Culture of Blame

There are many reasons to feel good about being a member of the Green Party. Even at the most basic level, one can always keep your bumper sticker that reads "Don't Blame Me, I Voted Green." We have not yet had to apologize on behalf of the Green Party for the actions of our Congressman or our President.

But there is one tendency in the culture of the Green Party, especially the Green Party of CA, that truly hinder our growth and, if we continue, will forever relegate the Green Party to being an interesting footnote in an era when others have become known as the "green" party. We do love to play the blame game.

Maybe it is because so many Green look to the party to save this country from all of the things that they already blame on others. On top of that, we actively encourage this behavior by focusing our energies so much on demonstrations against the war, against Bush and Cheney, against Walmart. Even in the demonstrations around immigration, there was almost never a time when Greens were stepping forward with a plan that said what we were for.

Given that culture, one should not be surprised when those who get frustrated with our lack of electoral success play the same blame game internally. They are quick to point out all of the things that anyone has ever done to weaken the party and somehow, they never seem to get beyond replacing those whom they blame. For example, the following was posted to a GPCA email list today.

M. Borenstein and Peggy Lewis have been performing the County Council support function, but more people are needed. The job involves going out to troubled locals and offering assistance. Faramarz Nabavi went on to point out that the group's role is to make suggestions, not to take over and fix locals.

The implication is that our lack of a substantive presence in San Bernardino County can be placed solely on two people. This blame game, so destructive at the GPCA level, is even more prevalent in the National Party where on National Committee Delegate today complained that...

... there is a core group of players who chart our course. This
information has recently come to light and everyone should be aware of this.

Do we want our 501c3s writing our legislation like K street does?
_____
"We are hoping for several organizations to sponsor this exploration. They are Liberty Tree, the Green Institute, the Green Network, and the Green Horizon Foundation."

In both of these cases, there is a remedy close at hand. One needs look no further than the tips of the fingers that typed these notes. If we fail, it is because we would rather slay dragons than plow the fields. The Green Party is filled with erstwhile Don Quixotes in a world filled with windmills.

In the meantime, I watch the Democratic Party in my home town tackle local issues, work directly with youth in Young Democrats, organize support for local candidates and, when the time comes that they need to, manage to harvest the results in the general elections.

I am losing patience with those who only want to reboot the party. There is a very simple way to do that. One has only to build local organizations to the point where new leaders emerge. In the overall competition, those who are serving the needs of the people will end up as the new leadership. It may be some of the same people that are there now and that is OK.

The word "whining" came to describe the Romney presidential campaign. The same word can be used to describe so much of the internal Green Party communications. After a while, it begins to sound shrill to my ears, as if the NC delegate was miffed that they were not invited to join the group.

For a party that claims grassroots democracy as a guiding principle, we fail so often to work at the grassroots level. In the communities were we do, we have more success that in those where we continually focus on the big issue of the day.

We have the option of building this party from the ground up or we can hope for a Saviour (Nader, McKinney, Kucinich) to provide some sort of deus ex machina. While the latter provide good political theater, they may also leave a lot of empty seat if it does not play in Peoria.

Choose your future.

Kucinich left, who will keep the Dems in line?

When Dennis Kucinich dropped out of the Dem Presidential race, he left a lot of activists behind... come convinced that they should still vote for him just to show the rest of the Dems what was right.

I have left a comment at OpEd News in a discussion of Where Do All the Devoted Kucinich People Go Now? I suggested that Kuchinich join the Green Party. That's not likely, but maybe some of the "Devoted" may read that and think.

Still the issue is being discussed, recently on KPFK (LA). Last years Green Party Congressional Candidate, Daniel Brezenoff provided some insightful suggestions. I suggest that you listen to the online interview.

Grist Presidential Forum

I think that I learned more from the reactions to the forum than I learned from the candidate's actual comments. It is interesting compare Dave Robert's comments about the three candidates (Kucinich, Clinton, Edwards) to Cathleen Decker's reporting in the LA Times. I will add my own commentary.

To begin with, most media have not yet learned how to discuss Global Warming in terms of the pre-defined narrative of the election campaign. It does not fit neatly into any of the predefined narratives of the campaign, where the general tendency is to treat it like a sporting event with your play by play announcer telling you who is ahead and describing every detail while the color commentator tries to explain what it all means about who will in a couple of months. Treating global warming in that context has not worked to raise public attention, or even candidate attention, as an election issue. CNN's coverage of this event focuses on the issue of why this issue appears to have little traction with the public and quotes Roberts to good effect.

We can easily understand the narrative used by both Roberts and Decker just by looking at their headlines. Roberts is writing for Grist readers, an audience that already believes in the seriousness of Global Warming. He was part of the panel that asked questions and hardly unbiased about the results. His blog entry today was headed "More light, less heat". He is going to explain the candidates and evaluate their answers. Decker is going to follow the campaign narrative. "Democratic candidates buff green credentials" and all it becomes is a tactic to win the vote of a particular interest group.

The Candidates:
Regarding Dennis Kucinich, Roberts finds him to be "relatively light on specifics." In fact, most of Roberts's comments seem to belittle Kucinich as not really understanding what it takes to make all of this work.

The big question about all this, of course, is how a President Kucinich could get such a radical agenda past Congress. His only answer was that he would talk over their heads, directly to the people, and get them so riled that they would, I guess, drag Congress along. I'm not sure where he sees the evidence for this enormous untapped vein of radical progressivism among the American populace, but he seems convinced.

This is rather an important point for Greens to consider. There are many Green Party members who would love for Kucinich to change parties and for all the very reason that Roberts disparages him: the Kucinich appeals to the populist idea that you can make a difference from the bottom up. That does not sit well with power players, especially those who reside on "K" Street.

The LA Times story summarized Kucinich without the overriding commentary.

First came Kucinich, the Ohio congressman and presidential longshot, who touted his modest-size house, efficient car and vegan diet as indicators of his personal parsimoniousness and vowed to guarantee an annual income to untold numbers of Americans.

Both sets of comments made more of Kucinich proposing a "guaranteed annual income" than anything else. Decker seems to like the word play also and "personal parsimoniousness" while accurate turns this into an elitist position, subtly undercutting his point.


Roberts makes two points about Clinton. First, that she has "gravitas" and "is always the most prepared," especially on policy issues. The second is that that sh was waring people that they don't have the broad public support they need.

One of the sobering messages she delivered is that when she mentions energy independence, crowds go nuts. When she mentions global warming, there's silence. "The public isn't there yet." This means, for one thing, that greens need to do a lot more to carry the message out.

Decker repeats the story of Clinton evasiveness and triangulation, easily understood because the media has repeated every mention of this from Obama and Edwards.

Next came Clinton, the New York senator, who offered a stern argument for pragmatism, barked down a heckler and warned the audience that global warming legislation pending in the Senate would be too incremental for their taste -- even as she refused to say whether she would back it.

It tells us little about what Clinton was really trying to do and a lot about how the public perception of this issue really in influenced by the media. I think that the public deserves better from the LA Times.

In discussing Edwards, both Decker and Roberts have the same focus, but continue their different narratives. According to Decker, it was about hammering Hillary.

Last came Edwards, the former senator and former vice presidential nominee, who railed against corruption in government and challenged candidates to "put political calculation aside and actually stand up with a little backbone for what's right." He didn't mention Clinton by name, nor did he need to.

As with all three, Roberts measures a candidate by how easily they moved to becoming specific on given policy points. This was his overall summary of Edwards.

My sense during the Q&A is that while Edwards' top-line proposals are immensely appealing -- efficiency, green jobs, fighting poverty, etc. -- he's either unwilling or unable to go much deeper. In response to specific questions, he would always go lateral, covering broad swathes of ground while staying light on specifics.

Green Party Action:
The Green Party needs to find an effective way to deal with Global Warming as a local issue. We say that we believe in grassroots organizing. If we were really effective at harnessing the grassroots energy that may be there, we could have a major influence. Roberts and all of the other Global Warming pundits are going to focus on the inside the beltway, presidential election, federal governmental policy implications because those are the buttons you are supposed to push to have the largest effect.

The Green Party needs to start pushing local buttons, getting people involved in making those fundamental changes right now in their own communities. Were we to do so, those who have decided to act now would surely make this function in their personal political calculus.