The Green Platform presents an eco-social analysis and vision for our country. In contrast to the major political
parties that create their platforms through back-room deals by insiders and power brokers, we have
created a grassroots process that invites submissions from every local Green Party and every Green individual.
Through democratic process we arrive at a final draft to present for approval. The Green Platform is an evolving
document, a living work-in-progress that expresses our commitment to creating wise and enduring
change in specific policies and in the political process itself. The Green Party is committed to values-based
politics, as expressed in our Ten Key Values. These values guide us in countering and changing a system that
extols exploitation, unsustainable consumption, and destructive competition.
The US government is proving incapable of governing or working with other nations to address current and
long-term problems in a time of multiple global crises. The United States is locked in a vicious circle, in
which it has become increasingly clear that the ‘bipartisan’ political duopoly will drift further rightward at
an increasing pace without a true opposition party as a counterweight, as both corporate parties seek to
better serve their 1% masters.
In this century, it is imperative that we find ways to make systemic changes. It is our responsibility to rebuild
the political culture of the United States in order to stop wars of aggression,short-sighted ecological destruction,
erosion of our rights, and policies that perpetuate social and economic injustice. In other words, we
must fundamentally change our society’s broken political system.
Throughout American history, independent parties outside the two-party power establishment have been
responsible for introducing urgently-needed changes, whether the parties themselves won electoral success
(like the anti-slavery Republican Party in the mid-1800s) or not. The long list of reforms introduced by these
parties includes abolition of slavery, women’s suffrage, the eight-hour workday, workers’ rights and protections,
and civil rights for all African-Americans. Who will give voice on the electoral stage to the important
ideas of the 21st century?
The Green Party is an established national party, having laid a foundation for candidates to run for public
office at all levels, from local to national. Greens have succeeded at the onerous task of achieving ballot access
in many states, and have steadily overcome obstacles put in place by Democratic and Republican party officials
to hinder citizens from exercising their right to run for office. In contrast to Democrats and Republicans, all
Green candidates pledge not to accept corporate money for their campaigns.
At the heart of the voters’ rebellion is our right as voters to choose whichever candidates best represent our
own views and desires, without being told year after year that we have no choice aside from bad and worse.
Now is the time to build a bridge from the world we have to the better world we know is possible.
Now is the time to grow a sustainable political force to work for grassroots democracy, nonviolence, social
justice, and ecological wisdom.
Now is the time to discard failed ideologies and political structures, and join together with the flourishing
global grassroots Green movement to tackle real problems with real solutions.
If not us, who? If not now, when? We are the ones we have been waiting for. Join us!
The party, which is the country's fourth-largest by membership, promotes environmentalism, nonviolence, social justice, participatory grassroots democracy, gender equality, LGBT rights, anti-war and anti-racism. On the political spectrum the party is generally seen as left-wing, and in 2016 officially self-described as an anti-capitalist party
The GPUS was founded in 2001 as the evolution of the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP), which was formed in 1996. After its founding, the GPUS soon became the primary national green organization in the country, eclipsing the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA), which formed in 1991 out of the Green Committees of Correspondence (CoC), a collection of local green groups active since 1984. The ASGP had increasingly distanced itself from the G/GPUSA in the late 1990s.
The Greens gained widespread public attention during the 2000 presidential election, when the ticket composed of Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke won 2.7% of the popular vote. Nader was vilified by many Democrats and even some Greens, who accused him of spoiling the election for Al Gore, the Democratic candidate.The degree of Nader's impact on the 2000 election remains controversial.
The GPUS had several members elected in state legislatures, including in California, Maine and Arkansas. A number of Greens around the United States hold positions on the municipal level, including on school boards, city councils and as mayors.
The political movement that began in 1985 as the decentralized Committees of Correspondence evolved into a more centralized structure by 1990, opening a national clearinghouse, and forming governing bodies, bylaws, and a platform as the Green Committees of Correspondence (GCoC), and by 1990, simply, The Greens. The organization conducted grassroots organizing efforts, educational activities, and electoral campaigns.
Internal divisions arose between members who saw electoral politics as ultimately corrupting and supported the notion of an "anti-party party" formed by Petra Kelly and other leaders of Die Grünen in Germany, vs. those who saw electoral strategies as a crucial engine of social change. A struggle for the direction of the organization culminated a "compromise agreement," ratified in 1990 at the Greens National Congress in Elkins, West Virginia – in which both strategies would be accommodated within the same 527 political organization renamed the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA). The G/GPUSA was recognized by the FEC as a national political party in 1991.
The compromise agreement subsequently collapsed and two Green party organizations have co-existed in the United States since. The Green Politics Network was organized in 1990 and The National Association of Statewide Green Parties formed by 1994. Divisions between those pressing to break onto the national political stage and those aiming to grow roots at the local level continued to widen during the 1990s. The Association of State Green Parties (ASGP) encouraged and backed Nader's presidential runs in 1996 and 2000. By 2001, the push to separate electoral activity from the G/GPUSA issue-based organizing led to the Boston Proposal and subsequent rise of the Green Party of the United States. The
Many Americans value environmental protection and want to see more of it. But Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate, is drawing only 1 to 3 percent in recent polls, even in an election where many voters dislike the major candidates and are looking for alternatives.
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Stein certainly has worked to differentiate herself from the two major party candidates. In July she asserted that electing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton—probably the choice of most pro-environment voters—would “fan the flames of … right-wing extremism,” and be as bad as electing Donald Trump.
While Stein makes anti-establishment statements like this, her German counterparts have been advancing a green agenda in local, regional and national government for the past 30 years. Most recently, Winfried Kretschmann was reelected this year as head of government in Baden-Württemberg, one of Europe’s technologically and industrially most advanced regions.
I grew up in Germany and have taught about Germany and Europe in the United States for the past 15 years, so I have seen Green Party politicians at work in both countries. In my view, there are two reasons why the U.S. Green Party remains so marginal. Structurally, the American electoral system is heavily weighted against small political parties. But U.S. Greens also harm themselves by taking extreme positions and failing to understand that governing requires compromise—a lesson their German counterparts learned several decades ago.
One movement, two electoral systems
Both European and North American Green Parties evolved from activist movements in the 1960s that focused on causes including environmentalism, disarmament, nuclear power, nonviolence, reproductive rights and gender equality. West German Greens formed a national political party in 1980 and gained support in local, state and federal competitions. Joschka Fischer, one of the first Greens elected to Germany’s Bundestag (parliament), served as the nation’s foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998-2005.
The German Green Party’s rise owed much to the country’s electoral system. As in many continental European democracies, political parties win seats in German elections based on the percentage of voters that support them. For example, a party winning a third of the popular vote will hold roughly a third of the seats in the parliament after the election. Proportional representation makes it possible for small parties to gain a toehold and build a presence in government over time.
In contrast, U.S. elections award seats on a winner-takes-all basis. The candidate with the most votes wins, while votes cast for candidates representing other parties are ignored. As a result, American voters choose their leaders within a de facto two-party system in which other parties often have trouble even getting their candidates’ names onto ballots.
U.S. Greens have won only a handful of state-level races, and have never won a congressional seat. Their greatest success came in 2000, when Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke won 2.7 percent of the popular vote in the presidential election. Many observers argued that Nader’s only real impact was to throw the election to conservative Republican George W. Bush, but Nader and many of his supporters strongly disagreed, and the question of whether challengers can act as more than spoilers in U.S. elections remains controversial today.
Purity or compromise?
As green politicians have helped to shape political priorities in Berlin, Brussels and other European capitals and regions, many observers have debated whether these former activists are selling out by participating in the political process—and whether joining that process helps or hurts the green movement.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Green Party conventions in Germany were dominated by fierce infighting between moderate “Realos” (realists) and radical “Fundis” (fundamentalists). The Realos, who prioritized electability over ideology, eventually prevailed.
In order to graduate from an opposition party to a ruling party that controlled cabinet posts, German Greens had to develop a capacity for compromise. To gain power, they had to form coalitions with center-left Social Democrats. But coalitions require consensus—especially in parliaments with proportional representation.
Interacting with centrist politicians, unionists, church representatives and the media taught Realos to act less like activists and more like politicians. In 1998 the Green Party formed a so-called red-green coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), a party that has traditionally championed the working class, and won a large majority in the Bundestag.
Working through this alliance, former activists initiated reform of an antiquated immigration and citizenship law and worked toward recognition of same-sex unions. They implemented an environmentally driven tax code and brokered a deal with the nuclear energy industry to cancel projects for new plants and phase out nuclear power by 2022.
Many Green Party supporters thought Realos were too eager to compromise. Some even physically attacked their party leaders when the coalition government supported use of military force in a NATO-led campaign against Serbia in 1999. Many critics viewed this decision as the remilitarization of German foreign policy under the leadership of Joschka Fischer of the Green Party, then serving as Foreign Minister.
However, these compromises did not erode broad public support for the Greens. On the contrary, in 2002 the red-green coalition was reelected and the Green Party received more votes than it had in 1998. When the coalition government broke down in 2005, it was due to Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s lack of leadership within his own SPD.
Although the Green Party has not regained control of Germany’s federal government since 2005, its positions have become part of the nation’s mainstream political culture. Notably, after the 2011 nuclear plant meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, a center-right German government decided to accelerate the phaseout of nuclear power in response to rising public concern. To reach this goal, Angela Merkel’s centrist government has implemented an ambitious policy bundle known as the Energiewende that seeks to transition Germany to a nonnuclear, low-carbon energy future.
Massive governmental support for alternative energy sources has encouraged Germans, especially in rural areas, to invest in solar power, wind turbines and biomass plants. These green policies did not harm, and may have buoyed, Merkel’s status as one of the most popular German chancellors prior to this year’s controversies over immigration. Germany reformed its renewable energy law this year in response to new European Union rules governing electricity markets, and will shift from subsidies to market-based mechanisms, but the Energiewende remains highly popular.
No third lane
There is no easy way for the U.S. Green Party to emulate its German counterparts. Because the American political system makes it difficult for third parties to participate, Green Party candidates do not have opportunities to learn the trade of politics. They have remained activists who are true to their base instead of developing policy positions that would appeal to a broader audience. By doing so, they weaken their chances of winning major races even in liberal strongholds.
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As a result, green ideas enter American political debates only when Democrats and Republicans take up these issues. It is telling that major U.S. environmental groups started endorsing Clinton even before she had clinched the Democratic presidential nomination over Bernie Sanders, who took more aggressive positions on some environmental and energy issues during their primary contest. And although Sanders identifies as an environmentalist, he sought the Democratic Party nomination instead of running as the Green Party candidate.
This suggests that running on a third-party ticket in the United States is still not a winning route to shaping a message aimed at a broad electorate. Instead, climate change, dwindling energy resources and growing human and economic costs from natural disasters will do more to promote ecological consciousness and political change in mainstream America than the radical rhetoric of the U.S. Green Party.
The Green Party in the U.S. exists today as an organized political party in most states. On the national level, those same state parties come together to form the Green Party of the United States.
But it was not always so. Thirty years ago, there were no state Green Parties. Instead, the nascent Green movement was in its early stages of self-definition and self-discovery—and there was no certainty that a Green political party would develop out of it.
To understand how a party grows out of a movement, means understanding its roots. For U.S. Greens, that involves many years of often contentious debate about organizing and focus, followed by testing those theories out in the real world:
• What would a values-based politics look like—and what should those values be?
• Will needed change occur through a transformation of the relationship between humans and the rest of nature (deep ecology), or between humans and each other (social ecology)?
• When is a movement ready to go into electoral politics? Who decides when its time, and on what level?
• What should be the relationship between the green movement and the Green Party? What would it mean for a political party to be accountable to a social movement? Can a political party be based in and accountable to social movements, and still operate effectively in the electoral arena?
• Can a political party practice Green values internally and externally—and operate successfully in a political system that isn’t very Green? What would it mean to participate in the system while seeking to transform it—and what are the risks of being corrupted by it? And how do Greens deal with hierarchy, authority, leadership and the need for money in political?
Roots in the Bioregional Movement
In May 1984, with interest growing in a possible U.S. Green politics, David Haenke of the Ozark Area Community Congress convened a Green Movement Committee at the first North American Bio-regional Congress. Attendees approved a statement “concerning the formation of a Green political organization in the USA”, stating:
“It is essential that this organization have a bio-centric vision—one which puts the needs of all life forms at the center of decision-making … As individual bio-regionalists, we recognize the need for bio-regional principles and practices to be secured and protected, cooperatively and in a decentralized manner, through a Green political organization. Such an organization should focus on open, democratic planning and political action supportive of local and regional autonomy and interdependence as reflected in the bio-regional model.”
“To be effective, a Green political organization must originate from a broad base of support, from natural allies concerned with ecological politics and social justice, peace and non-violence, local and regional self-management and grassroots democracy. If the emerging Green political organization does indeed reflect these basic bio-regional concerns, we urge support from bio-regional groups and individuals from around the continent.”
From this initial gathering, a larger meeting was also planned for August 1984 in St Paul, MN, which would turn out to be the founding meeting of U.S. Greens.
Charlene Spretnak
Learning from Greens in Europe
At the same time bioregionalists gathered, the definitive early study of the West German Green Party—Green Politics: The Global Promise—was published.
Researched and written by Californians Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra, the book provided deep insights into the challenges West German Greens faced as they sought to bring together various social movements and create an ‘anti-party’ party, that was capable of practicing Green values and winning seats in the German Parliament.
With a glowing endorsement “to American readers who want to know what is at the heart of alternative Green Party politics” by West German Green Party co-founder (and Member of German Parliament) Petra Kelly, Green Politics became an early primer for those seeking to start a Green Party in the United States, and inspired many to believe it was possible, even in the depths of the Reagan presidency.
The book also publicized to a U.S. audience the Four Pillars of the West German Greens, as a values-basis for their new party: “ökologisch”, “sozial”, “basisdemokratisch” and “gewaltfrei”—ecology, social justice, grassroots democracy and non-violence.
U.S. Greens are founded
On August 10–12, 1984 62 people met at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota and founded the first official national Green organization in the U.S—the Committees of Correspondence or CoC.
The three-day meeting included activists from peace, ecology and justice groups; veterans of the women’s, civil rights, and community movements; and farmers, community leaders, church activists and teachers. There were social ecologists, deep ecologists, eco-feminists, anarchists, socialists and more.
The organizing committee consisted of Spretnak, Haenke, Harry Boyte (long-time member of Democratic Socialists of America and author of The Backyard Revolution), Catherine Burton (founder of Earth Bank in Seattle), and Gloria Goldberg (Institute for Social Ecology). They invited 200 people from 27 issues areas along with some media.
Reflecting its ‘pre-party’ nature, the CoC was broadly formed to organize local Green groups and work toward creating a Green political organization in the U.S.
Attendees agreed that (a) an interim Inter-Regional Committee (IC) be established, made up of regional reps, who would be charged with encouraging multi-leveled movement building, including both local and regional groupings, in liaison with issue networks; (b) to establish a national information office in Minneapolis-St. Paul; and (c) to consider various forms of events that are mainly educational for local, regional or national gatherings.
What’s in a name?
Not surprisingly, the wide-ranging debate about ‘what it means to be Green?’ has played out in what U.S. Greens call themselves, starting in St. Paul, where the new Green organization was called the Committees of Correspondence, named after the Committees of Correspondence of the American Revolutionary War.
According to Spretnak, “most people [came] to the meeting expecting to use the word “Green” somewhere in the organization’s name. But in a heated argument, a few community organizers who work with minorities maintained that such a name would lose support, since “Green” connotes, in some communities, environmentalism as a middle-class concern that carries no commitment to social justice.
The meeting agreed that the local CoCs would have a great deal of autonomy and would be free to use “Green” in their names if they wished, which most of them did.
In 1989, the national Green Gathering changed the CoC name to the Green Committees of Correspondence (GCoC). Then reflecting a growing participation by Greens in electoral politics and an attempt to formally relate party and movement, the name was changed again in 1991, this time to the Greens/Green Party USA.
Creation of the Ten Key Values
What has mostly united U.S. Greens over the years has been the Ten Key Values.
The Ten Key Values were birthed at the St. Paul founding meeting, during a late Saturday night marathon session facilitated by then Los Angeles-based and later Eugene, OR activist Jeff Land (who would later co-host Green Gathering ’89), with primary contributions by Spretnak and Murray Bookchin of the New England Institute for Social Ecology.
According to Mark Satin, a journalist invited to cover the meeting (whose green-ish monthly newsletter News Options would become a must read in the late 1980s):
“About 50 of us were trying to think of a project that could help define us and put us on the political map. We were exhausted and sprawled all over the floor of a Macalester lounge —the conference had been intense! —but everyone sensed that something important could come out of Jeff’s workshop. What happened next was something I’ve experienced only a couple of times in my long life. A “collective brain” seemed to take hold, and we began working together as one… No single individual came up with the idea of a values statement; it just welled up from out of our intense discussion … Seamlessly, we began discussing what our own values or pillars might be. Someone began recording our suggestions on a large flip chart. Ten, 15, 20 suggestions went up on the chart with seemingly no end in sight.”
Satin added the idea of phrasing each value with a series of questions after each. Eventually a committee of Spretnak, Satin and Eleanor LeCain (coordinator of the Peace and Environmental Coalition) were charged with writing a draft Values Statement from the notes on butcher paper that had been taped on the wall, and reporting that back to the new IC for approval.
In a world before email, faxes and three-way phone calls, the three worked together over the next few months, and Satin also sought input from economist/ futurist Robert Theobald and attorney Gerald Goldfarb, both who were also in St. Paul. The eventual set of Ten Key Values they submitted, along with an accompanying set of questions for each, was approved by consensus by the IC in late 1984, and became a foundational basis for U.S. Greens going forward.
Yet it would not be long before the Left Green Network (LGN), formed in 1988, issued their own, this time with 14 Values. While the LGN statement did not displace the Ten Key Values, over time Greens in different states would adopt their own version of the Ten Key Values, most often modifying Post-patriarchal Values into Feminism and/or Gender Equity; Personal and Social Responsibility as Social Justice, and Future Focus to include Sustainability.
The most radical change to the Ten Key Values however, came at the 2000 presidential nomination convention of the Association of State Green Party, where not only were some of the values modified and re-ordered as presented by the Green Platform committee, but the questions following each value were converted into assertions.
Original Ten Key Values of CoC (adopted 1984)
Ten Key Values of GPUS (adopted 2000
Ecological Wisdom
Grassroots Democracy
Grassroots Democracy
Social Justice and Equal Opportunity
Personal and Social Responsibility
Ecological Wisdom
Non-violence
Non-violence
Decentralization
Decentralization
Community-Based Economics
Community-Based Economics and Economic Justice
Post-patriarchal Values
Feminism and Gender Equity
Respect for Diversity
Respect for Diversity
Global Responsibility
Personal and Global Responsibility
Future Focus
Future Focus and Sustainability
In 2001, when the Global Greens were founded in Canberra, Australia and a Global Green Charter approved by consensus from Green Parties in 72 countries, the U.S. Green Ten Key Values were cited as one of the inspirational source documents behind the creation of the Charter.
National Clearinghouse
Trying to put values into practice became the task of the first CoC clearinghouse, established in late 1984 in St. Paul with Harry Boyte. But these efforts were hampered by a division at the August 1984 founding meeting as to the clearinghouse’s role, with a division between those who favored coordinated decentralization and those favoring radical decentralization, to the degree that the clearinghouse only be a mail drop and information resource, but not an outreach vehicle.
At the December 1985 IC meeting in Kansas City, the decision was taken that both the IC and the clearinghouse should actively support organizing efforts through a number of services. The clearinghouse was moved to Kansas City where there was a local (the Prairie Greens) to actively support it. Dee Berry became the clearinghouse coordinator, with support from Ben Kjelshus, and she served in that role until 1989.
The IC Bulletin—published out of the clearinghouse—became a primary source of newspaper reprints of Green success stories around the country, and was sent to all the dues-paying Green locals within the CoC.
First National Green Gathering, 1987
The First National Green Gathering was held July 1987 at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA and was entitled “Building the Green Movement—A National Conference for a New Politics.” The conference brochure stated
“We invite all Greens and activists in kindred social change movements to participate in this educational conference. We are not gathering to make decisions for the Green movement. Our purpose is education. It will be a chance for Greens and activists in kindred movements from across the land to meet, share perspectives, and learn from each other—and take what we learn back to our communities to put into practice.”
Over 600 were in attendance. Some of the creative tensions within the U.S. Green movement were visibly on display at the time—’party vs. movement’, ‘deep ecology vs. social ecology’ and ‘New Left vs. New Age.’
Featured speakers included Detroit-based social activist and feminist Grace Lee Boggs, Bookchin, Wisconsin Green co-founder Walt Bresette, New Hampshire Green and Clamshell Alliance organizer Guy Chichester, California Green Danny Moses from Sierra Club Books, Maine Green co-founder John Rensenbrink and eco-feminist Ynestra King. Workshops included a well-attended session on Independent Political Action.
Strategic Policy Approaches in Key Areas (SPAKA)
After the Amherst gathering, focus shifted to developing a set of policy approaches based upon the Key Values, which might further define and unite U.S. Greens.
Today we take for granted that there is a GPUS national platform. In the late 1980s, there was no such thing—only the Ten Key Values.
At the August 1987 IC meeting in Kansas City, Rensenbrink and Green Letter newsletter editor Margo Adair were selected principal coordinators of what would come to be called the SPAKA process—Strategic Policy Approaches in Key Areas.
“SPAKA was to create a participatory process to formulate a Green platform for the U.S.—to create an identity” as Adair and Rensenbrink explained. And why a participatory process? “Democracy is not about deciding if you support this or that person to do politics for you. True democracy is creating policy collectively.”
The first step was a call for topics, which went out to all the Green locals, and to many kindred organizations and individuals. Over the next two years, Green locals and others submitted 190 position papers—or SPAKAS—from the grassroots.
The Merrymeeting Greens of Maine, a Green local acting on behalf of the working group, reclassified them into 19 key issue areas. The 19 were Energy, Forest and Forestry, Life Forms, Materials Use and Waste Management, Water/Air, General Economic Analysis, Finance, Land Use, Politics, Social Justice, Eco-Philosophy, Spirituality, Education, Food and Agriculture, Health, Peace and Non-violence, Community, Organizing, and Strategy.
Greening the West, 1988
With the SPAKA process underway, the chance to define what it means to be Green moved to the West Coast, with the Greening the West conference held in a redwood grove at the Jones Gulch YMCA camp in San Mateo County, California on September 30–October 2, 1988. The Northern California Greens, one of the regional affiliates of the Greens Committees of Correspondence, hosted it. The planning group was Bay Area Greens Moses, Greg Jan, Richard Gustafson and Jess Shoup.
More than 1,000 people attended. Speakers included Adair, Planet Drum editor Peter Berg, Sierra Club founder David Brower, Ecotopia author Ernest Callenbach, Capra, Deep Ecology author Bill Devall, eco-philosopher Joanna Macy, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television author Jerry Mander, Los Angeles Eco-Home founder Julia Russell, Spretnak, and eco-feminist Starhawk.
The conference featured a workshop entitled “Towards a Green Party of the West: Local and Regional Electoral Strategies”, which would turn out to be an early stepping-stone in the development of U.S. Green electoral politics.
Facilitated by Moses (who would be the California Green Lt. Governor candidate in 1994), some 150 people attended the workshop and moved ahead with forming Green Party of the West, ‘a network to facilitate campaigns for initiatives, referendums and local independent Green candidates.’ That network would grow and help form the nucleus for the founding of the Green Party of California 15 months later.
Second National Green Gathering, 1989
The Second National Green Gathering was held June 21–25, 1989 in Eugene, OR. Entitled ‘Green Program Gathering’, it centered upon the SPAKA process.
Each of the 19 issue areas identified by the Merrymeeting Greens had a working group focused on it in Eugene, synthesizing input. Concurrently, the Green CCoC local in Eugene produced a daily newspaper entitled Green Tidings, which reported on the Gathering, and contained a daily report on all changes in the issue areas, so all delegates could follow the process.
After three days input and revision within the working groups, the Saturday plenary session was devoted to reports from each, with decision-making reserved for Sunday. This provided one more chance to receive input and revise their documents, which many working groups did.
On Sunday, policy approaches in all policy areas either received consensus or at least 80 percent of delegates. Those approaches were then published in Green Letter and sent back to the locals for an additional year of review and more input, with final approval set for Green Gathering 1990 in Estes Park, CO. During this final year, political scientist professor Christa Slaton of Alabama became the SPAKA coordinator.
The main organizers of the Eugene Gathering were Lamb and Irene Diamond. The Gathering was attended by reporters from the LA Weekly, Mother Jones, New Age Journal, New Options, Pacific News Service, Pacifica Radio, Utne Reader, and Z Magazine.
A Move Towards Electoral Politics
The other major aspect of the Eugene Gathering was the focus on electoral strategy. There were well attended Strategy daytime workshops on Thursday and Friday, and highly attended and very lively nightly Left Green-sponsored marathon discussions and debates.
Signaling a growing commitment to electoral politics, after Eugene the GCoC Politics Working Group issued a statement encouraging Green electoral activity, but recommending that “Greens begin running candidates at the local level and only proceed to the state and then to the national level when there were a substantial number of Green officeholders at the level immediately below.” This led to the formation of the Working Group on Electoral Action at the October 1989 IC meeting in Washington, D.C. and then more boldly and controversially the formation of a national Green Party Organizing Committee (GPOC) at the March 1990 IC meeting in San Diego. There the 15 founding co-signers stated:
“The relationship of this new group to the IC and the GCoC was discussed and the following points were agreed upon: (1) That we consider ourselves a cooperating organization but autonomous from the IC and the GCoC and (2) We consider ourselves morally accountable to not only the GCoC but the entire Green Movement.”
At the same time this was going on, Greens in California officially embarked upon a two year voter registration drive that would see them register over 103,000 Greens by January 1992 and qualify for the statewide ballot; while in Alaska, Green Jim Sykes received 3.4 percent for Governor in November 1990, qualifying the Green Party there for ongoing ballot status as well.
On the local level, between 1985 and 1989 a total of 25 U.S. Greens ran for local office, mostly in rural Wisconsin, Massachusetts and in New Haven, CT, with seven elected. In 1990 alone, 21 Greens ran for office nationwide, with nine elected, including six in California, coinciding there with the new state party’s ballot drive.
Despite reservations by some in the GCoC about moving prematurely into the electoral arena, it appeared that an irreversible step towards electoral politics and state party building had been taken.
The Greens/Green Party USA
In response to the growing emphasis on electoral politics among U.S. Greens, the Greens/Green Party USA (G/GPUSA) was founded at the August 1991 Green Gathering in Elkins, WV, restructuring the Green Committees of Correspondence with the idea that the Green movement and Green Party would operate as part of a single organization.
A press conference was held in Washington, D.C. to announce the new organization, featuring Charles Betz (G/GPUSA Coordinating Committee member), New York Left Green Howie Hawkins and Joni Whitmore (Chair, Green Party of Alaska), as well as Hilda Mason of the D.C. Statehood Party, and was featured on C-SPAN.
But at the July 1992 Green Gathering held at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, MN, tensions surfaced over whether the new G/GPUSA structure fairly represented state Green Parties in voter registration states. For example, someone could be a Green Party member and have representation in their state party simply by registering Green in that state, but within the G/GPUSA, they would not have representation unless they also paid annual dues to the G/GPUSA, even if their state party was affiliated with the G/GPUSA and did not require dues itself.
The rift over this—along with the fact that more Greens were starting state parties (AZ, CA, HI and NM qualified in 1992 and ME in 1994) and thus seeing less value in the national organization—meant that attendance at Green Gatherings ’93 and ’94 began to drop.
Green Gathering ’95
Then in 1995, fresh off of electing Cris Moore to the Santa Fe City Council, and after receiving 10.4 percent for its 1994 Governor/Lt. Governor ticket of Roberto Mondragon/Steven Schmidt and 32.7 percent for its statewide Treasurer candidate Lorenzo Garcia, the New Mexico Green Party used its political capital to convene Green Gathering ’95, and bring together Greens from all factions to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
It was there that Schmidt, Jan and California Green co-founder Mike Feinstein held a workshop on the national poll they had conducted among U.S. Greens about the prospects of a Green presidential candidate in 1996, and presented their 40-State Green Organizing Plan. Seeking to build upon and export the ‘serious, credible, platform-based approach’ of the New Mexico Greens in 1994, they hoped to attract a national Green presidential candidate in 1996 and work toward a national Green Party.
The reasons to take this step, according to the proposal were many: “a recent Times Mirror poll showing 57 percent supported the idea of a third party; while other possible contenders for that role—the New Party and the Labor Party Advocates—hadn’t tried to organize nationally and, organizationally speaking, were relatively recent efforts. In contrast, the Greens had a ten-year history of activism and had already gained experience running candidates at the local, county and state level. If any political organization on the progressive Left was going to step into the vacuum created by the rightward shift of the Democrats, especially after the passage of both NAFTA and GATT under the Clinton administration, the Greens were most prepared.”
It was decided in Albuquerque that the Green Gathering ’96 would be in Los Angeles at UCLA. A few months later the Green Party of California (GPCA) passed a ‘receptive’ process to place a candidate on its March 1996 presidential primary ballot, should a suitable national candidate appear.
Audience at the 1996 Green Party Presidential Convention. Photo by Jesse Moorman
Nader ’96
In mid-October 1995, Ralph Nader told the Chicago Tribune he was considering being on the California ballot, because of President Clinton’s vacillation on deregulatory measures covering securities fraud, telecommunications, legal services and welfare.
Seizing the moment, Feinstein, Jan and Nader aide Rob Hager began negotiating to make it happen. Nader didn’t want to self-declare and since the GPCA only had a receptive process, Feinstein and Jan drafted an invitation letter to Nader that would be signed by 45 progressive leaders from across the state, demonstrating a breadth of support to which Nader could then respond, which he did, freeing the GPCA to place him on its presidential primary ballot.
Nader ultimately appeared on the general election ballot in twenty-two states and received 685,297 votes, or 0.7 percent of all votes cast. He ran a limited campaign with a self-imposed campaign spending limit of $5,000 (which allowed him to avoid being subject to the obligation to file campaign finance statements with the FEC) and chose Winona LaDuke as his vice-presidential candidate. The two were nominated at the first ever Green presidential nominating convention, held in Los Angeles at UCLA on August 20, 1996. There each state party who placed Nader on the ballot told their story, followed by a two hour and twenty minute acceptance speech by Nader. The speech was broadcast on C-SPAN and Pacifica Radio —the first time U.S. Greens ever had that kind of national exposure.
Association of State Green Parties
The Nader ’96 campaign clearly accelerated the development of Green state parties, with many new ballot lines as a result, while a record 24 Greens won elections in 1996 out of 82 candidates nationwide, and the world’s first Green City Council majority was elected in Arcata, CA.
In the aftermath, 62 Greens from 30 states gathered in Middleburg, VA over the weekend of November 16–17, 1996 to found the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP). The meeting was held at the historic Glen-Ora Farm where John Kennedy had his weekend retreats in his administration’s early days.
Green Parties from 13 states were the ASGP founding members, and approved an initial set of bylaws that set out the organization’s purpose: to assist in the development of State Green Parties and create a legally structured national Green Party. The founding meeting also established a national newsletter Green Pages, which carries forward today as the newspaper of the GPUS.
The concept of the ASGP as an organization of sovereign state parties originally came out of the 1991 national Greens Gathering, where a committee was tasked with examining what an eventual Green Party might look like. The committee produced a report with contributions from six authors, among them Greg Gerritt from Maine (who was also the first U.S, Green to run for State Legislature in 1986). Gerritt’s suggestion was not received favorably within the G/GPUSA, but it was supported by those involved in the establishment of the Green Politics Network a year later, many of whom then played a key founding role in Middleburg in 1996.
From 1997 to 1999, as new state Green Parties continued to form, a highly competitive environment between the ASGP and the G/GPUSA began to develop in terms of whom would affiliate with which organization.
In December 1999, Feinstein and Hawkins met during a state meeting of the Green Party of New York State in New Paltz and crafted a plan to create a single national Green Party from among the ASGP and G/GPUSA by Earth Day, April 2000, with the timing to take advantage of the 2000 presidential campaign. The plan found quick support within the ASGP, but not within the Greens/GPUSA in time for Earth Day.
Instead it was the ASGP that nominated Nader and LaDuke at its June 23-25, 2000 convention in Denver. The convention officially approved a national platform as a basis for the campaign, and the pair appeared on 44 state ballots in November 2000 and received 2,883,105 votes, 2.7 percent of all votes cast. This strong showing further accelerated the development of more state Green Parties, and solidified the electoral orientation of the Green Party movement overall, with a record 282 Greens running and 46 elected in 2000 elections, including a second Green City Council majority, this time in Sebastopol, CA.
As for Green unity, Feinstein/Hawkins was revisited and further negotiated in October 2000. Renamed the Boston Agreement (because it was negotiated in Boston in the days before the first 2000 presidential debate), the Agreement was approved by the ASGP at its December 2000 meeting in Hiawasee, GA, but did not pass at the July 2001 G/GPUSA Congress. This caused a schism in membership among the G/ GPUSA from which it never recovered.
Green Party of the United States
At its own July 2001 meeting in Santa Barbara, the ASGP voted to change its name to the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) and apply for recognition of National Committee status by the FEC, which it was granted later that year and has retained ever since.
Almost all the key organizers of the G/ GPUSA eventually became involved in the new GPUS through their state parties, leading to a single national Green Party, committed to electoral politics, since that time.
How To Make Money On YouTube – James Wedmore Interview
February 24, 2015 By Sean Cannell
In this interview Sean Cannell interviews James Wedmore, one of the Internet’s most-sought-after authorities on video marketing, and the founder of Video Traffic Academy.
How To Make Money On YouTube – James Wedmore Full Length Interview
#TIMESTAMPS
2:20 Seven ways to make money with YouTube and online video
11:25 How to build confidence on camera (even if you are an introvert)
16:43 YouTube, social media, and online video trends in 2015
22:15 Strategy for getting more views, subscribers, likes, and comments on your videos
28:43 Personal Video Traffic Academy case study about how I (Sean) ranked an entire series of videos on my seanTHiNKs channel
31:34 Tips for musicians using YouTube (How to get your videos discovered)
33:20 How to compete (and beat) the big YouTubers when it comes to ranking your videos
35:05 Best camera and video equipment to use when starting out on YouTube (And a type of camera that could actually be hurting your videos)
37:49 How to HACK the learning curve of YouTube and video
40:42 Free video resources from James and upcoming projects
42:04 A new project called Local Video Academy that you may be able to implement where you live
47:17 A quick closing thought from James for succeeding in life, business, and with video
Who is James Wedmore?
James is one of the Internet’s most-sought-after authorities on video marketing, and the founder of Video Traffic Academy – A 6,000-plus member strong community of small business owners leveraging the power of YouTube & video to grow their businesses online. James’ book, The YouTube Marketing Book has been praised as the perfect road-map to gaining online traffic and sales. With a film degree from a prestigious L.A. film school, James has taken his passion for video and creative marketing to show anyone how to drive more traffic, attract more leads and make more sales using the power of video.
Video Traffic Academy (Course On Video Marketing and Ranking Videos In YouTube)
Check out James course Video Traffic Academy HERE. I am a member and this is the course I mention in the video that helped me rank multiple videos on the 1st page of YouTube search. Is you want to learn and master YouTube and video marketing check out Jame’s course here: bit.ly/JamesWedmoreVTA
Local Video Academy
Check out this 3-Part local video marketing training from James Wedmore. The series covers how to make, rank, and sell online video to local clients. Check it out here: bit.ly/LocalVidAcademy
James Wedmore YouTube and Social Media Channels:
youtube.com/jameswedmore
instagram.com/jameswedmore
twitter.com/jameswedmore
Potato is an underground stem which is widely used in cooking and in beauty regimes. Potato is one food that has generated a lot of controversies; from being good to being bad, from being too starchy, with low protein to being a great source fibre, from being cooked the right way, to being cooked in all the wrong ways. However, in spite of all its dark sides, it will interest you that potato raw juice has lots and lots of amazing beauty and health benefits that I’m sure a lot of us would want to explore, especially women.
The Amazing Beauty Benefits Of Potato
Youthful Skin
Potato is considered as an effective anti-aging beauty agent, particularly in warding off wrinkles. Regular application of potato juice imparts a healthy glow to your skin. Potato juice contains vitamin A, C & B which help to reduce premature ageing on the face and also prevents wrinkles.
Apply potato juice over clean face, in a circular motion. Leave on for 15mins and rinse. You may also leave the mask on your face overnight.
Hyperpigmentation
Hyperpigmentation is a common, usually harmless condition in which patches of skin become darker in colour than the normal surrounding skin. This darkening occurs when an excess of melanin, the brown pigment that produces normal skin colour, forms deposits in the skin. They appear mainly on body parts that are frequently exposed, such as the face, hands and arms. It’s quite common in pregnant women and women taking birth control pills, but it can also affect anyone. Hyperpigmentation could be of major concerns, especially to people of colour. Age spots, melasma and post-inflammatory skin darkening are all types of hyperpigmentation.
Grate or blend 1 potato into a fine paste, add 2tbsp of lemon juice. Apply this mask on the face. The mixture will gradually alleviate hyperpigmentation, reduce swelling and works as a natural facial brightener. Allow to stay for 30minutes. Rinse with water. Repeat 2-3 times weekly.
In addition, it is recommended to choose a moisturiser with at least SPF 15 to enjoy sun protection while keeping your skin hydrated as well. Dermatologists agree that the single most important thing you can do for your skin is to wear sunscreen every day, including cloudy days, to protect yourself from the harmful ultraviolet rays.
Potato / Aloo Juice For Pimple And Acne Scar
Potato juice works like magic over the skin. Wet your face daily with potato juice. It will help to brighten and lighten your skin. You may feel the difference in skin texture too. Raw potato juice can reduce the appearances of acne scars. Apply fresh potato juice on clean face and rinse with lukewarm water after 15 minutes. Do it daily for between 6-8 weeks. All the pimple scars and acne marks will fade away, leaving you with a clean, clear and rejuvenated skin. Potato juice is one of the greatest remedies for acne and pimple marks.
Eye Wrinkle Erasure
Extract liquid from potato. Then apply the juice to the eye area with a cotton pad or fingertip to fight fine lines and wrinkles. Repeat daily for a youthful facial glow.
Natural Skin Lightener
Regular use of potato juice will make your face smooth, clean and bright as well as reduce facial swelling. You can also apply a mixture of lemon and potato juices to lighten your skin naturally and yield quick results. Apply this mask on your face and rinse off with water after 30 minutes. Repeat 3-4 times a week
Dark Neck Remedy With Potato
If you are suffering from dark neck (common with pregnant women) and want to get rid of it, you can try potato juice to treat it. Apply juice for up to 30minutes for few days, you will feel the difference on your neck.
Heals The Skin
Potato juice can be used to treat many skin ailments, such as; Rashes, Itching, burns, sunburn and also to flush out toxins from insect bites and stings. Put raw, cleaned potatoes in a juicer, do not remove the skin. Apply the juice in wounded areas or place raw potato slices on the painful skin to soothe and also relieve the pain.
Facial Cleanser And Toner
Blend equal amount of potato and cucumber. Strain and add one teaspoon of baking soda and a little water to the mixture. Use daily to serve the dual purpose of cleansing and toning. It will tighten and rejuvenate your skin.
Dark Circles
As a natural under eye brightener, Peel and slice a raw potato into pieces, put one slice each in a soft cloth and place on your lower eyelids for 15-20mins. Rinse with lukewarm water. You can also apply the juice directly under your eyes with your finger tip or a cotton pad. Do this every night before going to bed. Repeat for a week.
Eye Bag
A mixture of cucumber and potato juice, when applied on your face, particularly around the eyes, will help to combat eye bag as a result of its vitamin c contents. Leave on for 20mins. Good also for tired or stressed eye areas.
Oily Skin
Peel and grate a potato, add 2tbs of rosewater and mix thoroughly. Add 1tbs of lemon juice and apply mask to face for 25mins. Use 3-4 times a week to rid your face of excess oil and impurities.
Dry Skin
Peel and grate a potato, add 2tbs of rosewater and mix thoroughly. Add 1tbs of honey and apply mask to face for 15mins. Use 2 times a week. Apart from applying it on your skin, drink one glass of potato juice every day to help alleviate dry skin and dehydration to protect against toxins. Also, read my post on “The grave dangers of dehydration”
Facial Scrub
Grate and scrub face with potato, leave for 15mins and rinse with lukewarm water
Eczema
Potato juice can help to treat eczema by applying it on the affected area, also by drinking it
How To Choose Your Potato
• Look for clean, smooth, firm-textured potatoes with no cuts, bruises or discoloration. • Enjoy potato juice by adding carrot juice, spirulina or any other type of herbal or natural juices. • Potato juice may lead to diarrhea in some cases. • Avoid drinking potato juice if you have stomach troubles
See you next time on beforeandafter50.com as we explore the health aspects of potato and how you can actually snap your health back with this amazing plant God has blessed man with.
