A Short Report from the 2004 Green Party USA Congress
(Mainly for Greens in Missouri)June 23, 2004
by Michael Allen, former alternate member of the GPUSA Green National Committee (2003-2004)
What happened at the Chicago Congress that I attended? The Green Party USA (GPUSA) was destroyed by a self-appointed ruling vanguard in two contentious days that confirmed my long-held suspicion that GPUSA had been hijacked by those who think like capitalists while talking like Stalinists. This vanguard totally disregarded consensus-based decision-making, transparency and people’s feelings, instead using secrecy and a fixed majority-rule voting process to pass every one of their own proposals.
How can a group that uses the same tactics as the Halliburton junta - not to mention those of the current Saint Louis school board that we in Missouri know too well—that installed Bush as president form a principled opposition party? This question, however cogent, actually is irrelevant because the GPUSA vanguard has no interest in creating an opposition party or building the Green movement. Their agenda for the Congress did not include discussion of the purpose of GPUSA or of any political agenda for the next year; they spent the entire Congress purifying GPUSA according to their delusions so that they actually destroyed the GPUSA as a political organization.
Or should I say that it was already destroyed before the Congress even started? The real death of GPUSA came in the decision by the credentialing committee (set up rather oddly with two-members who also serve on the GPUSA Coordinating Committee) decided to not give representatives of the Green Party of New York, the only state party fully affiliated with GPUSA, any votes at all!
The New Yorkers in attendance were given one at-large vote each, just as I received. The credentialing committee - Don Fitz and Elizabeth Fattah - broke GPUSA precedent and gave out their suggested votes for the vote on their own report! Usually, representatives of state parties and locals begin each Congress with the votes they carried at the previous Congress; when credentialing is approved, the new vote totals go into effect.
After some wrangling, the Congress voted to give New York 46 votes - half of the 92 it was due - despite the fact the Green Party of New York had met the requirements for selecting its representatives and that the national Congress is prohibited from regulating state party selection process (any complaints would have to go to the state party - surely a mechanism once used by Fitz and company to protect their own dubious schemes).
Supposed representatives from California received 168 votes despite their not being able to prove that they were GPUSA members in good standing or that they had held a proper statewide caucus.
I presented a signed letter from seven St. Louis Greens asking that I represent them at the Congress and vote on their behalf. The letter was rejected by Fitz on the grounds that, of the signatories, only myself, Robert Kneib and Bob Fisch were actual GPUSA members. Some people thought that I was trying to claim Two Rivers Greens as a GPUSA local, and tried to argue against my letter on that ground. Of course, I was not doing that at all.
Fitz did remove Robert Kneib from the list of GGA members he was representing, and reduced GGA's vote total by two votes (each representative of a local or state party gets two votes per member). I was left with one vote.
When David Sladky and Kim Jayne arrived later, Barbara Chicherio moved that they be granted one vote each. Fitz was opposed, as were his allies Oden and Fattah. In the end, Sladky received one vote while Jayne did not.
Since the solid opposition was thus basically a reduced New York, myself and Sladky (who did not attend the second day's proceedings), there was no numerical chance that we would be able to block a single proposal. Fitz is a brilliant strategist of disenfranchisement, something that his African-American allies ought to consider in the future. Of course, at an internal meeting of a supposedly radical political party, such tactics are out of place. These are the tactics of capitalists and racists everywhere who assume that all votes belong to them - not the tactics of Greens.
After credentialing, the actual Congress was a mess in which GPUSA Coordinating Committee members Don Fitz and Elizabeth Fattah, joined by their ally Nancy Oden, shoved through a plethora of hateful and destructive measures designed to centralize their control of GPUSA and punish outspoken critics Mitchel Cohen and myself. I would guess that over half of our time was spent on considering the four formal measures of censure against Mitchel, two of which passed on day two, as well as the one mesure offered on the floor by California's Patrick Eytchison within two hours of the start of the Congress. Eytchison apparently thought that Mitchel should have been submissive to the assault Don Fitz and others had prepared fpr him, and moved to censure Mitchel for talking too much. The Eytchison measure passed.
Of course, they did not want a full account of their manipulative endeavors, as the Congress nixed a reasonable proposal by Paul Gilman of New York to make each vote a roll-call vote due to the controversial nature of the votes. Fortunately, I took detailed notes throughout the Congress, including roll-call tallies on day two (see separate page).
Their main focus were three measures of censure against Mitchel plus a series of bylaw changes which would allow the Green National Committee - one step further removed from the membership - to remove and expel members "with cause." (This despite the fact that the national bylaws clearly establish procedures for removing members, lists causes that the vanguardists could easily use against anyone, and grants a somewhat-fair process for reviewing removal.) Of course, the move was to defer the thorny questions of further abusing Mitchel Cohen to the Green National Committee meeting on Tuesday night.
The bylaw amendments regarding membership (from Patrick Eytchison of California and Don Fitz of St. Louis) passed overwhelmingly, due to the voting strength of California.
Opposing the Eytchison amendments—the most extreme bylaw changes - were New York, Arizona, Chicago, Barbara Chicherio (St. Louis) and myself. Opposing the Fitz amendments were New York, Arizona and Chicago.
And so on. Of course, after these amendments passed, Fitz pushed through his new 9-member (how easy to get 2/3 purging majorities with that number!) Green National Committee (with predictably compliant membership, and with some less-compliant members not in Chicago for the Congress) which met late on Tuesday, but did not use the new rules to expel Mitch. New Yorkers Robert Gold and Roy Felshin wisely declined their nomination as alternate members, which probably stemmed from the vanguard's desire to divide New York by rewarding "more reasonable" Greens. Neither Cathryn S., Bob Fisch, Paul Gilman nor myself were nominated despite our current service on the Committee. Two Saint Louisans from the Gateway Greens were elected as regular members: Don Fitz and Jason Murphy.
Mitchel Cohen made a series of motions that allowed the vanguard to show just how far their values are from those of radical Greens: the Congress voted down proposals to support as many Green publications as possible (not simply the technically non-GPUSA Synthesis/Regeneration) and to cease GPUSA’s Missouri incorporation so that it would stop using the state to protect itself. Obviously, the opposition to these motions was not based on principle, bur rather on protection of the vested interests of Don Fitz. Just like your average corporate directors, the vanguard voted to protect their selfish interests instead of doing what’s best to build a decentralized, radical Green Party.
Notably, a fellow from Montana named Paul Stephens attended and made some interesting observations. He's been a GPUSA member for years, but this Congress was his first substantial interaction of the Congress. He was disgusted by the fighting early on, and seemed to side with Fitz's mock-psychology commentary that Mitch Cohen was being destructive and that arguing with Mitch was "enabling." He returned on Tuesday to proclaim that, while he felt Mitch liked pushing the envelope with GPUSA "leaders," those leaders were destroying their organization by responding to Mitch's criticism with authoritarian measures. Paul Stephens stated that he felt that he had never seen an organization as undemocratic as GPUSA.
And he's right.
We did not discuss any ideas, did not discuss why GPUSA was in such a crumbling state, did not do anything but commit to a polarized situation instigated by the most hateful and authoritarian people who ever have tried to steal the name "Green."
But GPUSA no longer exists, really. With the credentialing committee decision, all of the mounting destruction reached its peak. Even the continued censuring during the GNC meeting paled in comparison to the act of denying New York its full votes.
GPUSA does not resemble the organization established in 1991, and it does not resemble the organization stipulated by its bylaws. By turning all of its energy inward to destructive purges, it has severed its relationship with the outside world and ceased to be a radical force. It’s now a corporation.
It is dead. But out of death comes life. The decision to create that life is ours!
[back to index page]