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Moving Day - Green Party Resources and Comment Board

 

I have reached a turning point.

I propose that we declare this year's Summer Solstice, Tuesday June 21, 2005, to be Moving Day. Whereupon longtime Democrats such as myself, on one day and en masse, move to a party that has the set of values and principles that the Democrat party not only used to stand for, but used to successfully fight for, both on the legislative floor AND in the hearts and minds of the American people.

It is time that we joined the Green party, bringing to it the sheer numbers of people it now lacks to wield significant political power, and begin the long journey of creating a world that will be better and sustainable for generations hence.

I am the product of generations of proud and believing Democrats. I have never been a hardcore political activist, nor a marching protestor against things my government has done that I vehemently disagreed with. I have believed in the traditional values of the Democrat party that my father and his father believed in. I have believed in the progressive path. The defense of the common man and small businessperson upon which this country was built and has endured for over two centuries. I have fought against attempts to split our party, and have held fast through the last two national election cycles, hoping against hope that true leadership and a compelling and simply-stated set of principles would emerge.

I cannot begin to describe the deep sadness I have when I think of what the Democrat party has lost. but have now, as a single individual, come to the conclusion that the Democrat party is a failed and ruined institution. It it truly, and fundamentally time to move on.

I am by no means the first person to arrive at this point, but I believe I am exemplary of a particular type of Democrat. A dyed-in-the-wool Democrat that until now has vowed to hang on for as long as it takes. I now feel that that strategy is doomed. And our country with it, if a major and significant shift does not occur, and occur very quickly. In the present political environment, time is definitely not on our side if we continue on our current path.

By means of a shrewd forty-year-long strategy, the Republican party has slowly and inexorably captured the ideological playing field and rigged the semantic rulebook. Low income labor workers with modest incomes and families with no medical insurance now proudly vote Republican, convinced that the superficial Republican talk of family values is somehow more American than those of the Democrats.

Our country is now being led down a path that truly frightens me. I am not so worried about myself as I fear for the future generations that will inherit the great burden of debt and hatred we will reap from our country's current political actions, both foreign and domestic. Our leaders have abandoned the great and honorable tradition of drawing the world to our model of freedom, liberty, and justice by means of our own moral behavior and actions, and now foolishly lead the world toward endless hatred, division, and calamity by means of their bellicose war-mongering and misguided geopolitical blunderings.

I hold no ill feelings toward the Democrats. I believe there have been many decent, thoughtful, and hardworking Democrats, doing their best to hold the line against an increasingly leveraged Republican message. But I no longer believe the Democrat party can produce the message that will attract back all those that have abandoned it for the false promises of the far right.

I believe that we must abandon a party that can only manage, at its best, to offer up a weak and reactionary protest after the fact. That is not enough to save this country. We need a new model.

That model, that set of values, that truly and deeply progressive and whole vision already exists. It can be found in the Green party.

The Green Party of California Platform (from the Green Party of California site)

- Ecology & Earth Stewardship
- Social Justice & Liveable Communities
- Peace & Nonviolence
- Democracy & Electoral Reform
- Community-Based Sustainable Economics

Ten Key Values

- Ecological Wisdom
- Grassroots Democracy
- Social Justice
- Nonviolence
- Decentralization
- Community-Based Economics
- Feminism
- Respect for Diversity
- Global Responsibility
- Sustainability

Follow these links and read these principles. I cannot find a single solitary thing that I disagree with in the whole lot of them. In fact in them I see a whole range of ideas and principles and strategies that I have already embraced wholeheartedly for decades.

In this move we will not be rejecting the values and traditional platform of the Democrat party, but rather heeding the call of a more compelling and clear vision of an attainable future. I have been won over. And I believe that many other Democrats just like me, if given an indication of a mass movement, will do likewise.

Only in this new internet age could we truly hope for a rapidly organized conscious and coordinated movement on this scale. It cannot be centralized. It will take the decentralized and individual initiatives of thousands and thousands of individuals to trigger a significant move.

Yes, there are great political risks in this strategy, and there are many that will use fear to try to retain their internal power in the Democrat party. I have previously argued myself for revitalizing the Democrat party, but no longer believe that it's possible. Something is fundamentally, and fatally, wrong with the Democrat party. And I believe that thousands of others believe likewise, but are afraid to move to the Green party one at a time.

I believe a mass migration is possible. I believe it's possible to recapture the spirit of us all as a group. I believe that in order to do this we will have to take control of our national destiny at the grass roots.

I do not want, nor will I accept any form of ownership, management, or control over this idea whatsoever. I offer only the idea itself, and the personal opinion that it needs tooccur no later than this Summer in order to have time to fundamentally affect the 2006 mid-term elections. I believe that the Summer Solstice, a natural symbol of our planet's place in the cosmos, is a suitably auspicious date for this mass act to take place, and that the five months between now and that date is long enough for this idea to take hold, grow, and be sufficiently planned and supported.

This movement, if it is to succeed, must take hold and grow completely on its own. It must emerge as the additive ideas and supporting inventions and facilitations of many others scattered across this great country. Perhaps it will be taken up by moveon.org, or the progressive bloggers. I don't know. I don't believe this is about knowing how it will happen. I believe it is primarily about believing that it is possible. And turning the idea loose in the ideosphere.

Everything else will take care of itself.

Just spread the word.
- posted by JIMWICh on 1/26/2005 4:30:27 AM

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