One site I joined recently, or at least I went to their page and clicked ‘like’, I’m not exactly sure how these things work, was the Progressive Party. The idea, I guess, is that we need to hang together no matter what and continue to fight for progressive ideas.
I’m for that, even if Bernie wins, so so far, so good.
But what is to differentiate this party from other 3rd parties, and other progressive parties, which have failed? That’s a darned good question. One of the beautiful things about the Sanders campaign is that it has shown me that a lot of people share the same ideals I have, that it would be possible to put together a platform of things we all agree with without too much trouble. Making it a platform that a majority of American voters would agree with might be a bit more problematic, but I thing that could be done, too. A majority of Americans favor legalized marijuana. A vast majority of Americans are opposed to private prisons. For instance.
So, this would be my plan for this budding, emergent Progressive Party. (The term emergent is important. This is something that should come from the people up, not from the leadership down. We have the technology. Let’s make it so)
1. After November, summon a convention. Of course, this would be an online convention, 24/7, for the purpose of writing a party platform. For 1 month, everybody is just saying what topics should be covered, and in what order they should be prioritized. (Priority is not so important. What is important is that we reach consensus on each, and that we cover all sorts of issues.)
For instance: I submit that the most important issues facing us are global warming, overpopulation, and alien invasion from outer space. Then, people would argue over which issues should be addressed and which not.
2. After the first month, you start individual threads for each of these topics. Since it’s bottom up, there will be a huge array of creative solutions suggested. Some might get subthreads. Comments which actually involve logic, historical precedent, statistics, and science would be prioritized over comments which just say “awesome!” or U R fucking nuts, dude, which probably should just be deleted. Eventually, through steadily revising and rewording the original proposal, we wind up with consensus on each issue. Consensus – I figure if we can get 90% withing our little progressive group, then it will be at least 66% among the general public, and that’s enough to win elections.
3. Identify our people by location and get them to run for office. City council, state Senate, school boards, etc… In every electoral precinct across the country, even in the reddest of red states. Probably, since we’re a new party, a lot of these people will be political neophytes: 18 year olds, pumped up with idealism and 0%, angry moms, your local pot dealer. That’s O.K., if we run candidates for every office, in every district, we’ll pick up a few. A high percentage of races are between uncharismatic Democrats and disgustingly corrupt Republicans, so people will vote 3rd party just out of spite, and if we’ve got a published platform that almost everybody agrees with, that’s a point in the candidate’s favor. In districts where a major party candidate endorses our platform, all right then.
4. Once we have a few in congress, and as state governors, then we can start to mount another presidential bid.
5. By this time, of course,the corporate campaign cash contribution machine might be even wealthier and more entrenched than they are now.We are going to have to figure out ways to campaign without money.
This is a first draft.
www.gurukalehuru.com 