One of the most brain dead proposals ever from the paid PPJPC office crew and its conservative followers is to further tier membership in the organization. Up until now, the PPJPC has had a ridiculously high fee for members to have to pay ($75/year), which has effectively kept the actual membership low in the organization. Because the fee is preposterous in the first place, many around the J$P have been allowed to slide by without paying it. So an intelligent thing to do would be to lower it or even to do away with it entirely. But…
…but that would not allow the organization to continue to pay for its top heavy staff. Paying for this staff has caused the organization to hemorrhage money over the last couple of years, and the good business people at the top want to stop this from continuing further. So out has come their newest proposal for membership, which is that it be tiered.
Their tier proposal is that there should be a super membership category that would receive special recognition (read… given the power to call the shots) and that others should be just second and third category people (read… given no power at all). So instead of pushing for membership meetings that would be on a monthly basis and that would govern group activities (instead of the present undemocratic top down governance that allows only one tightly controlled general meeting per year), the salaried office staff is actually pushing for codifying making its members third class citizens. We are already second class folk since only the board and the paid people actually are able to run anything within this group.
What a mess it is when supposedly activist groups are run as non-profit businesses. What a total mess! What a total blockade they become to getting real activism off the ground.
The Justice and Peace Commission leadership cabal is comprised of milquetoast incompetents, men without vision or passion. The organization itself is completely ineffectual and, as you point out, bleeding money to pay for its cozy little digs while doing absolutely nothing to promote either peace or justice.
So my question is why does anyone continue to align with the organization? I personally distance myself from idiots and morons so that I am not slimed by association. And how did the J&P become the front for the St Patrick’s Day parade when they did not even have a permit last year, and instead marched under The Bookman’s permit? Suddenly the J&P is calling the shots, deciding how it’s all going to play out, taking credit for a civil liberties victory that was most definitely not attained. Being thrown a bone by John O’Donnell so that he stays in Chuck Murphy’s good graces hardly sounds like a victory to me. I, for one, find the pat on the head condescending.
I think a better tack would be to avoid the St. Patrick’s Day parade altogether. Why cast our pearls before swine? Why play by someone else’s petty rules like chastened children? A much better idea would be to join to growing group of disgruntled people parading down Colorado Avenue, telling the city to piss off — we won’t be pawns in your little corporate love fest. And we’ll promote whatever message we want to, like courageous activists do.
In keeping with the idea that some members are more worthy than others, the Board and office staff have taken it upon themselves to set up, allign, and position people in the parade according to their supposed status. That’s right! The PPJPC top dogs will be marching as if in parade formation at St Pats next weekend… generals in the front. Boy will they be in for a surprise.
After the massacre, it will be interesting to try to pick up the pieces of this group. A ‘victory forum’ is being arranged after the event, but I can bet that it will be a totally somber occasion. I’ve never seen such a clueless group in my life, as they have most certainly not won the battle for public opinion in this city, yet the current ‘leaders’ seem totally unaware of that. This forum is likely to be more like a funeral.
City Government of Colorado Springs, please have mercy on them. Yeah, right… This is almost like a slow scene in a horror movie. My eyes are glued to the screen in horror. The knife is coming our way yet it can’t be stopped….