Saturday, July 19, 2014

30 Years of the Green Party in the U.S.


St. PAUL, MN (PR) - The party of sustainability, justice, peace and democracy -- the Green Party of the United States (GPUS) -- will hold its 2014 National Committee Meeting in St. Paul, MN, from July 24-27, 2014. The 2014 meeting marks the 30th anniversary of the first national get-together of Greens, which took place at Macalester College.

The first national Green organization was founded at that meeting, the decentralized Green Committees of Correspondence, with the goal of organizing local groups and working towards a Green political organization. The Ten Key Values adopted by the Green Party were put forth during the 1984 meeting.

The Green Party's 2012 Convention in Baltimore showed the party's growth over the last decade and increasingly important Green presence in U.S. Politics for the 21st century.

More than 220 Green Party candidates ran for office in 2012.

The Green Party was founded in 2001 as a national party, after spending the 1990s building on the local and state level. Today, 128 Greens hold elected office across the nation, and approximately 300,000 voters are registered Green. Many thousands more identify themselves as Green in states that don’t have party membership by voter registration. Greens are organized in all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, and the number of state Green parties affiliated with the national party
stands at 44, more than double the number in 2001. In the 2012 general election, the Green Party had ballot lines in 37 states, including the five largest states.

Internationally, U.S. Greens are part of a global movement of Green Parties in 100 countries, reflecting a shared commitment to heal our planet that transcends national identities and political boundaries.

Greens have run for office since the first Green Parties were founded in Tasmania and New Zealand in 1972. Since then, Greens have been elected to thousands of seats around the globe in local, regional, national and international parliaments. On the national level, Greens hold a total of at least 314 seats as of December 2013, up from 296 in July 2011. This includes 222 seats in 20 European nations and another 86 seats in Australia (10), Brazil (11), Canada (2), Colombia (8), Congo (1), Egypt (1) México
(37), Mongolia (2), New Zealand (14) and Vanuatu (5). There are also 46 Greens
holding seats in the European Parliament.

Most Greens elected at the regional, national or international level have been elected in multi-seat electorates (districts/constituencies/ridings) through systems of proportional representation. However Greens have increasingly been winning direct election in singleseat electorates, including Elizabeth May to the Canadian House of Commons in 2011 and Caroline Lucas to the British House of Commons in 2010.

The GPUS participates as a member of the Federación de Partidos Verdes de las Americas, and globally as a charter member of the Global Greens. In 2012, over 400 Greens from 76 countries attended the third Global Greens Congress held in Dakar, Senegal. The Congress approved the Rio+20 Summit resolution, which calls for actions supporting a Green economy across the globe.

Ten Key Values

1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY. New types of political organizations will expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.

2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY. All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment.

3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM. A sustainable society utilizing resources will insure that future generations will benefit and avoid dire consequences from wasteful resource management.

4. NON-VIOLENCE. Without being naive about the intentions of other governments, we will work to demilitarize and eliminate weapons of mass destruction. National security is more reliant on diplomacy and good stewardship.

5. DECENTRALIZATION. Restructuring of social, political and economic institutions is required to fix a system which is mired in bureaucracy, and controlled by a powerful few.

6. COMMUNITY-BASED ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE. A vibrant and sustainable economic system is rooted in independently-owned small businesses. Government must do more to assist socially and economically responsible businesses.

7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY. Respecting differences of opinion and gender strengthen our country and communities.

8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY. High value must be placed on cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity.

9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY. Individuals should be encouraged to improve their personal well-being and join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace, economic justice, and the health of the planet.

10. FUTURE FOCUS AND SUSTAINABILITY. Short-term profits should not damage long-term economic development and new technologies. Fiscal policies must be held to account for implications to future generations.

Archivo: Entrevista con una dirigente latina del Partido Verde en el 2012


Contacting the Green Party
Green Party Co-Chairs
Karen Young, karenyoung521@yahoo.com, NY
Darryl Moch, nubianphoenix1@gmail.com, DC
Charles Ostdiek, iconofcharles@gmail.com, NE
Katey Culver, katey@gp.org, TN
Starlene Rankin, starlene@gp.org, OR
Jesse Townley, jt02@mindspring.com, CA
Tamar Yager, tamar@gp.org, VA
Secretary: Budd Dickinson secretary@gp.org WA
Treasurer: Jeff Turner, jeff@gp.org HI

Press/Media Contacts
Scott McLarty, 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org
National Staff: Brian Bittner, Office Manager, brian@gp.org, 202-319-7191
National Office: PO Box 57065 , Washington, D.C. 20037 202-319-7191 office@gp.org

Green Party on Social Media
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/GreenPartyUS
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GreenPartyUS
Green Party weblinks
Green Party Homepage: http://www.gp.org
Green Platform: http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/2010/index.php
Green candidate database & campaign information: http://www.gp.org/elections.shtml
Green Party News Center: http://www.gp.org/newscenter.shtml
Green Papers: http://www.greenpapers.net/
GP-TV Green Party Livestream Channel: http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus
Green Party Speakers Bureau: http://www.gp.org/speakers
Video Page: http://www.gp.org/video/index.php
Green Pages: http://gp.org/greenpages-blog/
Green Party Ballot Access Page: http://www.gp.org/committees/ballot/
International Committee of the Green Party: http://www.gp.org/committees/intl

Federación de Partidos Verdes de las Américas:
http://www.verdesamericagreens.org/docs/english.htm
Global Greens: www.globalgreens.org
Global Green Charter: http://www.globalgreens.org/globalcharter

Green-TEA Party: "An Unholy" Alliance (Occupy.com)

Debbie Dooley, a co-founder of the Atlanta Tea Party Patriots speaking of the Green Tea Coalition refers as an “unholy alliance” of right and left grassroots that has big oil interests reeling.

“It’s an unholy alliance because they see it as a threat to them,” Dooley said, speaking about the launch of the coalition a year ago. “In the past, the elites on both the right and the left got away with it. On the right, they’d say, ‘This person’s on the left. Stay away from them,’ On the left, they’d say, ‘They’re radical, they’re the Tea Party. Stay away from them.’

"But we got through all that bull, got to know each other, and started working together,” she said.

In 2012, the Atlanta Tea Patriot Patriots joined the NAACP and the Sierra Club to successfully defeat a $7.2 billion transit tax referendum. That same year, Tea joined forces with Occupy Atlanta and the AFL-CIO to stop an anti-union bill that would have banned protests at private residences (the bill sought to protect the “right of quiet enjoyment” of CEOs).

The threat of a grassroots movement united across ideological lines manifested itself again when the Tea Party Patriots – allied with environmentalists of the Sierra Club – triumphed in a win for solar energy.

Like many other states, Georgia law, through the 1973 Territorial Act, grants a single electric utility supplier the exclusive right to generate electrical power services. The beneficiary in Georgia is Georgia Power, which is owned by the Southern Company. Southern Company is the fourth largest utility in the country, with operations also in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi.

Even electric co-operatives in the state aren’t allowed to generate their own energy under present law. Instead, they must buy it through Georgia Power, relying on a power grid that operates mainly off coal, gas, and nuclear power.

The alliance between greens and Taxed Enough Already (TEA) activists nationwide most likely be one of the issues to be discussed at the top level of the Green Party during the convention.

The Green Party in the United States is the political organization trying to influence the two party system (Democratic and Republican Party) that dominates the political system of government in the country.

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