I dance upon your gangrenous corpse

This is a sad post.

I had hoped never to write it, only that is not quite true – is it? – because I never imagined that writing this post might even be the remotest of possibilities for me, and therefore I could not have actively hoped anything at all about it one way or the other.

For nineteen years, I’ve viewed the Green Party as, you might say, a fundamental component of my identity, an essential element of just what makes Harry Harry. I am not complicated, as people go. I don’t have a lot of moving parts, so the Green Party has loomed large with me.

A week just passed us and it was a miserable week, really, especially with the news stories, and among the news stories I noticed were these:

• The Green Party of Texas ended its recent petition drive having collected only 500 out of the 50,000 signatures it needed to get back onto the Texas ballot;
• It’s starting to look like my old friend, David Cobb, and his new friend, Jill Stein, might be into some trouble involving money they raised for an election recount; and 
• Roseanne Barr had some problems and it reminded me that back in 2012, she got 25% of the delegate votes for the Green Party nomination for President of the United States. 

It is no happy thing for me to type those words. Any of them. It is a sad thing, though there are things, still, even at this very late date, that can, from time to time, come together just so to add a touch of happiness to my life. I insist that hearing of the impending collapse of the Green Party is not one of those happy things.

And it is true I have not been active with the local party since the (“our”?) December meeting descended first into insults, then into chaos, and then, ironically maybe for a party of peaceniks, into actual threats of physical violence. I’ve still gone on saying “us” and “we” when I talk about the Greens, like “We’re doing this” or “They make ballot access hard for us.”

It’s because for so long, God help me, I’ve been emotionally invested in this. For so long, I’ve defended the Greens against the world, it’s felt like. It is because many of my very favorite people ever have come to me through the party, like Charlie Mauch, Josh Darr, David Cobb, Art Browning, Brian Howard, Bev Hayes, Johnathan Gerber, Sarah Fern, Jere Locke, David Collins, Alfred Molison, Nick Cooper, Renee Feltz, Barbara Ashley, Gordon Anderson, Jennifer Beazley, Chris Jarzombek, Deb Shafto, Janis Richards, Don Cook…

Whew! That’s a lot of great people but that’s all over now.

To say I will not be working with the Greens again is self-evident I think.

To say I will not be voting for the Greens again is meaningless, as they’re never going to be on the ballot again for me to vote for. I mean, when you get right down to brass tacks, I am basically speaking ill of the dead* here.

I’ll go further. I’ll say something with meaning. For me it has meaning, anyway:

Green Party, finally, I renounce you.

Happier times: Marching in the Art Car Parade with Joanne, Jennifer, Glenn, and Ruby. Summer 2000.

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*Just to be clear, when I say “corpse” and “dead,” I’m talking about the political party’s health, not to actual people. This post isn’t a kind of subtle threat.