evangelically rude!
A pointless and destructive battle rages between a handful of narcissistic screamers and the people trying to keep the GP-US mailing lists usable.
The screamers insist that they cannot communicate in a professional tone, and any request to do so is an attempt to "censor" them. Meanwhile, they bully and intimidate normal people from speaking their minds.
I've tried to explain to the screamers that we are not just pulling these decorum rules out of the air, but that they represent the wisdom accumulated from forty years' experience with tens of thousands of political mailing lists. But the screamers insist that they know better than all of those tens of thousands of list owners over all those years. One screamer rationalization is that all of those people are rich white men who cannot possibly understand the imperative to refer to one's political opponents as "feces" and "vomit" in order to retain one's cultural identity in a historically oppressed demographic. Right.
It's easy to wave your arms and shout at a problem. But that doesn't make it go away. Denying that the problem exists does not make it go away. It doesn't work for manmade climate change and it doesn't work with bullying on mailing lists.
Have you been wondering why your national party isn't getting much done? It would get a lot more done if many of your delegates were not afraid to participate. It would get a lot more done if there were less screaming on its mailing lists. We just don't have another communication medium. and the one we have is being flooded with noise. The business of the party is being drowned out. That's politically motivated censorship.
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Way too many screamers without any meaningful solutions sucking up way too much oxygen in the GP. If the party is to move forward as a viable alternative to the corporate parties, these kinds definitely need to be smoked out of leadership roles within the party.
Once again, I may be screwing around with the politically correct line in this forum but what the hell? There has to be a better way than the Republicrats and it'll only be accomplished if Greens can reach out as a party of reason with solutions that can be readily implemented as opposed to being perceived as a dysfunctional rolling cluster of screamers.
Have at it y'all.
Right after I was elected to the national steering committee in 2004 I became the target of several of these screamers. Some of the names I was called: racist, redneck, cracker, hillbilly, and my favorite quote came from a delegate from Pa.: "there is no way a white boy from the south can be radical enough to lead the Green Party".
The delegates involved were reported to their state parties but nothing was ever done. Between this crap and everything that was going on leading upto and right after the election of 2004, I lost all faith in the Green Party being an agent of change and I quit the SC as well as the party in spring of 2005.
We are losing many valuable points of view and ideas because people are afraid to post to the national lists. Plus I think we are also losing people due to the sheer volume of drivel these bozos are pumping out. Do you really need to comment on every single thing that is posted?
I'm just an observer these days, not a participant like I was '98-'01. Tonight, I got so fed up just watching that I very nearly took myself off the NC list. I just can't wrap my head around the sheer bitterness of it all. This is not what building an alternative looks like. In fact, I don't think most of this rises to the level of politics at all. I think it's people's issues, and just plain need for attention, bubbling up where politics are happpening. Tomorrow, it might be sports, and the day after, religion.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but I've been giving this a lot of thought, and I'm looking for a bit of feedback.
I've been trying to isolate what separates the screamers from the lucid folks. After much pondering and many discarded theories, I believe it comes down to the believers believing that "fair" means "I win." To put it another way, they don't seem to believe there can be honest disagreement -- if you disagree, you are dishonest.
This would explain the constant accusations of unfairness, lack of transparency, lack of democracy, etc. -- these are the screamers' way of arguing their case: "If you are fair and democratic, you agree with me. If you don't, you're not." Similarly, this explains the slurs, like "demogreen." People who disagree with the screamers are, ipso facto, traitors.
Here's what this does NOT mean:
- That the lucid folks are entirely blameless at all times.
- That the screamers are tied to any particular political tendency. Indeed, as I wrote above, I don't think this rises to the level of being political at all.
I dealt with screamers back in my GPUSA days. In the end, the GPUSA imploded. The ASGP, the lucid voice, was willing to accept setbacks, as long as process was followed. My election to the SC was the proof. In the end, this flexibility was to its advantage, and it won. The GPUSA was inflexible, and died. Today's screamers will meet the same fate, sooner or later -- they will alientate their own base, and ultimately, even each other. The only question left is how much damage they will do in the meantime.
As for how to deal with them... I don't have any brilliant ideas. Keep in mind that their hobby is pushing people's buttons, and they are masters at it. Try not to let them bait you. Hold the conversation you feel the list deserves. Speak lucidly and calmly. Talk about ideas, not people. Above all, be constructive. If we can't build a party, we have no socio-political critique to offer.
You all are so right. I am very fortunate to have nothing to do with GPUS directly. I put all my work and effort into the state party and when I hear stories of the crap that a handful of people lob around the NC lists I shake my head.
The term "Screamers" to describe these people is great! Keep that one alive! Listen to it...
"you are a puke filled demogreen bla bla bla..."
"Quiet, screamer."
"What? How dare you censor me you fascist traitor! You are bla bla bla..."
"Quiet, screamer."
"Name calling, now! Look at the Demogreen traitor cracker calling names you hypocrite bla bla bla..."
"Quiet, screamer."
"I'm going to report you to the list moderators because you refuse to engage me in my banal desire for arguing about my paranoid delusions bla bla..."
"um...quiet, screamer."
Of course this is not a very green thing to do. Maybe substitute "Quiet, screamer" with Silence, or better yet a nice canned statement that can be sent to the screamer in response to every offensive email, something like:
"I respect your individuality and your right to your opinion, but I respectfully disagree."
Anyway, I have a lot of admiration for those of you on the NC that can put up with all that. Keep up the good fight.
Esteban, I must confess that I have experienced all three sides of what you are describing on either the NC list or on others. I say three sides since I have withheld replies when I have been accused of things wrongly and screamed at; many times I have become frustrated and screamed back with a 'tit-for-tat' strategy; and I have had the role of list nanny and have been accused of both being too lenient and being a censoring authoritarian.
I agree with much of what you wrote with some exception. You forgot to mention that folks have been correctly called out for unfair and bad faith actions from time to time. You forgot to mention that informal cliques exist with great opacity and they sometimes effectively use passive-aggressive tactics.
(To stay focused on the fundamentals and eschew the incidentals, I reread the best stuff at least once a year. Joreen's The Tyranny of Structurelessness is one of the best.)
Aggressive behavior shows itself in the overt screaming form and in the covert passive form. The results are the same -- bad faith action.
I didn't last a year on the National Committee before I had to resign. My greatest frustration came from those who refuse to agree to the negotiating CRITERIA as the first step. I don't know what they are screaming about today, but a year ago it was about the allocation of state delegates. Since there was a refusal to first agree on the definition of 'fair', the negotiating (if you can even call it that) was nothing but ol' fashion power politics.
My advice would be that all discussion should cease until the first step of negotiation is effectively completed. Professional negotiators and facilitators will tell you that STEP #1 is to begin with an agreement on the OBJECTIVE decision criteria. Without doing that, subjectivity tends to re-define every word and concept in self-interested ways until the whole process spirals to the irrational. Facts cease to exist and the battle of opinions rages.
You mentioned the ASGP/GPUSA wars of ten years ago. My mantra back then on the old USA Forum was that the process of the ASGP splintering and then superseding the GPUSA would create deep resentment and distrust. Ten years later, we have a national organization with resentful and distrustful people.
If the combatants refuse to step #1, above, then maybe the best solution now is to employ term limits so that all the old-timers will have to take a step back from the National Committee? Overly simplistic, I know...since the same group has to agree to adopt the term limits!
It wasn't my intention to say that just because some folks make a hobby of throwing everything they can imagine (and they are an imaginative bunch) against the wall, that none of it sticks. That's what I meant by the first of my two bullet points. The blame game is highly destructive, but that doesn't mean there isn't any blame to be had.
You're quite right to say that the first step is to establish the criteria, or as I would phrase it, the rules of the game. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the most destructive thing the screamers do is try to tear down the rules of the game. If someone can say out loud, "I accept the rules and the outcome they give us, whether or not it's is what I wanted," then they are not a screamer.
I also agree that the way the ASGP-GPUSA bickerfest ended up was not the optimal outcome. In fact, I was at the eye of the storm when things came to a head, to mix metaphors. If the term "Boston proposal" means anything to you, note that you'll find my name at the bottom (Steve Herrick). I went to GREAT lengths to settle things amicably, to no avail. That's what I was referring to when I said the GPUSA was inflexible. (Sidebar: they *still* own greenparty dot org)
Term limits? I dunno. I won't deny that some folks have held sway for an awfully long time. Then again, I know for a fact that most of them work like dogs for the party, and that we wouldn't be where we are without them. It's an uneasy balance, and one that makes me a big fan of voluntary turnover. I did my part by not running for re-election to the SC when my term was up.
I know I am not saying anything new when I say that Greens are very passionate people. We care deeply for our causes and we take them to heart. I had a friend ask me one time why I work so hard for causes that often seem like lost causes. I told her I do it because I know I am right.
This passion does not lend itself to compromise but in the real world, most of the time we have to compromise. I know as people are reading this I am being called a sell out but I have been around long enough to know this is how things have to be. Maybe it is because I live in a very conservative part of the country and I have to compromise to get things done.
I admire people who are passionate about their causes but when this zeal blinds them and turns them into a cult it can get ugly. The Green Party is at a real crossroads right now and we need to put aside our petty differences or we will go into the dustbin of history.
Lets tone down the rhetoric and listen to each other. We need to scream at the people in power not at each other.
Steve - I didn't know you were Esteban, good meeting you this past summer - Gray
ever posted on this board. Thanks to all of the Green Party vets for chiming in. As an untested rookie, I've learned a great deal. I've always considered simply diving deep into local environmental causes and abandoning all hope of an alternative party movement altogether; however, I might have to reconsider after reading these comments based on the fact that as long as good folk like y'all are still on the bandwagon in one way or another, there may still be a chance.