Feelin' the Spirit

Winter Solstice, showers off and on. Sun came out, go pick some persimmons, rain starts gain. Quiet now, listening to Grant Green, Herbie Hancock and Billy Higgins Feelin' the Spirit (1962).

So what was so important to write about? Copenhagen COP15 meltdown? Health Insurance Company Bailout? Maybe this: The only answer to organized money is organized people. That is an idea so important that Bill Moyers repeated it three times in an address to students at Occidental College.

The only answer to organized money is organized people.

Again:

The only answer to organized money is organized people.

And again:

The only answer to organized money is organized people.

It was even the theme for his December 11, 2009 Journal on PBS.

I do not know of any description that is better for the predicament of the GPCA this year.  It is a year of statewide election where contestants are multi-millionaires like Poizner and Whitman, or have enough connections with said money as to be able to drive all contenders out of the race like Jerry Brown did... unless millionaire Diane Feinstein decides to retire from the Senate.


Greens don't have the type of money. We don't take corporate donations. So, we had better be a lot more organized than anyone else.  Greens have the long used the term Grassroots Democracy to describe their goal but some would seem to prefer grassroots anarchy, running away from the work of organizing, protective of some internal goodness that they would rather wait for self-organizing groups to come an ask for admission.  'taint gonna happen.


We are working toward a contested gubernatorial primary and that should be the impetus to do the organizing that our working groups have talked about but not done.


Here is a simple problem.  All of us have friends, family, neighbors, co-workers.  I am sure that we all know people who understand just how broken the current system is, how the lobbyists write our legislation, how we are so dependent on big money that even Ralph Nader says that Only the Super Rich can Save Us.  So let's each of us get one of those and convince them to register Green. I am not asking for much.  Just 1 new registration. A personal plea at the grassroots level.  You don't need a flier, you don't need a table in front of Safeway.  You just need to believe. 

You have until Jan 31.  I am sure that you can do it.  Just keep track of who you register because, come Feb. 1,  I am going to ask all of you, new and old,  to do it again.