GPUS SC Conference Call Minutes
Sunday, March 25, 2012 – 8:00 p.m. ET
I. CALL SETUP
a. Facilitator – David Doonan
b. Start recording of call
c. Roll Call – Co-chairs Audrey Clement, Susan Chunco, Darryl Moch, Tamar Yager, and Farheen Hakeem, Secretary Budd Dickinson, Treasurer Jeff Turner (left call after his report)
Absent – Theresa ElAmin
II. STAFF REPORT
a. Office Manager – Brian Bittner submitted
b. Fundraiser Report – David Sacks submitted 3/16. Tamar said that he still is working on the system for recruiting phone callers.
III. TREASURER’S REPORT & FINANCE ITEMS – Jeff
a. Cash report to date: $6000 in general and web account; $15,000 in reserve account, including $7000 ANM funds transfer from general account. Jeff reminded us that 1/4 of the year is gone and we are behind in fundraising.
IV. VOTING QUEUE – Budd
In the queue:
650 & 651 – IC Proposals for confirmation of FPVA delegates: Julia Willebrand and Carl Romanelli – Voting 3/26 – 4/1
Received for the queue:
None
V. LIAISON ASSIGNMENTS & REPORTS – 25 minutes
Steve said that he would step in where needed. Tamar said that we need a report on the Accreditation Committee since this is a Presidential year and we may want participation from those states working on accredidation. Audrey picked up some when Mark and Leenie left (BAC & PCSC). Her campaign is over 3/27 and she will become more active.
Theresa has been inactive. Farheen just talked to Theresa, who is willing to step aside from Media and Platcom. David D is updating the liaison webpage. Budd will talk to Steve about where he is needed.
Reports: Darryl is still working with CCC, GHCC, and GSCC to have them work together. Darryl also reported on Platcom, which is cleaning up the proposed amendments so we can get back on schedule. Darryl also reported on the activities of the Media Comm.
Farheen reported on CredCom. Ron Hardy has resigned. They have a 5/30 deadline to get info from states.
VI. PROPOSAL to submit statement to Global Greens on Occupy movement (see below) – Susan. There was general agreement that the wording of the resolution could be improved, but time is short. So the statement below was approved by consensus and will be sent to the Media Committee for a dissemination per the 24-48 Hour Response process in GPUS Rules and Procedures.
VII. ANM/PNC – Brainstorming on keynote speakers for the PNC – (Tamar):
Cynthia McKinney, Rosa Clemente, Jared Ball, David Cobb, Pat LaMarche, Muhammed Malik, Winona LaDuke, Amina Wadud, Ralph Nader, Faisal Alam, Cornell West, Chris Hedges, Cindy Sheehan, Noam Chomsky, Travis Smiley, Urvashi Vaid, Lisa Emina Weiner-Mahfuz, Vijay Prashad, Asra Nomandi.
Brainstorming on theme for the ANM – Racial Justice; Occupy Wall Street or Occupy the Vote; “We are not the Alternative – we are the Imperative”
VIII. ACTION ITEMS/OLD BUSINESS
1. Employment Agreements and Personnel Manual revision
2. Strategic Planning –
Project 2 – Review RP&PS for what isn’t working now (some changes may be suitable only after GPUS restructuring). Darryl volunteered to work on this. He wants a face-to-face group at the ANM to talk about this and #3 below. He will submit a workshop.
Project 3 – Working group to study a variety of organizational political structures, including US major parties, Greens around the world, etc. Consult with those who created the structure we have.
3. Mark Hinkle of Libertarians working with Constitution Party on May meeting in DC on topics of joint interest – Brian available to attend if SC wants him to. Need date. Others showed interest in going.
IX. Next call 4/8/12
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Proposal to submit statement to Global Greens on Occupy movement
Sponsor: Susan Chunco
Background: The Global Greens Congress is meeting in Dakar, Senegal from March 29-April 1. A call for proposals has been made for national Green Parties to submit proposals for resolutions to be considered by the Congress. There is currently no resolution before the Congress regarding the Occupy Movement. However, feedback from one of Congress organizers suggests that there would be receptivity to such a resolution if submitted.
The reason to bring this to the SC is the time-sensitive nature. With the Congress beginning on Thursday, March 29th and with GPUS rules for NC votes mandating a full week for a vote, even if discussion were limited, to a day or two, there is no possibility for the NC to consider and approve a statement.
In such cases, Article IV of the GPUS Rules and Procedures arguably provides the GPUS with the ability to approve of a statement and forward it to the Global Greens. Article IV is attached below.
Proposal: That the SC approve submitting the following GPUS-sponsored statement on the Occupy movement for the Global Greens Congress to consider, and that immediately upon SC approval, that the GPUS Secretary send it to James Tonson, Global Greens Secretary (secretary@globalgreens.org) , with a copy to Bob Marsh (bob@marsh.name), who will be the GPUS Alternate Delegate in attendance at the Congress.
The Global Greens applaud grassroots movements for self-determination and justice. We view with hope and admiration, recent such movements that are sprouting up around the world, from the Arab Spring to the Spanish Indignants to the Occupy Movement worldwide.
Power structures that are unjust and out-dated are being rejected in every nation, and people arising in one part of our world are giving hope to people in others.
But to bring about truly transformative change, social movements need to affect both attitudes and public policy, and to affect public policy, one has to affect politics. This is a long and worthy process, but one that doesn’t come without risks.
The Occupy Movement is by nature and design an apartisan movement, that is rightfully distrustful of politics as usual. The role of money and corruption in politics is deep and pervasive around the planet, and too often traditional, establishment political parties simply try to ignore or co-opt social movements, rather than empower them.
The Green Party believes this view is a healthy and necessary skepticism. But we also believe that people and parties can ‘occupy’ politics if they put their mind to it. Although it hasn’t been called that, the Green Party has been trying to ‘occupy’ electoral politics since 1972, when the first Green Parties began in Tasmania and New Zealand. Today with Green Parties in 100 countries on five continents, and with thousands of Greens elected in local governments and more than 250 to national parliaments worldwide, the global Green Party movement is a successful example that a political party can do politics differently and still be effective. How?
Like the Occupy Movement, the Green Party has a deep commitment to internal democracy. We believe everyone’s voice must be heard, and that there is a wisdom inherent in our diversity that makes us stronger when we listen to it. Greens who attend the General Assemblies of the Occupy Movement, often remark how similar their internal processes are to those of the Green Party, for this very reason.
Like the Occupy Movement, Greens also believe we have to practice what we preach in our own lives and organizations, in order to create the world we want to live in — in other words, to ‘be the change’ we want to see, including practicing a deep and unshakeable commitment to non-violence.
In the case of the Green Party, in country after county for the last forty years, social movement activists who were not initially interested in electoral politics, but who found that the establishment political parties were unresponsive to their concerns about peace, justice, democracy and the environment, eventually concluded that they needed to start their own, new Green political parties, rather than accept the limitations imposed upon them by the establishment parties. This step was often unanticipated by those who eventually came to this conclusion. But in retrospect, this was a natural evolution from pure activism, to seeking an electoral complement to that pure activism.
Of course, without strong social movements pushing upon politicians, politicians are unlikely to make the changes we need, and we must not sacrifice activism to only do electoral politics. But at the same time, without an electoral complement to social movements, transformative change can often be very difficult to sustain.
For this reason, Greens want to share the benefits of our 40 years of experience with the Occupy Movement, and all those seeking greater self-determination around the world, that politics can be occupied, and that voters will respond to a kind of politics that sees the means and the ends as inseparable, despite the many obstacles to democracy placed in the way by the status quo parties and interests.
Of course, no one political party has a monopoly on good ideas, and we don’t suggest that the Occupy Movement should tie itself to any particular party or parties. But we do believe that it is absolutely critical that strategies to increase democracy and representation should be high on the list of the strategies of the Occupy Movement, because with a greater voice for the people, the other demands of the movement are more likely to occur, and to occur more quickly.
Ultimately greater self-governance, where all people have a say in the decisions that affect them, from the local to the global, is our best hope for humanity — and by extension, for other life on this planet, as the growing and kindred Rights of Nature movement is demonstrating.
With this in mind, the Global Green Party movement stands with people all over our planet who seek that greater voice. Because as we know from our planet’s ecology, all of our fates are inseparable and intertwined.
Attachment: ARTICLE IV: STEERING COMMITTEE ENDORSEMENT PROCESS/ ENDORSEMENT PROCESS FOR TIME SENSITIVE REQUESTS :
http://www.gp.org/documents/rules.shtml#04
A. 24-48 Hour Response
The Steering Committee, in consultation with Green media spokespeople and other knowledgeable greens, will draft a statement, and use the appropriate spokespeople to disseminate said statement. The Steering Committee will also e-mail and otherwise transmit the statement to the Green Party National Committee for comment before releasing the statement publicly, but shall be allowed to release the statement even without feedback. A quorum of at least 80% of all members of the Green Party Steering Committee is necessary for determining that events require an immediate response, and there must be an agreement among at least 80% of all Steering Committee members on the substance of their response.