Responding to the Steering Committee's unfounded public attack on the Dialogue Not Expulsion Caucus

Responding to the Steering Committee's unfounded public attack on the Dialogue Not Expulsion Caucus
By the Emergency Committee to Save the Green Party

We are a group of Dialogue Not Expulsion members who have constituted ourselves into the Emergency Committee to Save the Green Party, to coordinate the defense of the Georgia Party from threat of dis-accreditation. The statement below speaks for us and not for DNE, which is working on its own response.

In moral panics, accusation trumps evidence
In moral panics,
accusation trumps evidence

The GPUS Steering Committee statement issued on May 24, 2021 reflects a politics that is centralized, top-down, disrespectful of diversity, and counter to feminism and ecological wisdom. It sabotages the existing processes of the party, prejudicing the outcome, robbing the National Committee of its legitimate authority in deciding the dispute over the proposed dis-accreditation of the Georgia Green party, and poisoning the voter pool. The statement also contains a series of wild accusations about the Dialogue Not Expulsion Caucus and its political mission, including claims of “a campaign of disruption” and engagement with “multiple international hate groups”. It does not, however, provide a word of evidence to support these allegations.

Indeed, the accusations are all fiction, ungrounded in material reality, a mishmash of falsehoods and paranoid conspiratorial ideation, with one overriding message -- agree completely, no questioning allowed, and reject all critical thought, or else become the next target of this witch-hunt. Such methods are the exact opposite of everything for which the Green Party stands. Within a day of approving its statement, the Steering Committee posted it to the GP.org website, tweeted the statement, and linked from the home page to the tweeted statement. Its evident purpose was to intimidate delegates who will soon be voting on whether to disaffiliate the Georgia party. Importantly, the Steering Committee has issued this statement without having examined any of the evidence offered by the Georgia Green Party in its defense.

Working to serve the SC, the Forum Managers (listserv moderators) suppressed a posting by an NC delegate, David Keil, on 5/24/21, that responded to the SC statement. This has followed the systematic silencing of dissenting delegates since the recent election of new forum managers.  Among the messages suppressed by the Forum Managers were posts that pointed out that the Accreditation Committee presumed for itself the authority to write its own hearing rules in the dis-accreditation process, contrary to the rule that the National Committee has retained this authority to set the rules for our party’s standing committees.  The improvised hearing rules disrespect basic due process required to protect respondents in an adversarial setting. The Accreditation Committee adopted rules that specifically prohibit any mechanism for directly confronting the respondent’s accusers or calling, examining or cross-examining witnesses.

The witch hunt against the Georgia party has included one male delegate (an officer of the Youth Caucus) making veiled threats of physical violence against a female delegate; delegates’ dismissal of earlier overt threats of physical violence and doxxing by the same male against the same female; another male delegate (appointed by the Youth Caucus) doxxing a dissenter and his family, threatening his target’s employment as well; the announcement that dissenting delegates are “fascists”; demands by NC members that states recall delegates guilty of allegedly incorrect views; and assertions that the NC itself may violate the basic rules of the Green federation by expelling delegates named by their state parties to serve on the National Committee.

Currently, peer-group pressure, treatment of expressions of opinion as acts of violence and hate, and use of mandatory repeated slogans in an Orweillian fashion seem to prevail in this Party. By repeating the mantras of gender-ideology (“Trans women are women,” etc., a position not found anywhere in the platform), the Steering Committee seeks to impose these rote slogans as party dogma, outside the democratic decision-making processes of the Party.

DnE was formed to oppose the dis-accreditation of the Georgia Green Party.  DnE includes both those who hold gender-critical feminist positions and those who do not, and is united by support for dialogue and debate and by opposition to expulsion over ideological differences.  The DnE Caucus supports the right of democratic dissent among Greens whose positions remain consistent with the party’s key values.

Neither the national party nor its identity caucus rules own the word “caucus”. DnE has never claimed to be anything but what it is -- a group of Green Party members and supporters united by their political opposition to ideological purges of dissenting voices within the party.

The flower-globe image, used by the DnE, predates by several years the formation of the Green Party of the United States, and has been freely used by Green Party-associated organizations across the country.  The logo’s use was abandoned by the GPUS years ago in a rebranding and was never used by the DNE Caucus to imply any official connection.

Why such a vicious attack, utterly devoid of facts, against the DnE for the “crime” of opposing the purge of the Georgia party? Is it because DnE threatens the 2/3 majority the witch-hunters seek in their effort to purge the Georgia party? Who will be the next target? Will other future purges of state parties be preceded by public attacks on whomever is defending the right of those state parties to remain in the Federation? The Steering Committee’s smear of promoters of democratic discussion and debate, and individuals who express opinions with which the SC disagrees, undermines the very Ten Key Values it purports to defend.  Indeed, this targeting and demonizing of dissenters is sucking the life-blood out of this Party that many of us have devoted decades to building. These tactics need to end if there is to be any hope of the Green Party surviving as a viable political force.

We stand in solidarity with all those Greens who still hold dear our party’s four pillars and ten key values for their power to unite us in our work.

Relevant facts may be verified at the DnE website:  
http://www.dialoguenotexpulsion.org