Playing The Inside Game

Vietnam War veteran Perry Parks, one of the subjects in "The Good Soldier."

At the conference we attended this June in Washington, Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) showed up with a rubber chicken. He used it to lampoon the Republican “chickens for checkups” healthcare plan.

“I love props,” he said.

I have a chicken-related prop too. It’s one of those Little Golden Books: “The Little Red Hen.” You know the one: “Will you help me plant this grain of wheat?” And “Who will help me carry the wheat to the mill?” And “Who will help me bake the bread?”

“Not I,” says the duck, the pig, etc. Until it comes time to eat the finished product. Everybody in the barnyard is up for that.

That story comes to mind whenever I hear someone say we need a third party in this country. Aside from the fact that there are a dozen already, I think, and who is going to build it, you?

I have an old friend who strikes a well-practiced outsider stance. He once said that if he ever found himself on the inside of a group he would have to create an outside just so he felt right. In Buncombe, too, voters are a pretty independent-minded bunch. Even if they routinely end up voting for Democrats, many prefer to work on their issues from the outside the party organization. They just reserve the right to only support their kind of Democrats – should party insiders be so gracious as to nominate any.

Okay. But that’s the outsider’s “if they build it, we will come” approach to changing party behavior. Politics often seems like a dirty business and we don’t want to get too close, lest we get our hands dirty. But choosing the outsider’s stance is a tradeoff. The upside is it frees you to criticize to your heart’s content party failings for which you take little responsibility. The downside is it limits your power to influence what goes on inside. But you keep your hands clean.

Of course, you could always start a third party.

That’s the problem. Everybody says they want one. Precious few are willing to do the work and spend the time to build one, or a better Democratic Party, for that matter. But they’ll be happy to show up to eat the bread once somebody else has done the work for them.

Yes, there are too many corporate Democrats. Yes, there are too many Reagan Democrats. Yes, it seems too many in Washington lack a spine. And there are too few to represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic party.

Progressives complain that Democrats do not put forward more progressive candidates. They’ll be glad to support progressive candidates should any show up. The thing is, more of them will show up if there are more progressive activists working inside the party at the local and state level to help position them for a viable run at Washington. (The local party nominated Patsy Keever to serve out the remaining portion of Bruce Goforth’s N.C. House term. One thing the post from Drew Reisinger failed to mention. It took only a majority of three dozen precinct chairs and vice-chairs from her district to elevate Keever to the N.C. House — except the vote was unanimous. That’s real clout.)

So, what are you doing for the next ten years?

Letters and contributions are more than welcome, but only scratch the surface. Dixiegirlz’s comment about feeling played by both parties reflects the outsider viewpoint – that we are victims of politics and politicians and essentially powerless to affect any real changes.

Perry Parks might disagree.

Perry Parks of Rockingham, NC is a medical marijuana advocate. A Vietnam combat helicopter pilot and advisor to Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, he suffers pain from degenerative disc disease and arthritis. Parks started showing up at party events a couple of years ago to petition the North Carolina Democratic Party to support legalizing medical marijuana through House Bill 1380, the Medical Marijuana Act. It’s not the THC in the plants – the stuff that gets you high – that patients want most, Parks says. Ironically, selective breeding for THC by pot growers has limited the varieties with the cannabinoids that are most effective at relieving pain.

As an outsider showing up at meetings to promote a controversial proposal, Parks did not get very far. But he persisted. And he figured out a few things along the way.

Parks came to the State Executive Committee’s meeting in Fayetteville last month to present his case again. This time, however, he showed up as a committee member. Since his initial efforts, Parks got elected to the State Executive Committee. He showed up in uniform, armed with research from five clinical trials released earlier this year by the University of California, San Diego. The double blind studies concluded that “cannabis can be helpful in easing pain in selected syndromes caused by injury or diseases of the nervous system and possibly for painful muscle spasms due to multiple sclerosis.”

Even the Veterans Administration was persuaded. A week before the meeting, the VA announced it had issued a new directive. The VA would “allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal.” As a federal agency, the VA won’t administer the drug itself, but it won’t throw patients out of its pain management programs for using marijuana prescribed legally under state law by private doctors.

As an outside observer, Parks might not have been able to present his case in Fayetteville, but his official standing gave him the extra leverage he needed to bring a resolution from the floor. He presented a clear, impassioned case for medical marijuana and for the plight of American veterans arrested for attempting to relieve their pain. His persistence, some timely research and the VA’s announcement paid off. In a state filled with veterans, the party leadership agreed overwhelmingly to support passage of the Medical Marijuana Act.

It’s not a state law yet, but it’s the support Perry Parks had been hoping for – from the state’s Democratic Party leadership, no less. The party didn’t do that on its own. Perry did that from the inside.