[statecom] my blocking concerns for Proposal #1

[Larry Ely]

o  BALLOT: PROPOSAL #1 -  Elect twenty two new state committee
members.  See the list below with their nominators.

BALLOT: PROPOSAL #1: Seat all 22 members who have asked to join the
State Committee
DELEGATE NAME: Larry Ely
DELEGATE EMAIL ADDRESS OR PHONE IF NO EMAIL: tetrahedrons at crocker.com
DELEGATE CHOICE: I have grace, blocking concerns, and I shall not stand aside

First of all, we do not need new delegates to StateCom in order to carry 
out Proposal #2, which is, to quote the first sentence of the proposal as 
submitted by Jamie O'Keefe in his email of 6/21/08: "The purpose of this 
special online meeting is solely to appoint and
approve delegates to the national convention."  AdCom and StateCom are 
already in agreement on doing this and on how to do this.

And EVEN IF WE DID need to dramatically expand StateCom overnight by some 
70%, doing this by email is a grievously bad way to do this.  This is 
because one cannot read somebody who is invisible.  We have 
intuitive-perceptive organs beyond the simple five physical organs for 
sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste.  Why do you think interviews are 
performed when hiring someone for a job?  A characterological defect in 
many Greens is their too great ideological orientation - if somebody says 
they are a Green, that is just accepted.  Part of being a Green is honesty 
and moral courage.  How can I evaluate those qualities just by seeing a 
list of names?

I am in full agreement with John Andrews' blocking concerns, especially 
about not knowing who the new 22 people are.

Now, on the matter of diversity, let me say something that I think is 
important as concerns Greens.  What being Green is all about is true 
community, true just community.  It is that simple.  Sure, "true just 
community" needs to be defined.  But you cannot define what something is by 
listing a bunch of things that it is not.  Being a Green is stepping onto a 
path, taking a vow, to search for what constitutes true just community.

A  picture form, I think, to visualize what being a Green is - as opposed 
to a Republican or a Democrat - is to see these three points of view as an 
equilateral triangle:  Republicans on the right corner of the base, 
Democrats on the left corner of the base, and Greens astriding them both at 
the apex of the triangle.  It is not a linear thing, as though Greens are 
more to the left of the Democrats.  I hat to break this to the socialists 
and the communists in our midsts, if there are any.  The very fact that 
Greens hold high as a virtue the idea of local control is to say that they 
are partially aligned with one of the Republicans' traditional talking 
points.  The projection down from the third point of the triangle 
intersects midway between the line that joins the Dems and Reps.  But the 
Greens are also sympathetic with the Dems in wanting SOME central, 
regulating going on.  But the Greens distrust the centralization that the 
Dems have traditionally held.   What remains is to ask what is the meaning 
of the vertical parameter - why are the Greens above the line that joins 
the Dems and Rebs.  That is where honesty and community come in.  White man 
(patriarchy) build big fire sit far back, Indian (the person close to 
nature, the Green) build small fire, sit up close.  This gets us close to 
the intimacy that the Greens are working on, and this is the path to 
building community.  All the obsession about diversity parameters continues 
us along the linear conception of being a Green.  This thinking is also a 
continuation of the trap of thinking that you can define the essence of 
something by saying what it is not.  This emphasis on diversity is 
basically negative - we are not racially balanced enough, we are not gender 
balanced enough, we are not sexual orientation balanced enough, we are not 
class balanced enough (well, here we surely stress having more poor than 
rich - which loses us traction), we are not etc., etc.  Does not all this 
negativity implied in the stress on diversity take our eyes off the ball of 
trying to visualize the good, the positive?

We are not unified happy band, we are not merry workers out working in the 
world positively.  This turns people off from joining us.