[statecom] Grace re Fwd: preliminary report on adcom meeting

[Yarden]

Greetings,
Jim Hammerman

I do understand an appreciate your sentiments, I have at times found  
myself in a position in a position wherein I believed that I had  
solved a problem only to discover that this was not so.

I too believed that I had helped contribute a solution to the problem  
now troubling a few persons in the GRP, when in January of 2007, the  
State Committee of the GRP, approved by a strong consensus, a  
principled proposal intended to prevent: 1) a repeat of the  
manipulative politics accompanying the 2004 Milwaukee convention; 2)  
making permanent the chief gain of the convention -- the ability of  
the GPUS to choose a candidate from within the party, itself; 3)  
removing the alternative of participating in duopoly politics out of  
fear for reputation.

Then I had to confront the reality that what we actually accomplished  
constituted an interference in the 'fishing privileges' of a  
relatively few people, and effectively prevented reaching outside the  
party for people whose names, careers, and reputations could bring  
greater prominence to _our_ name, and of course, more votes.

I can excuse my behavior subsequently on a variety of grounds, but  
that in no way removes _my_ responsibility for the unintended outcome,  
or the need for following through on the chief reason -- so recently  
stated by Chuck Turner -- that I became a member of the Mystic River  
Greens local.  It was David Strozzi, a young physicist, one of the two  
Greens who recruited me, who said; the notion that there are  
technological solutions for all problems is simply false -- there have  
to be changes in human behaviors.

I am not at all surprised by the difficulties entailed in moving  
forward in the face of ideological drag, but with the privilege of  
having observed and been a part of sudden shifts of social  
consciousness, of awareness of other possibilities, I expect that I  
will continue to exercise that privilege to participate in bringing  
about the needed changes.

The chief impediments are:
1.	Acceptance of injustice out of ignorance.
2.	The politics of ressentiment, exploiting fear and envy.
3.	Lack of political imagination, and intellectual freedom.
4.	Profound differences in ideological development, and language.

Blaming others for what actually is the case, is almost as bad as  
feeling guilty.  If there is no joy in the struggle, and insufficient  
love in our hearts, we fail our own potential.
Elie Yarden
MRGRA





On May 29, 2008, at 11:29 PM, Jim Hammerman wrote:

> Dear StateCom,
> As the member who stood aside at the end in our April 12 decision, my
> understanding was that we were only revising the process, and only  
> in a
> limited way. In particular, the proposal that was approved addressed  
> the
> following:
> 1) We were solving the problem of how to deal with the fact that we  
> didn't
> have and were not going to get tallies for write-in votes--and we  
> decided
> to redistribute those to the other candidates in proportion to the  
> votes
> they received rather than assigning them all to "No preference".
> 2) We were partially solving the problem of how delegates were to  
> behave
> if the people they were to represent at the convention were not in
> communication with them about how to vote--and we decided that they  
> would
> effectively be released after the first vote.
> We also acknowledged that the timing requirements in the plan were not
> going to be met, but affirmed the rest of the process.
>
> I stood aside because I thought that these two changes were  
> important and
> necessary and should move forward. The issues that Grace raises were
> concerns of mine but I didn't think they were being addressed one  
> way or
> the other in the proposal being considered. I might have liked to  
> have my
> concerns addressed in the StateCom meeting--I raised them--but we  
> ran out
> of time to forge a consensus around them and so I respected the work  
> we
> had done to allow the consensus we had reached to be affirmed. More
> importantly, I thought my concerns didn't _need_ to be addressed by  
> making
> changes to the plan through StateCom--they _could_ be addressed  
> through
> the rest of the process we were affirming.
>
> I hope that helps.
> -Jim
>
>
>
>
> Merelice <merelice at gmail.com>
> Sent by: statecom-bounces at green-rainbow.org
> 05/29/08 10:36 PM
> Please respond to
> State Committee Official Business <statecom at green-rainbow.org>
>
>
> To
> statecom <statecom at green-rainbow.org>
> cc
>
> Subject
> [statecom] Grace re Fwd: preliminary report on adcom meeting
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Dear StateCom colleagues,
>
> As one of the co-facilitators of StateCom's April 12 consensus
> regarding the GRP delegate selection plan, it appears that I did not
> complete my job if Grace's email below is correct. As I recall, it had
> been clearly determined both before and during the consensus process,
> that StateCom had to make its own policy determination and
> interpretation, leaving just the calculation and implementation (not
> any interpretation) to CDLC and AdCom. In your view, was there further
> interpretation needed? And if so, would it have been more accurate not
> to engage in a consensus that did not reflect true feelings?
>
> Sincerely,
> Merelice, Co-Chair
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Gracegrnrnbw at aol.com <Gracegrnrnbw at aol.com>
> Date: May 29, 2008 10:08 PM
> Subject: Re: [candidate-development] preliminary report on adcom  
> meeting
> To: yen.yarden at verizon.net, owen.broadhurst at gmail.com
> Cc: merelice at gmail.com, john.walsh at umassmed.edu,
> jim_hammerman at terc.edu, elibeck at gmail.com, mikeheichman at verizon.net,
> Gracegrnrnbw at aol.com, mail at natfortune.org, nfortune at mac.com,
> nfortune at natfortune.org, candidate-development at green-rainbow.org,
> statecom at green-rainbow.org
>
>
> [Please stop emailing to my personal address?]
>
> As for Elie's rendition, what is here is mostly accurate - major
> misrepresentation is that the Statecom meeting did not resolve the two
> main interpretive issues - about who qualifies as a "candidate" for
> the purposes of the plan (someone not seeking the Green Presidential
> Nomination might not be covered in the Green-Rainbow Party
> Presidential Nominating Convention Delegate Selection Plan) nor
> addressed if candidates release they delegates by definition at the
> time they leaving the race or announce they are not part of the
> race...
>
> And the Statecom was only deciding the wording of the Plan, not its
> interpretation...
>
> Yours, Grace
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