Friday, October 07, 2005

What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Understanding?

I don't know if Bob Tuke brought the TDP equivalent of Luca Brazi with him today, but obviously he made Richard Fields an offer he couldn't refuse, because Fields resigned tonight from the SCDP Executive Committee, much to everyone's relief and delight, especially mine.

At least for now, the Party's self-immolation was avoided, and we will all work together, at least until the next crisis. All members of each SCDP committee were approved, so I am now officially a member of the Bylaws committee, and I am ready to tear into them as soon as possible, to prevent ANY problems like we experienced from happening in the future.

It is now time for the rest of the ExecCom to get down to the business of serious financial planning. The long awaited plan to have automatic-bankdraft contributions had to be delayed when the Louisiana bank they had chosen was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina; I have been advised that they have things about ready to go with another financial institution, so that's good. I promise to sign up as soon as it's ready. Annual fundraisers are nice, but steady income is always a winner.

Let's all take a deep breath, and then show up at the Democratic Women's meeting Saturday at noon at the Blue Monkey on Madison. Matt will talk about how this all went down, and how gunfire and weeping and gnashing of teeth were avoided at the last possible moment. Well, at least I think he was going to talk about the Fields issue, according to the DWSC newsletter!

1 comment:

David Holt said...

You’re right Cracker. We need to seriously get to work.
1. We need people like you who have been working with the bylaws for years to tear into them.
2. If we are going to be passing resolutions in support of issues such as the living wage and Democracy Project, we need to make sure they mean something. The 1500 signatures we gathered for each are a great start, but we need to do more. There will be a rally and press conference at 3:00 Tuesday at city hall for the living wage. We need to get as many people as possible there. We also need to make sure that if the party officially supports something that we are heard loud and clear by elected officials, election commissioners, the press, and the public.
3. Myself and everyone else are always complaining that we don’t have any funds. I’m as guilty as anyone else of not doing much about it. We need the automatic contribution system, but we need more too. We also need to have quarterly fundraisers at the headquarters. We’re paying for it, we may as well use it. We could have people bring potluck and pay $25 a pop or so. It may not be mega bucks, but it’s cheap, it involves people, and it improves our finances. A lot of small events can be as good or better than any large event. I’m sure there are better ideas then that. I’m no fundraising guru. Most of you out there are a lot smarter than me when it comes to politics. Let’s here your ideas.
4. Be bold. My own personality tends to be somewhat hesitant at times. I’m the sort who doesn’t like to offend people and likes to make sure of all consequences before I take any action. The party suffers from a bit of this as well. While we don’t need to act without thinking, we don’t need to be so concerned about what might not work or what might not look good that we don’t accomplish anything.
5. Chill out. Have we made mistakes? Of course. We’re human. We’ll f-up a lot more before things are over. We need to learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. We’re very skilled at tearing into each other, and that is good in a way. Manufactured unity and marching in lock step are sure ways to lead us astray. At the same time, however, when all is said and done, we’re all Democrats. Let’s settle contentions and move on. Frankly, I’d much rather admit I messed up and get back to trashing Republicans than spend my time disagreeing with other Democrats.