[Peace-discuss] Join fifty urging Champaign County Dems to back Keith Ellison for DNC

[Robert Naiman]

David, I don't think that the framework that you're proposing as the basis
of progress is useful. What I hear you saying is that first I must try to
convince everyone to have my worldview, including my view that Democratic
Party reform efforts are useful. Once I've successfully completed that
essentially ideological task, then I may be permitted to propose particular
reformist projects.

I don't think that's how the world works. I think that the way the world
works is that I don't need the permission of the ultra-left to propose
reformist projects. Instead, the way the world works is that I just propose
whatever reformist project I want, and then people support the project or
don't support the project, according to whether they like the idea of the
project or not.

And this is a sensible framework, because a key determinant of whether a
project is useful or not is how many people support it. You can go off by
yourself and come up with a very beautiful strategy. You can convince
yourself that if only everyone would do X, the system would collapse and it
would be all unicorns and ponies. But if you can't get people to do X, it
doesn't matter.

Now, there's considerable evidence that as a national project, the Keith
Ellison => DNC thing is a going proposition. It's supported by Bernie
Sanders/Our Revolution, which generated hundreds of thousands of signatures
on a petition. It's supported by CWA and National Nurses United, the two
most important labor unions that backed Bernie in the primary.

Given that this is what is happening nationally, it's a reasonable idea to
test what we could do locally. We have a bunch of people in the local
Democratic Party who supported Bernie in the primary. The vote in Champaign
County was two to one Bernie over Hillary. So it's a reasonable idea to
test what we could do here. Are we building a thing nationally. Is the
Sanders-Warren-Ellison thing a thing. One thing that makes a thing a thing
is whether you have to start over from scratch each time. When we started
the Bernie thing, the Green Party people and the ultra-left attacked us,
just like they are attacking us on the Ellison thing now. So one of the
questions going forward is can we get through the phase of being attacked
by the Green Party/ultra-left faster, so we can move on to other things,
instead of having to fight this battle each time we propose a new idea.

One of the reasons I like doing petitions at MoveOn is that the cost of
participation is very low. So, you can test ideas for support without
asking people to commit to a lot, which allows you to test more ideas.
Like, if I help organize a demonstration that's two hours away and ask
people to come, that's a high bar for participation. I'm asking people to
give up six hours of their lives. Most people will set a high bar for that,
most of the time. If people don't agree to come, it doesn't necessarily
mean that they don't support the cause. It might just mean that the
participation bar was too high for them.

But signing and sharing a petition at MoveOn - that takes you five seconds.

@ChampaignCoDems: Back @KeithEllison for #DNCChair
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?r_by=1135580











Robert Naiman
Policy Director
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
(202) 448-2898 x1

On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 8:37 AM, David Green via Peace-discuss <
peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

> Bob, what makes you think that an effort to "reform" the Democratic Party
> can be successful, given the corporate nature of that party?
>
>
> On Monday, November 21, 2016 7:53 AM, Robert Naiman via Peace-discuss <
> peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> As of this morning, fifty-one signers.
>
> http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/champaigncodems-back?r_by=1135580
>
> If you support Jill Stein and the Green Party, go stand by Carl Estabrook.
>
> If you support Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Keith Ellison, come
> stand by me.
>
> ===
>
> Robert Naiman
> Policy Director
> Just Foreign Policy
> www.justforeignpolicy.org
> naiman at justforeignpolicy.org
> (202) 448-2898 x1
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20161121/c48e8a88/attachment-0001.html>