[Platform] Summaries of Green-Rainbow Party Annual Conventions 2001-2007

[gary hicks]

"This observer notices two distinct directions or camps within our Party at 
the present.  Both camps are interested in altering opinions amidst the 
Massachusetts public at large in the areas of economic and health justice. 
In addition to these vital areas, the majority camp of 75% to 80% has as 
its top area of concern the immediate grave dangers of global warming and 
peak oil - an equal opportunity destroyer of life - whatever a person's 
diversity makeup.  The minority camp representing some 20% - 25% has as its 
top area of concern the psychological injustice (having an impact on 
economic and health injustice) coming from the range of diversity areas."
 
the problem with this paradigm is that it assumes that there are majority and minority camps outside of the specific issue of delegate selection to the national gpus convention. this has never been established. and the reason this has never been established is that global warming and peak oil issues have been issues that show up in the 'hood as poor people's need for winter heating, sick buildings leading to medical problems for children especially, both winter and summer. 
 
in short, people suffer from the physical AND psychological effects of these realities- and other realities around education,police -community mis-relationships,, not from the theoretical and legislative expressions of these. and in response there are all kinds of community organizing responses that take place. occasionally the community organizing meets the legal community, such as around the coalition that rainbow coalition caucus has built, along with city life and others, around predatory lending and related issues. other times, community organizing expresses itself electorally, such as the development of the new majority coalition, the boston-based asian-american, african-american, and latino/a coalition built over these past 5 years with green-rainbow participation, and responsible for a number of electoral concessions wrung out of city hall, as well as some continuing victories of incumbebts of color in non-partisan elections. 
 
the other item that the above paradigm ignores is one that cannot be embraced in percentages, such as history. the greens for example have a relatively short 20-30 year history focused largely around ecology/environment issues, largely though not exclusively bucolic. rainbow activities have to do with the city, human and civil rights, public education, and has a history that goes back, in its present formation, to the end of world war 2.
 
gary hicks 


--- On Sat, 6/21/08, Larry Ely <tetrahedrons at crocker.com> wrote:

From: Larry Ely <tetrahedrons at crocker.com>
Subject: Summaries of Green-Rainbow Party Annual Conventions 2001-2007
To: "state Committee Official Business" <statecom at green-rainbow.org>, platform at green-rainbow.org, candidate-development at green-rainbow.org, adcom.members at green-rainbow.org
Date: Saturday, June 21, 2008, 1:05 PM

Dear GRP member,

The attached document entitled "Summaries of Green-Rainbow Party Annual 
Conventions 2001-2007" gives a bird's eye view of the history and
evolution 
of our Party.  I took the most important information available for each 
annual convention from the GRP webpage, and formed a chronolog of Party 
activity and the players in the years from 2001-2007.

I think this chronolog will help people in the Party see where the Party 
has been, where it is now, and where it should or could go.

I am trying to find out who the AdCom members were for the years 2005 and 
2006 (Co-chairs, Secretary, Treasurer, Membership, Communications, and 
Fundraising) and also who the GPUS reps were for these two years.  As you 
will see in the chronolog I constructed, there are no minutes for the 
annual Conventions posted on the webpage Green-Rainbow.org for these two 
years that relate this information.   Please email me whatever information 
you have, whether from personal notes or documents or from memory.  You 
could also call me at 413-256-6044.

I am also looking for information about the size of the Party membership 
for each year.  In some instances the Party size was given in the 
minutes.  Another parameter of interest would be the voter turnouts each year.

I am intrigued by the apparent reduction in energy and enthusiasm in the 
Party commencing in the year 2005 and continuing to the present, albeit 
perhaps with some upswing in energy and enthusiasm now.  The reduction in 
energy and enthusiasm since 2004  may obviously be laid at the feet of the 
increasingly great obstacles the American public feels with Bush's 
reelection in 2004, with no ground swell for his impeachment, with the 
increasing economic and cultural degradation and hardship people have been 
reeling under, etc.  All factors that produce a dispirited public, which 
naturally have repercussions in the energy and time Green people can put 
into our Party's positive activities.

On the other hand, perhaps some soul searching is in order within our Party 
to see if leadership approaches, directions taken, policies adopted and 
published, workshop topics covered and political messages conveyed in 
Conventions have detracted from the energy and enthusiasm that had existed 
up through 2004.

This observer notices two distinct directions or camps within our Party at 
the present.  Both camps are interested in altering opinions amidst the 
Massachusetts public at large in the areas of economic and health justice. 
In addition to these vital areas, the majority camp of 75% to 80% has as 
its top area of concern the immediate grave dangers of global warming and 
peak oil - an equal opportunity destroyer of life - whatever a person's 
diversity makeup.  The minority camp representing some 20% - 25% has as its 
top area of concern the psychological injustice (having an impact on 
economic and health injustice) coming from the range of diversity areas.

It is this Party member's opinion that it is past time that this general 
disagreement as to Party priority-identity-mission be addressed in a deep, 
rigorous, and extensive discussion - perhaps in a roundtable, free-flowing 
discussion without the artificial strictures of the stacking mechanism 
(going round and round the circle instead, with a person passing if they 
want).  Perhaps an October surprise StateCom could give over its morning 
session to this, with a limited number of proposals to deal with in the 
afternoon.

Otherwise we are really two parties acting as though we were one, when we 
are not.  It is as though some people on one side of a canoe are paddling 
the opposite direction from the people on the other side.

Thanks,

Larry Ely, Secretary GRP