WTF is going on with the Sierra Club election?

[crispini]

I'm not an active member but I give them my $ because I think they're a good lobbying org to support. Last year I read about the contentious election and made a point to vote. Now this year I get the ballot and not only are there more of these 'petition' candidates but there's even this guy, Jim Bensman, who is mad at the nominating committee candidates. Seems like now there is not two sides but THREE! This stinks. I may have to turn up to a meeting just to pump some people and get the scuttlebutt. It's so hard to make a decision when this kind of BS is going on and you don't have any visibility into who these people really are. Anyone got some insight into this?

[Nordmadr]

1. I'm a Sierra Club member and I just recently got my

forms for voting. I haven't looked through it yet, but it apparently at least partially stems from attempts to elect corporate folks that would somehow try to use immigration issues as a platform for the organization.

Olaf

[ClassWarrior]

2. Before you vote - MoveOn.org has some recommendations...

The true Progressive folks at the SC have asked MoveOn.org to get the word out to folks. Let me look it up.

NGU.

[crispini]

3. Oh, I got the MoveOn.org letter

the thing that's throwing me for a loop is there's this one candidate, Jim Bensman, who is making all of these negative claims about MoveOn's "sanctioned" candidates at his website: http://webpages.charter.net/jbensman

So it's like there's not two but three sides to the story. Grr...

[ClassWarrior]

5. That's weird.

NGU.

[Zinfandel]

11. I have accepted MoveOn.org recommendations.

Being a member of the Sierra Club since the James Watt days (under Reagan) ...I was intrigued by the MoveOn email sent to me this year and last.

And indeed I voted both times the way MoveOn has suggested.

MoveOn.org has never led me to so much as ever raise an eyebrow about their dedication or their motives. However, a couple of times I have come to question their priority of issues they find predominant over ones I find more worthy.

In so much, I will continue to support MoveOn.org, as well as the Sierra Club, (with a bit more scrutiny of both).

[ClassWarrior]

4. Here 'tis...

Dear MoveOn member,

Are you a Sierra Club member? The future of the Sierra Club is at stake.

Last year, Sierra Club members voted in record numbers to defeat a hostile takeover attempt by outside groups hoping to use the Club's democratic processes to push their own anti-immigration agenda. Now, these groups have forced an anti-immigrant measure onto the 2005 Sierra Club ballot that would require the Club to advocate for new restrictions on immigration into the U.S.—a policy that will do nothing to protect the global environment but will cripple the Sierra Club at a time when all progressives need them to be powerfully focused on righting the environmental wrongs of the current administration.

Why are we getting involved? Groundswell Sierra, a network of Sierra Club members and former staff, asked us to tell the hundreds of thousands of Club members in the MoveOn community, many of whom are in the dark because by-laws keep Club staff from discussing this issue. It's such a serious threat to the progressive movement we felt we needed to pass it on.

If right-wing anti-immigrant groups succeed in their stealth drive to change the Club's agenda, it would drive a wedge between environmental groups and millions of Americans, including Latinos who have led the environmental justice movement and are an important part of the progressive community. It would be a serious setback for the larger progressive coalition, and make the Sierra Club, the largest grassroots environmental organization, much less effective in blocking President Bush's anti-environmental agenda.

These outside groups are also running stealth candidates for the board of directors without declaring their true anti-immigrant agenda. But a decisive defeat could end their efforts to take over the Sierra Club.

If you are a Sierra Club member, you'll receive your ballot in the mail any day now. Groundswell Sierra recommends:

1. Vote "No" on the ballot question on immigration.

2. Vote for only 5 of these 6 experienced Sierra Club candidates for the Board:

Jim Catlin
Chuck McGrady
Barbara Frank
Jennifer Ferenstein
Joni Bosh
Jim Dougherty

Please vote for only 5 of these candidates—voting for all 6 will disqualify your ballot!

3. You can vote online but must have your paper ballot in hand. For info on voting and a sample ballot, go to:
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=677&t=1

4. Let us know you're voting, so we can track our impact. Click here:
http://www.moveon.org/sierra/index.html

5. Please pass this on to your Sierra Club member friends.


Who's behind the attempt get the Sierra Club to oppose immigration? Some supporters are environmentalists who believe that ending immigration will reduce environmental damage (though world-renowned scientists Anne and Paul Ehrlich, who wrote the seminal book The Population Bomb, disagree and oppose this takeover). But much of the impetus comes from long time, extreme-right immigration opponents who've adopted a strategy of "greenwashing" their arguments to gain mainstream support for denying immigrants basic human rights like health care or education.

Opponents of the anti-immigrant measure and board candidates include Robert Kennedy, Jr., former Environmental Protection Agency head Carol Browner, and every living current or former Sierra Club president.

During last year's fight, the New York Times editorialized, "Adding such a toxic issue as immigration to the Sierra Club's agenda would simply divert the organization from its primary responsibility, which is to keep real environmental problems in the public consciousness."1 Robert Redford wrote, "Blaming immigrants will not solve any of our environmental problems. Refocusing the Sierra Club on stopping President Bush will... America needs the same Sierra Club that kept the Grand Canyon from being dammed and flooded, that helped create the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, that is working tirelessly to stop the Bush administration from drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, back at full strength and on the front lines in the fight against Bush and his administration. It's a fight we won't win without the Club."2

The Sierra Club board has worked to educate Club members about this issue: you can read the organization's policy on the issue at http://www.groundswellsierra.org/migration011405.pdf, and read an argument against the current ballot proposal at http://www.groundswellsierra.org/immigration_nov2004.php.

If you are a Sierra Club member, please take the time to vote on this important issue.

Thank you,

–Adam, Eli, Justin, and the MoveOn.org team
Thursday, March 31st, 2005

Sources:
1. "Rumble at the Sierra Club," New York Times, March 17, 2004
http://www.groundswellsierra.org/nyt_rumble.php

2. "Redford's Plea for the Sierra Club," San Francisco Chronicle, April 17, 2004
http://www.groundswellsierra.org/sf_redford.php

NGU.

[DemBeans]

6. I've never seen anything like this -

I've been a Sierra Club member for years, and this election is freakish. You're right, it's gone from an issue of conservatives trying to stack the board to factions within the "normal" group forming. It seems like the chess pieces change almost daily.

[crispini]

8. Do you attend your local chapter?

What do people say in the flesh, so to speak?

This is horrible, it reminds me of my local county party's recent brouhaha. At least in THAT the fight was small enough that I knew what was going on.

[DemBeans]

9. Not lately

I dropped a lot of things during the election last year to volunteer for Kerry and some local candidates, and I have yet to get back into the fight this year. I'll call some of our local people this week, though, to get their take on it. Should be interesting.

[brystheguy]

7. Why is Jim mad?

Jim's mad because the Sierra Club is trying to change the rules a bit so that it won't be so easy for these petition candidates to get on the ballot. He says it's, "McCarthy-esque." Anti-immigration forces are again on the ballot this year as they want the Sierra Club to change their neutral stance on immigration as they think that immigration is the number one issue facing the environment. (Yeah, right!) Heck, this year, there are people that petitioned to be on the ballot and they tell you in their bio not to vote for them, but to vote for one of the other candidates against immigration reform. It's crazy.

[crispini]

10. Welcome to DU!

:hi: First post in my thread! I feel honored.

it is nuts, isn't it? the same thing happened last year, with regards to the fake candidates on the ballot. This guy seems to be saying on his website that the offerings put forward by the election committee are not enough to fix the problem. But it's so hard to tell, if you don't KNOW someone, if they are a legitimate dissenter or just a wackjob.

My county party just had an Episode of Some Unpleasantness, and I'm really strongly reminded of this. Factionism -- not good stuff.

[newyawker99]

14. Hi brystheguy!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[crispini]

12. just one

:kick: to continue the discussion, hopefully?

[Nordmadr]

13. Well I just filled out my online ballot.

reviewing the candidates, I did not vote for any of the petition candidates, though a couple of them did in fact seem to be moderately viable. Some of them appear to have petitioned in for no other reason than to say beware of some of the other petition candidates.

Anyway, in case anyone is interested I voted for:
Joni Bosh
Jim Caitlin
Jim Dougherty
Jennifer Ferenstein
Chuck McGrady

I voted against the restriction of immigration and voted for the other two bylaw changes.

It doesn't seem to me that immigration should be one of the primary concerns of the Sierra Club. It seems more of an attempt to divide the group on an issue than anything else. Very "Shiavo"esque.

Olaf