>Two weeks ago a clique within the Greens/Green Party USA that now
>illegitimately controls its administrative bodies (including its
>publications) broadcast a horrible and completely inaccurate
>diatribe in the form of an e-newsletter.
This is rich material, Mitch! And thanks for pointing out to me that it's on the website - it's hard to keep all your grouplets straight.
<http://greens.org/~jsutter/ggpusa/enewsletter.html>
2. Interruptions
These accomplishments were difficult because the Congress was marred by some of the worst incidents of disruption and nastiness that has ever occurred at a national Greens meeting.
As soon as the facilitator welcomed delegates and observers, Mitchel Cohen from Brooklyn, New York declared that he did not recognize the facilitator. Delegates explained that the facilitator had been asked by the national Coordinating Committee to open the meeting and, as soon as there was a credentialing report, a new facilitator could be elected.
Mitchel Cohen talked non-stop over the facilitator, as if he did not want the Congress to begin. When asked by Nancy Oden to allow the meeting to continue, Mitchel Cohen yelled at her to "Sit down and shut up" and called her and others "Stalinist dogs."
As Elizabeth Fattah tried to read the credentialing report, Robert Gold and Paul Gilman (both from New York City) joined Mitchel Cohen in trying to shout her down. They finally bullied her into leaving the room for a few minutes to calm herself. They said over and over that they did not recognize the facilitator, did not recognize the credentialing committee and that the whole meeting was illegitimate.
Their behavior stunned those who had come to a Green meeting assuming we would respect the contributions of everyone present. Since that June Congress, people have thought deeply about how we should cope with someone who has worked to build an organization, but who changes over time and begins working to keep the group from functioning.
Had someone who had recently joined the Greens begun acting like this, GPUSA probably would have voted to remove the person. But Mitchel Cohen has worked to build the Greens for several years and delegates were reluctant to respond to him in such a fashion. After Mitchel Cohen prevented significant work from being done for two hours, Patrick Eytchison introduced a motion to censure him for his abusive and bullying behavior. It passed by a vote of 284 yes, 0 no and 94 abstain.
The Congress had been set by the previous Congress, confirmed by the Green National Committee and arranged by the national Coordinating Committee. During many of the steps of preparation, Mitchel Cohen had demanded that it be changed to another city or another date or done a different way. Though there had been many attempts to accommodate his concerns (such as altering the date of the Congress), the majority usually voted against Mitchel Cohen's demands.
Mitchel Cohen accepted every vote that went his way but insisted every time a national body voted differently from his demands that the vote was "illegitimate." By the time the Congress opened, he was very angry over having lost more votes than he had won.
Mitchel Cohen went from the GPUSA meeting of June 21-22 in Chicago to the presidential nominating convention of GPUS (Green Party of the United States) in Milwaukee, June 23-28. There is no report that he attempted to scream at the facilitator, talk over other delegates, call people names, or otherwise disrupt the meeting. Had he done so, it is very likely that the more conservative Green group would have ejected him from the meeting immediately.
It is an irony of progressive politics that those organizations which allow the greatest latitude for political opposition to express itself are often vilified the most as "undemocratic" by those who do not get their way.
3. I-Win-if-I-Win-and-I-Win-if-I-Lose
Clearly, there was a small group bent on stopping the Congress from accomplishing its goals, and they did not really believe that it was "illegitimate." Otherwise they would have been content to ask that their procedural concerns be noted in the minutes rather than continuously trying to shout others down.
Even more revealing was the fact that Mitchel Cohen voted and argued incessantly that he should have more votes at the same time he fulminating that he did not recognize the vote.
Claiming a meeting is not legitimate while voting during it is playing games. If the group playing this game wins the vote, they say "We won!" But if they lose the vote, they say "We won because the vote was not legitimate." This is the "I-Win-if-I-Win-and-I-Win-if-I-Lose" game.
4. Distractions
Following the vote to censure him, Mitchel Cohen reduced his yelling. But he continued name-calling, at one point calling the facilitator a "fascist." He interrupted and attempted to talk over others several hundred times during the two-day event.
Paul Gilman introduced many frivolous motions such as one to give New York 500 votes for no apparent reason. As the Congress fell behind schedule because the Mitchel Cohen group was introducing numerous resolutions (which failed by large margins), Paul Gilman demanded a roll call vote on every resolution.
Had this been done, it would have meant the Congress would have accomplished little. It made people wonder if that were the intent of the motion.
There was similar factional rancor inspired by Mitchel Cohen's motion to end the incorporation of GPUSA so that it would "not be sanctified by the State." This was seen as using "ultra left" rhetoric to prevent GPUSA from functioning, as was his extensive argument that by-laws changes could not be brought up at the Congress, despite the fact that this is done at almost every GPUSA Congress.
The Congress passed by-laws changes allowing emergency GNC meetings with a five-day notice if approved by two-thirds of its members, a requirement that reports be distributed 4 weeks (instead of 8 weeks) before the Congress, a procedure for the Congress and GNC to approve or deny applications for membership renewal and reinstatement, simplification of review of charges against members, and clarification that membership lists of their constituencies are to be released only to elected representatives.
Three of the thorniest topics of the Congress were credentialing of delegates, sanctions for misbehavior, and publications.
[...]
6. Sanctions Committee
Prior to the 2004 GPUSA Congress, the Mitchel Cohen group began declaring that votes of the Green National Committee they disagreed with were "illegitimate" and that people who voted in ways he did not like should be expelled. Mitchel Cohen controls many e-mail listserves and began throwing people off of them without notification, due process, or right of appeal.
Once the Congress began and it was obvious that there was not even 10% support for his claiming that he was New York's delegate by right of appointment, Mitchel Cohen changed tactics. Instead of expulsion, he called for censure of the Coordinating Committee for "misappropriation of funds" supposedly targeted to publish Green Politics, GPUSA's print newspaper.
Mitchel Cohen had been editor of Green Politics, but had not produced an issue for a year and a half. He claimed that it was because money had been misspent, even though people had offered to loan GPUSA the money to publish the newspaper when GPUSA's funds were low.
[...]
[etc]