[John Rensenbrink Speech to MA Green-Rainbow Party Convention in Worcester, Massachusetts, November 15, 2014]

Thank you Roni.

Greetings, very excited to be here with you. One piece of excitement: last Sunday the Maine Green Independent Party’s Steering Committee unanimously endorsed the Green Alliance to Stop the Pipeline. GASP! Indeed! That’s good news: “As Maine Goes ….!”

When Roni asked me to give the keynote, I was delighted to be invited and asked her what she and the Planning Committee had in mind for my speech. She said the Committee suggested the theme of  “The Big Tent.”

My speech, accordingly, centers on the rainbow as a Big Tent model for the vision and accompanying strategy of the Green Party.

For contrast and critical comparison to the rainbow model, I begin by commenting on a Big Tent strategy promoted by Ralph Nader and others.

I will then go on to describe how and why the rainbow is the model of choice. Thereafter, I will finish by outlining two strategies that fit in with the rainbow model: a versatile strategy and a jolt strategy.

Ralph Nader has urged the creation of a Big Tent–trying to challenge into existence an alliance of left and right wing political forces. He began this in 2004 as an Independent for President and again in his run for President as an Independent in 2008. It did not catch fire with the voters. Since then, but without running for high office, he has continued on this course. His new book is entitled “Unstoppable, the Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.”

I and many of you here and in the country worked with him from 1996 to 2004, some of us closely. We worked on his campaigns for president on behalf of the Green Party in 1996 and 2000. I tried several times to persuade him to join the Green Party. To no avail. We parted ways in 2004 when Nader decided to run for president as an Independent, turning his back on the Green Party; and I joined David Cobb’s campaign for president as the Green Party nominee.

Many of us were very disappointed at Nader’s turn away from the Greens. I was, too, and grieved about it. But I now feel that it was a more comfortable turn for him to go Independent and a blessing for the Greens in that we ran strong Green Party activists David Cobb in 2004, Cynthia McKinney in 2008 and topped it off with a truly remarkable campaign in 2012 with Jill Stein. We have shown that we can run effective campaigns for the presidency with our own Greens and on our own steam. Jill has done that with flair, great skill, and incredible dedication, both in the campaign itself and just as memorably since then. I will come back to this.

One trouble with Nader’s idea of a Big Tent is this: to bring about an alliance of right and left you find yourself contriving a program that has to be whittled down to platitudes in order to minimally satisfy deeply conflicting values and interests. How far can Nader and Ron Paul really travel before they and their respective followers clash?

Furthermore, it’s one thing to bring down the corporate state. It’s another to create a replacement. The sub-title of Nader’s book calls for “dismantling the corporate state.” But what would his Alliance put in its place?

Yet, from reading his book, I’m not sure what exactly Nader means by Big Tent. Is it the creation of yet another top down “movement” along the lines of what Jeremy Rifkin tried, Ronnie Dugger has tried, and several others in the past decades? Or does he have in mind piecemeal comings-together of Senators from both sides of the aisle or Congressmen from both sides of the aisle, coming together for a given issue or a given problem? An example he gives is getting rid of a nuclear reactor. Or it could be fracking in a given area. After victory, if and when there is one, there is no carryover. The struggle and victories are piecemeal. They don’t add up to sustainable alteration of the direction of policy or alteration of the power structure.

If you google left/right politics, you will find that Nader’s initiative gets considerable support from leftist and left leaning public intellectuals in Washington. When you go there, you will note that they are insouciant about race, as is Nader in his book as well. Nor do they grasp the depth of the ecological crisis. There is very little mention of ecology in their listing of what the new Alliance stands for.

Maybe they have spent too much time in Washington DC. Someone in my email box recently came up with a new version of DC, dubbing our nation’s capitol the District of Corruption. It’s not that the concerned intellectuals in our nation’s capitol are part of the mess, but they are so inside of it they don’t realize what is really happening.

And it’s more than corruption if what is meant by it is a classic plunge into unmitigated greed, back biting, and power mongering for position. That too. But the mess, the problem, goes much deeper. Structural decomposition is one word for it, constitutional derangement and failure is even better.

Fully understanding the extent of the decomposition and derangement should make us realize that we are now in a very different situation nationally from that faced by dedicated activists in the past. We don’t have a republic in Washington any more and we’ve not had a democracy there at any time, except as a kind of sudden blip in business as usual.

In a republic there is an assumption of respect for the rule of law, of sharing a fundamental bond of political responsibility, and of sharing a stake in some degree of dialogue. But that is gone or so eviscerated you can’t see it or feel it. The tattered fabric of responsible government remains as a kind of ironic reminder of a time that once was. The pretense is there but the flesh of robust constitutional life has perished.

The Republican and Democratic Parties at the national level reflect the demise of the republic in their own behavior and further contribute to it. Three mainsteam, Princeton-based, Political and Social Scientists have charted the attitudes of the major political parties all the way back to 1879.They are Nolan McCarty, Keith Poole and Howard Rosenthal. They conclude that party polarization is now greater than at any time since their charts began.

The Green Party, I feel, must realize that the reality we face at the national level is not like what many movement activists and left leaning public intellectuals still think it is. The latter innocently and touchingly continue to believe that the past ways and vibes of politics are still reasonably in place. So they continue to be content with more and more thunderous declamations and excoriations via blogs, books and magazine articles exposing what our government is doing wrong–still thinking it’s our government. Meanwhile they dismiss or studiously ignore efforts at building an alternative power through a new party such as the Greens. And that is a shame! A very great shame.

The top elites that run the government don’t think that what their government is doing is wrong. It’s their government; they are basically quite happy with it and preen themselves that they are the bulwark of freedom and democracy and justice too. I was reading Hilary Clinton’ praise for Henry Kissinger’s new book. She quite literally says that the US government (she means the government and ruling circles of Hilary and Henry), is the hope of the world. The intense barrage of criticism from the left spelling out what’s wrong is to them like chaff blown about by the wind.

Is the situation we face at the national level also true at the state level? Not so much though the rot of constitutional corruption has crept in as well in several places. Is it true at the local level? Not so much at all. There, the old decencies and responsive/responsible and still constitutional and even proto democratic vibes and ways still predominate. So far.

But because of the swollen and autocratic powers of the national government, the state and local constitutional ways are under threat. Threatened by bureaucratic overlordism, as in programs like no child left behind. Threatened by mega-corporate predatory market practices that smother small locally-based independent businesses–practices which are supported by a corporate-owned national government. Threatened by a corporate commercialized hype that re-makes citizens into consumers. Threatened by an overweening militaristic tax-gobbling machine that sucks up resources for constant foreign entanglements; and threatened now as well by a so-called national security state that is putting the finishing touches to an omnipresent tyranny.

I’m sorry to recount all this: it is depressing and a recipe for despair. But as Greens, we do not flinch from the reality. We can’t and won’t. Because why? Because we have taken a very fateful step.

The fateful step we have taken is, quite simply, building a party. Not just a traditional party but a party of a different kind. What we are building is a party that at one and at the same time does two things that are commonly disjoined. We seriously undertake to transform the political system itself even while working within it. We adapt to the system when and where we can and inch towards enough power to fundamentally transform the system. We gather our energies to democratize its structures and transform its policies.

This is a daring, unorthodox and improbable thing to be doing. It requires being both amazingly agile and deeply principled. It means revolution from within, not imposing it from without. It means being a catalyst for revolution that is non-violent, a revolution that truly pursues a democracy and government of, by, and for the people. Central to that is a steady commitment to dialogue coupled with unceasing efforts for a fair ballot box-a ballot box that is truly and fully accessible to all.

One notices with a shock that the exciting revolution in Egypt has stalled, has in fact failed. An overlooked factor in that failed revolution is that the revolutionaries had no political party before they overthrew Mubarak. Once he was ejected, they could not follow through with the kind of political organizing and unity building that was needed to produce a credible and constitutional government. In the wake of victory they could not bring the disparate elements together. Understandably so. They needed a degree of solidarity before the fact, before they toppled the old regime. Solidarity had that in Poland; so did the ANC in South Africa.

This punctuates the imperative need for a Big Tent. Now. It also underlines the question of what kind of Big Tent?

The model for the Big Tent is the rainbow. It has grown up right out of the American experience, implicit in it, and rich with potential. It has been bought with incalculable suffering, blood and guts, for centuries. A terrible war has been fought because of it. Lynchings and institutional hazing and unspeakable brutalities are part of the record. And they continue.

Yet in spite of this and maybe to some degree because of it, black and brown and red and yellow and white are perforce growing into an interaction of peoples. Different cultures, different languages, different social mores, different values rub shoulders in a very mobile society. Diversity is beginning to become the norm. Not fully yet, not by any means, but it is on the way.

Whatever one may feel about the business firm Android, they capture a way of thinking and a way of re-presenting the world that is part of a new era that may be, and as I think, is on its way. I ran across their huge two page advertisement in the New York Times: “Be together. Not the same”. This is a far more mature America than ever before. You can build a party on that. You can build a nation on that. You can build a world on that.

Out of the crucible, out of the horrors, a new way of life emerges. A phoenix. No, we’re not there yet. But the vision is there; it is palpable; it exists in many places. But not in politics. Until now.

It is visible and palpable now right here in Massachusetts. The Green Rainbow Party! Who would have thought that maturity would ever come to politics? Would ever be allowed in! Or at least get its foot in the door, as you have done here.

Be together. Not the same. You are doing that here. All of us Greens in the U.S. can stand and say thank you for showing us a pathway where we should go, where we can go. It’s not only race, though it is intimately about race. But it’s also about cultures, and genders, and class, and about generational divides– about qualities, not just quantities, it’s about life in community, learning and gaining and growing from and because of difference.

E Pluribus Unum. Translates into “Out of Many, One. “We’ve nodded assent to that for many years as if it’s a settled thing, a mantra of unshakable idealism.  But that is what it is, a piece of idealism, a statement of aspiration, as if we are not already related and we should therefore morally strive to get related. But that is part of old think. It still hankers for the one, as if that’s the answer, as if that’s the way forward. We can and should say instead, “out of one, many.”

The one is that we are all related. We are related, already related, by nature as part of our birth and being. That’s fact, not just an aspiration. Take us out of the clouds please, the clouds of moral aspiration, let us set ourselves down on the earth, the land, the life here on this planet. We are all different. That’s not only o.k. It’s great. Nature teaches us that. Nature shouts out at us at every turn and in every way: Diversity!

It also shouts out at us: Relationship! All things are connected! We are all connected, a trenchant value of the Green Party. We are all equal in the decisive aspect of our being, a major ontological discovery, not just a moral aspiration, not just a wish, a nice thing to have. Funny isn’t it!  To call relationship a nice thing to have, when it is already a fact of life. We humans can, of course, accept or deny this. But we deny this basic relationship at our peril, for we will find out that we are at odds with the facts of life.

Acknowledging the fact that we are already all related by nature (ecology’s most important finding.) we can then address the real question, which is this: what kind of relationship? This is a huge distinction: between relationship as such, a factual given, and the kind of relationship we choose to have. Having that choice is also a fact, not a wish or an aspiration. And therewith as well we have available, always available, the deep and healing power of dialogue.

Apply that to politics and add one of the greatest of human achievements: a free, universal and totally accessible ballot box. Of course the ballot box can be undermined, manipulated, and thinned out to be yet another tool of the oppressor. The oppressor who is corrupting the ballot box, by fair means or foul, has no standing in the facts of life, the facts of nature, the reality of diversity, the power of choice, the thrust of real dialogue.

To sum up: A seasoned commitment to relationship, diversity, the power of choice, dialogue, and a free ballot box for all–these give a political party a stunning power. It means that the party is rooted in reality, and the deep conviction that comes with that. It is not just a promoter of wishful, aspirational idealism.

Much flows from this for the strategy of a political party, a party of a different kind. Among them are two strategies. A versatile strategy and a jolt strategy.

A modest example of versatility is the opportunity offered by Ranked Choice Voting (aka Instant Run-off Voting). It is gaining momentum in many parts of the country. It may happen within the next few years in Maine. Once it is in place, we can position ourselves to be versatile in district races for State House and Senate.

In districts where the Republican always wins and the Democrat never wins (and there are quite a few), here the Greens puts on a strong campaign to become the second party. They reach out to Democratic voters, urging them to put the Green candidate as their second choice on their ballots.

But in districts, such as in Portland, where the Democrat is usually first, the Republican is a distant third, and Green is number 2, there the opposite is the way to go. Here you urge Republican voters to put the Green candidate second on their ballots. In the run off, the Republican candidate being dropped, the second place votes for the Green candidate from the Republican ballots are added to the Green totals. It is not unlikely that the Green will surpass the vote total for the Democrat and win the election.

This is a strategy that calls for a different tactic for different circumstances. In Republican districts appeal to Democrats; in Democratic districts appeal to Republicans. This is an instance of versatility.

I turn to the situation facing us nationally in contrast to what we face at the local and state levels. Here, at the national level, we face, as I have said earlier in my talk “a broken system.” These are the words of Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times earlier this month commenting on the election.

The situation at the national l evel is in marked contrast to the local level and in most states, where government is still within range of being of, by, and for the people.

But the national level has become, in a deep and lamented sense, the enemy of constitutional government-the enemy of government of, by, and for the people. How shall we approach this?

We know that we will not win the Presidency any time soon, quite possibly never. Nor would we want to. Not in its present condition, being as it has become an instrument of autocracy, oligarchy, and imperialism-and well on the road that leads to tyranny.

However, we must continue to field candidates for president. We need the burst that a jump into the presidential sweepstakes can give us. So if we’re going to run for president, and we should, let’s do it with a bang.

We can build on what Jill and Cheri did in 2012. They brought us to a new level and we can move forward from there. With that as a resolve, we need to chart the kind of campaign we can and should mount that will build on what we’ve already done. First, to realize that we face the reality of a broken system, not only just in electoral politics, but in the national government itself. With a deep realism we must proceed. Look where our strength lies and strengthen that strength-our strength lies in the people at the local and state level.

Thus aim our presidential campaign accordingly. So much is already going on at the local and state level that harbingers a democratically based new economy, an ecology sensitive economy, a defiance of federal bureaucracy economy, a resolute stand for the rights of the people, a defense of small business. Our presidential campaign can and should identify with that. It can and should confront the two major parties, the mega corporations and banks, the congress and the presidency with a call to stop the oppression of local and state efforts that aim to maintain and improve democracy; and to stop throttling the growth of the new economy. Furthermore, we need to warn incisively against the drift to tyranny enveloping the national government.

In doing this we stand for winners, not for the ones who are squandering and eroding the American spirit, oppressors who are just plain stomping on the great heritage of our people’s struggles for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and struggling for a matching government of the people, by the people, and for the people. We can and will forefront a vigorous, challenging campaign for greater and deeper diversity, for democracy that means it, and for ecological sanity.

I call this a jolt strategy. It parallels and grows out of a versatile strategy.

Be together. Not the same. You can build a party on that; you can build a nation on that; you can build a world on that. Speaking of our world: look at us: over one hundred countries with Green parties organizing and on the march to rescue the nature we are so intimately a part of, and to assure our survival as a species, defend and expand our freedom, and secure the basis for a just and sustainable livelihood for all.

Be together. Not the same. All hail the rainbow!

John Rensenbrink is a founding member of the Green Party of the United States and founder of the Maine Green Independent Party. He was the 1996 Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate from Maine, and was campaign manager for two Green gubernatorial candidates in Maine, Jonathan Carter (1994) and Pat La Marche (1998).

Rensenbrink is currently president of the Green Horizon Foundation and co-editor of its journal, the Green Horizon Quarterly, now in its fourth year of publication. He is the author of two books on the U.S. Green Party: The Greens and the Politics of Transformation (1992); and Against All Odds: The Green Transformation of American Politics (1999).