{news} Are we ready? Apparently not.

[Clifford Thornton]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Hugh Esco<mailto:hesco at greens.org> 

Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 11:43 PM
Subject: Are we ready? Apparently not.


>From hesco Mon Sep 10 15:09:16 2007
To: natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org<mailto:natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org>
Subject: Are we ready?  Apparently not.
Reply-To: hesco at greens.org<mailto:hesco at greens.org>
Status: RO

Are we ready?  Apparently not. 

About a week ago I posed the question: "Is the Green Party Ready
for a McKinney Campaign".  I have to look at this weekend's
action by the California Green Party and suggest already that
the answer is likely: "Apparently not".

In that letter, I asked:
  Are we ready to open our Platform development process,
  leadership bodies and slates to the leadership which would
  emanate from those communities ready to coalesce around a
  McKinney campaign?

I'd say that judging from how the business transpired on the
floor in California this weekend, at least with respect to the
inclusion of Ms. McKinney on the slate, the answer seems to be
"yes".  But her access to that ballot was made available in
a disparate way which seems to privilege one candidate over
all of the others.

The formulation of the motion to be presented as a unified
ballot to the General Assembly of the California Green Party.
The motion was to include every candidate, among the ten
vetted (for inclusion in the Candidates' Forum at the Reading
Convention) by the Presidential Campaign Support Committee of
the Green Party of the United States, who was deemed viable
and Green by the Campaigns and Candidates Working Group of
the Green Party of California.  That gave us a five member
slate including: Jared Ball, Elaine Brown, Jesse Johnson,
Kent Mesplay and Kat Swift.

Understanding that draft efforts were under way for additional
candidates, the process adopted provided for two additional
ways to access the ballot.

The CCWG delegated to their Chair the power to amend the
unified motion to account for any additional candidate who
declared their intention to seek the nomination of the Party.
Georgia Green Party member and former Congresswoman Cynthia
McKinney qualified for inclusion under this provision, giving
the motion six candidates.

The process agreed to in the setting of the agenda provided
that if this motion failed to achieve the support of two-thirds
of the body, the question was to be split, with each candidate
standing for a two-thirds up or down vote on their inclusion.

The Chair was also authorized to entertain a motion from a
draft effort to add any candidate who had not declared their
intention to seek the nomination, with their inclusion on the
California Green Party's Presidential Preference Primary ballot
subject to a stand alone vote at the same two-thirds threshold.

Cat Woods of Sonoma County made such a motion, except that
she insisted, in spite of the agreed to process, that Ralph
Nader's name be included as a part of the unified motion.
Participants suggested that she lost quite a bit of credibility
when she cursed and blew up during the debate.  But in the
end the bully tactics prevailed.

Nader is not a member of the Party.  He has not stated his
intent to seek the nomination of the Green Party of the United
States.  But he did apparently deliver a message, by way of Cat
Woods with whom he had spoken by phone, that he was 'flattered'
to be considered and while he has not yet made a decision with
respect to his intentions for 2008, he would not object to be
included on the ballot.

Objections were raised, but Cat persisted.  Everyone was
exhausted.  And the CCWG Chair relented, in a confused moment,
and then there were seven.

Asked why this breech of process was not more strenuously
resisted, I'm told over and over, "Its the LA thing", referring
to a controversy over the composition of the delegation from the
state's largest county.  The issue, a long standing one riddled
with long held personality conflicts managed to distract the
Party from its essential work yet again.  The previous General
Assembly had by a narrow margin rejected a resolution asking
for the resignation of the state committee.  But this time,
delegates elected by their counties sat at home, avoiding
the long drive down for the meeting, and even more grueling,
the endurance test of attrition which has characterized the
Party's General Assemblies.

By the time the bullied manipulation of the process worked to
carry Nader, on the coattails of the six Party members declared
for our nomination, onto the ballot, Delegates were exhausted.

But one keeps coming back to the fact that a former six term
Member of Congress, who has also served two terms in the Georgia
Assembly was subjected to a disparate standard for entry to
the ballot, when compared to the hurdle for entry faced by
another candidate added to the ballot at the Riverside Plenary.

Cynthia McKinney, who since December 21st, 2003 has been
a member of the Georgia Green Party, and was seeking our
nomination for President of the United States faced one hurdle,
advertised to her by the CCWG.  But privileged access to the
California ballot was granted to the candidate who after the
successful 2000 campaign had abandoned his commitment to help
us build the Green Party, and in 2004 actually dispatched
his hired staff to sabotage the ballot lines of our Party in
Vermont and Utah (while trying to do likewise in Florida and
California and New York, that I am aware of).

Is this what the racism and sexism looks like, that I was
concerned about when I asked: Is our Party Ready?  I'd suggest
that our Party, if it is to develop its relevancy, must grapple
with those questions.  All the good intentions, explanations,
circumstances and stories are not going to change the facts
that we have offered disparate access to our ballot in a way
which significantly threatens our integrity and our credibility
as a Party which is actually committed to its values.

And if we are not prepared to acknowledge that, then perhaps
we are not ready for a McKinney campaign.

-- Hugh Esco, Delegate
Georgia Green Party

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