Screenshot of the final delegate tally from the Presidential Nominating Convention, complete with misspelled names. Howie Hawkins received 210 votes, needed 178 to win.
I spontaneously decided to live-tweet this Presidential Nominating Convention thingy. See the link to the thread below.
Apart from the nominations, the best news of the day is that the Credentials Committee and the GPUS Steering Committee reviewed and rejected the challenges leveled against the delegations of four states and one caucus. As mentioned previously in this space, the challenges, mostly filed well after the deadline for such things, alleged that our delegates (yes, including those from Texas) were chosen using fishy math. Second-best is that, at least for delegates, this was the most stress-free Presidential Nominating Convention ever, in my view and that of several longtime Greenies of my acquaintance.
Wow. I've been saying for months that I would publish the links for non-delegates to watch the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention as soon as I got them. Now, as the Annual National Meeting is beginning (the first workshops are starting as I type), we finally have them. I have copied and pasted the email, with minor punctuation and formatting edits, below. The big show begins Saturday the 11th at 11 am Central Daylight, scheduled to conclude by 7 pm. You can catch the livestream on your choice of three platforms while we delegates are glued to a marathon Zoom session. Be there or be obsequious, purple, and clairvoyant. ===== This Saturday, you can be a part of history in the making as the Green Party selects its 2020 Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates!
It's too late to register to formally "attend" but anyone can tune in live on three—count 'em three—different platforms! Tune in this Saturday, July 11th at 12 PM Eastern on: We'll also have a live stream with English closed captioning here: https://www.gp.org/live ===== It's NOT too late to get a ticket for the Friday night fundraiser featuring Ron Placone! 7/10 Green Party Online Convention Celebration and Fundraiser Support the Green Party with a Night of LIVE Comedy, Right From Your Home--Order Tickets Now Ron Placone is one of the funniest, fiercest and most fearless comedians in the Left—or anywhere ELSE for that matter! He is an all-star, regular contributor to The Jimmy Dore Show and has been seen on CrossTalk, TMZ, FreeSpeechTV, The Young Turks, Redacted Tonight and more. His debut album, “Agnostic Holiday” is in rotation on SiriusXM. He hosts the YouTube show/podcast, Get Your News On With Ron. ===== Join us for these two great events!Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org/ p.s. Can't make it? You can still help the Green Party fight for Real Solutions That Can't Wait at all levels of government by making a donation today. Content warning: muchos F-bombs and other impolite language. It's also LMAO hilarious to those of us who have been following Green politics closely in recent years, especially in this inexplicable year 2020.
Somebody give this Howie Hawkins delegate a Snickers bar. Click the Read More to see the complete rant (author's name withheld by request). Elsewhere in this online discussion for Hawkins delegates to the Green Party's 2020 Presidential Nominating Convention, this person showed an ability to express sound reasoning in English, along with an impressive acumen for ranting. They had similarly harsh words, also in all caps, for Dario Hunter and his supporters, but I'm not going to include them here. A bit of context may be necessary from some readers: As we noted recently, Dario Hunter's challenge to some state Green Parties' delegate allocation process is getting support on Twitter from some people who call themselves Greens and want to install Jesse Ventura as the Greens' presidential nominee. Ventura did not make any noise about running for the nomination until all the filing deadlines had passed and half of the primary voting had taken place, so that's a non-starter. Ventura is no more likely than Kanye West to be elected president this year. Let it be known that I bear no hatred for Hunter or Ventura, or even for their supporters. If Ventura had pursued the nomination from the beginning, he might have garnered enough support to win the nomination, and it's possible that his name recognition would win the Greens more votes than presumptive nominee Hawkins. But seeing so much profound stupidity and ignorance (yes, there's an important distinction) from these folks on Twitter makes me queasy. Ignorance of the process is only partly their fault: Mass media outlets don't do enough to educate people about it; even if they did, the information would likely have to compete with the tsunamis of mis- and disinformation already in circulation. This is why I am keen to convince Greens and Green sympathizers to become active within the Party, so that they will understand what goes into creating and maintaining a "third-party" campaign. I hope all that context doesn't spoil the message below the fold. Kayleen and I have both decided that the PNC, which is scheduled for an eight-hour block from 11 am to 7 pm Central Daylight Time on Saturday, will be difficult if not impossible to get through without a stiff drink or two. Listening in on the Platform Committee hearings last night and the night before confirmed our decision. Still, today's press release has me all excited.
Happy Treason Day!
That's what we saw on roadside marquee in front of a gun shop in Grimes County today. Kayleen and I took a drive up that-a-way on a mission to deliver hundreds of leftover Natural Awakenings magazines to the regional publisher thereof. (As Patrick Henry would say, "If this be Treason, make the Most of it: Buy you a big-ass Gun!") One of the cool things about history is that we get our choice of which traitors we admire. Today was a good opportunity to do make the trip to prairie lands; next weekend wouldn't have worked as well, seeing as we'll be shoulders-deep in the Green Party's Presidential Nominating Convention. Being a delegate to this year's convention involves a lot more email than in years past: We don't have a crew handing us a nifty delegate packet in person. Every email gets me a bit more excited, a bit more confused, and a bit more nervous, hoping that the technology will cooperate and allow us to participate. Think what you will about that sign at the gun shop: Treason is soooo American. If it's true that the leaders of the Confederate States of America were traitors, it's also true of the rebels who "freed" the North American colonies from Great Britain and its chief sponsor the British East India Company. Call me a traitor if the proverbial shoe fits. If speaking out against the triplet evils of racism, capitalism, and imperialism—and against the corporate state that embodies all three—makes me a traitor, I will wear the label proudly. Just make sure that I get a fair trial before you assemble the firing squad. Nah. It doesn't make me a traitor by the Constitutional definition, because I have not lent aid or comfort to any declared enemies—unless you count monthly Patreon donations to Abby Martin and Eleanor Goldfield. Do I admire Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and that whole crowd of former namesakes of public schools? Not particularly: The cause to which they devoted their treason is odious to me. The system against which they were rebelling, industrial capitalism and wage slavery, is just as odious. I can't admire Lee for his reputation as a skilled military strategist because...well, war is a racket, innit? Do I admire the folks portrayed in the cast of Hamilton, which I joined millions of Americans in watching last night? To a limited degree: While from my 21st-century perspective I can support their desire to escape from the corporate yoke, that whole "I don't like slavery but I'm perfectly willing to keep benefiting from it" posture adopted by the historical Hamilton and Jefferson rubs me wrong. I can still admire their accomplishments that moved humanity forward while disdaining their less noble deeds. Similarly, I can admire a polished speaker and knowledgeable wonk like Millennial African-Iranian-American Jewish-convert attorney-rabbi Dario Hunter for some political positions he has expressed and winning election to a Rust-Belt-small-city school board. I can like that he represents an alternative to Just Another Old White Dude Presidential Nominee. But that doesn't require me to like the entire Candidate Dario Hunter package. So about That Convention... The PNC itself begins at 11 am Central Daylight Time on Saturday 11 July; the current plan calls for the nomination process to end by 7 pm. The whole Detroit 2020 Annual National Meeting (ANM) runs from the 9th through the 12th, including the final discussions of platform amendments and entertainment from YouTube politicomic Ron Placone (whom fans of Jimmy Dore might recognize as the nerdy redheaded sidekick, and whose witty repartée frequently catches Jimmy off-guard and gets him guffawing). In case you haven't seen it, here's Ron's April 2020 interview with Howie Hawkins (52 minutes plus). Delegates will participate via Zoom and Loomio. Regrettably, I still don't have the coordinates of the Facebook Live feed for non-delegates. As I have reported, Hawkins has already claimed enough delegates to win the nomination outright, but runner-up Dario Hunter is challenging the allocations of delegates in some states, backed by some Twitter trolls clambering to see Jesse Ventura nominated. I mentioned that GPTX Treasurer Travis Christal has been fuming about the challenge, but not that current co-chair Laura Palmer and multi-term former co-chair katija gruene are adamant that the challenge regarding Texas delegates is a) after the posted deadline for such and b) based on a lack of understanding of the Proportional Approval Voting process. In intra-GPTX conversations and public Facebook posts, kat has likened Hunter's railing against the GPUS leadership to "COINTELPRO tactics" of "divide and conquer," with the modern variant of tossing identity politics into the mix. Such COINTELPRO-style infiltration would be nothing new to Green Party veterans: been there, been burned by that. Even so, it's always tricky tripping up the infiltrators before their divisive behavior begins, primarily because they are skilled in winning people's confidence. It's what infiltrators do. Do I think that Hunter is deliberately trying to fragment an already-fractious Green Party? Or do I give him the benefit of the doubt that he perceives unfair treatment and is willing to fight it? Is Hunter a snake in the grass or just naïve? Possibly both? I haven't reached my own verdict yet, but some people I know and trust certainly have, for reasons I'm opting not to explore in detail here. Speaking strictly for myself, I am both eagerly anticipating and dreading next Saturday's events. Will a pack of Hunter enthusiasts take up valuable convention time and impede the Party's progress? Will the Party leadership allow the challenge to be presented before the first round of voting takes place? If this were not a virtual meeting, would the majority shout them down? Will they figure out a way to shout them down via Zoom?
The late, legendary Barbara Jordan was the first-ever Congressmember from Texas District 18, which she helped create as a state senator, and which I have inhabited for the past nine years. From the very beginning of her tenure, she admonished staff that not only must there be no impropriety in the office, but there must not even be the appearance of impropriety. She knew better than to give ammunition to colleagues or press who might seize any opportunity to bring down an outspoken black liberal woman from the old Confederacy's largest city.
Have the insiders in the Green Party of the United States engaged in enough appearance of impropriety that attorney and rabbi Dario Hunter can build a case against them?
 A portion of a photograph at the head of Chapter IV of the GPUS Platform. The Annual National Meeting and Presidential Nominating Convention of the Green Party of the United States is scheduled for the weekend of 11-12 July. Thanks to COVID-19, we're not going to Detroit for the convention; Detroit is coming to us via teleconferencing platforms.
Speaking of platforms, I am grateful to California Green mover & shaker Diana C. Brown for alerting tout le monde vert on Facebook regarding this year's proposed amendments to the GPUS national platform. The Platform Committee will consider 15 changes—submitted by several different committees, caucuses, and state parties—which I'll list in summary form below the Read More. Keep in mind that the Platform is more about desired outcomes than processes for achieving them. It can include a call for abolition of the Electoral College without presenting the nuts and bolts of how to rescind the provisions in Article II, Section 1, Clause 3 of the Constitution and the Twelfth Amendment. The Green Party of the United States officially announced earlier this week that its 2020 Presidential Nominating Convention and Annual National Meeting will take place in cyberspace. GPUS has also extended early registration so that delegates and others may still register for only $100 each. That's right, only. If I recall correctly, registration at Baltimore in 2012 was $120. But that's just the suggested donation: Lots of Greens without the means can negotiate their ticket price downward. As previously discussed here at dbcgreentx, the decision had been made back in April, but was only announced this week after the organizers had all the particulars nailed down. One of the unfortunate oversights in the appointment of delegates at the GPTX convention last month was forgetting to inform attendees that there was indeed an admission price for the convention. However, nobody should be too upset about not having to travel to Detroit or book lodging there, thus saving hundreds they might otherwise have spent. (Cue nostalgic music and slow-mo images of seven Texas Greens back in 2004, including yours truly, traveling to Milwaukee and back in a rented van.) As always, there are discounted tickets available, particularly for members of one of the identity caucuses or even those who are eligible to join those caucuses. GNC SC Meets Re PNC and CCC, etc. I'm not generally tuned in to the National Committee scene, but it came to my attention via some Facebook browsing that the Steering Committee of the NC will have its monthly meeting this Sunday night. The highlight of the agenda appears to be an update on the PNC (Presidential Nominating Convention) so that it at least appears in the official minutes. But I'm excited about a proposed change to the GPUS Bylaws regarding the gender composition of the Coordinated Campaign Committee, which will likely be adopted by Steering Committees and State Executive Committees thereafter (bolds mine): Proposal The Green Party of Texas just concluded a packed weekend at the Grey Forest retreat in San Antonio. On Saturday, GPTX held its nominating convention for statewide offices, including the selection delegates to August's Presidential Nominating Convention in Houston. On Sunday, the Party held its annual meeting, at which the delegates assembled elected members to the State Executive Committee and passed a few resolutions regarding policy positions and internal procedures.
President of the United States—updated According to Green Party Watch, here is the Texas delegation to the Presidential Nominating Convention: Jill Stein: 15 SKCM Curry: 3 Darryl Cherney: 2 Kent Mesplay: 2 Bill Kreml: 1 The win for Stein continues a nationwide pattern: Among states that have had their primary elections, caucuses, or conventions, Stein has won all of them. Unless something changes radically in the next three months, she will likely be nominated resoundingly on the first ballot in August. State Offices David Wager, longtime treasurer for the Harris County and Texas Greens, reports that all the candidates for the various state offices had their nominations confirmed: Railroad Commissioner: Martina Salinas Supreme Court, place 3: Rodolfo Rivera Muñoz Supreme Court, place 5: Charles Waterbury Supreme Court, place 9: Jim Chisolm Court of Criminal Appeals, place 2: Adam "Bulletproof" King Blackwell Reposa Court of Criminal Appeals, place 5: Judith Sanders-Castro Those were the only candidates who registered to run for those positions. GPTX has a history of fielding only one candidate per office, whose only opposition is None of the Above. Been busy, been traveling, been neglecting this blog for far too long.
Here's the first bit of not exactly earth-shattering news that I'd like to include in this entry. Another Houston-based author, Neil Ellis Orts, recently got an idea to create a Facebook event page for creative friends to advertise their wares, gratis. Check out the selection of books, artworks, and jewelry, some of it by Houston residents, including a certain novel about the exciting lives of Unitarian Universalists in a fictitious Texas college town. I met Neil through Continuum Performance Art, the group with which we have both staged performances. I bought Neil's novella Cary and John shortly after it was published last year, and I recommend it, especially to those who might enjoy a good closeted love story with vivid, multi-dimensional characterizations. Since my last post about four weeks ago, I have
Turning UH Green At least I can report that a decision has been reached regarding the venue for the 2016 Green Party US Presidential Nominating Convention. The local and national folks put their heads together, after touring some possible sites, and decided to hold it at the University of Houston. The dates are set at 4-7 August 2016, with Saturday the 6th the most likely date for choosing the party's nominee. Bear in mind that, while Dr. Jill Stein remains the presumptive nominee, the only Green candidate to file the requisite paperwork and pursue federal matching funds, all Greens should be cautious not to label her as "the Green nominee" or even "the Green candidate." She is a Green candidate. Other declared candidates include Kent Mesplay (for the fourth time), Earth First! organizer Darryl Cherney, and the redoubtable SKCM Curry. Not Just Anybody, and Possibly Nobody GPUS has a set of criteria for whom it recognizes as a presidential candidate. One of the criteria is "written support from 100 Green Party members to the GPUS Secretary, with no more than 50 from one state, and including members from at least five state parties; this requirement is not applicable until December 1st of the year preceding the presidential election." In expressing this written support, Green Party members may indicate their support for more than one candidate. It's a standard practice within the Green Party to allow voting for multiple candidates when choosing its officials at the county, state, and national level. The method varies from state to state, but Approval and Ranked Preference voting are the most common; both have the advantage of ending up with a candidate approved by at least 50% of the voting members. For public offices other than President and Vice President, states may also use a form of Instant Runoff Voting. However, for President, delegates the the Presidential Nominating Convention cast votes for just one candidate in each round. They may also choose None of the Above for any office. If NotA wins, the Party chooses not to field a candidate for that office. The NotA scenario almost happened in 2004, when David Cobb narrowly defeated NotA in the second round of balloting. That year, some None-of-the-Abovers preferred to support the Greens' 2000 nominee Ralph Nader, who was running as an independent in '04; some just did not want to risk peeling votes away from Democratic nominee John Kerry in key states. As it happened, Cobb's vote totals did not upset any Electoral College apple carts. He did continue the Green tradition, started by Nader and carried on by Stein, of getting arrested or tossed out while trying to crash the presidential debates. After the 2004 election, Cobb and Libertarian nominee Michael Badnarik went to bat for Kerry in Ohio, where the Republicans appeared to have used multiple dirty tricks to lock up the vote for George W. Bush. Kerry, VP nominee John Edwards, and the rest of their crew didn't bother. |
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