Over Coffee / Anti-authoritarian Angst

There has been a lot frustration in California over an apparent lack of organizational skills sufficient to form an effective Green electoral party. Setting aside that the Greens are a young party, the recent cancelled and re-set Plenary, County Council seats that remain unfilled, state committee slots that are likewise empty all add to the frustration that some feel at trying to build a functioning party.

I am certain that Greens will, as the party matures, have a more effective organization; still there is a very interesting personal blog-bit by Robert Reich, the former Clinton-era Labor Secretary, that may prove comforting to Greens.

Reich's sentiments seemed to me to apply to Greens, too, in some respects, and are something we should keep in mind as we move forward to the next level of political sophistication.

In his blog, Reich asks "What is A Democrat?" Part of his self-exploration includes the following:

I just got off the phone with yet another Democratic politician who complains to me [that] . . . the Dems have no message, no plan, no strategy, no guts. He's right . . . . But they miss the point. The basic problem is there's no Democratic Party. Of course there are the trappings of a party -- conventions, meetings, state operatives, mailing lists, and so on. But compared to the Republican Party, Dems are a bunch of wild weenies in the wilderness.

Gotta say, I like that phrase "wild weenies in the wilderness." But Reich continues:

So here's the question: Why is the Republican Party so well organized -- with messages, plans, strategies, and all the rest? Why are Dems so much the opposite. Answer: It's because Republicans tend to be authoritarian. Authoritarian personalities -- who get off on control, order, and discipline -- naturally gravitate to conservative Republicanism. Democrats tend to be anti-authoritarian. Anti-authoritarian personalities -- who don't like to take orders, who don't care about controlling anything, who are inherently undisciplined -- become liberals, progressives, and Democrats. This asymmetry has haunted American politics for years. The Republican Party is much more conservative than most Americans, but they keep getting voted in because they're more disciplined about politics.

If the so-called mainstream politicos can be described thus, what can we say about a party with decentralization and grass-roots action as one of its key values? Two things, I think:

1. Finding a comfortable place in the continuum from "no centralization at all" to "rigid central control of everything" is not going to be easy.

2. When we do find it -- and we will, because we start with the premise that we want to make it work, not that it is an accidental artifact somehow of being a "freethinker" -- we will have solidly established a new political paradigm.

Can it be done? Yes. But Grass-roots democracy in groups of any size cannot be one-person one-vote, on every issue of government. Efficiency demands representational democracy of some sort.

But there are still ways to get good grass roots input on many many more decisions than most governing bodies currently attempt. One step in the right direction is something fans here lovingly call The Pasadena Way, in the same tone of voice one hears the 10KV mentioned. (It's detractors, who do not understand it, see it as the Pasadena pain; being burdened with busy-body citizens who think everything that happens in local government is their business.)

More will be said later on the Pasadena Way and its relation to the 10KV and Green approaches to governance. . . for now, though, maybe Reich's feisty Democrat screed can help Greens see the value of our 0wn approach, and make good on the lessons the Democrat party provides. Oh yeah, what does Reich think the Dems need to do to make it work? Have a peek:

What's the answer? Progressives can't change their personalities. But they can utilize their anti-authoritarian tendencies to organize at the grass roots, at the community, at the level of individual blogs and emails, through people talking to people and empowering one another. Highly-disciplined Republican machines are bad at doing this grass-roots work.

Sound familiar? Yep. Reich's answer is to be more like the Greens.

Unfortunately, that won't help the Dems if they do it with the same mindset that got them here in the first place: Organising aside, the Democrat message is hollow. It's not that the ideas are missing, its that happy-talk with no on-the-ground progress becomes disenchanting.

Reich's final point is a bit surprising: He claims that if you aren't a Republican then you must be a Democrat.

Well, Bob, not when 60% + of Americans want a viable third party, according to recent polls.

Reich even poo poos third party candidates explicitly, that "draw votes from Democrats." Sheesh. Does anybody have a link to an authoritative source to the effect that only 40% of Green / Nader voters would have voted Dem at all -- thus most explicitly NOT spoiling any election.

Boy, the Democrats are starting to sound more and more like the Republicans: You know, better vote for Democrats -- even ineffectual or right-wing Democrats -- because otherwise evil Republicans will win. Sigh.