What's Next?
Submitted by pjfinn on 9 November 2008 - 10:26am.
What's next? That seems to be the question Green Party chapters all across the country as well as here in Montana are asking. Should the Greens work on building a national presence to counter the two-party stranglehold? Should the Greens concentrate on building strong local movements? There is much argument about that.
Bottom line is -- organizing and building a third-party is brutal work. I haven't been active in this group over the past couple of years since I joined, but I applaud those of you who have busted your asses to make something of it.
On the odd chance that you aren't familiar with Green Party Watch, it was set up last spring to build Green Party visibility around the US. The folks there are going through the same process now of defining what the future of the Greens should be. Check it out if you're not already a regular reader, or even if you are. Can't hurt -- hell, it might even kick-start some new ideas.
http://www.greenpartywatch.org/
From one of the ass-busters
You hit the nail on the head when you said you hadn't been active since you joined. That seems to be the pattern here. Everybody waiting for somebody else to do something.
Here are some thing we could do in 2009:
REGAIN BALLOT ACCESS. Since signatures have to be in by March of 2010, and winters are bad here, it is best to start collecting signatures in the Spring and Summer of 2009. We are, however, at the mercy of the SOS office, who can take as long as they want to decide what should be on our petitions. In 2007, they didn't send us the petitions until June, which wasted a lot of our time, and they printed the date in the text, so we can't use that one next time. EVERYBODY needs to be ready to go as soon as we get the petitions.
PLAN TO GO TO THE ANNUAL MGP MEETING. It's the job of the Co-ordinator to decide when and where the Annual Meeting will be. I hope Tom will have it where he lives. At our 2007 meeting in Bozeman, he said he was working on his second energy efficient house. I would really love to tour his house. He lives in a small town in SW Montana. But wherever it is, if you want to have a voice in the MGP, go to the meeting. Put it at the top of your priority list, not the bottom.
RUN FOR OFFICE. We elect city, county and school board offices in odd years. These are non-partisan offices, so we don't need ballot access. It's a good way to get our issues heard.