Greens drinking the Kool-Aid?
Reader David Raffin from Vision-nary responds to CounterPunch saying “David Cobb is the Jim Jones of the Green Party. Form a line and pass the Kool-Aid.”
(The following descriptions of Green decision-making process are, um, not particularly outlandish…)
“Form a line and pass the Kool-Aid” is obviously anti-green propaganda.
The Green Party would never participate in this kind of hierarchical suicide. No line will be formed and no order to drink Kool-Aid will be explicit. Instead, a circle will be formed and people will introduce themselves. A motion to drink poisoned Kool-Aid will be considered. Much arguing will take place, much of it over flavor choice. The meeting will end 3 hours later with no progress on the Kool-Aid question; no consensus… It will be taken up at the next meeting. And the next. And the next.
Then people will move on for a few meetings.
But the issue of drinking poisoned Kool-Aid will not rest- especially because of the vocal efforts of its more ardent supporters. It will come up again and again.
Finally, a settlement to the issue will be worked out– and people will be able to choose between several flavors.
The poisoned Kool-Aid will be drunk at the very next meeting. After the minutes of the last meeting are consensed upon.
That vocal minority who were against drinking poisoned Kool-Aid, those who stuck it out the whole fight, will drink it to show their solidarity with the overall cause; in the name of unity and building the greater movement.
Onward! Things can only get better. Cheers.
Let’s not forget the all-important container issue. The cups containing the Kool-Aid must be biodegradable recycled post-consumer paper. And absolutely NO refined sugar can be used in the Kool-Aid either, I mean, that stuff can kill you!
As for the flavor of the Kool-Aid, after twenty seven exhausting state plenaries, nineteen national committee phone conferences, and seven spectacular email flame wars containing over 135,931 emails – many of which were cross-posted to people who never wanted to be a part of the argument in the first place, who then sent another 52,259 emails saying ‘take me off this thread NOW’ – it was consensed that people could drink any flavor except lime green.
Seriously though, after the election is over, and the Cobb nomination has bellyflopped and the DemoGreens have skedaddled back to their mothership, the Green Party may well then revive itself and return to its activist roots. This current adversity will cull the weak ones, leaving the hardy to thrive and bloom in the future.