From Kelly Gneiting at the IAP website:
We had a very good meeting yesterday, which went about 3 hours. (Listen in at http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=112244&cmd=tc)
Two central aspects were discussed, 1) recruiting others and 2) working in the Party (as opposed to talking).
RECRUITING
Generally, it was agreed that we still have too many “lone wolfs” among people who involve themselves in the battle for freedom. ANYTHING that can be done to help our country can be done as an arm of the Independent American Party. Why not another group? Because as a political party we are the most concerned with causing DIRECT change– electing honest, wise and good people into office. This and promoting a Constitutional Militia are the only DIRECT ways to bring our country back to the original intent of our Founders.
All other areas are INDIRECT change, and also can be performed under the Independent American Party. So why then do organizers choose to be separate? 1) Because they have not been asked to join with us, 2) Because they don’t have confidence in IAP leadership, or 3) because they have the spirit of party: they are involved in their own focus to the exclusion of organizing with others. The TOP of the food chain are political parties. And the TOP of the food chain in organizing a political party is recruiting (and preferably recruiting with confidence and love). So where are we lacking, and how can we change this? Should we not open our mouths to those we know and associate with? Should we not demonstrate sound leadership that is geared towards collecting into our ranks passionate and talented patriots? Should we not work to diffuse the spirit of party?
WORKING IN THE PARTY
The key word is “Work!” On one occasion while at the location of Independence Hall (Philadelphia) I went into a gift shop and saw a poster which read, “Who is a Founding Father?” It then listed the names of about 200 people, which I believe is about right. Some of these men where involved in the War of Independence (i.e. George Washington, John Dickinson) but the vast amount of Founding Fathers were not. They were involved in the kinds of things that WE are involved in as leaders of the Independent American Party. During the 1776 era I imagined that there were hundreds of thousands who talked about the tyranny of King George. We know that the population at the time was between 2.5 and 3 million.
To paraphrase a statement from John Adams, “⅓ of the people (at the time) were loyal to King George, ⅓ were apathetic and ⅓ were “true blue” (patriots)”. This brings the number of “true blue” patriots of the time down to 1 million. One may accurately calculate the ratio of people INVOLVED in the political process (i.e. genuine change) as 200 divided by 1 million, which is an incredibly small percentage.
If this ratio still applies then approximately 100 million people today are “true blue,” and those who are working towards (not talking about) accurate solutions stands at 20,000. We could do miracles if 20,000 people today were working in harmony as one organized mass. During our Founders’ era there was a tendency among patriots to be in discord, tho still working for the accurate solution. But today’s tendency to be at discord far outweighs our Founders’ era. Their society was moral. Ours is not.
Because of this, instead of having 20,000 buckets of water to form a river of patriots, we have many thousands of small streams, each wanting to be the guardians of the knowledge that they possess. Streams do wear away some sand and debris, but not like a RIVER can, or could if these buckets of water could organize in the same direction; in short, if they (we) would decided to be one.
To organize together each person needs to have 1-3 projects you are DOING in the party. ANYONE can show up to a phone call and listen in. But what are you DOING once you hang up the phone?
Suzie Easter is learning about WebinarJam, she’s searching the internet to find contact information for State Legislators and “Friends of Liberty.” She’s also satisfying all of the tedious conditions of the FEC. These are her three things and she’s probably doing more that I can’t think of.
Will Christensen concerns himself with our Bill Committee faxes and emails we send to about 12,000-16,000 entities each month. He also is our Prayer Committee Chair, concerned with sending out (and posting on our webpage) our monthly prayer requests. He also sends me regular updates on items that need to go to certain states, both elected officials and IAP members.
I’ll stop at these 2 good examples.
We have our 5 Standing Committees; we have an organizational Chart, and a plan of how to organize in a local area. We also have a PEOPL Committee, which vets candidates.
Yes, we have our families, work requirements, children, grandchildren, etc. But didn’t our Founding Fathers have these same obligations? Didn’t most of our Founding Fathers have the added hardship of frequently burying their children? Did not their hardships refine them into the political GIANTS which founded our system of government?
And is not our obligation to restore their original intent?
Besides being involved in the various committees mentioned, below is a list of Projects you can DO. If you decide to involve yourself in the IAP, these are candidates for your list of 1-3 projects you are doing to help paint the masterpiece of the IAP organization. In this spirit, I encourage all to view the 4-minute video, “The Essence and Purpose of Successful Organizing.” (YouTube)
Areas of focus where the IAP needs help:
•Mobile Phone Website Coordinator
•IAP Bookstore Coordinator (about 500 books still need entered)
•Independence Militia
•Twitter Assistant
•Facebook Assistant
•YouTube Assistant
•Filmer for our YouTube website (Is Mr. Noriega the figurehead?)
•IAP Community Coordinator (Post, talk, discuss, ask, poll)
•IAP Gear Promoter
•Take Action Coordinator (send the leadership emails on important action items)
•Coat of Arms Badges Coordinator
•Fundraising Coordinator
•IAP Events Assistant to Wayne Hill
•Writer of Articles for our Website (article suggesters from other websites are also needed)
•State Legislator’s Emails Collector (See Google Doc’s Spreadsheet)
•“Friends of Liberty” (Churches, Militias, Other Freedom organizations like the 10th Amendment Center) Fax Numbers ? (See Google Doc’s spreadsheet)
•Help create e-books (Kindle, Amazon, etc.) of Edwin Vieira’s books, and help promote these
•Alliance of IAPs Coordinator to other Political Parties
•Utah State Legislators (again) on Fusion Laws, with the help of the CP (Bryce Hamilton)
•Help candidates gather signatures to get ballot access (I personally would LOVE help with my own candidacy)
•Help put the IAP on the ballot in your state!
•Go to the 5 Standing Committees page and look up the various Sub-committees
I’m sure there are other items that you can think of. Let’s add these to the list!!!
Remember the TEAM acronym, TOGETHER EACH ACHIEVES MORE!
Thank you for taking the time to read this. I invite you now to ACT. I look forward to our next call.
Kelly Gneiting
National Chairman
LOL, yes.
In the case of the Greens I still count them as Greens because they are called Greens at both the state and national levels, although I suppose you could make an argument that e.g. the Mountain Party in WV, Statehood Party in DC and Rainbow Party in Mass weren’t strictly created as Green affiliates and so there’s more of an argument for their alliance with the Green Party being perhaps temporary. Unlike with the CP, I’m not aware of any such pre-existing state parties that joined up with the Greens later seceding from the Greens, as with the AIP and CP, but I guess it could happen, or maybe there are examples on the Green side that I am not thinking of.
Fair enough, but most of the state Green Parties existed before there was a national party. It’s complicated.
It is funny that there’s an IAP affiliated with the CP, and a CP affiliated with the IAP.
NVIAP existed before it affiliated with the CP and would still exist if it disaffiliates from the CP (as, for example, the California AIP did). So I consider it both (CP and right wing minor party). It does associate with the CP for presidential tickets, but hasn’t changed its name or otherwise changed anything it did as the Nevada IAP for non-presidential purposes (that I know of) as a result of affiliating with the CP for the national ticket.
You are correct. Read it twice and still missed it 🙁
“I’ve read the article more carefully and still don’t see any reference to the CP. There’s a vague reference to other parties, and a reference to Constitutional militias, but nothing on CP per se. What am I missing?”
“•Utah State Legislators (again) on Fusion Laws, with the help of the CP (Bryce Hamilton)”
Bryce Hamilton of the CP of Utah chairman.
“not the Nevada IAP which is affiliated with the CP for national races.”
I would argue that the NVIAP is affiliated with the CP period, but when I post articles about it “Right-wing Minor Parties” always gets added, so apparently others disagree.
Or maybe, instead of trying to patiently explain it, when people just come in with erroneous assumptions and accusations instead of asking nicely how the spam filter works, I should just reply like this:
Liberians who like to wear Chuck Taylors, I think.
I’ve read the article more carefully and still don’t see any reference to the CP. There’s a vague reference to other parties, and a reference to Constitutional militias, but nothing on CP per se. What am I missing?
It has nothing to with Zig, if you mean Jed.
We have an automated spam filter which will automatically hold up any comment that does not come from a screen name and email address submitted into comment form combination (regardless of whether it is your real name or a screen name, or your real email address or not) that has previous approved comments that have appeared at IPR. It also holds up any comment that has more than one link in the same comment. For reasons none of us know sometimes it holds up other comments for no apparent reason, or lets through comments that it should have held up. This is to prevent the literally thousands of spam comments that we get every day (mostly automated commercial ads) from showing up.
If one of us (not necessarily the article author, but any IPR editor) happens to catch a comment that was incorrectly placed in spam, we can manually fish it out, but this doesn’t always happen because we often get a hundred or more spam comments in an hour and no one has time to always look through them.
None of us except the Redlich brothers, who rarely even read IPR, has the ability to adjust those spam filter settings. I used to have it from 2008-2013 but not anymore.
If you want to avoid being caught in the spam filter, use a consistent name and email to post comments at IPR and don’t post more than one link per comment.
Thanks for asking nicely instead of making incorrect assumptions, too.
When I read “Libs”. I think “Liberals”. Is that what you’re meaning to say?
WTF zig
Tell it like it is! Hope Libs are listening and taking copious notes.
Great piece Kelly. Hope libertarians are taking notes. If only we could get more organized we might actually grow some. Some in the Lib party take over 1.5 years just to make a game plan. At least Kelly produces something useful!
Mentions working with the CP.
Maybe I did not read the article closely enough, but why the additional classification under Constitution Party? This is the national IAP, which is unrelated to the CP, not the Nevada IAP which is affiliated with the CP for national races.
“2) Because they don’t have confidence in IAP leadership”
Yep, that’s why I left them.