As the Populist Party of America grows in size, we are faced with some challenging obstacles and difficult decisions to make regarding the future of the Party: i.e., What type of structure should be given to the Populist Party of America? Should we strive for a strong national organization? Or, contrarily, should we stress decentralization, choosing to focus on the development of state and local parties without any overbearing emphasis placed upon the integration of the various pockets of Populist America into a monolithic formation? Thus far, I have been exposed to two contrasting visions for the future organization of the Party, as it continues to grow in size.

There is an argument that maintains the necessity of an organization to possess some kind of integrated structure, which would include members who would participate in planning and problem solving. This managerial core would contribute to the development of different actionable plans that could later be introduced to the membership at large, providing some options that have already been delineated, from which the membership might select to adopt and implement as a Party platform. This proposal calling for the Party to possess a kernel, consisting of more active members, who would be inclined to offer centralized planning for the Party as a whole, stands in stark opposition to the other conception for the appropriate structuring of the Party, as it continues to expand.

This proposed design for the Party - which stands in opposition to proposals for centralization - would not provide for an organization with a centralized nervous system. Alternatively, the Party would be allowed to proliferated along lateral dimensions while failing to create an integrated hierarchy of offices.

To relate this ideology of decentralized politic to contemporary sociological literature, the jargon that has come into fashion, as a result of the studies upon the Informational Economy, which were initiated by Manuel Castells, uses the reference, Networked Politics, to designate instances of decentralized patterns of political praxis.

This new form of political mobilization often transcends the geographical boundaries imposed by states and governments. Furthermore, Networked Politics are understood as a by-product of what has been termed by Castells as Informationalism, which simply designates the technological paradigm underlying the expansion of Internet communicative infrastructures. However, the type of sociopolitical opposition that is formed through the networking of diverse agents and groups via the communication channels provided for by the Web - despite the transnational character of these network configurations - fails to negate the embodiment of geographical locality and the coalescence of interests among advocates who reside in physical proximity to one another; thus, allowing for embodied interaction.

This condition, where localized concerns are situated and understood in the context of larger geo-economic and geopolitical social forces, has been referenced under the neologism, glocalization. This concept fits in well with the social theoretical framework that has been introduced by Castells, who discards with the global democracy thesis propounded by Habermas and Rorty - which was founded upon the notion of a cosmopolitan culture - in favor of an understanding of the globalizing trends, facilitated by Informationalism, where multiculturalism will be preserved; only such cultural differences will become circumspect within a global forum of manifold cultural identities, who will participate in a world representational space in order to express their uniqueness as well as discover the peculiar attributes of others.

It is here, in the conception of glocalization, that I propose as a guiding post serving as an indication for the appropriate trajectory in which Populist America should transverse, as the Party enters into its future stages of development, as it continues to grow larger.

[Future installment: the concretization of glocalization in the praxes of Populist America]

Russell Cole

Tags: centralization, communications, community, decentralization, Global, government, National, politics, populist party, populist party america, Populist Party organizational structure, Social Change, society, third parties
Categories: Commentary, National, Global, Society, Populist Party, government, Decentralization, Politics, Third Parties, Social Change
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Like all dimensions of the identity politics associated with the New-left, the Green Party’s philosophical underpinnings consist of a bullet list of values. It is the purpose of this essay to demonstrate that such an approach to politics consists of merely creating paradoxical tangles of propositions that result in a philosophy that is practically void of any pragmatic qualities. The lack of any usefulness results from the inability of one to actually infer any deductions from the core principles contained in the philosophy, which might provide some direction as to the posture one should assume when facing issues of political and social significance. The Green Philosophy can be considered nothing more than pure sophism in the sense that it is rhetoric void of any substantive insights.

We do not want to bore the reader so we shall just proffer a single instance of the type of confusion to which we are referring. The following are both principles contained in the “Key-values” of the Green Party: One should possess personal responsibility to his or her social and ecological environment; as well as, one should, contemporaneously, have a respect for cultural diversity. We shall first provide a broader context in order for the reader to better understand the implications of these two positions.

Communitarianism, which we consider to be the general ideological framework from which the former of the two Key-values is derived, is a philosophy that stresses the positive obligations one has to his or her community along with the positive expectations that he or she is obliged to expect from his or her community. This value - derived from communitarianism - is at odds with the predominate American ideology, which stresses Liberalism in its classical form, which we consider to be the ideological perspective from which the latter of the two Values emanates.

This Anglo philosophy, classical Liberalism, emphasizes the negative rights and negative obligations of individuals within a community. We emphatically believe that classical Liberalism, or what we shall call libertarianism, is a crucial component of the Key-values of the Green Party, in the sense that it is the bedrock for Values such as the tolerance for diversity, which consists, mostly of negative obligations; namely, not to interfere with the practices of others.

For instance, for one to possess the value of tolerance for diversity, he or she must be prepared to abstain from condemning an individual who transgresses the conventions and norms of the community in question, and understand that this particular individual has a different understanding of what constitutes appropriate behavior.

The Value of Personal Responsibility, however, seems to run in contradistinction to the Value of Tolerance, because a member of a community should be expected to act in a manner that falls within the moral boundaries as they are defined by the community, due to the Value of Personal Responsibility. One, so to speak, is to be a good citizen, which curtails an individual’s negative rights not to be persecuted for practicing his or her own unique form of life.

So, the problem has been identified and this conflict between the Key-values of the Greens, if not corrected, debases the very validity of the Green Philosophy in its totality. The paradox can be summarized as follows: One is to be community oriented, because of his or her personal responsibilities, while, contemporaneously, he or she and others are to be tolerant of difference, which might run counter to the conventions and values of the local community.

How is one to balance these opposing dynamics, not just in theory, but in practice as well? We have not even begun to attempt to unravel this mess of contrary and competing positions, which provides no practical guidance as how to position oneself when politically engaged.

Russell Cole

Tags: community, decentralization, democracy, government, green party, liberty, philosophy, populist, populist party, responsibility, Russell Coles Blog, third parties
Categories: Commentary, Populist Party, Democracy, liberty, government, Russell Cole's Blog, Decentralization
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