Anti-Racism Workshop In Reading
Green Party Still Has A Long Way To Go, Say Participants

by Diane F. White and Isabelle Buonocore, Green Party of Pennsylvania

“Attendees at the workshop shared their experiences of how people of color and white people are treated when the need to address racism is brought up in predominantly white organizations like the Green Party.”

At a workshop on dismantling racism Greens determined that the Green Party straddles between being a “passive institution” and a “symbolic change” institution in the way it deals with racism. The workshop, held at the 2007 Green Party Annual National Meeting in Reading, Pennsylvania in July, reviewed the six stages in which institutions deal with racism from exclusive/racist to anti-racist/multicultural. The lesson learned is that the Green Party has a lot of work to do and a long way to go on the continuum of becoming an anti-racist, multi-cultural institution/political party.

Rita Harris, an African American woman from Tennessee, and Bill Price, a white man from the Appalachian coal region of the newly affiliated Green Party of West Virginia, facilitated the workshop. Both were highly skilled, knowledgeable and effective as a team. They presented attendees with a six-stage continuum towards becoming an anti-racist, multi-cultural institution:

Stage 1óExclusive: A segregated institution; Stage 2óPassive: A “club” institution; Stage 3óSymbolic Change: A multicultural institution; Stage 4óIdentity Change: An anti-racist institution; Stage 5óStructural Change: A transforming institution; Stage 6óFully Inclusive: A transformed institution in a transformed society.

Most Greens at the workshop felt the Green Party straddles stages 2 and 3. The details of a stage 2 institution (Passive) include: being tolerant of a limited number of people of color with “proper” perspective and credentials; may be secretly limiting or excluding people of color in contradiction to public policies; continuing to intentionally maintain white power and privilege through its formal policies, practices, teachings, and decision-making; often declaring, “We donít have a problem.”

A stage 3 institution (Symbolic Change) includes: making official policy pronouncements regarding multicultural diversity; seeing itself as non-racist institution with open doors to people of color; carrying out intentional inclusiveness efforts, recruiting “someone of color” on committees or office staff; expanding view of diversity; including other socially op pressed groups such as women, disabled, elderly and children, lesbian, and gays, third world citizens, etc. But in stage 3, an institution does not include those who “make waves,” shows little or no contextual change in culture, policies, and decision-making, and is still relatively unaware of continuing patterns of privilege, paternalism and control.

This intensive 18-hour workshop was held over three consecutive days and was open to the public. Attendees shared personal stories, watched videos and had meals together. Of the 29 attendees, 13 were persons of color, including African Ameri cans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Asians, Mayans, Mus lims and immigrants, and 16 persons identified as white. 61% of the attendees were Green Party members. At one point Harris and Price split the group into separate color and white caucuses. This was a powerful exercise giving people a chance to “work” within their own identity group.

Everyone shared his or her experiences or lack of experience on racism and white privilege. People discussed the grinding effect of racism on the lives of people of color, the lack of awareness of white privilege by whites, and the impact of both. The workshop examined racism and white privilege in assumptions, in communications, and in practices from the personal to the cultural and institutional. For some this was very emotional, yet liberating; for others it led to closer self-examination.

A Class Divided, a powerful documentary which was shown at the workshop, demonstrated the influence of bigotry through an experiment with a second grade class conducted by a schoolteacher a few days after the murder of Martin Luther King. The class was divided into groups of blue-eyed and brown-eyed children. On the first day, the teacher told the children all the blue-eyed children were smarter, cleaner, and superior to the brown-eyed children and they were not to play with the brown-eyed children. The brown-eyed children assigned to the inferior group did poorly in their schoolwork and were upset that day. The blue-eyed students for the most part enjoyed their elevated status and some taunted the brown-eyes students.

The next day the teacher put the brown-eyed children in the superior position. Then it was the brown-eyed students who did better and the blue-eyed students did poorly and were sad and angry.

This film showed that within a few hours there could be a devastating impact of racism, discrimination, oppression, and bigotry on the psyches of these children. Today many adults, especially whites, deny the damage the system of racism has inflicted for hundreds of years on all of us ó whites included.

What can white Greens do? They can become allies for people of color, meaning white persons who do not remain silent, but confront racism. Attendees at the workshop shared their experiences of how people of color and white people are treated when the need to address racism is brought up in a predominantly white organization like the Green Party.

Attendees, with few exceptions, felt that when a person of color brings up racism he or she is seen as self-serving by most whites. When a white person brings up racism he or she is seen as troublemaking by most whites. To be a white ally to people of color one has to be willing to risk not being liked by other whites, but that risk must be taken if any progress is to be made on the continuum.

At the end of the workshop each attendee vowed to take personal responsibility for actions towards dismantling racism and made plans to work together to transform the Green Party and other organizations into fully inclusive institutions. Some commitments from the workshop were:

• Become better educated about people of color.
• Read publications by people of color, outside the white canon of writers.
• Listen to what people of color have to say.
• Interrupt jokes about people of color and ethnic groups.
• At all Green Party meetings, have racism and/or white privilege on the agenda.
• Have strategic meetings with Greens who say, “We donít have a problem” with racism.
• Do not stifle the anger expressed by people of color. It represents something that needs to be heard. Take the time to determine what it is about.
• Change the way one does things; progress cannot occur if things keep being done the same way.

For more information e-mail Diane F. White at diane@dlighten.com or Isabelle Buonocore at isabellebuonocore@hotmail.com.

Japan: First National Level Election Win
Optimism For Forming National Party

by Satoko Watanabe
Kagawa Prefecture MP, Co-Spokesperson of the Rainbow and Greens Japan

“In the most recent municipal and prefecture elections, candidates from the Rainbow and Greens and the Greens Japan together won 122 seats in local assemblies out of the 159 races they contested.”

The history of the Greens Japan and the Rainbow and Greens Japan
For many years going back to the early 1990s, there have been various attempts to form an official Green Party in Japan. But the high barriers of the Japanese electoral system have made starting a new party difficult. Recent efforts by grassroots Greens however are bringing this dream ever closer to fruition.

Currently two Japanese Green movement groups participate in electoral politics. The older is the Rainbow and Greens Japan, founded in 1998, as a network of Green-thinking independent local politicians and active citizens longing for political reform. They started with about 250 members, including 120 local legislators, and the Mayor of Hiroshima as an honorary member.

Many then attended the 2001 Global Greens meeting in Canberra, Australia, giving themselves a chance to identify as Greens before the global Green community. Their positive experience there encouraged them to further pursue Green politics in Japan, leading to their offering to host the historic Asia Pacific Green Network meeting in February 2005 in Kyoto. Held just days before the effective start date of the Kyoto Protocol Treaty on Climate Change, that meeting was attended by more than 100 Greens from 23 Asian and Pacific nations, along with 300 more from Japan and Green observers from Europe and the Americas.

In 2002, a second group, Environmental Party Greens Japan, was founded with the intent of preparing to start a Green Party of Japan. Its founder, Mr. Atsuo Nakamura ó a famous actor and writer was already at that time a member of the House of Councilors (the Upper House in the Diet, the national legislature of Japan.) How ever, Nakamura had not been elected as a Green, but as a member of the Pioneer Party.

Before he faced re-election in 2004, Nakamura formed the Environmental Party Greens out of the Pioneer Party and drafted nine others to run on his party list. Together they received about 900,000 votes (1.62%) ó short to the 2% needed to win seats and be certified as an official political party for the next national election. As a result, Nakamura lost his seat. Despite this, the network that grew around the campaign resulted in the founding of the Greens Japan in 2005. Today Green Japan has about 600 members, including 66 local councilors. Some members belong to both the Rainbow and Greens Japan and the Greens Japan.

Success on the local level
In the April 2007 municipal and prefecture elections, candidates from the Rain bow and Greens and the Greens Japan together won 122 seats in local assemblies out of the 159 races they contested (76.7%). Their campaign included environment, welfare, peace, and democratization of assemblies and abolishment of unnecessary privileges of politicians. Among those elected were six aged 35 and under, including Kazumi Inamura, the co-spokesperson of the Greens Japan.

The greatest success came in larger cities where higher percentages of younger and progressive voters exist, and in districts with many seats. By contrast, Greens were not successful in the cities of Kyoto, Fukuoka, and Niigata, where electoral districts have been divided into very small, winner-take-all wards with a limited number of seats in each, making it difficult for minor political groups to win.

Like in many places, big money and big endorsements also help decide who will win, and most Green candidates had neither. In addition, many towns and cities merged and reduced the number of seats available, which also adversely affected Green candidates.

Ironically, many candidates who were determined to run openly as Greens instead of as independents were not elected This suggests that Green politics may not be known well enough to attract voters in Japan, and that more organizing around issues and actions needs to occur between elections.

First Green elected on the national level
While Greens are able to run on a local level, the barriers to participation in elections to the Diet are much higher. For example, on a positive note, there is proportional representation for 96 seats out of 242 in the House of Councilors, with half elected every three years. Yet to even contest these seats, a party is required to at least run 10 candidates and put down a deposit of 60 million Yen (US $52,000). Then the party would need more money for the election campaign itself. This is something the Japanese Greens are not yet prepared to undertake. Therefore they decided to run as an independent candidate, internationally known Mr. Ryuhei Kawada, 31-year-old HIV-positive human rights activist, who a few months before had attended the Global Young Greens meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kawada ran in a five-seat, winner-take-all district in Tokyo and conducted a spirited campaign in the streets of Tokyo, giving inspirational speeches about his personal experiences as a victim of HIV-infected blood product, his fight against the government and the company that infected him. Often moving audiences to tears, his campaign garnered increasing media attention that was unusual for an independent candidate, and attracted many young volunteers normally indifferent to politics.

On Election Day, Ryuhei won 683,629 votes, finishing fifth place out of five seats, and defeating the incumbent ruling Liberal Democratic Party candidate. The Greens Japan and the Rainbow and Greens Japan functioned as the main promoters for his victory. At the same time, many new volunteers came to Ryuhei’s campaign, leading to the hope they will be inspired to stay involved with Green politics.

Ryuhei’s first action as a member of the Diet was the visit to the Kashiwazaki nuclear power plant, which was damaged and temporarily shut down after a July 16th earthquake registering 6.8 on the Richter scale. Accompanying him were NGO members who will be come his chief advisors for his anti-nuclear-power-plant policies.

Ryuhei next staged a workshop on the pa tients’ rights for the members of the Diet. As he seeks to introduce and pass future legislation to protect peo ple’s health and rights, his prior ex perience confronting the Health and Wel fare Ministry will be extremely valuable.

Then on September 27, Ryuhei visited the Burmese Embassy in Tokyo to protest the Burmese military regime’s brutal suppression of its country’s democratization movement. He added that Japan is also responsible for the situation, since the Japanese government has long de facto endorsed the military regime, by being one of its biggest suppliers of official development aid. “The Japanese government tends to put more importance on financial benefits than on human rights issues,” he said “and it has not played a very active role in solving this kind of problem in the international community.” Ryuhei pledged himself to make the government change its foreign policy. Ultimately, there are 242 members in the Upper House, and as one of 242, it will not be easy for Ryuhei to realize his ideals. However, he is seen by many as a small but powerful Green seed in the Diet, and has become a symbol of the Green hope for the Green movement across Japan.

The move towards a national Green Party of Japan
Following the election, Rainbow and Greens and Greens Japan each had successful general meetings in August, and decided to merge to advance towards founding an official Green Party of Japan in about a year.

Perhaps the biggest challenge a new Green Party of Japan will face is that Japanese people are deeply disillusioned with politics and political parties. Corruption scandals occur one after another, and people tend to think politicians form new parties not for political philosophy, but for ambition. Through policies and actions Japanese Greens must prove they are different.

At the same time, the failure of Japan’s establishment parties creates such an opportunity. The ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a crushing defeat in the July Upper House election, and now opposition parties hold a majority of the Upper House, as voters were angry at the government’s faulty management of the pension system and the repeated deception scandals about political funds of its cabinet members.

Voters also realized the pain caused by the so-called “structural reform” done by former LDP Prime Minister Koizumi and his fellows. The deregulation of employment laws has created job instability and increased the number of working poor, while larger companies are enjoying record profits and their longest prosperity on record. At the same time, many rural communities are suffering from a financial crisis, as the national government has decreased subsidies, which cover basic expenditures of local government. Voter anger and frustration about these actions seemed to lead the historic LDP defeat.

As for traditionally Green issues such as the environment, unusual weather such as heat waves, drought, large typhoons, and torrential rains have increasingly struck Japan, and are leading people to realize the seriousness of climate change. They know something has to be done.

Green politics is needed more than ever in Japan. The question before the soon-to-be-formed Green Party of Japan will be “can they overcome people’s distrust and disappointment in politics and convince them that Green policies are realistic ways to solve the nation’s problems.”

——————-
Satoko Watanabe is a four-time-elected Green Council member on the Prefecture level. Internationally she has been active in Asia-Pacific Green organizing, including co-hosting the February 2005 Asia-Pacific Green Network Meeting in Kyoto. Globally she is a member of the Global Green Coordination, was a plenary speaker at the Global Greens 2001 meeting and is part of the organizing committee for the next Global Greens meeting in May 2008 in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

Green Party of Canada Shadow Cabinet

The Shadow Cabinet of the Green Party of Canada is an alternative Green cabinet to that of the Canadian Federal government.

Its role is to shadow and provide critical opposition to the government’s positions on key policy matters. It features spokespeople on 27 different issue categories:

Aboriginal Affairs; Agriculture; Arts, Culture and Heritage; Climate Change; Democratic Reform; Energy; Environment; Employment and Social Issues; Finance and Ecological Fiscal Reform; Fitness and Sport; Health Promotion; Health Care; Human Rights; Industry; Infrastructure and Community Devel opment; International concerns; Justice; Labor; National Revenue; Natural Resources; Poverty Elimination; Public Service Reform; Public Works and Government Services; Seniors; Status of Women; Transport; Treasury Board

For more info: www.greenparty.ca/en/contact/shadow_cabinet

SPP Security Pact Proceeds In Secrecy
Canadian Greens Take Notice

By Janet M Eaton, PhD, International Trade Critic, Green Party of Canada
with contributions by Mike Feinstein, Green Party of California

“Rather than increasing security through sustainability, the SPP compromises ecological limits and bypasses democratic accountability.”

If you ask the average person if they’ve ever heard of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America, they are likely to look at you blankly and say “No.” Sometimes identified as “NAFTA Plus,” leaders of Canada, the U.S. and Mexico announced the SPP in March 2005. Unlike NAFTA, however, it is not a treaty or agreement, nor is it legislation which would demand review by parliament and congress. Rather the SPP is an initiative only between the executive powers in Canada, Mexico and the U.S., and is carried out with oversight in relative secrecy from an advisory board of CEOs from 30 of the most powerful companies in North America.

Little wonder the SPP has evoked outcries from activists across the continent, decrying the lack of transparency and accountability of a process where decisions are made behind closed doors.

Sometimes referred to as “NAFTA on steroids,” the SPP is the latest and most aggressive move in a process of North American integration formally begun with the signing of the Canadian U.S. Free Trade Agreement (CUFTA) in 1988 and enlarged upon in the North American Free trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. NAFTA brought the lowest level of economic integration on a scale which moves from (a) free trade area through (b) customs’ union, to (c) common market to (d) economic community to (e) full fledged political union. NAFTA was viewed as a platform for further integration as noted in its objectives and since that time corporate and politically elite lobbyists have never rested as they waited for the right moment to further their cause.

Greens have long argued that, absent strong environmental and labor principles, NAFTA has led to a loss of good jobs, decreased wages and poverty, as well as, environmental and health degradation in all three countries. With the further continental economic integration contemplated under the SPP, these trends also would accelerate, along with the loss of sovereignty over natural resources in all three countries. Rather than increasing security through sustainability, it compromises ecological limits and bypasses democratic accountability.

The door really opened for the SPP after the attack on 9-11. Many politicians called for deeper integration. The US administration shifted to a “security trumps all” framework where trade policy was viewed through a security lens; and the flow of goods, people and upkeep of infrastructure became pressing concerns for harmonized border control, which along with military integration led to what some see as “Fortress North America.”

On the Canadian side, there was a mad scramble to ensure that the border would remain open in case of another incident or disaster and in view of the border security pressures being brought forward by the Bush administration.

By 2003 the big business community in Canada under the guidance of Thomas D’Aquino of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives (CCCE) drafted the precursor to the SPP, the North American Security and Prosperity Initiative (NASPI). It proposed a strategy with five major elements: 1) reinventing borders 2) maximizing regulatory efficiencies 3) negotiating a comprehensive resource security pact 4) reinvigorating the North American defense alliance and 5) creating a new institutional framework.

Meanwhile during the period from 2001 until 2005 when the SPP was announced ñ the dominant American voice promoting deeper integration was Professor Robert Pastor, member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He took his ideas on the road speaking so relentlessly on the subject that in the U.S., he instigated a powerful movement amongst the conservative right who cite his writings and lectures as evidence of a move toward a North American Union.

One of the facets of SPP captivating the imagination and concern of American citizens has been the notion of super corridors ó large privatized super highways proposed to have six car lanes, four trucking lanes, railway line and utility corridors with water pipelines, all in the cause of transporting goods from China and Asia across the North American continent. The super corridors are an essential part of global trade routes, which is corporate driven, unsustainable, fossil fuel dependent, and utilize giant ports in Mexico, California, and the Atlantic coast.

In spite of attempts by Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper to deny plans for these super corridors, there is evidence they have been talked about in the reports of the NAFTA transportation working group going back many years and more recently within the context of the SPP and on the websites of super corridor coalitions such as North America’s Super Corridor Coalition and the CANAMEX Corridor Project.

Perhaps the best example of a super corridor is the Trans Texas Corridor (TTC). Estimated to cost between $145 and $183 billion, it will require the acquisition of approximately 584,000 acres. This has led critics from across political lines to raise concerns about: widespread eminent domain, the loss of business in hundreds of communities, loss of habitat and ecosystem fragmentation, massive water contamination, increased greenhouse gas emissions from increased trucking, and labor issues with Mexican non-unionized labor replacing American trucking companies and drivers. There will also be substantial corporate subsidies on the backs of citizens who will cover the cost in toll fees.

Relentless opposition to the Trans Texas Corridor has stalled the TTC for now and led to more than seventeen states passing resolutions demanding that congress reject the SPP and funding for super corridors. Rep. Virgil Good (R-VA) has introduced U.S. House Concurrent Resolution 40, expressing congressional opposition to construction of a NAFTA Super High way System or entry into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.

Sixteen cross-border working groups, ten on Prosperity and six on Security, made up of corporate leaders and senior government officials were established, reporting to Senior Ministers of each country. Leaders announced a strengthening of competitiveness in North America by appointing a North American Competi tiveness Council (NACC) furthering the corporate agenda, which was so obviously driving the SPP initiative from the beginning.

These leaders were also given a mandate to set up working groups to address; Energy Integration; Supply Chain Management /Trade Facilitation/Customs Reform; Regulatory/Standards issues óHarmon ization and Sharing of Best Practices; Counterfeiting and Piracy; and Private Sector Involvement in Border Security and Infrastructure Projects. NACC prepared a lengthy report for the Leaders meeting in Montebello Building a Secure and Com petitive North America noting that while overall progress to date had been en couraging, they were concerned that on a handful of im portant issues progress has stalled and the spirit of the SPP is being undermined.

In Canada, the specter of bulk water export that would undermine Canadian water sovereignty and sustainability is a major concern, which Harper denied any part in. However, activists have been vigilant since the SPP announcement and began watching for signs. During the past year such signs have become visible. These include: calls from industry and business water strategists to sell Canadian water, drawn plans for water pipelines along side the super corridors, and most recently a leaked “North American Future 2025 Project” document from the Center for Strategic and Inter national Studies for the SPP. It revealed that a 2007 think tank planned to discuss “water consumption, water transfers and artificial diversions of bulk water” with the aim of achieving “joint optimum utilization of the available water.”

In their report released for the Monte bello summit the NACC reported that they were working on advancing regulatory frameworks for harmonizing regulations across North America. As Greens in all three countries have observed from the experience of NAFTA, such efforts have already led to downward harmonization of environmental, health, labor, and food safety standards and regulations. The economic liberalization models behind them had meant less money in the public sector and hence more pressure to de-fund social and environmental programs as well.

So what does the future of the SPP hold? The post summit analysis suggests the secretive, closed-door approach of the SPP has been so exposed it will have to become a more open process to survive.

Ralph Pentland, a water expert and chair of the Canadian Water Issues Council, said there were three possible scenarios: “the SPP will continue more or less on its current track, growing popular resistance will bring it to a halt, or the process will become more respectful of democratic principles.”

Pentland added, “If that second scenario comes about, we’ll soon experience a ‘magna carta’ moment, and popular resistance in both counties will bring the SPP to a halt, or at least slow it to a harmless crawl.” This parallels the vision of both U.S. and Canadian Greens.

A North American Alliance Tackles The SPP
Greens Join Forces In An Effort To Stop Partnership Between Governments

By Janet M. Eaton, PhD, International Trade Critic, Green Party of Canada

“For now at least the SPP is more out in the open and Greens across North America hope to make it even more so.”

Greens from Canada and the United States have joined together this past March in opposition to the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). The SPP, like its predecessor NAFTA, would open wider the borders for trade between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. The highly secretive SPP includes: stricter integrated security and a nearly ten lane wide super highway spanning the three countries. Greens are calling the SPP a catastrophe to North American ecology and civil liberties. (Article on SPP page 7)

Canadian Greens have been active against the SPP for some time. The Green Party of Canada (GPC) Shadow Cabinet has already put together an opposition platform against the SPP, NAFTA and international trade, should the minority government of conservative, Stephen Harper fall. Last March, Canadian Greens participated in an anti-SPP forum. There, GPC Party Leader Elizabeth May evoked a huge round of applause when she said the GPC viewed the SPP as an attack on Canada’s core identity and sovereignty and that it would work to scrap the SPP.

The GPC has a web campaign to expose the SPP, releasing several documents including Why We Need to Take a Closer Look at Continental Integration, Frequently Asked Questions, as well as, Threats to Our Water: NAFTA, SPP, Super-Corridors, Atlantica.

A partnership began after I was invited by the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) to speak at its July annual national meeting in Reading, Pennsylvania, on the SPP, with a particular focus on energy. The Reading meeting also led to GPUS collaboration in the GPC’s SPP Counter Summit, held August 20th in Ottawa, while Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon met at SPP Leaders’ Summit in nearby Montebello, Quebec.

In Canada, Greens mounted a major campaign effort to publicize the Counter Summit, preparing articles, website materials, a petition, posters, and press releases. GPC also worked with the GPUS Interna tional Committee Co-chairs Julia Willebrand and Justine McCabe to bring a U.S. Green perspective to the Counter Summit and issued a joint press release.

caption: Julia Willebrand and Justine McCabe, International co-chairs of Green Party of the United States at the Stop the SPP Rally in Ottawa August, 2007

At the Counter Summit, May gave what some have said was her best political speech ever, articulating the SPP’s lack of transparency, corporate agenda, militaristic approach to security and severe threat to North Americans posed by regulatory downward harmonization.

Other counter-SPP events included an effort to expose the plans for bulk water exports. It featured paddling down the Ottawa river towards Montebello with Council of Canadian’s Maude Barlow and the Ottawa branch of the Raging Grannies, an international network of older social justice activists, who dress up in outrageous outfits and sing protest songs. This action garnered much attention from the press as well the military, who sent helicopters to observe the event.

Meanwhile, in Montebello where the summit leaders were meeting, a major protest was marred when union leader David Cole identified three large men with bandanas over their faces and rocks in their hands as agent provocateurs from the Quebec police. Shortly afterwards, the GPC put out a press release with May demanding for more government accountability; pointing out the ëagents provocateurs’ incident as another example of extreme secrecy surrounding the SPP.

Since the Counter Summit, U.S. and Can adian Greens have continued cooperation on anti-SPP efforts, including doing a hour-long interview together on Wisconsin Public Radio as well as sharing news and analysis of the super corridor.

North American Greens can also focus on the threats to civil liberties which have accelerated and expanded under the SPP and include: the USA Patriot Act, Bill C-36 in Canada, the Smart Border Accord, No Fly lists, and others. Especially in the U.S., it is important to keep watch on the executive orders subverting congressional authority and the Military Commis sions Act that has suspended habeas corpus and sanctioned torture.

For now at least the SPP is more out in the open and Greens across North America hope to make it even more so. Other parties in Canada have already shown interest and concern over the SPP and started to participate in informational events. Greens in both Canada and the U.S. have started new efforts against the bulk export of water encompassed within the SPP. Now with the likelihood of a Canadian election, the GPC is fast preparing to make the SPP into a defining election issue.

caption: Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada leader, (left) speaking at the Council of Canadians Public Forum in August on the danger of the newly formed SPP.

Getting Ready For 2008 Campaigns
Political Director’s Address To The Annual National Meeting

By Brent McMillan
[Excerpt]

Challenge 2008: What would it look like if Greens ran 1,000 candidates in 2008? One of the lessons learned by Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union was in order to have political autonomy; there must be economic autonomy and energy autonomy. These issues need to be major focuses for the 2008 Green Party campaign.

On energy policy, the connections between wars of imperialism, global warming and peak oil should be the number one focus of our federal level candidates. We have an opportunity to have a dialogue with Greens in Europe throughout this cycle. They are very concerned about an immense, worldwide corporate green washing campaign and feel a strong Green voice in the U.S. is needed.

The other issue is economic. We need to focus on building a black/brown coalition, increasing our efforts in reaching out to and becoming relevant to disenfranchised communities. We should focus on the reconstruction of New Orleans and be more supportive of the work of, among others, Malik Rahim and the Common Ground Collective. Strong op portunities are also present in Detroit, Oakland, Washing ton, D.C. and Baltimore. Many people in these cities are being dropped from basic services. This is an opportunity to address economic justice.

In addition to these two issues Greens need to advocate election reform whenever we are accused of being spoilers. We will once again be under a lot of pressure to not run a presidential candidate.

In many ways 2004 was GPUS’ (Green Party of the United States) first really competitive convention, but the 2004 campaign cycle was problematic for Greens. Before the convention approximately 70% of the national party’s donor base either went ABB (Anybody But Bush), or didn’t want to run a candidate for other reasons. We didn’t do our work going into the convention and we left it with unfinished business.

Next year will present another chance to the American public. There is an immense political vacuum with a level of opportunity that we haven’t had since 2000 and a level of acceptance in the general public that Greens haven’t felt since then. It’s hard to forget the excitement that super rallies created in 2000. We went from being a little fringe party to where we are now on the national political map.

So what would it look like if the Green Party were to get serious about 2008? I make the following suggestions:

1: We need more time for the process of approving the platform and for the presidential nominating process in 2008 than in 2004 by scaling back competing programs, such as the ambitious campaign school we had during the 2004 convention.

2: Allow nominees to fundraise at the convention. In 2004 they were prohibited from fundraising at the convention. With the national party in dire financial straits, it was seen as competition. This fact was not made public, but we asked our potential candidates in essence to spend every last dollar they had to get the nomination and sent them away broke. Regardless of the financial state of the national party, the nominees should walk away with a chunk of cash. What if 100 people donated $100 to a fund so the candidates would have $10,000 to re-seed their campaign? This is not a lot of money, but it would be progress.

Money should not be raised through the National Committee. There is competition among so many programs for the general funds, that fundraising for the presidential campaign needs to be an independent effort, perhaps a 527 group set up for this purpose.

3: Impeccability is needed in the rules process so that people trust it. In 2004 representatives of the candidates had too much influence in the rules process, but not enough trust in each other. With not enough active greens on the national level, people who work on the rules are also likely to be working on some campaign. Do we keep the two separate or do we work to keep a balance of representation of various interests. I hope we can develop a trans-partisan model, as was evident in the former Delegate Apportionment Committee, where people are willing to transcend ideologies in order to find successful solutions.

4: We need to have better informed delegates. In 2004 many states did not have a plan in place on what to do after the first round of voting. State delegations need to have a template, before they come to the convention. Nationally we are working on guidelines suggesting how state parties can proceed. We need people willing to work on this. We also need to answer the question, “how does the nomination process work?”

5: Questions state parties must answer: How can a better job of communicating with potential candidates take place? Who is the initial point of contact for potential candidates? To whom do they talk about the ballot access process? Who can they contact to help them with fundraisers or hosting an event? Each state party needs to have clearly defined initial points of contact.

6: Security: If we become serious enough in 2008 to threaten modus operandi of the existing political structure, we will need to address the issue of security. Some in leadership positions from 2000 can personally attest to this need. In Seattle, both Joe Szwaja, who was running for Congress, and myself had our homes broken into and political materials and money stolen. I received threatening phone calls late at night and twice I had to get postal inspectors to stop the dead lettering and returning of campaign contributions.

7: In 2004 Democrats raised $10,000,000 to keep third party candidates off the ballot. The independent Nader campaign faced much opposition in 2004. In 2006 we began to see this directed at Green Parties. A ballot access legal defense fund is needed. I advocate that at least $10,000 be earmarked for engaging in up to three lawsuits in 2008. This would be not unlike COFOE, The Coalition for Free and Open Elections, for which I was a former director. It regularly engages in three to five lawsuits at any given time and wins about half. The money would be for filing fees and printing costs. We also need to identify attorneys willing to work pro bono.

8: In 2006 we created the Green Senatorial Campaign Committee (GSCC). It became the first congressional committee to be recognized by the FEC since it was formed in 1975. We held off forming the Green House Campaign Committee so that we could incorporate the lessons learned from the GSCC in its formation.

9: Have the 2008 convention as early as possible and settle on the convention site sooner rather than later. [Chicago, July 10-13, 2008 has been picked.]

10: Challenge 2008: What would it look like if Greens ran 1,000 candidates in 2008? I did an exercise based on each state party’s record for the actual number of candidates run and developed a formula for this. For example California fields about 16% of our candidates. Therefore, GPCA would be expected to have 160 candidates. If anyone would like a copy of the schedule please email me at brent@gp.org.

Our tickets were top heavy in 2006 with too many candidates running for congress and state wide-races relative to the number of candidates running for state legislature on down. We need more local candidates. Although there were less candidates running for congress in 2006 than in 2004, we got more votes. The quality of our campaigns and candidates improved in 2006, partly due to the number of campaign schools we ran in 2005. Unfortunately in 2007 there has not been that level of commitment. There is time to correct that by acting to restoring the Coordinated Campaign Committee.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Power is the ability to achieve a purpose.” We need to walk into our power. We need to emerge out of our fragmented impotence and get serious about being agents of change in the world.
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Brent McMillan is the Political Director for the Green Party of the United States. He can be contacted at brent@gp.org