[statecom-discuss] Moore's SICKO interesting: North Americans don't trust politicians or parties

Sun Jul 22 13:57:17 EDT 2007

The 2004 presidential race was basically a single issue campaign and thus it galvanized.  Sheehan would be a candidate campaign but essentially it will be a single issue and so it will also galvanize according to the theory I'm putting forward.

Candidacy campaigns that are effectively single issue campaigns should basically be put into the category of "single issue" campaigns.

So there is in fact a dividing line, but it is not a line drawn to divide based on the format of the change (ballot question or candidate or boycott or whatever tactic).  Instead the dividing line is this: does the effort galvanize people around a single passionate issue or not ?

So I'm not sure you really agree with me.

I'm basically saying that generating a grassroots groundswell around an issue that people care about, precedes building a party; a broad appeal based on principles such as our Ten Key Values, or generic Green candidates isn't going to get it done, despite the best of honorable intentions.

Also, I wouldn't be as pessimistic to say that we don't have any resources.   

30 people in Somerville challenged the power of the elites and got 45 % on an issue where the elites hold many of the cards: Right of Return of refugees.  SDP did well because our issue was well framed and our literature well-made.  Other people have won using ballot questions on IRV for example.

We don't need as many financial resources as you think when we have well-crafted language and can generate passion behind an issue.  

After doing that (generate the passion), if you want to build a party as well, then attach the party to the single issue. The key thing is to link the issue with the party.

SDP wanted to link, for example, but ran out of time to do it well.  We were able to get the state and national Green Party to endorse the ballot campaign, .. but we should have had the GPUS logo on our literature.... but the clock ran out on us and we never got to play that card seriously - but did very well nonetheless in terms of the campaign even if it didn't do the party much good.

I saw SICKO yesterday.  It comes with clear politics (elimination of private insurance companies), an Oprah Winfrey town meeting, mobilization by moveon and Physicians for national health care, and organizing of people at 3000 movie theatres.  It should be interesting to see what format the protest effort will take: if only Bush would come out strongly for private insurance ! then 2008 vote for Edwards could be essentially a single payer vote.  If that doesn't happen it is hard to predict the outlet for the fury of the groundswell.  (direct action at hospitals !... that would be something to see !.. but it won't happen even if it is rather amusing to think about)

By the way, do you think Inconvenient Truth made / is making a decisive difference ?

Ron

BillCunningham <etwee at earthlink.net> wrote: Agreed except.

We are a small party with limited access to the public through media. We are not now in position to dominate any decisive issue in any large-constituency election. "They" will say what they need to say to keep the votes coming their way.

There is no bright line dividing single issue campaigns from electoral campaigns for office. Cyndi Sheehan's candiacy would itself be a single issue campaign. 

The single most important reason people don't support the Green Party / GRP is our organizational weakness. A potential candidate may view our endorsement as more of a burden than a help.

The second, and more fundamental reason, is that we lack strategic and programmatic clarity. In whatever activity we undertake, we should be asking those two questions: (1) how will/did this help the people and the planet? (2) how will/did this help build the party?  

To become an effective organization we need to study how weakness can be turned into strength. We need to (1)acknowledge our weakness, (2) remember our revolutionary values, (3) accept the self-discipline required to clarify and move toward our goals.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Ron Francis 
>Sent: Jul 21, 2007 6:29 PM
>To: statecom-discuss at green-rainbow.org
>Subject: [statecom-discuss] Moore's SICKO interesting: North Americans don't trust politicians or parties
>
>It was interesting to see that Cyndi Sheehan does not seem to be interested in running as a Green in her "do it or I'll run against you" challenge to Pelosi... (although I can't confirm that she denied an approach to run as a Green in her district she did indicate that she was going to go independent if she did run and not as a Green of Peace and Freedom Party in California.
>
>In any event it made me begin to think why it is that so many of our grassroots movements seem to almost "distrust" the alternative parties.
>
>It is true that many of our grassroots movements need to remain nonpartisan officially to keep their status, but it is also true that some do not, especially when the single issue movement makes an electoral challenge as Cyndi has done.
>
>It is clear that the turning of the tide on the War is basically happening at the Congressional level (due to anti-war effort, partly, of course) even if it doesn't come with much root-cause analysis.  That is to say, people did not rally to a Green Candidate in 2004 and didn't in 2006 at the State level, and may not (again) in 2008 nationally even though our candidates are clearly anti-war; that needs to be examined.
>
>I raise this because SICKO (Moore's new film) may be the beginning of a new grassroots movement that finally "eliminates" the insurance companies that Moore says cannot be "allowed to continue to exist". 
>
>If this turns out to be the case then it makes us have to wonder if our social change efforts might be better won, one issue at a time at the Congressional level or even lower grassroots levels.   In other words, 2008 Congressional elections can be used as a vote for Healthcare basically if people vote for close-to-single-payer candidates across the nation.  
>
>(Unfortunately a vote for a Dem is not interpreted as a single payer vote as a vote for a Dem in 2004 was taken to be anti-war basically, so the scenario is not equivalent,.. only similar.  If we could only get Bush to come out pasionately for private insurance companies !, then it would be equivalent)
>
>If it doesn't happen at the Congressional level though it could happen at lower levels.
>
>In any event, I would have to say at this point in U.S. history, overall, the single issue gains being made are more impressive at this time, than any independent party gains.  
>
>In Somerville we saw that even at the lowest levels of government, the will of the people was thwarted by the established politicians,.. but the people roared back with a ballot question that nearly one.
>
>Perhaps that is why I have been drawn to local organizing and ballot question work in the last few years; I think that, I too, basically don't trust anything at high levels of government (or anything that isn't directly happening at the ballot box that is focused on an issue). 
>
>Even though the Presidential election of 2004 was a vote for Dems of Repubs on the surface,.. it was really an anti-war vote basically.  We need to find other ways for people to vote on the issues that they are passionate about; that is where we can win.   
>
>I support people like us doing independent party work like us, of course, in my position as a party member, but I do have to wonder if we would be better off focusing on particular issues rather than trying to elect people.
>
>The tide on anti-war was changed by the ballot box and the Anti-War movement, and not by a focus on any candidate.   I think that healthcare might be won the same way.
>
>I think at this point that people don't trust parties or candidates.  Parties and all candidates have a bad name !  
>
>If this is true, then in our state we need to have our party clearly associated with a particular issue before we'll gain any "trust" of the people that they would actually support a party.  I continue to believe that the ballot question is the best way to do this although the March to Abolish Poverty could, theoretically, have done the same thing.
>
>Grassroots movements at the lowest level are driven by passionate issues and we need to establish our passionate issue if we are going to gain the trust of the people.
>
>Ron
>
> 
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Bill Cunningham
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