New York Greens hold forum to educate about new drilling methods
by Deyva Arthur, Green Party of New York State

The Steuben Greens decided not to wait but take a proactive approach to encroaching natural gas drilling. With state hearings not far away, they felt residents of western New York needed to be prepared. This local Green Party held a forum on the health and environmental impacts of new horizontal gas drilling techniques proposed for the district. As natural gas drilling becomes a more popular energy alternative to oil, Greens such as in Steuben County, New York, are finding communities across the country do not know the full environmental consequences of this industry.

Schoharie Valley from Vroman's Nose in central New York. photo by Andy Coates

The forum organized in conjunction with the Bath Peace and Justice Group, began with a documentary film on the impacts of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing in Colorado by Two Cent Films and Crestone Media. The documentary features Theo Colburn, a research chemist who has studied the chemicals used by drilling companies in their hydraulic fracturing fluids.

With several public hearings sponsored by the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the Steuben Greens wanted local residents to be ready to voice their opinion about the substantial increase in drilling and held a discussion on how drilling impacts health and the environment. The forum was meant to prepare people to give testimony at the DEC hearings in Bath, Elmira and Allegany (near Olean).

“The rush to use natural gas as a transition fuel has serious negative environmental consequences.” David Cyr

The DEC has scheduled these hearings to receive comments on its “Draft Scope for Draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement on Well Permit Issuance for Horizontal Drilling and High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing to Develop the Marcellus Shale and Other Low-Permeability Gas Reservoirs.” The scope states the DEC “has received applications for permits to drill horizontal wells to evaluate and develop the Marcellus shale for natural gas production. Wells will undergo a stimulation process known as hydraulic fracturing. While the horizontal well applications received to date are for proposed locations in Chemung, Chenango and Tioga Counties, drilling could expand to counties such as: Delaware, Sullivan, Otsego, and Schoharie where natural gas production has not previously occurred.

As natural gas drilling increases, Greens such as David Cyr of the Green Party of New York State are speaking out. He said, the natural gas “politicized ‘energy independence’ usage is producing an un-clean net result. … The rush to use natural gas as a transition fuel has serious negative environmental consequences. Whenever a corporate solution to an environmental problem seems remarkably green, look into it again … much more carefully.”

Cyr said it is predicted that over the next 20 years natural gas use will double and efforts to find new sources increase. To the west of the country there already is a sizable natural gas industry; now companies are eyeing the east, especially from Virginia up to Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York.

As the Stueben Greens are finding, natural gas companies use newer methods for drilling. Cyr said natural gas companies have to go deeper and in more difficult places to find sources. Halliburton has developed a “high pressure, horizontally bored and hydrofractured drilling process … which essentially — rather like alchemy — converts stone into gas.”

Cyr said the natural gas industry has increased use of shale gas drilling by 300 percent since 1990 and is in turn creating substantial amounts of hazardous waste that can easily contaminate fresh water. In his description of the process he said, “The vertical holes are drilled far deeper and the bits bore multiple horizontal holes over great distances. A large number of hazardous chemicals are combined with enormous quantities of good fresh water. That “slick water” mixture is used to flood the drilled holes. By means of huge diesel burning air compressors, it’s then pressurized up to 8,000 psi. That converts as much as a thousand times more water than traditionally used into toxic waste…Far higher volumes of toxic fluids, and much higher pressure is used to make those fluids behave as powerful explosives to shatter stone formations that lay beneath water supplies.”

Cyr warns the public is ill informed regarding the impact of gas drilling and it is up to Greens like the Stueben Greens to educate communities about the dangers. He said, “cheerfully optimistic TV advertisements assure viewers that gas corporations are going to bring about energy independence for America, by using new technologies providing amazing quantities of domestic ‘green’ energy production. They don’t mention the invasive scale of well sites required to achieve that; nor their expropriation of enormous quantities of fresh water which is more valuable than the gas squandered to get it; nor the staggering amount of hazardous waste the new technology produces.”

by Wendy Thompson, Detroit Green Party, UAW convention delegate and former president

In December, an auto caravan traveled to the Whitehouse to speak out for declining conditions for union autoworkers. Then in January, more than 150 autoworkers and community supporters, which included Greens, showed up to rally in front of the Detroit Auto Show. They voiced anger about the anti-union conditions that out-going President Bush had placed on the loan money to the auto industry. Wages, benefits and working conditions were to be forced down to non-union levels. At least half of the money the company was transferring to the union for healthcare was to be in company stock. Protesters are circulating a petition requesting President Obama rescind the Bush restrictions.

Union autoworkers and supporters protest declining conditions this January at the Detroit Auto Show. photo by Alan Pollock

After Election Day, union autoworkers were portrayed as “lazy and overpaid” with a wage of $70 an hour. Actual union wages are $28 not including benefits. To confront the lies created by members of Congress; in early December autoworkers organized a caravan to Washington. D.C. with participants coming from Detroit, Lordstown, OH, Anderson, IN, Lorkport, NY and Wilmington, DE.

At a press conference members of the auto caravan called for healthcare and pensions for all, and for shuttered auto plants to be converted into making socially necessary mass transit, light rail, and alternative energy like wind turbines. Later the auto caravan protesters gave an earful to Alabama Senator Richard Shelby and met with Michigan Representative John Conyers, whose single payer health care bill, HR.676 we support.

After World War II, the United Auto Workers (UAW) promoted small cars and single payer health care. But the companies preferred a health care system that was not government based. They liked the control it gave them over the workforce. For the union, company paid health care was just a fallback position. Now, because bad management decisions have led to a loss of market share, we now face a crisis.

When I retired three years ago at the age of 57, I was opening up a decent job for a young person. Since then, management has been trying to get out of its commitment to provide a secure retirement for myself and many others. This is a serious concern as the majority of my Detroit working-class neighbors rely on UAW pensions or survivors benefits.

Everything changed for autoworkers when the Delphi Corporation, one of the largest auto parts manufacturers, declared bankruptcy. It became clear it was trying to get out from under contractual obligations. Pension and health care benefits were reduced. The union agreed to concessions, and broke with the principle of solidarity by negotiating 2-tier wages and benefits for new hires. But these concessions only encouraged the corporations to further attack workers.

Wages, benefits and working conditions were to be forced down to non-union levels.

Now Bush’s anti-union actions demand unions cease to exist as any social force. That would make a whole lot of corporate heads happy, but it would end up depressing the wages of all workers. Union workers make 25 percent more than non-union workers but without that standard, non-union wages would plummet.

The autoworker caravan has been increasing its organizing with a website and will be sending out the first batch of signatures of the petition to President Obama. We are also gathering names for an open letter to Southern transplant autoworkers (non-union workers). People can go to the website and add their names to the letter. In the early spring, we plan to visit various plants and talk with workers.

Go to: www.autoworkercaravan.org

An excerpt from the Green presidential candidate’s speech

More than 20,000 people rallied in Washington D.C., January 10th as part of an international call to action with protests simultaneously occurring across the county and around the world to support people in Gaza and call for end to its destruction. A keynote speaker in Washington’s “Let Gaza Live” rally was 2008 Green presidential candidate, Cynthia McKinney.

Only days before, McKinney narrowly escaped when the boat she was on to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza was intentionally and repeatedly rammed by the Israeli military in international waters. The Israelis then sprayed gunfire around her boat; despite the envoy’s broadcast they were unarmed. McKinney’s boat was able to make it to land safely, but was unable to deliver the much-needed medical supplies.

Still reeling from her own personal experience, McKinney’s speech in Washington pointed out the role of the U.S. government in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and called citizens to speak out and to vote.

“Everywhere else around the world the carnage that is Gaza is being seen and the people are revolted by what they see.” Cynthia McKinney

Here are Cynthia McKinney’s words at the “Let Gaza Live” Rally:

We don’t see the images.  They are neatly censored from our view in this country.  But everywhere else around the world the carnage that is Gaza is being seen and the people are revolted by what they see.

They see dead babies, decapitated bodies, defenseless relief workers killed.  Maimed men, makeshift morgues, mortified mothers.

They see exploding white phosphorus shells, cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions.

They see what is reportedly the world’s fourth most powerful military using all of its power against a defenseless people.

In fact, they are witnesses to 15 days of war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

They see Hugo Chavez expel Venezuela’s Israeli Ambassador and they see lawmakers in Ecuador condemn Israel’s actions, calling for an investigation into Israel’s crimes against humanity.

And despite the obvious facts of an Israeli-sponsored terror campaign against Palestinians in Gaza, a piece of territory roughly twice the size of the District of Columbia, they see the U.S. Congress support a resolution totally supporting Israel, even though Israel is in violation of U.S. and international law.

They see Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, swaggering in insult to black America by initially refusing to seat Roland Burris from Illinois in the Senate, yet that same Reid cowers before the pro-Israel lobby, and they wonder why.

And sadly, they see the U.S. President-elect, who roared onto the scene like a lion, remain as quiet as a lamb in the face of the utter inhumanity of Israel’s actions, and they wonder why.

And then, they see us.  Gathered here in front of the White House, reaffirming our own humanity.  The tears of the Palestinians roll down our cheeks, even as we bury our own victims of police murder.

A new day is coming in U.S. politics.  We will use the power of our vote to change U.S. policy.  We will no longer check our values at the door and support politicians and political parties that fail to deliver.

Not one more bomb to Israel.

In defense of humanity, we will not give up and we will win.

Cynthia McKinney at the rally. photo courtesy of http://whitehouseprotest.org/

Greens in Maine keep Town Meeting going
by John Rensenbrink, Green-Rainbow Party of Maine

In the past year there came a troubling challenge to fundamental Green values of democracy in my hometown of Topsham, Maine. In the struggle that ensued, it is apparent how basic, from the ground up, the long struggle is for real democracy at every level, and how all struggles at all levels are deeply connected.

The challenge came from a strong effort by influential notables in Topsham to abandon our town meeting form of government and substitute it with a seven-person Town Council. The notables had successfully persuaded the town to establish a nine-person Charter Commission with the seductive argument that the town, having grown three times its size in thirty years, needed to have a close look at its form of government. They then worked successfully to run for the Commission. The Select Board appointed three people, while residents elected six positions, but it seemed only two members would be willing to keep our Town Meeting.

The leading members of the “Committee to Vote No on the Charter” (CVNC) who defeated a Charter Commission’s efforts to abolish Town Meeting in Topsham, Maine. From left to right, Angela Twitchell, John Rensenbrink, Jim Howard, and Liz Armstrong. Photographer: Charles Crosby

The Commission began meeting in January 2008. Already at their second meeting, they publicly announced their intention to come up with a town council form of government abandoning Town Meeting. They would work out the details in the next several months in time for it to be voted on in November during the presidential election cycle. This appalled residents partial to Town Meeting. We felt it would have been far more appropriate for a Charter Commission to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of various forms of government before coming to a conclusion. This would have put our existing town meeting form of government at least on an equal par with other governmental possibilities during the months of discussion leading to the election.

A group of residents formed to resist the Charter Commission’s plan. We had a strategy to: not help improve the Charter Commission’s cumbersome proposal, attend and express our opinion at their locally televised meetings, and make a point of saying the Commission was headed in the wrong direction.

Following an initial meeting several of us cohered together to do the hard labor: organizing, advocating, advertising, door-to-door canvassing, interviewing, TV programming, putting up signs all over town, phone calling, emailing, web-siting, fundraising, and participating in the one and only debate - all the things needed for a  strong campaign. In our partisan political loyalties, we were Republicans, Democrats, Greens, and Independents.

For the last two and a half months before the election on November 4, we gradually gained momentum. There were solid connections with: traditionalists who did not want a change; progressives who valued the scope and meaning of town meetings; and those who, though not attached to Town Meeting, nevertheless did not like the version of a Town Council proposed by the Commission. Crossing many political, economic and cultural lines, we became The Committee to Vote No on the Charter (CVNC).

A strong local government based directly on the sovereignty of the people is fundamental to self-governance.

It was difficult to be optimistic when the regional daily newspaper, the Times Record, endorsed a Town Council, despite numerous op-ed pieces against it in their newspaper and the CVNC meeting with the editorial board of the paper. Another regional paper, the weekly Forecaster, did the same. To counter the daily newspapers, the coalition put special CVNC flyers, placed ads, and contributed commentary in The Town Cryer, a local monthly, which is mailed gratis to every household in Topsham. This strategy proved very successful.

Still, a formidable hurdle was reaching out to new residents not familiar with Town Meeting. For the past 20 years, Topsham has been the fastest growing town in Maine, increasing from 4000 inhabitants in 1975 to over 11,000 today. A flood of people would be voting (it was the Obama election) but many unknowledgeable to Topsham ways. Also troublesome was the language of the referendum on the ballot. It invited a Yes vote if anyone was unsure how to vote and hadn’t paid much attention to the public debate.

Come election night, the counting in Topsham on our referendum was done by 9:00 p.m. We won! Hallelujah! It was a convincing victory with a 600-vote majority of 2950 to 2325.

CVNC immediately called for the creation of an ad hoc town committee to come up with recommendations to make Town Meetings more accessible and participatory. The hope is to incorporate a code of ethics and recall provisions in our current form of government, forestalling any attempt to depart from Town Meeting government. The Board of Selectmen approved our proposal for a Topsham Government Improvement Committee on December 4. Four members of the CVNC have applied to be on it, including myself, and chances are good we will be appointed.

We will strive to make Topsham’s Town Meeting a strong vehicle for community participation in government and for unity in the face of stringent economic times. Securing the basis for self-government also then provides the basis for greater degrees of local self-reliance in meeting social, economic, and ecological problems. We can try to work this into emerging efforts for regional cooperation as we move along.

A strong local government based directly on the sovereignty of the people is fundamental to self-governance. It ties in with community self-reliance in the basics of life, which in turn ties in with a solid and creative foundation for effective democracy at the regional, national, and global levels.

The life of California Green, Peter Camejo
by Mark Dunlea, Green Party of New York State

Peter Miguel Camejo, a civil rights leader, socially responsible investment pioneer, and founder of the California Green Party, died in September from lymphoma cancer with his wife Morella at his side - only days after completing his autobiography.

Camejo was a student leader, civil rights advocate, leader in the socially responsible investment industry with his own investment firm, Progressive Asset Management, Inc., and author of books on investment and history including “Racism, Revolution, Reaction, 1861-1877,” and “The Rise and Fall of Radical Reconstruction, California Under Corporate Rule.”

Photo by Luke Thomas

Camejo used his eloquence, sharp wit, and barnstorming bravado to blaze a trail for 21st century third party politics in the U.S. He ran for president in 1976 as the Socialist Workers Party candidate. He made three gubernatorial runs in California as a Green, including one in the 2002 election when he earned 5.3 percent of the vote. In the 2003 recall election, he debated Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gray Davis. In San Francisco, Camejo captured 15 percent of the city’s vote - placing second ahead of the Republican Party’s gubernatorial candidate. This was an unprecedented electoral accomplishment for a third party in San Francisco and California. In the 2004 presidential election, he was the vice-presidential running mate of Ralph Nader. He always considered himself a Socialist at heart, calling himself a watermelon - “Green on the outside, red on the inside.”

Camejo’s example and tireless party work served as an inspiration to potential Green Party candidates across California. Camejo’s 2002 gubernatorial campaign was the precursor to the election, or near election, of several high profile Green Party candidates. Former Green Party San Francisco Board of Supervisors President, Matt Gonzales, successfully harnessed the voter energy precipitated by Camejo’s gubernatorial run and nearly toppled Democrat Gavin Newsom during San Francisco’s 2003 razor-thin mayoral run-off election.

“Peter Camejo was a rare transcendental figure of the American left.” Antonio Gonzalez

“Among the many causes Peter championed were a living wage, healthcare for all, and making the U.S. the world leader in renewable energy,” noted Ralph Nader. “He was a passionate advocate for electoral reform, pressing for proportional representation and instant run-off voting [which allows voters to rank their top choices] in an effort to overturn the 200 year-old dysfunctional money-dominated winner-take-all-system that disrespects the will of the people.”

Peter Miguel Camejo was born in 1939 to a wealthy Venezuelan couple. Because his mother felt more comfortable with the American standard of health care, she gave birth at a New York hospital in the Bronx, giving Camejo dual citizenship. He spent his early childhood in Venezuela.

Camejo earned a perfect score on the math portion of his SAT, then attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology but dropped out to pursue civil rights work in the American south, where he marched in Selma, Alabama. Later he resumed his studies at UC Berkeley, but was expelled for his vocal criticism of the Vietnam War. His official transgression was “unauthorized use of a microphone” as part of a Free Speech Movement demonstration. Then-governor, Ronald Reagan included college student Camejo on his 1968 list of the 10 most dangerous Californians, noting he was ‘Present at all anti-war demonstrations.”

“Peter Camejo was a rare transcendental figure of the American left,” wrote Antonio Gonzalez. Rooted in the historic Trotskyist-left of the Fourth International, Camejo was culturally a creature of the New Left sixties, during which he excelled as a leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and anti-Vietnam war movement. Camejo in the early 1980’s increasingly believed that American left politics’ fundamental problem was their inability to connect to the American experience.

Howie Hawkins, a co-founder of the Green Party in America who worked with Camejo in 2006 on the book “Green Party Strategy Debate,” remarked “Peter had a fierce commitment to civil liberties and civil rights that led him to champion grassroots democracy, including within the Greens. He wanted to see democracy extended into the economy. He always wanted to make sure that the rank and file of any movement he was involved with knew what was going on and had a way to participate. His Avocado Declaration in the 2004 Presidential race put the need for political independence into historical context for the Greens.”

“History shows that the Democrats and Republican are not two counterpoised forces, but rather complementary halves of a single two-party system,” Camejo wrote. “For over 130 years the two major parties have been extremely effective in preventing the emergence of any mass political formation that could challenge their political monopoly. Both major parties have been dominated by moneyed interests and today reflect the historic period of corporate rule. Every major gain in our history – the battles for Bill of Rights, to end slavery, and to establish free public education – has been the product of direct action by movements independent of the two major parties and in opposition to them. Since the Civil War, without exception, the Democratic Party has opposed all mass struggles for democracy and social justice.”

Greg Gerritt reflects on his life as a Green and his new direction
by Greg Gerritt, Green Party of Rhode Island and founding member of the Green Party in the United States

After 25 years of actively working within the Green Party apparatus in the United States, I have decided to step out of the bureaucracy and devote all of my Green Party time to working with Green candidates. My colleagues have asked me to reflect a bit on my work as a Green over those years, so here is the very short version.

"If the Green Party ever becomes the kind of political force we hope it will be, no one, absolutely no one, will be more responsible than Greg Gerritt." Richard Walton, Green Party of Rhode Island.

I first heard about the Green Party when I learned of the initial success of the German Green Party in 1980. I immediately noted we needed a Green Party in the U.S. Early in 1984, John Rensenbrink and a few colleagues called the first Green Party (GP) meeting in the U.S. in Augusta, Maine. I did not know about that first meeting, but I went to the second meeting in February 1984, and until November 2008 I have been continually involved in some sort of Green Party bureaucracy.

In 1986, I was the first Green in the U.S. to run for state legislature. It was the right-sized district for a shoe leather campaign, about 8200 people, and after knocking on about 90 percent of the doors in the district, I received 16 percent of the vote in a three party race, nearly winning in my own community and coming within 6 percent of placing second. To this day, I maintain state representative races, especially in states with relatively small districts, are excellent for Greens to win with shoe leather campaigns.

In my campaign, I focused on bad forest practices, a bad economy, and credibility on economic issues. The ability to demonstrate that a Green economy can lead to prosperity is what will determine our long-term success. Unless Americans believe a green economy works and can provide a decent living for them and their neighbors; we do not get elected. Good candidates address this daily.

To this day, I maintain state representative races, especially in states with relatively small districts, are excellent for Greens to win with shoe leather campaigns.

In 1991, the Green National Gathering in Elkins, West Virginia, was a tumultuous affair. I was chosen to lead a committee coming out of this event that would explore what type of structure the GP should use for its national committee. In 1992 each committee member wrote an essay on what they thought would be best. I compiled the essays and submitted them. My suggestion was that we become a federation of state parties, with each state party being fairly autonomous. I maintained this was useful because it could partly compensate for the ridiculous array of election laws we face and would prevent a small number of state parties from controlling the whole party.

The federation approach was continued when we transformed from the Association of State Green Parties to the Green Party of the United States. Although some Greens still advocate for individual membership, which would give California dominance, the association of state parties has proven to be a viable structure.

While the GP caught a wave with Ralph Nader in 2000, the world and the party has changed, and for 2008 we needed a candidate dedicated to the party. As a member of the Presidential Campaign Support Committee, I lead efforts to educate the state parties and the potential candidates about the nomination process. I will help them to prepare for a crazy year.

I was proud of the four candidates who made it to the convention, Jesse Johnson, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, and Kat Swift, all of whom used their campaigns to build the party. I am also proud that my last major action for the Green Party was to lead the workshop at the national committee meeting the morning after the nomination to help our nominee, Cynthia McKinney, integrate her campaign into the party structure.

As I step away from the bureaucracy, my next Green project will be to create a consulting business called the Green Party Candidates and Campaign Resource Center. It will be a small network of experienced Green campaigners and former candidates who will work with Green candidates, campaign teams, and state parties to help them run better campaigns. I have already lined up a number of cooperators for this project, and, now that I no longer have any official positions, I am moving swiftly on the project, recruiting Green campaign consultants, and publicizing it so by the time the 2010 election season rolls around, many months from now for winter elections, we shall have a team in place, ready and able to help every Green candidate who can use it. It will have no bureaucracy and no nay-sayers and, after 25 years in the bureaucracy, I am really going to enjoy that.

Anyone who wants to be involved, drop me a line at gerritt@mindspring.com.

The Kansas City Food Circle promotes organic local foods
by Ben Kjelshus, Green Party of Kansas City

The Kansas City Food Circle, founded in 1994 by the Kansas City Greens, links eaters with organic local food producers. It is one of the leading organizations promoting organic local foods in the heartland. Our 2008 KC Food Circle Directory lists 56 local food producers, four organic farmers markets, and 16 restaurants where Food Circle farmers supply locally produced foods. New projects include: promoting local food buying clubs (with one already established), two annual farmers exhibitions, and the 100 mile diet. 

The success of the Kansas City Food Circle is encouraging, and so is the nation-wide steady growth of organic local food production in recent years. Nevertheless, there is the stark reality of peak oil and the troubling prediction that global oil demand will exceed supply within four years. This forebodes escalating energy and food prices, and a precarious future for our food system. There is a crucial need to take decisive and strategic action to prepare for difficult times ahead.

The Green Movement is presented with a challenge - and an opportunity - to play a vital role in transforming our food system from our current vulnerable, fossil-fuel-based, corporate-controlled food system to a sustainable, regionally based, largely self-reliant food system. Greens, with their key value of future focus and their recognition of holistic systems, are well suited to be catalysts for change. The many problems in our society we see as connected and interrelated; consequently the solutions are also connected and interrelated. 

Ben Kjelshus

Two visionary Greens, Nancy Lee Bentley and David Yarrow, were involved in the formulation of the Food Circle, and the Kansas City Greens, we believe, were the first to apply the Food Circle concept. 

So Greens, let’s accept the challenge. Take decisive action and start Food Circles in your areas!

How to Start a Food Circle

There are two ways to start a Food Circle. One way is to start from “scratch” and the other is to begin under the auspices of an existing organization. The two approaches are not very different. In the first approach you start where you are, with the people you associate and work with, and with people who have similar interests as yours. It’s best not to start with a meeting. Instead, talk with several people you would like to work with, one on one, about the food system issue and about planning steps. Get their thinking and share your ideas. Talk about Food Circles and what they can do. Discuss who might be involved. These initial contacts might become the organizing committee. Your committee should include a person with organizing experience. The organizing committee should also do some planning before bringing people together in a larger group, especially about what decisions have to be made and how to make them. (A good resource is Si Kahn’s Organizing, A Guide for Grassroots Leader, NASW Press, 1981.)

In starting a Food Circle under the auspices of an existing Green organization, work with fellow members who would be willing to serve on the project’s organizing committee. It is advisable to bring persons willing to serve on the organizing committee (and others interested in creating a sustainable good system) in touch with the sponsoring organization at an early stage. One way to locate farmers and growers is to visit with them at farmers markets and roadside stands and find out their interests (no vendors, please.) Also check out the agricultural section of newspaper ads.

The First Meeting

In preparing the list of invitees for the larger meeting, keep in mind the Food Circle approach of linking the many sectors of the food system — eaters, farmers, small-scale growers, small-scale retailers, nutritionists and others such as sympathetic university extension agents and community activists. Remember, a Food Circle is more than a means to provide fresh, wholesome food. It is a link among the many sectors of the food system with the goal of taking back control and responsibility for our food system.

Meetings should come early in the organizing effort. For a meeting to be successful it should:

1. Communicate information.
2. Result in at least one decision.
3. Agree on who is willing to do what. (Everyone leaving the meeting should have some task or tasks to do.)
4. Build a sense of accomplishment and community among those attending.

Developing a Strategy

Working strategies need to be an important part of the new organization. A beginning project could be to promote a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) project, such as subscription buying. This is an informal partnership between farmer and eater in which eaters support local organic farms and receive a weekly supply of fresh, good tasting produce during the growing season.

Once set up, Food Circles have considerable opportunities to take on projects and actions to advance a sustainable food system - such as starting a directory of regional organic food producers, starting organic farmers markets, and setting up local organic food buying clubs. Greens can be at the center of the movement to build sustainable, largely self-reliant, regional food systems.

For more information go to: www.KCFoodCircle.org or contact Ben Kjelshus at bkjelshus@sbcglobal.net. 

A book review by David McCorquodale
Green Party of Delaware

The Fourth Wave, this book by Canadian Mark Henderson is an effort to envision how an environmental revolution would change mankind and suggest initial steps to make such a change possible. Proceeding from the premise that just as the information age has changed the way human beings interact as described by Alvin Toffler in The Third Wave, so too will the environmental revolution change mankind by putting “a stop to the chronic and wanton destruction of the planet and to the reckless wasting and plundering of non-renewable resources.”

Subtitled The key recommendation for this transformation is to create a different type of taxation system by eliminating consumption taxes and drastically reducing income taxes on the average working person and, instead, putting in place an environmental taxation system (ETS). This system would levy taxes based on the environmental impact or scarcity of three classes of substances: metals, toxic compounds, and fossil fuels. Similarly, taxes would be levied on packaging.

ETS would create much more disposable income for individuals, but products would cost much more, depending on the environmental impact of the product. In the beginning, the amount of tax raised by the new system would equal the old taxation system. But individuals and businesses would rapidly begin to change their consumption patterns to reduce costs and would begin to consume in a more sustainable pattern.

The key recommendation for this transformation is to create a different type of taxation system.

The author points to several possible positive developments from such a system. The taxation bureaucracy would be simplified, with costs levied at the basic level and passed on up the chain of manufacturing to the consumer, instead of levying taxes at every point in the chain. Markets for recycling and renewables would dramatically expand, as limited resources are deemed valuable, instead of viewed as trash. “The ETS would rely on government for general directions and on the market for complex decisions,” without burdening businesses with reams of paperwork to comply with environmental regulations as happens currently. The logic of the system would lead business enterprises into doing what is right for the planet because it is also the profitable way to proceed.

The book, which is presented as the first of a series by publisher Waves of the Future, leaves some issues unaddressed. While nuclear power is derived from toxic metals, the author did not specifically address the issue, which many politicians, in the thrall of the energy companies, have pushed as an intermediate solution to dependence on foreign oil.  The author’s model is based on Canada, which is both a less complex economic model and more progressive already than the United States.

Perhaps the thorniest unmentioned problem is the question of how to put the ETS into law when politicians are beholden to corporations whose business model is based on waste. In a country where over half of the federal budget goes to “defense”, including wasteful armaments production, and every state gets handouts to keep the addiction going, how do we start the process of weaning the economy from wasteful production?

The author acknowledges the ETS system is not the final answer because it does not assume a reduction in consumption, which would mean unemployment, and which would be politically unpopular. But it would make the products we buy greener. If population continues to increase, even the ETS may not be enough. But it would be an intermediate step that could start humanity on the road to a greener future. Greens who wish to convince others that they can to lead society toward sustainability should become familiar with these ideas.

by Steve Bloom
Green Party of New York State

Sometimes politics proves to be
as strange as poetry.

Never thought that I would feel
at home in a demonstration
where one American flag
follows another,
after another,
after another.

But today it’s not the usual “my
country can beat up your country” crowd.
No, this time it’s the invisible people,
speaking out loud for a change.

“I am Haitian;
I am Korean;
I am Pakistani,”
they tell me.

“I am Dominican;
I am Mexicana;
I am Filipino;
I am Ethiopian;
I am Jamaican;
I am Guatemalan and
I live here too.
I will not be less of a human being than you.

“I fly the flag of my country.
And I fly the flag of my other country;
for whether I am there or here
your nation would collapse
without the work I do.”

So I stand here watching, ask myself
whether we have, perhaps, just taken
one small step toward the day
when every human being
will, at last, fly every flag
of every nation
and still feel at home.

Day of Immigrants Rally: May 1, 2006: Union Square, NYC

Arne Næss is dead, 96 years old. The Green party wishes to thank its honorary member since 1997 for everything he has contributed in the 20 years of the party’s existence. Næss has been a source of inspiration not only to us, but to the entire international movement of green parties. As the father of ecosophy and a real pioneer of holistic ecological thinking, he has created the basis on which much green thinking rests. In many ways he was far ahead of his time. - his humility, sense of wonder and playful attitude towards all that surrounds us, are values we now need more than ever.

Arne Næss was not only a man of big thoughts, but also a man of action. Many remember his participation in nonviolent direct action at Mardøla in 1970 and at Alta ten years later. Arne Næss was environmentalism in practice.

Arne Næss was indeed a great man. We are very grateful for what he gave us, for always saying yes to our invitations and for being anchorman on our lists in Oslo at local and national elections since 1987. He was our political and ideological guarantee. This year for the first time somebody else will have to play that part. It will be a big challenge.

At this time our thoughts go to Arne’s family and friends. We shall do what we can to take his thinking into the twentyfirst century. Thank you, Arne!

Arne Næss er død, 96 år gammel. Miljøpartiet De Grønne takker sitt æresmedlem fra 1997 for alt han har bidratt med i de 20 årene partiet har eksistert. Næss har vært en stor inspirasjonskilde ikke bare for oss, men for hele den internasjonale grønne partibevegelsen. Som økosofiens far og en virkelig pioner innen helhetlig økologisk tenkning har han skapt fundamentet mye grønn ideologi hviler på. På mange måter var han langt forut for sin tid – hans ydmykhet, undring og lekenhet overfor alt som omgir oss er verdier vi trenger nå mer enn noensinne.

Arne Næss var ikke bare en mann av store tanker, men også av handling. Mange husker hans engasjement i forbindelse med blant annet Mardøla-aksjonen og kampen om Alta-vassdraget på 70-tallet og hans deltakelse i sivil ulydighet for saken. Arne Næss var miljøvern i praksis.

Arne Næss var en virkelig stor mann. Vi er dypt takknemlige for det han har gitt oss, for at han alltid stilte opp og for at han innehadde æresplassen på vår valgliste i Oslo til kommunevalg og stortingsvalg i alle år siden partiets grunnleggelse i 1987. Han var vår politiske og ideologiske garantist. I år blir noen andre for første gang nødt til å fylle den rollen. Det blir et stort tomrom å fylle.

Samtidig går våre tanker til Arnes familie og venner. Vi vil gjøre alt vi kan for at hans tanker bringes videre inn i det 21. århundret. Takk for alt, Arne!

http://www.mdg.no/2009/01/13/hedrer-arne-naess