To all left-leaning citizens /activists, especially that chose not to vote in last year's presidential election, nor any other election in recent history, stayed home because they see the Democratic Party as a lost cause, or because they see the two parties as different wings of the same bird, or simply think elections are useless, but are in the fight to make their communities better and the world at large a better place, this blog post is an open letter to you. I'm not going to attack you, berate, you nor blame you. I get it. Both of the choices that the lame stream media presented to you over and over again sucked. Bernie was cheated. The little guy or gal never seems to gain anything whether we vote or not. The only people that like politics are the politicians, and most of them are corrupt, or puppets for some special interest groups or corporation, so why bother?!
POLITICS HAPPEN TO YOU WHETHER YOU PARTICIPATE IN THE POLITICAL OR NOT. Political based decisions that affect your life or the lives of your family and friends happens everyday. From town ordinances, to state laws, to international trade deals, to military conflicts - a decision making process is happening that infringes upon your life & liberty daily. BUT you all know this! So why this piece? Because this republic, this representative democracy only works if it has an informed politically active citizenry.
The reason why things don't work in the favor for the poor, the working class, the little guy & gal, is because 90 million plus voting age adults do not participate. Without an engagement in the sociopolitical discourse of this nation by the majority a minority can gain control and make decisions that benefit themselves that goes against the interests of said majority. We see these decisions happening every day. The wars in Iraq & Afghanistan, the Wall Street bailout, Arctic drilling, TPP, Fracking, Standing Rock, and so on and so on. Decisions made that will only benefit long-term that minority known as the plutocracy, or 1%.
YES, YOU CAN BE ACTIVE IN YOUR COMMUNITY AND NOT VOTE BUT THERE IS A CEILING ON WHAT COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED IF ELECTORAL POLITICS ARE NOT PART OF THE OVERALL STRATEGY. You can run a soup kitchen, halfway house, home for battered women, rehabilitation center, teen center, take over land and create a community garden, or operate a socially relevant hotline but if any funding comes from the town, country or state your non-participation in politics might do those efforts in. Numbers or lack thereof affects a great many things in our communities. The one group of numbers constantly looked at are whose voting and for what, and from which demographics, and by what percentage.
The elites use their economic might to influence the politicians and the voters. They own the 2 major parties, the media and have rigged the system in their favor. So freaking what! We can use our economic might via boycotts and strikes. We can also form new political organisations and run our own candidates. The situation isn't a hopeless one, it's just one in which a lot of work needs to take place on the ground at the local level. You are already out there helping in your communities around various issues from police brutality to having control over your schools, to re-entry of the formerly incarcerated , to fighting for less restrictions on medicinal marijuana, and assisting the undocumented. Now is the time to couple those grassroots efforts with an electoral strategy.
I DON'T WANT YOU TO VOTE FOR THE SAKE OF VOTING BUT TO VOTE WITH PURPOSE OR A PLAN IN MIND. If the 2 major parties do not speak to your concerns you need to find a party that does. There are several left-wing third parties out there. Some come out of Trotskyist movement such as SAlt, SWP, ISO, SEP, WWP, PSL. Others come from the movement for a multi-tendency orientation like SP USA. Others have names like Peace & Freedom. Still others serve as sheepdog for one of the major parties like Working Families Party does so often. The party that I believes exemplifies a path forward that always has putting people and planet before profits is the GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES.
The Green Party is built upon its four founding pillars of Peace, Ecology, Social Justice, & Democracy. It is the party of gender, racial, & economic justice. It is the antifascist party. The peace party. The progressive party. The people' party. The save the planet party. It is the type of party needed for the 21st century. The Green Party is by no means a perfect organisation. It doesn't gauge every political situation correctly (no party does). It doesn't understand every nuance of every movement (no party does). It still hasn't developed a comprehensive strategy for engaging communities of color and other minorities, nor how to keep them off the treacherous Democratic Party plantation ( all parties are dealing with this same issue). With the above said, it's platform is a forward thinking blueprint for a better America.
IT'S DECENTRALIZED GRASSROOTS BASED ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE ALLOWS ANYONE WANTING TO GET INVOLVED TO BE INVOLVED. The Green Party allows any member that wants to organise, mobilise, educate, recruit, or fundraise on its behalf to do so as long those efforts are in line with its four pillars and 10 Key Values (http://www.gp.org/ten_key_values_2016). For any member to propose new or change current policies on the state and local level according the membership rules and norms of a GP organisation. For any member to take personal ownership of their local organisation. If you are a grassroots activist, well the Green Party is your grassroots political party.
We are living during a political climate in which our activism must go hand in hand with our engagement in the political process. Community action plus political action equals change. To have sustainable change we need to to use both the soap box and the ballot box. We must procure power via the building of movements locally & nationally, and thru electing candidates from within those movements or those that are those movements allies, locally & nationally.
I won't bore you further with my words, I only ask that you think critically about electoral politics, third parties, & consider supporting the Green Party in any way that you are comfortable doing. Look us up online. Check out a public meeting in your area or reach out via email, phone, Twitter, or Facebook and ask questions. Whatever you decide please remember that only thru independent political action will we affect the changes needed to transform the world.
