democrats don't want to join, it is they who will become irrelevant. Just as the Repbulicans are playing to their base to the point that they are in danger of becoming a minor regional (southern) party, those who continue to fight this idiotic battle are the ones who endanger this party.

A Green Revolution begins when we start defining what a Green California could become, and then begin to work toward that vision. All else is just pretense.

Your senryu will remain, as invited, but the other comment, having found a new home here, will be deleted from the senryu thread.

Global Greens

I find it somewhat ironic that Greens are so adamant in their opposition to globalization yet affirm the power of the Global Green movement. At least, to even have a Global Green Conference, we seem to need at least international (global) transportation companies / national airlines.

So, what is it about globalization that is so terribly wrong and which makes Thomas Friedman into an object of derision? After all, Friedman made quite a stir when commenting that "Green is the new Red, White and Blue." Of course he meant small-g green, a statement about ecology and technology and the role that it should play in the economy. Friedman even called for the creation of a Geo-Green Party.

[My apologies for the NY Times Select links... they now charge to view their archives but a web search will find lots of people who comment on both Friedman articles.]

Just taking a quick look at the work of the GPCA, I find that Friedman has some validity in making this call. There is little that the GPCA, or the GPUS, is doing in a positive manner to provide a vision of a Green future in either ecological or economic terms. The list of activities from the GPCA is relatively small.

• Working to block the expansion of WarMart.
• Campaigning for a higher minimum wage.

The evidence of a lack of concern for similar questions is abundant, but nothing is more clear than the fact that there are no "coordinators" for either Community Based Sustainable Economics or Ecology & Earth Stewardship within the Green Issues Working Group. It is as if, having written a good platform statement we are saying "been there, done that" and what is next.

If there is one thing about the Nature of Order, it is the interconnectedness of things. My best example came from the pages of High Country News. I read there of a company named Wheat Montana. A vertically integrated family business, they practice a "green" agriculture, keep the processing of the wheat to flour in the local community, and even have their own bakeries supporting a regional distribution. Knowing this, I started to look for Wheat Montana flour in my local stores. When I finally found it, we used it for baking our own bread and found the quality to be worth its slight extra cost. The other side of the coin is that the only store carrying it is WalMart.

I know that there are Green activists who push for specific programs. Anyone participating in the Rural Green discussion list has been well indoctrinated in the terminology of Georgian Economics, especially the phrases:

• privatize what is socialized (negative externalities)
• socialize what is privatized (economic rent)

The same individuals take this approach on the national Eco-Action committee email list.

I also know that there are individual, community efforts in the Northwestern counties (Mendocino, Humboldt) of California to establish a truly localized economy.

I still maintain that there is no easily understood vision of what a Green World would be like, no shared common understanding of what makes us unique. If one were to look at even the more intelligent (not Rush Limbaugh) Republican sites, they still use the term "greenies" to indicate a group of people who are against everything.

So what are we for?

Senryu contest

'This is a contest with no prize other than the fact that good entries stay on the site and bad ones get axed.

What, you may as, you may ask is a senryu? The link give a longer definition with example, but the short definition is that it is a short verse in similar struture to haiku. That is, a 5 - 7- 5 syllable structure. The difference is that the senryu is more like black comedy, ironic, sardonic, sometimes self-deprecating, at least comic.

I am soliticiting senryu on green themes, including the current state of affairs in the leadership of the party. My own paltry initial effort ...

Cold tonight. So bad
that even Al Gore asked me
to turn up the heat.

How creative are we?

Supreme Judicial Judgement

I check in periodically with Chris Mooney at Intersection on Science Blogs. He is now picking on poor old justice Scalia and his performance in the recent hearing on the question of whether the EPA has the authority to, or is compelled to, set standards for CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Milkey, I had -- my problem is precisely on the impermissible grounds. To be sure, carbon dioxide is a pollutant, and it can be an air pollutant. If we fill this room with carbon dioxide, it could be an air pollutant that endangers health. But I always thought an air pollutant was something different from a stratospheric pollutant, and your claim here is not that the pollution of what we normally call "air" is endangering health. That isn't, that isn't -- your assertion is that after the pollutant leaves the air and goes up into the stratosphere it is contributing to global warming.

MR. MILKEY: Respectfully, Your Honor, it is not the stratosphere. It's the troposphere.

JUSTICE SCALIA: Troposphere, whatever. I told you before I'm not a scientist.

(Laughter.)

JUSTICE SCALIA: That's why I don't want to have to deal with global warming, to tell you the truth

Mooney is not the only one to have trouble with this. Carl Pope also commented this week.

The important issue is not whether EPA must, or only can, regulate greenhouse pollutants-- what's also being decided here is whether the states can regulate global warming pollution themselves. If EPA can regulate CO2, then so can California and other states -- so their right to set emission standards for CO2 from motor vehicles would be protected as long as the Supreme Court concedes that CO2 is a pollutant. And the real reason the Bush Administration has fought against admitting that CO2 is a pollutant is its desire to block state action to clean up vehicle emissions.

So, in all of this, where is the Green Party? I don't see much going on. The Green Issues Working Group in CA has no one at the present time to function as a Coordinator for Ecology & Earth Stewardship. Maybe it not all that important for most. It were we would be doing some of the following:

• Taking a public policy position in support of the current law suit.
• Establishing an ongoing contact with the California Department of Resources.
• Identifying a list of the top envioronmental issues in California with CO2 and methane emissions near the top.
  
• Developing a close working relationship with the non-profits that are doing much of the advocacy work.
  

Anyone got another idea? I want to hear it.

The most kind descriptin term that I have heard used recently applied to the Coordinating Committee (CC) of GPCA is "disfunctional". There are now those who would call it irrelevant.

It is far from irrelevant as long as there are legal definitions for the Green Party in the State of California. It is not irrelevant as long as there is a legal relationship with the Green Party of the United States. If it has become completely irrelevant, then that would mean that the GPCA has become irrelevant and I will not accept that judgement.

However, the CC may not have much of a say as to what happens with the Green Party if effective leadership asserts itself at some other levels. There is a wide range of entities within GPCA that do not need any official sanction from the CC in order to operate.

County Councils operate on their own to reflect Green Values at a level just above the community. As such, they should be developing their own programs, finding their own candidates and establishing their own governance.

The Working Groups of GPCA need only to justify and receive a budget from the CC. They have their own set of concerns and can deal with them as time and energy permit.

• Green Issues Working Group can, and has in the past, worked effectively independly of any CC involvement until GIWG comes forward to the General Assembley for approval of a resolution. Their only current problem is an overall lack of involvement in some of the current major issues in California.
  
• GrassRoots Organizing Working Group is tasked"to provide resources for collaboration, skill sharing, and training in order to promote the strategic growth and diversity of the Green Party of California." This makes their role somewhat passive. What we need is for GROW to become more aggressive in identifying opportunities for GROWth and making getting the resources in place to make that happen.
  
• Campaigns and Candidate Working Group - Now that 2006 election cycle is over, we need to start laying plans for 2008.
• Electoral Reform Working Group - These activists are working for a political process that protects the rights of voting Californians. It is convenient that this also gives Greens a greater voice.
  

I believe that it is time for the activists of the GPCA to place their energies into local work with their county councils, or into work within the structure of the Standing Committees and Working Groups. If we place our energies into doing what needs to be done, that leadership will find it's way into the CC, while will follow. Isn't that the Green way, where the grassroots determine what the leadership should be doing?

GPCA Focus

Mike Feinstein has joined the blogger world. He has a new blog called A Global Green. It appears that Mike will be publishing stories about Green activity from around the world as well as using the site to promote the Global Greens Conference in Nairobi, Kenya in 2008.

I read the first post from Mike, a news story about the leader of the Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May. It is good news to see that Greens can become at least the loyal opposition as May finished 2nd among 4 candidates in a partisan special election to fill a vacant seat in the Canadian parliament.

I find it striking that the basis of her relatively successful campaign is so different from the Green Party's focus in the US and especially that in the GPCA.

May was elected Party Leader at a national Green Party convention in late August in Ottawa. Since then, she's been shifting the focus of Canadian political debate around environment and economy.

I no longer find either the economy or the environment as being central to the debate in the GPCA. It is all about electoral reform rather than winning converts to our issues and programs. I wonder if that disconnect is why we are losing registration at a time when the majority of California Voters say that they support the rise of a strong third party. (p. 9 of the linked PPIC Survey Report).

The current favor for Democrats notwithstanding, a long-term challenge looms for the two-party system. Majorities of Californians (53%) and likely voters (56%) believe that the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. Independents (72%) are far more likely than Democrats (52%) and Republicans (45%) to believe a third party is needed, but the numbers of voters who hold this view are significant across the board. "“The growing numbers of independent voters may drive this change, but the fact is that many Californians question the relevance of the current system," says Baldassare. (Research Director - Public Policy Institute of California).

If the GPCA wants a model of how to succeed, maybe we only have to look to Canada.

Third Party Thoughts

In late October, just a couple of weeks before the Nov. 7 election, the Public Policy Institute of California produced a report entitled Californians and the Future. This is a typical PPIC survey of attitudes coordinated by PPIC Director Mark Baldassare.

One of the interesting facts that fell out was that there is an increasing desire for a third party.

The current favor for Democrats notwithstanding, a long-term challenge looms for the two-party system. Majorities of Californians (53%) and likely voters (56%) believe that the Republican and Democratic parties do such a poor job of representing the American people that a third major party is needed. Independents (72%) are far more likely than Democrats (52%) and Republicans (45%) to believe a third party is needed, but the numbers of voters who hold this view are significant across the board. “The growing numbers of independent voters may drive this change, but the fact is that many Californians question the relevance of the current system,” says Baldassare.

This should be a rallying cry for us Greens, if we could get past our collective navel gazing and really look around at what is going on in around us.

In the recent efforts to unseat Richard Pomb, the environmental organization Clean Water Action Project managed to register 10,000 new voters in San Joaquin County and very close to 6,000 were Latino. I have been told that most of these registered DTS. Again, that should give us a reason to go to work, since it is the DTS voters who are more in favor of a third party.

If the leadership of the party is not going to act on this, then let them lead from behind.

Green Environmental Issues

I am increasingly of the opinion that the GPCA has lost it's focus on environmental issues. One note that I read on the very small (5 member) GPCA-Environment email list suggests that we need to identify a major environmental issue in California and to start working on that one issue. So, here is my suggestion, personal as it something that I am increasingly passionate about.

I want to see a Green Party of California focus on maintainting / improving the status of the California Delta. In many real ways, the Delta is the Hub of California's future. It is also at the nexus of many environmental practices:

• increasing population in Southern California creates a bigger demand for diverting water from the delta.
• if additional water is diverted, it takes away from agricultural use in the Centeral Valley.
• additional water can be saved if people are willing to build more dams.
  
• the reduced water flow from diversions and dams will affect fish populations, especially chinook salmon.
  
• reduced water flows will allow more saline water from San Francisco Bay to enter the delta and affect water quality for both agriculture and human consumption.
  
• additional pumping of ground water causes delta farmland to sink below sea level.
• and it is all threatened by the rising sea level that is a result of global climate changes.

However, there are other issues and I am not the only one whose opinion counts. So, I ask you to comment on this post to identify other issues on which we might focus. Or, you can subsrcibe to the GPCA-Environment email list linked above and express your opinion there.

A Green Community

The Green Party of California (GPCA)has multiple online expressions. They reflect the divergent interests and many moods of Greens. If we were all the same shade of Green, there would not a need for such diversity of media expressions.

The most formal expression of GPCA Green-ness is the GPCA web site itself. This is the formal public face of the party. The platform has been provided by the IT Committee. It is stable and performs fairly well.

The GPCA Media Committee is responsible for the "content" that is one the site. That is not entirely true. Ever Committee and Working Group is responsible for their own content. But the overall structure, look and feel, basic information is put ther by the media committee, which is as it should be. Considering that the most visible work product of the Media Committee are the many press releases that go out, the definition of Green Activity to the press, it is only a simple extention to that to say that Media should also be responsible for the rest of the public content, defining Green Party activity to the rest of the world.

There is a second level of online expression that is encapsulated in the many email lists by which various subjects are brought up for discussion, sometimes to the point of open battle, sometimes to the point of boredom, but almost never is anything every brought to any conclusion. People just get tired of one subject and move on to another. However it takes little work to particpate. Emails show up in your inbox, you respond or not, but the material is pushed at you whether you want it or not. However, anyone can start a thread just by sending their own email with a different subject.

Then, there are the blogs. This one has three nominal authors, though only two of us (Oval and myself) have every written any material. Others could become authors by writing a note to me and explaining why they would want to. Unlike the email lists, only a very few people (authors) start a thread, though anyone can contribute. Blogs are also unlike the email lists in that they are a pull media. You need to decide to go to a blog and look at it. Otherwise, you would never know it is there. But, once it is there, it is there forever (or until the owner decides to shut it down.)

Now, on the GPCA owned cal-forum email list, there is a discussion about the development of a Standing General Assembley, an online, democratic, decision making function of the GPCA.

Since that is not so well defined, I suggest using this post as an open thread to collect suggestions about how we build the online community that a Standing GA requires.

Eco-Action

As a member of the national Eco-Action Committee I should give California Greena a periodic update. Like the GPCA, the Eco-Action Committee suffers from a lack of direction.

Part of this comes from the very nature of the subject matter. While some issues, Global Warming is a prime example, has a universal scope, many others have very sepcific local or regional concerns that are the focus of attention. In California, one of the major concerns is water and the politics of water. However, switch to New England and water use is still something you drink, not something that you fight over.

Another issue that we have in California involves the relationship of water, climate change and agriculture. If agriculture is the enconomic engine for the Central Valley, we had better pay attention to what is happening. No matter what we do about global warming as a whole, the farmers of California will find that they have an entirely new set of challenges: changing crops, faster growing weeds, new preciptation patterns.

Solutions to these will not be found in pronouncements from minor parties. We need to be working with local coalitions (eg. Restore the Delta) to achieve our environmental objectives. Still, at the same time, we should not be shy about letting people know that we are Greens. To the extent that we contribute to the orgnization's success, then the Green Party will also share in that success and gain credibility as a political organization as well.

And never doubt that these efforts are political.

Endangered Science

In my odyssey toward understanding the real dangers of Pombo's work in the House of Representatives, I came across the writings of Chris Mooney, author of The Republican War on Science.

Mooney seems to be enthused over the prospect of a new Congress without James Inhofe as Chair of the Senate Commimttee on Environment and Public Works (it will be Sen. Boxer) or with Joe Barton as Chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. He neglected to even mention Pombo, maybe because he was ultimately so ineffective.

There are still many issues that remain and powerful interests that are alreay lining up to lobby Democrats in the same manner as the previously lobbied Republicans. Speaker to be Pelosi promised lobby reform in the first 100 hrs of a new Democratic House. We need to watch how powerful she really is and whether she can actually deliver on that promise.

Mooney feels that the scientific issues are fundamentally partisan, that the Democrats are on the side of truth and the Republicans are not.

...the treatment of specific science-related issues--global warming, embryonic stem cell research, etc--will also change. In short, we're going to be in a very different world in terms of the relationship between politics and science in the United States. Some good old checks and balances will be coming into force--thank goodness.

By the way, all of this is proof enough--as if anyone ever needed any--that many core aspects of science policy are fundamentally partisan in the currrent political climate. That's why we expect them to change when Congress changes hands.

This is where I feel Mooney has too much faith in the power of scientific reasoning and too little apprehension about the power of money. The think tanks that fed the Republican agenda all had proper sounding names. The Annapolis Center for Science Based Public Policy was truthfully funded by Exxon-Mobil and the Pharmeceutical Industry. Their agenda had little to do with science, but rather they existed only to turn the term "sound science" into a code word for "scientists do not know everything so trust us."

The problems of land use, water use, agricultural land retention, energy and global warming can not be totally separated. There will be many special interests who will tell us all that there is no "sound science" on which to base any policy decisions. What that means is that we are supposed to deprive ourselves of the best tools available for shaping those decisions and rely on their judgement, not our own.

Greens need to demand that we start using the best science currently available in order to shape policy. Once we do, we have a chance to establish some sort of environmental justice in this country. Until we do, we have no chance.

Whither the Green Party?

Many people are looking for a new direction, believing that the Green Party is losing ground due to the Nader effect. While that effect is real, I only had to mention that I was a Green on Daily Kos to be invited to take a hike, or at least read the FAQ which said that it was a Democratic Blog.

One of the suggestions is that we focus on (a) electoral reform and (b) that we work on "the local, nonpartisan, level to elect people who agree with our values and goals." That is the gist of Orval Osborne's post earlier this week.

After participating in and observing the congressional races in the 4th and 11th Districts in California, I would also say that we need to imrove the manner in which we go about recruiting candidates, defining the issues on which to build a campaign and executing. I don't think that we do well enough at any of these elements of gaining political power to be able to call ourselve a party of the future.

The 4th CD has a 48 - 30 edge in registration, with the Republicans holding a 16 percentage point lead. Yet, in the last election, the results were Doolittle (R) 49%, Brown (D) 46%, Warren (Lib) 5%. While Doolittle is a seriously flawed candidate, the manner in which Brown was able take the battle into Doolittle's front yard was a wonder to see. Both Brown and Warren were able to pickup votes fare beyond their registration numbers (0.69% for the Libertarians.)

So, the opportunity is there for a well run campaing to do far exceed the party base.

Then, in San Joaquin County, the Clean Water Action Project did a great job of registering new voters. They worked form June through to Oct and registered over 10,000 voters, of which >5,900 were Hispanic. The interesting fact, though, is that most of the Hispanics did NOT register Democratic. They Declined to State their preference.

There is a great opportunity to build on that fact in the San Joaquin Valley. The area from Stockton to Bakersfield comprises 6 Congressional Districts and 5 State Senate Districts. The phrase that I have heard from Hispanic leadership in the Stockton area is that they are tired of the Democratic Party taking them for granted.

In the 34th AD, David Silva pulled 2,399 votes in a district with only 755 Greens.
So, I will continue to build up a list of people, issues, contacts and hope that we can take advantage of an opening that is truly there.

A New Green Revolution, but....

Last year, I finally subscribed to High Country News. One of the first copies that I recieved had an article entitle "The New Green Revolution." This was about farmers in Montana who were dedicated to doing it the right way, with a respect for that land and a desire to ensure the future of the small town where they lived.

One of the ventures was named "Wheat Montana"/.

But vanguard agriculture is about more than just organics. Just ask Dean Folkvord, the 44-year-old CEO of Wheat Montana. He began by taking over his family farm, which his father started in 1958 with 250 acres. Now it’s 15,000 acres. Folkvord doesn’t see expansion as necessarily bad. "That’s the way the rest of the world works right now," he says. Efficiency matters, however: "When we started farming, we were getting 20 bushels per acre. Now we’re at 40, even 50 bushels per acre."

Wheat Montana brands its product with names such as "Bronze Chief Hard Red Spring Wheat." Although it’s not USDA-certified organic, Wheat Montana uses an independent lab to ensure that there are no herbicide or pesticide residues in its products. The company advertises its products as "Better than Organic."

Folkvord has also figured out something else. "One of the myths is that farmers produce food," he says. "That’s not true. They grow the raw products."

I was lucky to find Wheat Montana flour are a store in Gilroy recently. Since we bake our own bread, we tried their "Bronze Chief Whole Wheat" flour. It made great bread and it was worth paying a little more for a quailty product, especially when I knew a bit about the background of the company.

The problem... the only store carrying their product was WalMart.

Oh, well. Maybe I can talk Trader Joe's into carrying it when they open their store in Morgan HIll.

Some questions about the election

To begin, we can all celebrate the election of Gayle McLaughlin in Richmond. This is a city with many problems, but with a core of people who are willing to work for change. When Richmond makes the news, it is most generally for yet another gang related killing. Even when the citizens of Richmond set up a tent village and camped out at nights in a dangerous area, they ended up being less than a football field's length from yet another killing. Gayle has more than a normal mayor's job to do and deserves all the support that she can get, from everyone, all over the state.

Then, when looking at the statewide returns, we have the fact that most down ticket candidates had better success than those at the top of the Ticket, Peter Camejo and Todd Chretien. One possible explanation for this is to declare it pesonal dislike of the candidates. Another is that it is a repudiation of their positioning of the Green Party at the far left of the political spectrum. Camejo is at his best when he talks about specific solutions to specific problems. There, it is his intelligence that comes through. We did not see that often enough in this campaign.

The top vote getter, Insurance Commissioner candidate Larry Cafiero, may be been the beneficiary of the fact that the Democratic candidat, Cruz Bustamante, was very flawed. Having failed to succeed Gray Davis in the recall election, and then again for the office of Insurance Commissioner, Bustamante may need to find a real job, perhaps as a lobbyist.

My biggest disappointment was in the lack of support for Forrest Hill. I still think that his proposals for electoral reform were practical and need to be part of the Green Party goals as we go forward.

The time to start planning for 2008 was yesterday. I know that the supporters of Jerry McNerney have begun to put a grassroots organization in place to help maintain his newly gained CA 11 seat (Bye Bye Dick Pombo.) We need to find the bright spots in what we managed to do and to build on them.

The world does not stop Nov. 7

I have been so buried in CA 11 stuff that I failed to notice the fact that there is an important conference behing held in LA on Wednesday morning. This is the second in a series of converences on Visioning the Delta.

If there is one environmental issue that should consume Californians at this point in our history, this is it. Truly, the Delta is the Hub of California's Future. To have this session on the day after the election may be a way to suppress turnout, as all of the negative advertising is a way to suppress voter turnout. However, if LA Greens are not too hung over on Wed. AM to get downtown by 8:00 (HA!!!) then I hope that someone will attend and report.