GNC Debate Silenced

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Fellow Greens:

My name is Teri Ulm. I’m the outgoing Interim Chair of the Indiana Green Party (INGP) for 2020-2021, former Chair of the Circle City Greens 2018, and current member of the Indiana Green Party¹ and Circle City Greens².

I write to share my report on autocratic actions of the Indiana Green Party. Our allies in the Emergency Committee to Save the Green Party say our situation is not unique; that apparently similar shenanigans have been reported in as many as nine state parties, where dissent on these issues has surfaced. This list includes multiple states with large enough delegate counts to meaningfully reflect the diversity of views on the underlying issues at the heart of this controversy. I assure you that two YES votes from Indiana on GNC #1062 misrepresent the opinions of Indiana Green party's membership which were evenly divided when we actually discussed the matter and took a vote on the question several months ago.

An Indiana Green Party National Delegate Alternate, Jeff Sutter, was undemocratically removed from his elected position. Jeff Sutter should be on the national committee listserv and specifically in the conversation in regard to proposal #1062. Jeff Sutter should still be serving his one year term, which ends in mid August based on the date of his election last year. At that point he should continue to represent the concerns and perspectives of Indiana Greens for the coming year as an Alternate to the Green National Committee based on his election at our state party Congress held at the end of June.

Dissent has been silenced in both our state and national parties which each tell us that they oppose silencing dissent. The Minority Report linked below recounts some piece of the history we are busy writing of the destruction of our party. My own report, which you are reading now, provides another chapter to this volume. But for the rest of the story it is important that we listen to the many other voices being silenced within our ranks.

As Greens we all care about the environment, democracy, diversity, feminism, social justice, and so much more. However, the mutually recognized need to lift up oppressed voices has backfired in the case presented in #1062. It has backfired because the oppressed don’t know where their dogmatic ideology ends and the thoughts and convictions for the rest of us begin. We all want a party which hears the oppressed, lifts us up, and ensures we each have a place in society. But compelled thought and speech is itself oppressive and anathema to Green values.

It seems redundant to have to reiterate, as Jeff Sutter did in the Minority Report³, that "Greens are all united by our support for trans folk to be able to do and be the way they want & not to be mistreated for their gender non-conformity or self-presentation. Indeed, all people should be free to dress and express themselves as they wish without discrimination, stigma, or violence. Members of the Georgia party believe this just as other Greens do. The disagreement that led to the LC's complaint therefore has nothing to do with actual bigotry or prejudice on the part of Georgia.”

Years ago the national committee adopted rules delegating to Forum Managers, nominated by the Steering Committee and confirmed by the National Committee, the power to warn and moderate members of the National Committee for a wide number of decorum violations.  An election in the Spring of 2021 led to a wide number of candidates seeking the nomination of party officers to fulfill this role.  The now newly elected Forum Managers had campaigned on a New Sherriff in Town platform, with promises to put an end to what they characterized as hate-speech.  No one seemed sure how to define that term.  Apparently hate speech is like obscenity, in that a judge or forum manager is supposed to recognize it when they see it.  Judging from the context, hate speech seems to mean speech which hurts feelings, invokes cognitive dissonance or introduces arguments beyond the capacity of the gender-ideology talking points to address.  

Below are posts sent to the National Committee lists (its votes list and its discussion list), mostly about the Accreditation Committee proposal #1062, to dis-accredit the Georgia Green Party, all of which the Forum Managers (listserv moderators) appear to have declined to allow to be published to the listserv.

Within days of their election, the Forum Managers had placed on "moderation" two Delegates to the Green National Committee, appointed or elected by their state parties, denying members of the Accredited member state parties which had elected them their voice and perspective in debate before the National Committee.  The incoming Forum Managers did not wait for these Delegates to violate the decorum rules of the lists; they went so far as to dig into the archives and sanction Paula Bradshaw and David Keil for posts already in the archives of the party; acting on complaints filed during their predecessor's watch as Forum Managers.  These actions were taken due to posts questioning or critical of actions of committees or delegates, or of the Forum Managers themselves. 

Regardless of whether the complaints which led to moderation actually constitute breaches of the GNC's expectations for decorum, the Forum Managers were never empowered to censor, but merely to moderate the posts of sanctioned Delegates.  The suppression of the posts below would indicate that the FMs are not enforcing rules of civility, but are systematically censoring dissenting viewpoints in debate before the National Committee in violation of the party's professed value for participatory democracy.

"I believe that FMs are silencing me because of pressure from NC delegates to do so as a dissenter from proposal 1062suppressing my posts," wrote David Keil, elected by the Green Rainbow Party of Massachusetts. "Dissenting from this ideological-expulsion effort has been labeled 'transphobic' for some time in the NC. I believe that a national effort is underway to silence or remove all opposition to the purge of the Georgia party. The toxic atmosphere in the NC is reflected in debates about the vaccination question as well, filled with insults and devoid of collaborative intent." 

Follow the Read More link to see posts sent to the National Committee lists (its votes list and its discussion list), mostly about the Accreditation Committee proposal #1062, to dis-accredit the Georgia Green Party, all of which the Forum Managers (listserv moderators) appear to have declined to allow to be published to the listserv.

In March I was elected to be a delegate to the National Committee from Illinois.  I joined because I felt that the NC needed feminist's voices to speak up for the rights of women and children, which are under attack from the Lavender Caucus and its acolytes.

On the first day Mike Gamms sent a ''welcome'' letter in which he subtly reminded me of his previous abuse and threats he had issued on the GP Facebook page, including one where he posted a screenshot of a search for plane tickets to my town, and numerous memes of an anime character pointing guns and other weapons with my name on them.

I responded by sarcastically telling him that ''your mother must be proud'', and ran into my first strike, when the forum managers informed me that I had been reported and my comment was not allowed.   Say what? He threatens me and I am dinged for responding?  What kind of rules are these?

As the week went by, I was repeatedly reported and racked up the strikes.  No matter what I said, I was turned into the authorities and they found some sort of internal value that I had defiled.  Meanwhile, I was attacked and insulted by others, but apparently they were following Green values that I was unaware existed.

Much like the community standards that heretics and dissenters run afoul of on Atlantic Council-monitored social media, the managers invented Kafkaesque  interpretations of existing rules to make my statements seem unacceptable.

Then came the new forum manager election.  Rose Roby pointedly ran on a platform of No Free Speech Allowed.  I was sure that would cause Green Party members to reject her candidacy, since Democracy is one of our Four PIllars and you can't possibly have democracy without free speech, open debate and a diversity of opinions.

Nope, not so, she was elected handily, along with a cadre of anti-feminist and anti-free speech followers.

I decided to quit posting so as not to trip any more wires, not wanting to end up completely silenced, (that is, silencing myself preemptively¹)  but the new managers went back in time to posts I had made before they were elected, found some imaginary offenses, and retroactively applied them so that any post I made would have to go through the Censor Bureau.

It is amazing to watch as the US ruling class stomps out dissent in the wider public, while the petty bureaucrats of the Green Party do their part in solidarity, like little Mini Mes of totalitarianism.

Paula Bradshaw

¹ [Editor's note]: The chilling effect is a legal term of art, developed primarily in First Amendment jurisprudence, and first articulated by the Courts in a 1952 case called Wieman vs Updegraff.  It describe the adverse impact on protected First Amendment activities, primarily, produced by the adoption or implementation of policies exhibiting, as Justice Brennan once framed the concept, "vagueness, overbreadth or unbridled discretion". 

Subject: Re: [usgp-dx] GPUS Steering Committee Statement on the Dialog not Expulsion Caucus

The Steering Committee has taken the unusual step today of making a public statement. It denounces Greens for Dialogue Not Expulsion, the sole nationwide group of GPUS members organized to oppose the dis-affiliation of the Georgia state party.

The SC accuses DNE of espousing forbidden ideas attributed to radical feminists. But DNE hasn’t adopted such ideas; they are held by individuals, such as me. DnE members hold a variety of views on sex and gender and are unified by defense of grassroots democracy. 

DNE's political position is limited to opposition to dis-accreditation of the GaGP and to advocacy of dialogue in place of administrative measures like expulsion. It has worked with the Georgia GP to prepare a defense brief and witness depositions.

What goal could the Steering Committee have in publicly condemning the only group of Greens that opposes the effort to remove a state party from the federation? Greens whose offense is to oppose expulsion of those holding forbidden views.

What effect on other potential dissenters in the GPUS will such a statement have, published less than a month before a vote on the Georgia matter?

Expect a reply from DNE to the charges made by the Steering Committee. The SC omits evidence; a likely reply will include a request for particulars.

To allow examination of evidence related to charges against DNE, I request that its URL be made available on the NC list. The Forum Managers have instructed me not to link to that site, however.

David Keil
Delegate, GRP(MA)

We'll have to file this simultaneously in the You can't make this stuff up, and the Truth is stranger than fiction categories. 

The newly elected Forum Managers had campaigned on a New Sherriff in Town platform, with promises to put an end to hate-speech, which judging from the context, seems to mean speech which hurts feelings, invokes cognitive dissonance or introduces arguments beyond the capacity of the gender-ideology talking points to address.  Except that this sort of gas-lighting, projection and adhominem attacks seem to be very much a part of the cancel culture playbook. 

But if you are not already familiar with the work of Women's Liberation Radio Network, please do check them out, at the links below, breaking the sound barrier for five years now.  A monthly hour or more of news, music and interviews from a feminist perspective. 

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: <forummanagers@gp.org>
Date: Tue, May 11, 2021 at 9:37 PM
Subject: Notice of Advisory from the Forum Managers
To: David Keil

Dear Delegate Keil,

Your GPUS Affairs list message of May 11,2021, 11:58 am, with the
subject “International “Cabal working to undermine GPUS” is in violation
of list-serve guidelines found at
http://gpus.org/rules-procedures/#09-03.

Specifically, your comments promoting a website
(https://womensliberationradionews.com/) and organization (WLRN) that
discriminates agains a community specifically supported in our platform
and national policy.  This is in violation of Section D. Tone. Insults,
name-calling, sexist/sexual, racist, homophobic, or otherwise demeaning
or degrading comments will not be tolerated. … Hateful, abusive, and
threatening language [is] prohibited…

Accordingly, the Forum Managers are issuing to you this formal Advisory.