According to a participant’s account, a new party is being formed this week: the “Open Progressive Party of Minnesota” An e-mail by eye witness and former 2008 Senate candidate (from a different third party) Michael Cavlan describes the new party.
Michael Cavlan writes:
April 28th, 2009 at the OK Corral Restaurant in Jordan, Minnesota a new political party was born.
After weeks of planning and organizing, we finally got together activists from Minnesota.
Many of us have been active in organizing outside of the two party system for decades.
After introductions and an opening statement by Michael Burger formerly of the Minnesota Independence Party, we quickly got down to business. Our first Convention was officially started.
Pam Ellison, former governor candidate and adviser for governor Jessie Ventura spoke on the need for openness, dropping of all labels and that paramount to have us move forward was to insist on a respectful tone with each other, even as we disagreed. Pam shared some of her experiences with the Minnesota Independence Party.
I then spoke on the need for working together for the common good. I also emphasized the principle of respect and an open and transparent process being paramount. I also spoke on my similar experiences with the Green Party. I also mentioned how shocked I was to have people there who helped me in my work in developing a solid media and communications network.
Our first order of business was electing a name.
After some deliberation we choose the Open Progressive Party of Minnesota. It has a very nice ring and seemed to reflect what we were doing and the spirit we were trying to foster.
We then elected party officers, including Party Chair and Co-Chair, Treasurer and Secretary. All of these offices have to be filled before we can file as a political party. Which we will be doing very shortly.
At our next Convention we will be working on our Platform, Constitution and By-laws. All of us present felt that the Progressive Party of Vermont best reflected our thoughts and direction, so we plan to lean heavily on their platform. We shall likewise look at parts of the Peace & Freedom Party in California for guidance.
We ended in good cheer and in very high spirits. It is a joy to meet people who are willing to treat others respectfully, who all agree that the two party system is the problem instead of the solution and will most importantly be willing to actually work with each other, as allies even when we disagree at times.
Like I said folks, keep your eyes on Minnesota.
Real change and real democracy is coming.
Michael Cavlan
Trent,
I don’t know where to begin. I have friends in the IP and I was a leader in St Paul and Southern Minnesota. I dare say I have a different view than you about the IP, but I still wish the party well.
The IP has few active members and very little money. Most of the active members are over 30 years of age. At present, there are no people of color in the party. So how can you call it a broad tent party. And when we did have candidates of color, they got no support from the Party. Take Jaun Carlos Carlson of Karlstad, MN. A IP candidate up North that no IP official, including the previous party chair.
As for egos. I helped start this new party and refused to take a leadership role for this very reason. I didn’t want any IP person saying I did this just to hold a office.
Trent, I know the inside of the IP and New York’s Frank MacKay better you do. I choose to leave for a reason. Again, I wish the IP and my friends well.
When I hear people say there should be very few political parties, I think of Nazi Germany or China. I have the right as a citizen of this country to participate in a political party that shares my views on the issues of our day. In my view, anyone who wants to limit my rights of participation may want to read the constitution again and think about what it is to be an American.
Trent, I don’t remember you in the IP, but please get active in that party. Have only 49 people at the last convention is not good.
Michael Burger
160,000 votes is nothing. Democratic party lawyers attacked Nader because he could cost them votes in 2000, over a million, actually. But Democratic party lawyers does not equal government agents. Nor does Nader 2000 equal current Green Party. 160,000 votes is nothing in the grand scheme of things, nor is the Constitution Party’s 200,000 votes.
“Do tell what is wrong with both the IP or Greens to feel it necessary to go start a new party?”
Well plenty, including Framk $500 check to reform’s John Bambey MacKay and his trail of moola from coast to coast and border to border. But to crank out a new organization?
Citizens For A Better Veterans Home
It has come to my attention that as a new political party has formed, another has ended. The Christian Falangist Party of America has just shut down their doors. You guys can write an article about it if you want to, here’s their website: http://www.falangist.com/
Trent said:
-I think you’re pretty delusional if you think the government is wasting agents on infiltrating the Green Party, Libertarian Party, or Constitution Party.-
Kimberly says,
Trent, I think you’re pretty delusional if you think that the government DOES NOT have agents in the Green Party, Libertarian Party and/or Constitution Party.
The government got caught infiltrating QUAKER MEETINGS for goodness sake.
Yes, if it matters to the Democrats enough to attack the Green Party, create a conspiracy of lawyers against Nader, and thwart IRV at every turn, then in also matters to the government, which the Democrats are about half of.
Hmmmm…what about the government law enforcement notes on watching out for “Ron Paul supporters” and other right wing folks. You don’t think stuff like that is a sign and/or the testing build up to infiltrating those groups?
The Green Party represented 160,000 votes for Cynthia McKinney. That is a lot of power and the Dems and Reps – who run our government and control our law enforcement – care about that.
I run some small web-sites where the average hits a day are 5 to 400. Still, when I put something up about “School of the Americas”, a man who says he was from SOA/WHINESEC (and the writing and propaganda back that up) commented and tried to explain that they never, really were accomplices to murder. If someone from WHINESEC has time to care about my blog, how much more so the three political parties, one of whom could replace one of the major parties someday.
If people could just kind of acknowledge that infiltrators from the two parties an/or the government are among us, I think that people can follow the old organizing rules to stay safe from that situation creating havoc: Give your colleagues the benefit of the doubt; don’t only communicate by letter or e-mail, keep in touch by phone or face-to-face; knowing that the government probably knows your decisions anyway (think of echelon, they can read our e-mails), be as transparent as you can so that at least your own people know the plans as well as the government; hold your meetings very publicly so that no one can falsely testify about what was said; never propose violence, it won’t work and it gives the government an excuse to crack down on a group.
There may be more. Somewhere there is a great article on it. I will try to find it.
Trent,
I am personally convinced that there are agents that are deliberately destroying the GP.
Not government, per se.
Just Democratic Party operatives. All the things that Kim and I have been talking about has been far too effective at creating discord and destroying campaigns to be simply ineffective, ineffectual leadership.
just my thoughts, mind you.
fortunately, they will not destroy the spirit of building an effective resistance to the pro-war, corporate corrupted two party system.
We can thank Ralph Nader from the bottom of our hearts for that.
I think you’re pretty delusional if you think the government is wasting agents on infiltrating the Green Party, Libertarian Party, or Constitution Party. They are not a threat in the slightest. And why would the leaders of the GP not want success? I suspect there is a different side to the story–like not wanting Nader’s people in control of the party, for some personal or ideological reason.
Personally, I think the GP sunk their ship when they went anti-Nader. Nader is the most powerful third-party progressive in the nation.
FYI: excerpts from The Art of War (for the naive among us)
–
…What enables the enlightened rulers and good generals to conquer the enemy at every move and achieve extraordinary success is foreknowledge.
Foreknowledge cannot be elicited from ghosts and spirits;
it cannot be inferred from comparison of previous events, or from the calculations of the heavens, but must be obtained from people who have knowledge of the enemy’s situation. ?
Therefore there are five kinds of spies used:
Local spies, internal spies, double spies, dead spies, and living spies.
When all five are used, and no one knows their Way, it is called the divine organization, and is the ruler’s treasure.
For local spies, we use the enemy’s people.
For internal spies we use the enemy’s officials.
For double spies we use the enemy’s spies.
For dead spies we use agents to spread misinformation to the enemy. For living spies, we use agents to return with reports.
Therefore, of those close to the army, none is closer than spies, no reward more generously given, and no matter in greater secrecy.
Only the wisest ruler can use spies;
only the most benevolent and upright general can use spies, and only the most alert and observant person can get the truth using spies.
It is subtle, subtle!
There is nowhere that spies cannot be used….
-Trent Hill // May 3, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Michael,
I didnt say exclusively the GP. The IP is far more successful in Minnesota, and has a broad tent under which you could work. And I seriously doubt that the national GP is trying to “sabotague” efforts at national campaigns–that seems to have far more to do with the presidential candidates themselves.-
I was inside the GP-US. My husband was on the Presidential search/support committee leading up to the 2008 convention.
Yes. There are people inside the national Green Party who try to sabotage them from running national elections.
When David Cobb was running in 2004, many people knew going into the convention that he would run “safe states.” And, separately from that, that David Cobb’s whole candidacy was simply a way to get the GP to run a no-name candidate, instead of Nader, knowing that the synergy of Nader and the GP would get tons more votes and attention. Yet, David Cobb won. Many people were carrying his signs who must have known what he was up to.
In 2008, there were Nader people (and, I think Nader may not have wanted them to do so) specifically messing around in our presidential process to try to steer it to Nader, or pull the rug out from under it if Nader was not the candidate. I watched them watching us like hawks.
Always, in any third party, but especially a progressive party, the government has infiltrators and saboteurs. Peter Camejo told the story of his old run decades ago in the socialist party. Peter wrote that he filed a lawsuit against the government and won. The judge ordered that no spy or government agency should be allowed to work or volunteer in his campaign as of a certain day. The next day, half his campaign staff was gone.
I am sure there are people in the national Green Party who specifically try to sabotage efforts to run a presidential campaign. Some of them are from the founding members, who still feel like they own the organization, and that it is not fair we went “electoral” against their wishes. Some of them are people who believe in green values and want to play national party, but are nervous about running against the Dems. Some of them are probably sent by Democratic Presidential contenders to keep us down. I have no doubt that many of these people believe that they are morally correct, and that their mission is more important than being up front and following by-laws.
Those examples are just about people who have good intentions and who try to slow down the Green Party from having an excellent presidential candidate and/or race.
In addition, all one has to do is read “The Art of War” to understand that people who play rough in politics or business know that the first plan is to send spies into your enemies camp. And, when you are talking about national politics, you can be sure someone is playing rough.
d.eris – I think so.
Yet another rationale for alternate political organizations:
“The Wade Sanders known to Citizens For a Better Veterans Home is a self absorbed career sycophant whom tramples over abused veterans with out a second thought! We have been warning folks about the lack of ethics in this shallow shell of a man! Now comes the kiddie porn confessions. We told ya so………..
Founded in May 1998
263 Eucalyptus Court
Chula Vista CAlifornia
91910-3030
[email protected]
619.420.209 ”
No Democan and Republicrat group[s] has broadcasted this corruption of an establishment shill on the most based of personal pervertion.
As faulty as non Dems and non GOP can be, they are the instruments of 21st Century distruction…………
Michael,
I didnt say exclusively the GP. The IP is far more successful in Minnesota, and has a broad tent under which you could work. And I seriously doubt that the national GP is trying to “sabotague” efforts at national campaigns–that seems to have far more to do with the presidential candidates themselves. There can be no doubt that this clique is not the most effective group it could be–which is why you should either try to replace them, or form a “green caucus” in the IP.
Is this new organization the result of that meeting of third party activists in Minnesota reported at IPR last month?
Trent
how do you suggest we move forward with the GP when it appears that a certain group within the GP seem to sabotogue any efforts to run national campaigns?
Serious question. That is what has happened with the GP and the IP.
That is why people like Pam Ellison and myself have left them.
“To Trent…how is the Green Party of the US not full of egos? It is all about egos, the founding clique which won’t share work or power, etc.
And, how is the Independence Party of NY not about egos? Frank McKay runs the whole thing. I kind of like Frank. But, it is no shangra-la of grassroots participation. And, when anyone writes about what they do it is nearly always a profile of Frank McKay.”
All of thw parties are RUN by egos, any party, in any country, is. It takes a certain ego to do it. But they are not BASED on egos. The Green Party has a unique ideology to offer. The Indepenendence Party does not–but it has a substantial constituency and financial support. It has a purpose.
My cranky comment for the Open Progressive Party:
Pamela’s previous comments said, “We will allow our candidates to choose where they stand personally on wedge issues such as: abortion, death penalty, gun control, etc.”
I truly understand abortion rights and gun rights as wedge issues. How is the death penalty a wedge issue? I would think that civil libertarians don’t want the state to kill. And, I know that progressives don’t want the death penalty. With whom is it a wedge issue? Did that wind up staying the same after the meeting?
My crank comments to the people critiquing the Open Progressive Party:
To Trent…how is the Green Party of the US not full of egos? It is all about egos, the founding clique which won’t share work or power, etc.
And, how is the Independence Party of NY not about egos? Frank McKay runs the whole thing. I kind of like Frank. But, it is no shangra-la of grassroots participation. And, when anyone writes about what they do it is nearly always a profile of Frank McKay.
Also…when it seems the question is “Why not work with what is already there?”, the real question is, why did the groups already there not have the leadership, sense of welcoming and compromise, to invite in the new people?
Even now, if there are all these wonderful, successful, honestly “for the mission” groups that Michael and Pamela should join, why aren’t those groups contacting them and inviting them to the table to talk???
“Out side of not wanting to connect with out of staters, why is the Independence Party of Minnesota so deficient that YET ANOTHER neophyte organization has to be cranked out. ”
Amen. The only people pleased by this annoucnement is the DFL. If the Independence Party is splitting apart, the DFL will be more than happy to pick up the pieces since that party has kept them out of the governor’s mansion for the past 10 years and has cost them at least three seats in Congress.
If anyone or groups is thinking about start yet another political party, ask yourself these questions 1). How is my party different than those around me culturally, economically, ideologically; 2). What issue is my party going to raise that others are not right now; 3). What base of voters are you going to find to build a foundation on?
If you can’t answer these questions, don’t do it. Because the last thing this country needs is more non-functional political parties that are nothing more than ego trips for their founders. Do tell what is wrong with both the IP or Greens to feel it necessary to go start a new party?
Libertarian
2,000 signatures to get a statewide candidate on the ballot.
To gain major party, we need 5% of the vote for a statewide candidate. Or to run 54 candidates in all state districts.
To gain minor party, we need 1% of the vote for a statewide campaign.
Did I mention that Minneapolis has IRV and that St Paul has it on the ballot for this election?
what protocol and/or how many sigs to get your Party recognized and/or get candidates on the ballot
Trent
Or other well known figures such as Ralph Nader? Which was one of the central points of the disenfranchised Nader supporters like John Murphy, Liz Arnone, Danene Provencher, Cat Woods etc etc etc
All of which were smeared, attacked and etc etc NOT because of “personality’ issues but because of serious political differences.
Anyway, you can choose to listen to those of us who tried that and failed, listening to our experiences or not.
that is Okay Dokay with me.
What exactly is the point of this proliferation of parties, anyway? Unless you have the money to found a successful party, or broad popular support, or a major figure (Ventura, Ron Paul, whomever)—your party has none of the above. It’s great to have activists dedicated to openness, but you could do the same thing from within the IP–and be far more successful.
Michael,
I’v observed many third parties, and practically all of them are founded around egos. The exceptions are the major three (greens, libs, and Constitution)–which is why they’re so major. There are other exceptions too, like Minnesota’s Independence Party, New York’s Independence Party, the Working Families Party in New York, the Conservative Party in New York, the Progressive Party in Vermont–etc. The really successful ones, are not about personalities.
Think about it–there are some 400-500 third parties in the US, and most of them consist of less than 1000 members. Why? So someone can crown themselves “National Director”.
Trent
We have tried. This cry of “well it is all about egos” is absolute horseshit.
it is political. The huge divide is how we relate to the two party system.
Fission WITH them or Fusion FROM them.
Good old respect and open transparent process is important too.
Both the GP and Minnesota IP has neither.
THAT is why so many have left.. That has nothing to do with personalities.
This is part of why third parties so often fail. Egos. These people want to be the big fish in the small pond–but when another big fish gets elected, or tells them to shove off, they run off and form the “NEW Progressive Party” or the “Progressive Party for Openness and non-Big fish” etc.
The Independence Party is massive in Minnesota–and it appears most of these people have very similar, or exactly the same, values aa that party. Why not work within it?
Out side of not wanting to connect with out of staters, why is the Independence Party of Minnesota so deficient that YET ANOTHER neophyte organization has to be cranked out.
Yes the midwestern Independence Party has done me no favors, but besides telling me to ‘get lost’ they have done me and other non Minnesotians no harm.
Coalitions and alliances, not splinters……
Citizens For A Better Veterans Home
As soon as we have a website and are registered, we will post all of that here.
//:-)>———–
Also, from the comments on https://independentpoliticalreport.com/2009/04/independence-party-of-minnesota-elects-new-chairman-and-party-director/ :
And…
How many people participated in this first convention?
So who were the officers elected?
Could you guys post a website as soon as you found one?