GNC Censored Posts

The Green National Committee operates two email list serves for the conduct of party business.  Its votes list and an online voting application serve as the principal means by which the GNC virtually conducts its business.  Many have over the years commented on the declining civility on the Naional Committee since the days when its business was primarily conducted in two or three times annually in face-to-face meetiings.  GNC #186, "Proposed Listserv Protocol for Delegates Discussion and Votes Lists -- Amended", was adopted in October 2005 and observed that:

A high volume of posts, as well as the frequent personal attacks, gratuitous vulgarity and inflammatory nature of many posts on the Natlcomvotes and Natlcomaffairs list serves have contributed to alienation of and resignation by GPUS NC members. NC Delegates from many states have requested that usage guidelines be established.

Over the years, several things happened:

• multiple attempts (GNC # 308, 413, 415, 797, 798, 901) to amend and extend to the scope of the list serve protocols failed; 
• multiple attempts to adopt a Code of Conduct were advanced and failed to gain traction;  
• increasing pressure was exerted that the list moderators enforce these failed Codes of Conduct in he absence of any authority to do so.

In the Spring of 2021, with delegates from muliple states having agitated that the incumbent list moderators had failed to exceed their authority under GNC #186, the Steering Committee nominated and the National Committee confirmed (GNC # 1050, 1051, 1052, 1053) the appointment of a slate for list moderators of GNC members willing to abuse their roles as moderators to enforce the cancel culture demands of some Delegates towards he end of silencing dissenting voices who opposed the expulsion of the Georgia Green Party.  

Proposal 1062 has profoundly divided the NC, with 'no' votes from delegates in nine states, and abstentions from three other states as well as the Black Caucus. The hope for erasing all dissent on this issue, in the NC or in state parties, even by "shock and awe" as advocated by one delegate, is slim.

Issues raised -- female sports, age of consent for sterilizing treatments, involuntary exposure of females to naked male bodies, physical threats against writers like J.K. Rowling -- will continue to be discussed in public and within the GPUS constituency. We can practice grassroots democracy or else lose it.

Building a new Alaska party after the expulsion of the GP AK has not made progress: the GPUS site says, "At present, the Green Party does not have an organized presence in Alaska" (https://www.gp.org/alaska). The expelled party is still active (https://www.facebook.com/Greenpartyak/).

The claim that the DNE group is a "hate group," because it opposes the dis-accreditation of the Georgia state party, originated in the Steering Committee. Later the SC issued a public denunciation of DNE. Replies to that denunciation are at https://www.dialoguenotexpulsion.org/documents/organizational_statements.

It is up to the delegates to assess both the issue at hand and the methods used to secure votes for proposal 1062.

It is my understanding that the Black Caucus has worked to impartially evaluate the current situation and that it took a vote Monday evening.

A delegate's call to "vote to take out the trash next week" will be part of the record for all time. As will the call for a purge of the state parties: "finally, the Green Party is no longer a safe space for anti-trans bigotry."

The harm done by calling activists "trash" will not be to those activists, but to the reputation of this party as a source for inspiration in grassroots democracy.

This is in reply to Del. Kidney. The mission statement of the Emergency Committee to Save the Green Party is as follows:

"We stand for building a transparent party which respects grassroots democracy and due process. Accordingly, we will challenge autocratic decision making and kangaroo-court proceedings and a cancel culture that is destructive to democracy, open dialogue, diversity of thought, class solidarity and the Left. We will work to prevent purges of state parties and individual members for ideological offenses. We will help to build the Green Party through fellowship, respect for truth, hard work, and our adherence to the ten key values on which it was founded." ( https://savethegreenparty.org/about/mission_of_the_emergency_committee_to_save_the_green_party )

The Emergency Committee has more women members than men and advocates for the rights of women as well as gender-nonconforming and trans-identified people. It currently has no budget and operates with volunteer labor.

Jeff Sutter and Hugh Esco should be invited to reply to Del. Kidney's comments. Among those women who have contributed to the Emergency Committee's work are Ann Menasche, counsel for the Green Party of Georgia, Kerri Bruss of WI, and Paula Bradshaw of IL, whose voices should be heard.

An issue in a Steering Committee election, in which all NC members vote, appears to be whether the Black Caucus should have allowed two of its members to organize an April 30 webinar as they chose. The underlying issue appears to be whether to allow vaccine-skeptical or Covid-denial voices to be heard at Green Party or caucus sponsored events. Attached to that are questions about how much the business of a caucus is the business of the NC.

Likewise some openly proclaim that feminist voices on sex and gender must be silenced. And we are told that the label of "eco-socialist" should be embraced by all Greens. 

These three instances indicate that a spirit of factionalism is asserting itself in the NC. A vote to dis-accredit a state party for its alleged ideological infractions will start in one week to conclude in two. Will that act satisfy the factional impulse or stimulate it?

Delegate Cooper's most telling comments have addressed the false charges by the Accreditation Committee that the Georgia party has broken the rules of accreditation of state parties and that the Georgia GP "established a pattern of undemocratic actions that violate the KeyValue of Grassroots Democracy, as well as exhibiting bigoted, anti-transgender positions that violate the Key Value of Social Justice and Equal Opportunity." His comments addressed the charges as an eyewitness. Most tellingly he has addressed as an eyewitness the false charges that the GaGP marginalizes or shows hostility to trans members. This testimony is sufficient to justify withdrawal of the dis-accreditation proposal.

The case against the GaGP more or less reduces to an argument about whether "trans" and "nonbinary" mean "trans identified" and "nonbinary-identified", or whether we must endorse the claim that people are born cis, trans or nonbinary. Such speculative arguments can be referred to civil discussion among members. It is increasingly clear that in this proposal we are debating the enforcement of a mandatory ideology, not the enforcement of accreditation rules.  

Delegate Cooper's most telling comments have addressed the false charges by the Accreditation Committee that the Georgia party has broken the rules of accreditation of state parties and that the Georgia GP "established a pattern of undemocratic actions that violate the KeyValue of Grassroots Democracy, as well as exhibiting bigoted, anti-transgender positions that violate the Key Value of Social Justice and Equal Opportunity." His comments addressed the charges as an eyewitness. Most tellingly he has addressed as an eyewitness the false charges that the GaGP marginalizes or shows hostility to trans members. This testimony is sufficient to justify withdrawal of the dis-accreditation proposal.

The case against the GaGP more or less reduces to an argument about whether "trans" and "nonbinary" mean "trans identified" and "nonbinary-identified", or whether we must endorse the claim that people are born cis, trans or nonbinary. Such speculative arguments can be referred to civil discussion among members. It is increasingly clear that in this proposal we are debating the enforcement of a mandatory ideology, not the enforcement of accreditation rules.  

Standards of treatment in cases of children who identify as trans are legitimate topics for discussion, including among clinicians. Puberty blockers are at best an experiment lacking longitudinal study data. Claiming that setting age limits for hormones and surgery will "force thousands of trans children into the lifelong trauma associated with irreversible gender dysmorphia" (Noah Martin), and penalizing a state party for its views, are an extreme stance.

It is normal for kids to wonder what "girl" and "boy" mean, and which they are. Children have long been told that girls play with dolls and boys play with trucks. Young children are in principle unable to authoritatively self-diagnose for sex or to give informed consent to life-changing interventions, including ones that sterilize them. 

Therapy and medicine have been politicized, and now some delegates are ready to fracture this party over such differences. We read, "The GPNV will not support, nor promote and will disavow, any entities that allow Trans-Exclusionary  ideals, rhetoric and/or policy into their ranks." Now Steering Committee candidates are pressed to disavow connections to the only body, DNE, that opposes dis-accreditation. 

Erasure of grassroots democracy will bring a new kind of internal regime.

This is to address Margaret Elisabeth's claim that someone would like to form "a new 'Gender Critical Green Party' if Georgia is disaccredited."

I doubt that very much. What is factual is that a Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights has formed and that it approved a founding statement last night. Its members include activists who belong to state parties of the GPUS and others who are not in state parties but identify as Greens. It formed not to compete with the much larger GPUS, but to address the problem of the GPUS's current process of abandonment of the key values of feminism, grassroots democracy, decentralization, and diversity. 

The GPUS is fracturing, notably by the current proposal, which amounts to dismembering itself over gender ideology. Delegates can slow or reverse that fracturing process by asking questions and by voting "no" or abstaining on the current proposal. Yes, asking questions has a price, but every word of the current proceedings, spoken or not spoken, will echo in the future.