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We stand this Labor Day at the traditional start of another presidential campaign.
Since Barack Obama’s election nearly three years ago, millions of words have been devoted to dissecting what went wrong. Were we naive to believe in “Change we can believe in”? Do Obama’s and other Democrats’ one-eighties on the issues indicate that our elected officials are merely pawns used to lend an air of democracy to the emerging corporate state?
Can there really be a meaningful difference between the two major parties when the results – rampant unemployment, perpetual war, environmental degradation, and the erosion of our social safety net – are the same, regardless which party is running things?
First conceived at MyFDL in February 2010 amid such questions, the New Progressive Alliance has steadily worked to create a lasting counterweight to their all-too-obvious answers. MyFDL readers and diarists figured heavily in the NPA’s founding – indeed, it would not exist without you. Now, we’re counting on you to take the lead as we move forward!
Today, Labor Day 2011, the NPA’s founding formally ends. Over the summer, a small group of NPA volunteers worked to create and ratify the Unified Progressive Platform, and to tweak the cyberstructure that will allow us to challenge both major parties through relentless electoral activism and popular dissent, throughout the 2012 campaign and beyond, at every level of government. Our organization is in place. It is time for the hard work that we must do to begin in earnest.
It will take thousands of volunteers working together across the long term to reform our broken system. Whether you consider yourself a follower or a leader is not important. Whether you can donate just an hour or two per week or 10 or 20, we have important work to do. Click here to see all our volunteer opportunities and to contribute your talents.
Like America, the NPA belongs to you. Are you ready to begin working for the kind of country you wish to live in?
In Solidarity,
Anthony Noel
NPA Facilitator
25 Comments
Noel
How is it going so far?
that’s a nice political platform
can you say what the relationship is between npa and the green party?
Well I cannot speak for the NPA but….
If I have any say at all, there will be none. None what so ever.
Speaking as a former long time Green Party member and activist. I know a bunch of others who feel the same way.
Thanks Michael, it’s going great! Are you ready to publicly endorse the platform and earn our endorsement in your challenge to Amy Klobuchar?
-Tony
We are unaffiliated, although the Unified Platform was greeted enthusiastically when Jill Stein presented it at the Greens’ national meeting this summer. While we are looking for opportunities to cooperate, the NPA’s dedication to independence and to endorsing only candidates who publicly sign on to our platform is and will remain our topmost concern.
-Tony
Alex and All
Sure.. Should we issue a Press Release?
Man. Our first endorsement. Apart from the Minnesota Open Progressives of course.
why?
and the reason i’m asking is that i’m not clear whether npa sponsors candidates and, if not, where its sponsored candidates will come from?
Echoing Michael’s sentiment above, I won’t try to speak for him
But as far as our approach, while we reserve the right to become a party unto ourselves and field candidates, our focus is on issues, and on trying to rouse people to the need to make issues – not personalities – their focus as well.
It really doesn’t matter whether you’d enjoy having a beer with your president or Congressperson or Senator. What matters is whether they fight for your interests.
By getting the Unified Platform in place first, The NPA now has the tool we need to begin committing candidates to the basic principles of Progressivism to which any TRUE Progressive should proudly adhere. We will endorse those who sign on to our platform and whose track record indicates they can be trusted to uphold it. We will put our resources into getting them elected. At the same time, we will do our damnedest to PREVENT candidates who refuse to support the platform from winning office – and we will to kick to the curb any who dares sign onto the platform but fails to work doggedly for its enactment.
So in near term at least, the NPA will engage without apology in electoral activism designed to give voters real alternatives to the two corporate parties. We’ll do it by holding candidates accountable to the issues, and will serve as a vetting organization in order to unite Progressives around truly Progressive candidates.
I will speak for myself.
I fully endorse this idea. No matter which party they are with. With the caveat that their actions are important, not their words.
It is the one thing I have learned. Words do not matter. Actions do.
A lot of your website links (like the volunteer page) are broken, Anthony.
Wait! It just started working. Weird.
Thanks Athena. It became spotty over the past 2 hours or so. Troubleshooting indicates the problem is with the host or a server somewhere along the line. Please be patient, such issues are generally worked out pretty quickly.
Umm not to get too polly-annish but..
that happens sometimes when the site is being hit with too many requests.
God speed he day that we grow and become formidable
I have been pushing NPA and firedoglake every where I go. All of the people who have a CAVLAN US SENATE 2012 bumper sticker also have an NPA one right beside it.
Am I correct in surmising that the NPA has given up on a primary challenge to Obama? I suppose you would endorse a challenger who endorsed the platform, but I see absolutely nothing on your website to indicate that this is something you are actively pursuing.
Am I also correct in assuming that you have rejected the idea I proposed in Dump Obama: a Primary Focus, of running a “no-name” primary candidate against Obama, with gaining ballot access being her or his claim to fame?
If there is no primary candidate backed by the NPA or otherwise, that would be a great disappointment, though not blameworthy if you simply don’t have the strength to pull it off. (There are many noble deeds I don’t have the strength for either.)
Nor does it preclude my supporting your 3rd party efforts in the presidential general election. It’s just that it makes it harder to pull insurgent Democrats to the independent banner.
p.s.
WoooHooo! Thanks Michael!
You are correct in neither assumption, Jeff. Though we have given up on the list of prospective challengers voted here last fall due either to lack of response or expressed disinterest, we are pursuing disaffected “lesser lights.”
If no “known” Democrat will step up, it remains to be seen how “no name” we might go. The one problem with doing so is the media’s – and the party’s – default, long-practiced (and therefore sharply honed) willingness to instantly skewer any unknown as a kook, not to mention their refusal to admit them into the conversation. And that’s putting it kindly.
The MSM are always on the lookout for stories of the unknown never-ran who throws his or her hat into the ring. It proceeds to caricature them as either crazy, self-infatuated, or worse (all the while keeping a straight face as they infer every “real” politico isn’t all those things already). The best the unknown challenger can hope for is to be the “kicker” story on morning radio yapfests – the worst, the brunt of jokes for the entire morning show.
You may remember from your youth (I certainly do) that lone guy up in NH who “ran” every time for some outrageous number of cycles. In the end he got his 20 minutes of fame as a feature on “60 Minutes” – as a tottering old man, STILL knocking on doors. Sometimes with his dentures in, sometimes not.
Regardless, there are lots of disaffected Dems, so we still have plenty of options to explore.
As for the “first conceived” thing, a small group of diarists here (actually it was still called The Seminal at the time) convened a short-lived Google Group back then. Masoninblue was one of them, I was another, and one of the NPA’s stalwart volunteers, who prefers privacy but is known ’round these parts as archiebird, was too. You can read the full history, including the ramp-up in which you played such a crucial role last fall, here.
Thank you. I could only go by what I saw on the website, and this is very encouraging and I am relieved to be wrong. Of course I don’t know the NPA’s inner workings, but my concern is — not that it’s too late — but that there is a rather small window between a candidate declaring and creating a campaign organization that can meet the ballot access filings due in December and January.
Allow me to give a few thoughts:
At the risk of being arbitrary, there are 2 ways a primary campaign can take shape. First, and best, is that you find a candidate who has their own campaign organization, which you can then feed into. But if the candidate is a true no-name, then the NPA would have to be that campaign organization, but not quite.
In the second eventuality, then the NPA would have to create a separate campaign organization. One reason for this is that the campaign will attract good people who want to be part of the campaign, but might not necessarily want to join the NPA. (Even though I would encourage them to do so.)
Everything you say about the media is true, but that can’t determine the course. The news hook isn’t the knocking on doors, it’s the getting on the ballot. With that, you can put out the call.
In the interim, I would suggest that the NPA start openly and publicly recruiting volunteers explicitly for the primary run, and creating a fund to support it. The more you have in your pocket for a primary, the better the chances of recruiting a candidate, in my opinion.
I think it consistent with the NPA philosophy that the goal of the primary run not be to impress the media — or the Democratic Party. Rather, having a candidate allows you and all of us to redefine the terms of the political discussion. There can be fruitful fights over what it means for a candidate to be serious. There would be very specific activity to organize around and recruit with.
There are a lot of organizations with good programs, though I think yours may be the best for driving hard into the progressive mainstream.
But if you can pull off a primary run, there would be only one organization leading the fight to primary Obama, and that would be the NPA.
Addendum: One might be hesitant to go all-out and public for a primary campaign, lest you suffer embarrassment should it not happen. But I think serious progressives understand the difficulties involved, and would respect your taking your best shot. It would be heard around the world.
Has NPA made any attempt to recruit support via the Coffee Party? The Coffee Party continues to grow steadily, at least in an online sense – their upcoming Enough is Enough rally has over 400,000 facebook “likes”.
Unfortunately, they seem to have gotten rid of their forums. (I just took a quick look; maybe I missed it.) Probably because moderating was a nightmare. OTOH, NPA could not only attend their upcoming Enough is Enough rally and pass out flyers – there’s still a window to speak! See http://www.coffeepartyusa.com/enough-speak . You know that there will be many members who want to do more than have nice, caffeinated chats with their representatives (they seem to have evolved far beyond that point) and do protests. Note also that they are having satellite rallies.
I don’t know what the relationship is with the original Coffee Party organization, if any, but there’s a Facebook group called Coffee Party Progressives with 23,976 likes. It may be a front for a Rebuild the Dream operative (RBTD has a Veal Pen parentage, so is automatically suspect, in my book, and probably yours, too), but it never hurts to ask.
So, maybe you should look into starting a group called Coffee Party New Progressive Alliance.
ON the negative side, judging by the size of their local groups in the NYC area, it looks like they blew their chance to develop into a strong, “boots on the ground” group. I predicted, early on, that they would have to quickly come to grips with the fact that Congress critters aren’t going to be swayed by groups that just talk and make the standard petitions. Even when they do so politely, and with a nice cup of coffee in hand.
As Dennis Rancourt would say (I think), such actions don’t “threaten power”. You threaten a Congress critters’ power by threatening to fire him. Alas, the Coffee Party still seems to be stuck in the mode of being a transpartisan advocacy and educational group, which is not tough enough on either the Democratic or Republican parties. Without running candidates, they will be fighting with one arm tied behind their backs.
(Not sure, but judging by this link, which I found by googling “coffee party candidate”, some independents may have run claiming a coffee party affiliation, but they didn’t have a formal relationship with the Coffee Party.
i think formulating the platform first should help neophyte candidates who can run on the platform instead of their personalities or beer-drinking capacity
but as the commenter below notes, how are these putative candidates going to get on ballots and run campaigns without a political organization behind them?
i fear you may end up fulfilling your prophecy that the only candidates you endorse are those without any electoral credibility and that may do more harm than good
i applaud your efforts and want to see you succeed
Agreed, though I echo your (higher-up) sentiment that it never hurts to ask.
We are squarely in the asking phase now; volunteers dedicated to working on organizational outreach are doing so. I don’t think they’ve approached the Coffees yet, but they’re on the list.
That being said, we are doing org outreach from a default position that groups calling themselves Progressive will need to prove it. The term has been so co-opted by neolibs and Dem Party operatives (at worst) or apologists that we’re applying a healthy skepticism in all cases.
- Tony
You thoughts and input are always appreciated, Jeff.
“I don’t think they’ve approached the Coffees yet”
Funny! When they approach the Coffees, they may as well pitch to the Creams!