Notes for my Green Party Convention Workshop:
My 500+ egalitarian revolutionary zip code neighbors:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/182436693@N06/
These are my neighbors in my zip code, saying they want an egalitarian revolution. There is nothing special about my neighborhood. Unless you live in Beverly Hills or a rich gated community your neighbors probably want the same thing mine do.
This workshop is about a proposal for how we can make it happen.
The proposal has two parts.
One part is to add a “Democracy Plank” to the Green Party USA platform.
The second part is for Green Party members to create local assemblies of egalitarians where they live, consisting of people like my neighbors who want to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy, and open to all such people regardless of for whom they may have voted for in the past or intend to vote for in the future.
Green liberty caucus Democracy Plank: https://www.pdrboston.org/green-liberty-caucus
This Democracy plank calls for principles that may at first seem to you to be strange or wrong, so I would like to put some historical facts on the table to put these principles in perspective.
Regarding the idea that only egalitarians are allowed to participate in the government:
#1. When the U.S. Constitution Was Ratified by Voters, Did the Founding Fathers Allow Tories to Vote? (Before searching on Google, what do you think?) https://open.substack.com/pub/johnspritzler/p/when-the-us-constitution-was-ratified?r=1iggn&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
#2. Racists Were Properly Denied the Right to Vote by the 1865 Missouri State Constitution at https://www.pdrboston.org/1865-missouri-racists-can-t-vote
Regarding the idea that LOCAL assemblies of egalitarians are sovereign—the only lawmaking body for the given local community with order on a larger scale achieved by voluntary federation of the sovereign local assemblies:
#3. Real life voluntary federation today:
https://www.pdrboston.org/real-live-voluntary-federation
#4. Real life USA government based on a central national law-making government has obviously made it easy for the oppressive rich class to gain control over 350 million Americans merely by using their wealth to control the mere several hundred people who constitute the central law-making government:
https://www.pdrboston.org/proof-we-have-a-fake-democracy .
The obstacle—and it is a big one--to persuading people to join the local assembly of egalitarians is hopelessness: People don’t think the purpose of joining the local assembly of egalitarians is possible, namely the goal of removing the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor.
The chief way to make people hopeful about the possibility of egalitarian revolution is to do things that let people see that they are actually in the vast majority in wanting this goal. For example, ask people to pose for a photo displaying a sign saying that want this goal, and display these photos to others. I displayed a banner with 500 such photos in my local branch library, as you can see in the photo of it here: https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/revolutionary-movement-building-101?r=1iggn .
Hopefulness requires people having an inspiring vision of HOW to have real, not fake, democracy. People are rightfully cynical about so-called “representative government” and a sovereign national government that can veto what people want in their local communities. The idea of sovereign local assemblies of egalitarians using voluntary federation is the necessary inspiring vision; when people hear about it they LOVE the idea. So let’s start talking about this idea.
We need to do what it takes to change hopelessness to hopefulness. We absolutely should not use the current hopelessness as an excuse for not talking about the goal of removing the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor. If we self-censor on this question we are simply helping the rich to remain in power.
I propose local assemblies of egalitarians do this:
I propose that they arm We the People with the confidence:
a) that We the People are right in aiming to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor because this is both morally right and perfectly possible and practical and desirable; and
b) that We the People are the VAST MAJORITY in having this aim (which entails showing how conflicts over issues such as illegal immigration and Israel/Palestine and Critical Race Theory, etc. are orchestrated by the ruling class with key lies and censored truths to make it seem (wrongly) to half the have-nots in each camp that the have-nots in the opposing camp are despicable people who are their enemy); and
c) that our current rulers (the billionaires behind the scene) and their politicians and pundits and media are as morally wrong in defending the class inequality (some rich and some poor) status quo of our society as were those in the past who defended chattel slavery when that "peculiar" institution was the status quo.
To accomplish this, I propose that the local assemblies of egalitarians devote a substantial part of their meetings to a discussion about why, exactly, the above points are all true, in order for Assembly members, themselves, to gain maximum confidence in these points.
I propose that the Assemblies figure out and implement ways to spread this confidence, that Assembly members are developing, to the wider public, to We the People. The more we do this, the more We the People will be able to refute all of the arguments that our rulers use to make us accept, even if grudgingly, their imposition of class inequality on us in the form of things such as building luxury instead of affordable housing and making good health care unaffordable and on and on and on.
The Assembly can thus arm We the People with the confidence, and with the vision of how our society OUGHT to be, that will make it possible for We the People one day actually to remove the rich from power to have real, not fake, democracy with no rich and no poor.
I believe that if this is what we do at Assembly meetings, then more and more people will want to join the Assemblies and attend them.
My videos for Green convention are :
Hi Chuck,
What do you think of these videos:
https://vimeo.com/348054773 re real, not fake, democracy
https://vimeo.com/347958346?fl=ls&fe=ec re Israel/Palestine
https://vimeo.com/351509324 re an egalitarian economy, not based on money
Lots of others exist too. :)