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THE STRUGGLE FOR GREEN JUSTICE IN THE CALIFORNIA GREEN PARTY

by Kwazi Nkrumah

The Green Party of California originated as an offshoot of the Green Committees of Correspondence (now known as the Greens/Green Party U.S.A.), a national confederation of local groups. These were inspired by the example of the German and European Green Parties and movements which had spanned the gap between direct action and anti nuclear, feminist, peace and environmental organizing. They had entered the electoral arena as an independent force in order to implement new public policy.

The Amerikkkan Greens, like their European counterparts, were almost exclusively white, came out of the anti nuclear, peace, womens' and environmental movements and were constituted largely from middle class and/or academic backgrounds, including students, intellectuals and professionals. However, unlike the German or European Greens, the Amerikkkan Greens were functioning as a white movement in a MULTI RACIAL SOCIETY whose principle contradiction has always been RACE!!! In addition the social structure in this country has thrown up a brick wall between its radical "intelligentsia" on the one hand and the labor movement and the desperate survival struggles of racial minorities on the other.

As if all of this were not enough, the Greens have been trying to evolve new organizational methods which encompass principles of non hierarchical relations, gender justice, decentralization and grass roots democracy at a time when Amerikkan capitalist society has been shifting very radically to the right. As anyone who is not absolutely comatose knows, it is this political drift to the right which is driving the greater and greater concentration of wealth and power into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals and corporate groups.

This drift to the right is also what is strengthening every form of social elitism and engendering full scale race, class and gender warfare, leading to the political, economic and psychological disempowerment of millions and millions of people. This is the harsh political and social environment in which a fervent, idealistic, but often politically naive movement has been laboring to construct something it only vaguely defines as "the Green Alternative".

In the few short years of its existence, the Green Party has gone through many ups and downs on the struggle against racism and other Green Justice concerns (such as gender injustice, ageism, disability rights, class issues etc.) within its own ranks. The results have been mixed, but the general trend has been toward progress. Ralph Nader and his campaign have greatly raised the level of awareness among the Greens on issues of economics and class. While the Green Party has developed greater insights on social justice concerns, the probability is that internal organizational struggles will continue to be necessary before a model of Green Justice emerges as the standard of the movement as a whole.

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