One of the problems in the US is that we need political PARTIES saying the words and offering the visions that can unite a population to reclaim their citizens' roles in democratic decision-making. You who still opt to work in the shadows, as it were, of a party which never says out loud what its base wants -- and therefore never really LEADS the nation in a progressive direction that is truly necessary to deal with the most pressing life and death issues -- should be GLAD to show that it IS possible for a political party to take such stands, and encourage yours to emulate.
A ship cannot arrive anywhere if it has neither chart nor destination. An organization cannot get anywhere without at least saying out loud where it is they are going. Anything else is obfuscation and does nothing to build a conscious constituency prepared to fight for its disappearing rights.
When John Kerry said in 2004, "This is the most important election of your lifetime," he was probably right. But not only did he not bother to tell the American people WHY, he did not ACT as though it were all so important when he backed away from facing down voting fraud in Ohio (as though they were HIS votes, and not the peoples'), and when he lobbed softballs at W in the debates.
The constant moves for appeasement being passed off as "compromise" or "civility" or "being cautions for electoral reasons" have absolutely nothing to do with what you and I both know is required to fend off this great menace which now threatens us. In fact, agonizingly, it only serves to keep us UNinformed and UNprepared to fight the real enemy assaulting us, which -- let us not mince words here -- is domestic.
For those of your colleagues who are not pleased that Greens exist and actually offer alternatives both in goals and in process, they have a few options. We can work together for the same issues. They can retain their votes by satisfying the goals and desires of our constituents to whom the Green agenda is meaningful, and indeed very important. They can fight for electoral reform such as proportional representation and Instant Runoff Voting to make it easier to bring new topics and meaning into the nearly inexistent American political dialog.
Sadly, in general the Democratic party does NONE of those things. They curse us and try to ignore us, and then attack us when we actually succeed in making a crack in the the dumbed down consciousness of those willing willy nilly to let "others" to decide everything. Those "others" have destroyed our industrial base, sent our jobs overseas, left the people without healthcare, sent us off to die and kill in phony wars based upon delusions (or worse) -- all while under the watch of BOTH major parties.
And they want US to be quiet and disappear???
What ever happened to democracy?? Ahh, the "marketplace of ideas"...whose? When did it become a chess game of power?
The Democratic game, it would seem, is to take the sincere efforts of people like yourself and Dennis, and those who support you, and use it ultimately to back the central party power brokers which never attends your -- or the peoples'-- agenda. So...they silence you (effectively), and they attack or ignore us.
Therefore, as colleagues actively working on the same side of a progressive agenda, and under similar circumstances, I would expect that we of the Green Party deserve minimally the same recognition from fellow progressives that advocacy groups receive when describing those who are working for peace, sanity, and responsibility in our nation.
Alan Kobrin
spokesperson, Green Party of Florida
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