My reflections on the NCPD Annual Meeting

North Carolina Progressive Democrats Meeting - December 7 &8, 2007

Well, I just spent an amazing day and evening with fellow progressives around the state. I had intended to take great notes of the annual meeting – well, I didn’t do that. I arrived just as things were starting and was busy setting up Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) information table. I also needed to find people and put faces to the emails that I have sent and received over the years – but I missed one – Christian. He sends out some amazing stuff, and I had hoped to meet him in person, but I never found him.

On Friday, I rode from Asheville to the meeting in Chapel Hill with an old friend, Isaac and an unknown person to me – George. We went straight to Pete MacDowell’s house (Pete is the president of North Carolina Progressive Democrats) hung out for a while, and then went and ate some Mexican food. Then on to the evening’s FUNdraiser – with two musical acts – Fruit of Labor and David Rovics. I recommend both of these musical acts – they are great! I asked David Rovics to do “Santiago” but he said he never really learned that song! Anyway, I worked a table for PDA that evening too, then went home with John. Did some computer work, and then to bed. Slept in a little too late….. and went to the NCPD annual meeting.

Pete MacDowell opened the meeting by speaking of the need to building a diverse and unifying progressive movement, and how this meeting will hopefully further that aim. He then gave information on NCPD officers. He introduced people who are currently holding office in North Carolina and introduced candidates for office. They then started the panel discussion on advancing the people’s common agenda in the face of an unresponsive state legislature (hey, the federal legislature is even MORE unresponsive!) Some of the people on this panel are: Stephen Dear (People of Faith Against the Death Penalty), Chase Foster (NC Voters for Clean Elections), John Parker, Steve Owen, Hope Taylor (Clean Water for NC), Mark Kleinschmidt (GLBT and Justice System Issues), Representative Verla Insko (who spoke on health care in NC), Marisol Jimenez-McGee (more on her later!), Walt Caison (NC Stop Torture Now), and Ryan Eller (spoke on youth issues). I was impressed by a lot of them. They then broke into groups and gave reports on that group discussion.

This was followed by a speech by Reverend Barber. He is the chair of the NC NAACP, and this guy has some great things to say (I have heard him before). I did take down one comment he said: We don’t know what is feasible because we have really not hung together and PUSHED it ---- ‘they’ don’t think we are serious, ‘they’ think we are having a moment. Another great comment he made was that the budget is a moral document. Reverend Barber said that he does not know how to be a person of faith without challenging society’s injustices. He said we have to be a coalition that is anti-poverty, anti-racist and anti-war. He said that no one can govern by war – and when you try, you are not a democracy, you are an empire. And all empires end – because when you release the dogs of war you cannot control where they run.

Someone commented “How are we going to hold the line?” All of our groups present at the meeting really boiled down to HUMAN RIGHTS, but we have to find a way to work together. One action we can take is the historic H (Historic) K (thousands) on J (Jones Street) in February. This march is organized by the NC NAACP, but there are many, many other groups that support this march. We agreed to endorse this march and go to the H K on J March in February 2008. The people at this meeting committed to getting other folks from NC, and other groups, to support (and ATTEND) this march.

After lunch, we heard from Marisol Jimenez-McGee of El Pueblo. She was just awesome, and everyone in our country needs to hear more from her. She spoke about immigration and globalization, and the push-pull factors bringing immigrants to our country. She covered how difficult it is to get legal papers to immigrate to our country, and you can bet your last dollar that the elites keep it this way on purpose. This remarkable young woman spoke of how she felt the federal legislature would “solve” our immigration crisis this year, and how she cried when that did not happen. She spoke of meetings with NC officials, one of whom spoke of how we need to send the immigrants back to their home country, even going so far as to say “we can’t use boxcars” but wishing that he could. It was sickening. Our state and our country’s economies would crash if all the undocumented people were removed or left. She used the word “globalization” but I would have used the word “corporatization”. She did a good job of explaining how our multi-national corporations use and abuse resources and people in an area, and then close up and move on to another location to exploit, leaving devastation behind. The only thing she left out was the connection between these corporate practices and the problems with the environment, energy, foreign policy and a host of other problems. This goes way beyond our undocumented people in this country and the problems they face getting legal papers.

The website that she is associated with is located here.

She was so good, that those of from the western part of the state are going to try to get her speech on local community radio and URTV. I am also going to try to get her to write up some reports and get them into local weekly papers.

This fabulous speaker was followed by a panel by three candidates running for Lt. Governor here in NC. One of those panel members was Pat Smathers, who has served as Mayor of the city of Canton, NC. One thing really impressed me about him – he listened closely to the prior speaker, Marisol Jimenez-McGee. Another candidate did not, and that was Hampton Dellinger. He (and his supporters) kept going in and out the doors while she was speaking. There were people standing just outside the doors talking, including the people with Dellinger. I found this so disruptive, that I started acting like the door police and tried to stop them from running in and out. I thought they were pretty rude. The group decided to vote by secret ballot on who to endorse for Lt. Governor, and Dan Basse won the vote.

From there, they proceeded to holding a PDNC Business meeting, which included the treasurer’s report, discussion and consideration of bylaw changes. There was a discussion and adoption of priorities for 2008. They also voted to start up a Progressive Democrats of NC blog. I was busy doing some other computer work during this part of the meeting and did not follow closely what was decided, but hopefully the full minutes will be published one day. More information on the Progressive Democrats of NC is available at their website. THANKS to all the people who made this event possible. It was a great time.