> junkie model it now has, it will go nowhere. In Oregon, one had to drive to
> Portland, sit in a meeting of process junkies, pay a fee to get in and, then,
> one could vote in the nomination process. Oregon is a state where every vote
> (granted, primaries are limited to "major" parties) is now by mail. There are
> less than 2000 members of the Pacific Green Party. A much more of a
> democratic decision could have been made if all party members were mailed a
> ballot with candidate statements.
Sorry, but members were thoroughly informed of the convention, bylaws amendments, etc. through email (and can also discuss these, if they wish). I get tons and tons of Green-related notifications, alerts, etc. every day, and it's darn tough to wade through it all (and I'm an activist person, through and through). On some level, you do need a division of labor here, and have structures of representation which are answerable to party members as a whole, rather than having mass votes on every single issue. When you have less than 2,000 members, the mailing/time costs alone would kill your budget. Sure, the Greens aren't perfect; neither are labor unions or NGOs or anything or anyone, for that matter. But you work to change them, grow them, make them better.
As I said before, in order to have a future, the global Left has to be better than its sectarian past.
-- Dennis