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On a Quest: Drafting a Green Platform, Building Credible Green Politics
Steven J Schmidt - SJS / Reflecting on the drafting of the founding platform of the U.S. Green Party
In the mid-1990s, a Zuma's 'Electronic' Cyber Cafe in Santa Fe was an unlikely place for a writer to do what he called "serious writing". Yet there I was, a 'regular drop in' as the herbal barkeep called me who padded daily to a back room as rows of video games blasted from first-gen computer consoles.
I'm thinking Doom had the loudest explosions, blasts and sound effects, but the cacophony of multiple shooter games added up to an ongoing killer din. Personally I thought the contrast between the war games and the peace and prosperity Green politics platform I was writing in my hourly rented Cafe back room was ironically appropriate.
Not far from my home base there on Montezuma Avenue in the city of the 'holy faith of St Francis', across the Rio Grande valley and perched on finger mesas is the 'Birthplace of the Bomb', Los Alamos, the U.S. National Lab that continues to this day as the epicenter of nuclear weapons development worldwide.
The contrast could hardly be more stark -- what are called the "Stewards of the Bomb", a "Nuclear Priesthood" with the power to end life on Earth as we know it, confronted by a vision of peace beyond a nuclear sword of Armageddon and catastrophe.
Take a look back at what the Green platform typed up at Zuma's went on to become... a part of a movement, rippling waves, a "physics of peace" carrying far beyond Santa Fe --
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Party
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Platform
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Politics
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Values
I used to say 'every word came off that keyboard of mine' and, on occasion would add, 'I think it's appropriate that the city named after the 'holy faith' of St, Francis, the patron saint of ecology, brought forth such a Green vision.
For the historians, that Green platform and Green values helped to create a worldwide Green Party (now in over a hundred countries).
In the 1980s, Greens as a political movement started making news in Europe as an anti-nuke peace party and then in many nations became known as an environmental party that was unique in confronting existential threats, real threats that we saw facing humanity. We saw early on the danger of war, threats of all life and our "commons". We organized and wrote of escalating threats that were strategic demands.
My own green (lower case c) work went back to the 60s, decades of work before Zuma's. I moved to Santa Fe, as I explained to a writer friend, Stirling (who wrote "In the Heat of the Night") that I needed to do "serious writing" and my previous script, "Another Perfect Day in Paradise" was a success financially but not what I was meant to do in my life. Stirling advised me to "leave Hollywood, or you'll get trapped here" (as he was). I moved to Camino del Monte Sol and an early computer and I began to 'go green', seriously green, I was on a mission to draft a future-looking political party platform. I could see it, the vision of what could be and the words were coming off my fingertips. I was envisioning the formation of a "serious, credible, platform-based" U.S. political party that could and would interact with Democrats and Republicans and deliver an independent, on-the-merits push for real political change, serious change. Zuma's Cyber Cafe energy and energy drinks upped my feeling that much was possible. A 360 picture...
Greening Our Blue Planet | Generation Green
🌎
- Steve Schmidt, New Mexico Lt. Governor candidate
The New Mexico Green Party platform that I had worked up for a 1994 campaign for Lt. Governor acted to turn the NM Green Party into a "major party with ballot standing". A national Green organizing strategic plan that I drafted followed and became a model for a new national political platform and party. I worked for many months leading up to a 1996 Green convention in LA and then many more months leading up to a large convention in Denver creating the "official platform". The document was voted to be the U.S. Green Party Platform and at the center of a new application submitted to the Federal Election Commission, which approved the legal standing of the new U.S. Green Party and status as a national committee.
Looking back at Zuma's, I would add one note. The Santa Fe Institute in its pioneering work to study interconnections in systems proved profoundly valuable, as I worked to put forward new Green ideas bringing together politics, science, key values and sustainability strategies.
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Values -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Platform
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Green_Party -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Party
- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:Green_Politics -- https://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Going_Green
More re: Green Party history
US Green Party Founding Platform
US Green Party National Platform - Official National Platform
Approved in 2000 / National Green Party Convention / Denver, CO
http://gpus.org/committees/platform-committee/2000-platform/
Green Party US / Founding Platform / 2000 / PDF
"The Green Platform hands down is the most thorough, justice-saturated platform of any political party platform of the day. Reminds me of some of the great platforms of many decades ago when parties -- at least one -- stood tall for the working people of this country." (Ralph Nader: July 2000 at the Green Party national convention)
"You must know that you were responsible for all this. All I did was accept.... Most of the issues and the subjects that the Green Party is adhering to are majoritarian positions in the United States of America and this is what commended the Green Party so much to those of us who were not in on the founding is that if you look very carefully at the Green Party platform, that's being proposed for your approval, this is by far the most comprehensive, broad-based platform that deals with the wide-range of systemic justice that's needed in this country. From the political to the corporate, to the cultural, to the civil liberties, civil rights, of any platform in the country." (August 1996 Green Party nomination acceptance speech)
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The Ten Key Values of the Green Party of the US_'the KVs' of Founding Platform approved in Denver, CO, 2000
The U.S. Green Party "Ten Key Values"
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The beginning of the Green Party in the US was convoluted and an extraordinary challenge...
A 'duopoly', a dominant two-party system is a multi-state obstruction to ballot access. Electoral laws in the U.S. act as barriers to independent parties and alternative policy.
The political challenge in the U.S. continues as Greens and green-policy advocates face rapidly multiplying global environmental security challenges, risks and threats...
File:Early-History-of-the-US-Green-Party-by-JR.pdf
File:2000GreenPartyPlatform.pdf
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