[statecom-discuss] Re: [Locals] Green-Rainbow Party gets serious about strategy!

[Ron Francis]

Dear Eli,

Here is a one discussion paper for strategic planning group.  Please include in all deliberations.

Title: Discussion paper A1:
"Why Common Local Ballots is the way to go"

Some people are interested in how I came up with Local Ballots 2008 - a two year plan to do State Rep Ballot Questions in every district using root cause politics.

It all has to do with a little experiment in Somerville:

In Somerville in 2006 I helped a group do two ballot questions:  one of our ballot questions read something like " .... support the right of return for all refugees, including Palestinian refugees, to return to their homes".  Now how could you be against that !  

Yet Deval, "Bomb Lebanon" Patrick and the other racists (Capuano, Healey and Somerville Mayor Curtatone) came out visibly against us ! with their photos all together.  WE obviously struck a cord !   The state GRP and national GPUS supported the ballot questions of course.  We got 45 % overall and 50% in my home precinct !   Now if that 's not a set-up for the GRP then I don't know what is.  

It is a perfect set-up because the ballot question, by the nature of its wording, showed the difference between GRP social justice politics and racist politics. 
 
(Also note that The Dems and Republican racists fell into the trap we laid for them and did us a big additional favor by all coming together on one large campaign poster-board used by the zionists to campaign against us at each polling station.  Thus helping making it very clear the difference between GRP politics and racist Democratic and Republican politics.  It was a dream come true as far as a strategist is concerned ! )

Among other things the 45 % percent shows concretely that the Dems and Republicans are out of step with ordinary folks sense of human rights.  The zionists (racists) are still recovering, although they won't show it and neither would I.

(Also note that a Plymouth county GRP respondent noted that the ballot questions are mainly for concepts and shouldn't be too specific.  That's perfect !  It is exactly a concept that we are trying to get across by using the ballot question mechanism to have people appreciate why GRP is the way to go.)

OK, so that was Somerville.

Lesson learned was clear:  Craft a ballot question that clarifies the difference between Dems, Repubs and us.

The next step in my thinking followed straightforwardly:  Let's just do the same thing in all State Rep districts and really draw out the distinction.   If we are lucky, and all goes as planned, then we can run candidates in 2010 based on the distinction and get big percentages.   With the Somerville work the distinction was between human rights and racism.  With the Local Ballots 2008 initiative the distinction needs to be between GRP social justice values and Dem, Repub corporate values - that's what ordinary people need: a clear difference. 

The issue that we use doesn't have to be Palestine but it needs to be something that hopefully Deval and other prominent Democrats, local Progressive Democrats (who opposed us in Somerville by the way), and Republicans will all come out against !   Let's pray that they'll do us that favor.

And that means that the issue has to strike right at the root and it has to be done in 3 or 4 sentences and it would be better if there was some passion behind the issue (like refugee rights).  We want a voter to say "hmmm... that makes a lot of sense..." when she/he reads the ballot question and begin to wonder why the Dems, Prog Dems, and Repubs are all against it.  (if you were against our refugee ballot question then you had to, logically, be a racist !)

And thus the idea of Local Ballots 2008 was born.

The main problem with Local Ballots 2008, going forward, is that we have to find the appropriate issue and the appropriate wording.  When I realized that we needed careful thinking and careful wording, I knew that there was no time to waste because it will take a lot of education and 1.7 years is not a lot of time - although I would settle for 10 or 12 districts rather than all 160 state rep districts.

Realizing that time was of the essence, I drafted Local Ballots 2008 and sent it out to as many GRP lists as I could find to set up some discussions and see if people want to do it.  I'll only go forward if a critical mass wants to do it.

The other parts of my thinking are this:

a) We need to do more local organizing.  Too high of a percentage of GRP work is spent at the State level. If you add up the person-hours at one Statecom meeting you get about three new chapters that could have been formed.   We need a plan that strongly encourages local organizing and encourages us to meet ordinary people more often than meet with ourselves.

b) Local State Rep ballot questions are easy to do (only 200 signatures !) and encourage local organizing.

c) We aren't ready for a Statewide ballot question and it may not fit with the "concept" idea mentioned by the woman from Plymouth.  It also would not encourage local base-building.

d) We need to rely on direct democratic means: that is use ballot questions rather than trying to lobby Dems and Republicans: the "mainstream" parties have shown their colors... I'm not going to try to get their elected officials to vote for social justice (takes too long and they'll waffle forever anyhow) - I would rather strategize to boot them out of office.  I think that single issue pressure groups are better at forcing concessions out of elected officials than the GRP would be, anyway.

So that's most of the thinking.

I hope it is clear, but if not I'm happy to answer questions (at conference call or individually if you prefer)

Ron 617 230-2835

Eli Beckerman <elibeck at gmail.com> wrote: Hi everyone,

I've recently realized that this hasn't gone out as broadly as assumed.
Please forward to your local GRP lists!

The Green-Rainbow Party has embarked on a process to develop a
strategic action plan for 2007-2009 that will enable us to focus our
limited resources on projects and efforts that will increase our
active membership and proactively position the party to be a
recognizable and essential force in the Massachusetts movements for
social and economic justice, sustainability, democracy, and peace.

The strategic plan will help focus the activities of the party to
ensure its growth and vitality over the next two years. It will
identify the key issues that we will address, the constituencies we
will focus upon, and the techniques we will use for outreach.

GRP MEMBERS ARE INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN PLAN DEVELOPMENT IN THE WAYS
LISTED BELOW.

1. BECOME A MEMBER OF THE STRATEGIC PLAN WORKING GROUP (SPWG)

The SPWG will be made up of representatives of the Abolish Poverty,
Platform, Membership and Diversity, Fundraising, Communications, and
Candidate Development & Legal Committees.  Every active GRP local
chapter or caucus may also have one representative each. The GRP
co-chairs will appoint up to six additional members who express
interest and are considered by the co-chairs to be most valuable to
helping the SPWG complete its work and in adding diversity to the group.

The SPWG will analyze strategy options and write the plan.   Over the
next four months, SPWG members will be expected to devote about 3 or 4
hours per week to working-group activities such as attending regular
meetings, reading suggestions submitted by Party members, helping
with research into the issues, calling in to SPWG teleconferences,
organizing a GRP strategic planning session, helping write or revise
the plan, and organizing the plan's roll-out at the 2007 State Convention.

If you would like to represent a local chapter, caucus, or one of the
6 GRP working committees listed above, please try to secure the
group's appointment by the end of February, and notify the party
co-chairs of your status, .

To apply for one of the 6 open positions, send your name, email
address, and telephone number to party co-chairs: Luc Shuster and
Wendy Van Horne, .  Please include a brief
description of yourself including any background explaining how you
could contribute to writing a good strategic plan and any way in which
you would add to the diversity of the group.  Applications must be
received by February 26 to be considered.

We expect the first SPWG meeting to be in early March.

2. ATTEND COMMENT SESSIONS

The second way to participate is to attend one of the comment
sessions. An extended strategy session will be held at a meeting to
be held in March.  Subsequent, shorter comment sessions will be held
as part of SPWG meeting agendas. The date and location of such
meetings will be posted on the GRP website. If you would prefer to
receive a special meeting invitation by email or phone, send your name
and email address or phone number to .

3. SUBMIT WRITTEN COMMENTS

The third way to participate is to submit written comments or
suggestions to the SPWG. Although comments can be in any form, the
SPWG expects to pose certain questions to solicit more focused input.
Comments can be sent to . If you wish to be
notified when comments are requested to particular questions, send
your name and email address to this address. If you wish to submit
comments by regular mail, send them to Strategic Plan Working Group,
c/o John Andrews, 22 Kendall Road, Lexington, MA 02421.

Visit http://green-rainbow.org/Committees/Strategic_Planning
for more info, or contact Eli Beckerman at 617-821-1453 or  .

Thank you for giving this your consideration.
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