Charlene Spretnak holds degrees from St Louis University and the University of California, Berkeley. She is active in t...
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Charlene Spretnak holds degrees from St Louis University and the University of California, Berkeley. She is active in the feminist, peace and ecology movements. In 1984 she co-founded a national Green political organization in the USA, the Committees of Correspondence. She also delivered the 1984 lecture of the E. F. Schumacher Society of America, 'Green Politics: The Spiritual Dimension'. She is the author of 'Naming the Cultural Forces that Push Us toward War' Uournal of Humanistic Psychology, Summer 1983), editor of the anthology The Politics of Women's Spirituality and author of Lost Goddesses of Early Greece. Fritjof Capra is a native of Austria who has lived in the United States for over ten years. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Vienna and has done research in high-energy physics at several European and American universities. He is currently working at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory of the University of California. In addition to his many technical research papers, Dr Capra has written and lectured extensively about the philosophical, social and political implications of modern science. He is the author of two international bestsellers, The Tao of Physics and The Turning Point.
CHARLENE SPRETNAK AND FRITJOF CAPRA In collaboration with Rudiger Lutz
Green Politics
PALADIN GRAFTON BOOKS A Division of the Collins Publishing Group LONDON GLASGOW TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND
Paladin Grafton Books A Division of the Collins Publishing Group 8 Grafton Street, London W1X 3LA A Paladin Paperback Original 1985 First published in thQlitics for the 1984 election. The preamble of the Green platform states that in Europe, as in other parts of the world, militarism, the destruction of nature, and the exploitation of people do not stop at national borders. Therefore, a Green European politics is needed that will encourage the cooperation of the social, ecological, and peace movements in East and West beyond national frontiers. The aim of the common 175
Green programme is to facilitate the creation of a confederation of European Green parties for the European elections and the European Parliament, which will carry out a common Green politics. The following section of the platform presents the Green critique of current European politics. After World War 11 , the creation of the Common Market and the other European institutions was accompanied by great hopes for a peaceful Europe without national borders. However, what emerged in Brussels during the subsequent decade was a bloated bureaucracy incomprehensible to the citizens of Europe and removed from all parliamentary control. Moreover, the European Economic Community committed itself to economic growth in its founding treaty and has since supported the destructive direction of industrial societies. Therefore, the European Greens reject the EEC, maintaining that it is based on competition and exploitation. They point out that not even the European Community for Coal and Steel, from which the EEC originally emerged, has been able to prevent crisis and massive unemployment in these sectors. Similarly, the European agricultural policy, which takes up about 80 per cent of the EEC budget, has not been able to prevent the agricultural crisis. On the contrary, by accelerating the emphasis on industrial agriculture and food production it has contributed to the ruin of small and medium-size farms and to the poisoning of soil and food. The European Atomic Community (EURATOM), together with the European Investment Bank (EIB), has encouraged a dangerous and anti-ecological energy policy through its enthusiastic promotion of nuclear power. The Green platform also states that the foreign policy of the EEC has in no way fulfilled the European hopes for a peaceful future. In fact, the Greens are afraid that the European Economic Community may lead to a European Defence Community. Another superpower is the last thing they would want. They point out that the enlargement of the EEC is often discussed in strategic terms - membership of Spain and Portugal would allow NATO to establish strategic bases on the Canary Islands, and so on - and that the majority of the European Parliament has supported this militaristic tendency, for example, by proposing the creation of a European armament agency and by demanding military naval cooperation of EEC countries in the South Atlantic. In addition, the European Parliament has also supported foreign policies vis-a.-vis the Third World that have virtually ignored the historical obligation of Europe. The 176
Community, especially after the acceptance of Spain and Portugal as new members, is comprised of the very countries that exploited the peoples of Asia, Africa, and Latin America for hundreds of years as colonial powers. The final part of the Green critique of European politics concerns the system of elections to the European Parliament. The platform points out that arbitrary barriers in the national electoral systems prevent grassroots-democratic political organizations from contributing to the reconstruction of Europe from below because they are kept out of the parliamentary process. However, the platform also notes that in spite of this considerable handicap the European Green movement is increasingly taking the form of political parties that share as their highest motive the survival of people and nature in the face of the present global threat. The main portion of the Green platform consists of their proposals, which a~e presented in five sections: peace, environmental, social-economic, and Third World policies, and the Green vision of Europe's future. The starting point of ,the peace policy is 'an emphatic engagement to prevent a third and atomic world war.' The Green parties assert that the new European order they envisage must be based on friendship between peoples and ethnic groups, on nonviolence, and on freedom from military blocs. They also suggest that military concepts of defence should be replaced by civilian concepts, such as social defence, and they express the belief that the European Parliament, in close cooperation with the peace movement, should make new initiatives towards this end. Roland Vogt pointed out to us that the European Economic Community, so far, does not have a military wing, its military security being the responsibility of NATO. When the EEC was founded, the plan ofa European army was rejected by the French, and since then no military branch has been developed. The Greens believe that the Europeans should turn the present state of affairs, which came about by historical coincidence, into a - principle: Europe as a non military power. Vogt reminded us that the sociologist Max Weber defined the state as the only body empowered to use violence in a legitimate way. By that definition the European Economic Community is not a state because, as yet, there is no accumulation of violence in the form of a European army or police. The Green plan is to take advantage of the present situation for starting a movement in the opposite direction. As Petra Kelly put it, '-We are
177
trying to move away from a European Economic Community to a European Ecological Community.' The detailed demands of the European peace platform include a Europe free of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons; an amendment to the Geneva Convention of 1977 to outlaw nuclear weapons together with chemical and bacterial weapons; an immediate call for a European disarmament conference; and the creation of a European disarmament agency. The section on environmental policy calls for 'a policy of ecological balance, which assures the foundations of our lives and does not stop at national or European borders.' The platform maintains that Europe, being one of the richest and technologically most advanced regions of the world, should be able to carry out comprehensive environmental care, and it demands democratic and responsible research and economic development aimed specifically at restoring ecological balance. The judicious use of resources 'in order to ensure a humane future for our children,' energy conservation, and environmentally benign energy production from wind, sun, tides, biomass, and other sources instead of nuclear technology are listed among the sp,ecific demands. The economic, social, and labour policies listed in the European programme exemplify the Greens' rejection of economies determined by quantitative growth and enumerate many demands concerning the quality of work and working conditions. These include the creation of meaningful work through ecological investments; equal rights for women and men in training, working conditions, and pay; study of the effects of new technologies on .the environment and on the labour market; shortening of work time in order to redistribute the work load and create new employment; support of decentralized and economically viable units; and transitional aid for farmers who want to shift to ecological production methods. Closely connected with these demands are the Third World policies listed in the subsequent section of the programme, which are based on the ideals of 'a sincere partnership with the peoples of the Third World and support of their desperate attempts for a just participation in the wealth and development chances of the world.' In the last part of their programme, the European Greens present their vision of Europe's future. They believe that the European nation-states are artificial units, which are created as the result of wars - that is, imposed by violent action - and have been motivated 178
by national chauvinism, competitIOn, and expansionist thinking. Instead of these nation-states, the Greens want to create a 'Europe of the regions,' that is, a Europe of 'historically grown, selfdetermined, but mutually interconnected units .' In our conversations Green politicians of various nationalities emphasized that Europe has many cultural communities that transcend national borders. These communities were formed by tradition and history; they share a common cultural heritage, are bound by a common language, and often also represent natural ecological units. Cultural communities, of course, may sometimes be more or less identical with nations, and the Europe of the regions will have to show flexibility in taking this into account. However, the European Greens feel that, on balance, regional identity is stronger in Europe than national identity. At present, there are fifty-four regions within the EEC that form administrative units. Some of them are somewhat artificial units, others are natural ecological regions, and yet others represent cultural communities. The Green plan is to start from these existing regions and let the inhabitants define their limits themselves (the Greens prefer to use the term limits rather than borders). This might involve the merging of two or more regions, sometimes across national borders. Until the final structure of the Europe of the regions is established, the present nation-states would act as temporary federations of regions. To approach this goal, the European platform demands decentralization of political and economic decision-making structures, disentanglement from existing European, institutions, and the recognition and support of the cultural variety of historically grown European regions. Among the Greens in West Germany there is -still no consensus on their European politics. Many of their members, especially those with radical-left backgrounds, are structurally conservative in that they feel the existing structures of the EEC should not be rejected outright. However, the concept of a non-military, decentralized Europe of the regions is the official Green position, in West Germany as well as in the other European countries. The idea of a regionalized Europe has resonated especially strongly in Belgium which, perhaps more than any other European country, is an artificial unit composed of three cultural groups - Dutch-speaking Flemish, French-speaking Walloons, and a small German minority. As the saying among the French-speaking Belgians goes: 'La Belgique 179
n'est pas une nation mais une notion.' ('Belgium is not a nation but a notion.') For many Belgians their state has no real significance and the Green concept of ecological and cultural regionalism seems very natural to them. In March 1984, the European Greens plan to hold a congress in Liege, where their common platform for the European elections is to be adopted by an assembly of Green delegates. The Liege congress will represent the culmination of several years of European coordination and will be a demonstration of unity of great symbolic value for the European Green movement. The immediate future goal of the Green parties is to gain at least ten seats in the European Parliament. Fran.,:ois Roelants explained to us that this would be a very significant number. A group of ten Green representatives would be large enough to form committees and could be politically effective in numerous ways. Roelants told us that if Ecolo got into the European Parliament, its representatives would also represent the interests of the Ecology party, who will not get in because of the slanted British electoral system. The long-term goal would be, according to Roelants, to create an international Green network with a global perspective. In the process of developing a common Green politics for Europe, the success of the Greens in West Germany has been a tremendous inspiration to the other Green parties. As Michel Delore, of Les Verts-Parti Ecologiste, expressed it, 'They have helped us to believe in the future of an ecology party.' As we visited offices and headquarters of Green organizations around Europe, we noticed that many of them use the sunflower logo of the German Greens, combined with various slogans in their own languages, and several of the Green parties have modelled their programmes after that of the Germans. At the same time, all Green parties realize that their historical context, cultural idiosyncrasies, and local conditions are different from those in West Germany, and their structures and programmes have to differ accordingly. Indeed, these differences were quite apparent to us, often in very delightful ways, in the many restaurants, pubs, offices, and homes throughout Europe where we discussed Green politics with women and men who expressed themselves within their own cultural contexts and yet were united by a common vision. The coordinating efforts of the European Green movement 180
together with those of other ecological networks, such as Ecoropa and Friends of the Earth, are beginning to transcend the boundaries of Europe and to result in contacts wit~ Green movements at the global level. For example, there will be a meeting of Green groups from industrialized countries and Third World countries in Italy in the fall of 1984 with the aim of initiating a Green North-South dialogue. Thus Green politics, a politics of thinking globally and acting locally, is slowly becoming a political reality for the entire human family.
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PART THREE
Green Politics in the United States
9 The Green Alternative - It Can Happen in America
The roots of Green ideas in American culture reach back to our earliest origins. For more than 20,000 years Native Americans have maintained a deeply ecological sense of the subtle forces that link humans and nature, always emphasizing the need for balance and for reverence towards Mother Earth. Spiritual values are inherent in their politics, as they were for the many colonists who came to this land for the protection of religious pluralism. The Founding Fathers of our government, who were familiar with the federal system of the Iroquois nation, created a democratic federalism that reflects the shared values comprising national identity but entrusts extensive. powers to the st(ites and to the people's representatives, who can block the designs of federal authoritarianism. The young nation spawned a network of largely self-sufficient communities that flourished through individual effort and cooperation - the barn raisings, the quilting bees, the town meetings. Yet local selfsufficiency and self-determination eventually gave way to control by such huge institutions as the federal bureaucracy, the military establishment, massive corporations, big labour unions, the medical establishment, the education system, institutionalized religion, and centralized technology. The inability of our centralist 'dinosaur institutions' to address the multifaceted crisis we face is stimulating the growth of the Green alternative in this country. Not only do we - like the other polluted, nuclearized, economically imperiled societies - see the writing on the wall but we also have an outpouring of books and articles that, taken together, are unique in the world for the breadth and depth of the new-paradigm solutions they propose. Stimulated by the civil rights, feminist, counterculture, ecology, anti-nuclearpower, and peace movements - and especially by the rise of the holistic paradigm in science and society - visionary thinkers in the United States have been brainstorming in print for the past decade, 185
each contributing to the evolution of a coherent view that could guide an ecologically wise society free of exploitation and war. We do not need to wait for someone to synthesize those ideas into a massive tome. The basic concepts of new-paradigm politics can be found in a representative selection, such as the following: in economics, Steady-State Economics by Herman Daly (Freeman, 1977), The Next Economy by Paul Hawken (Holt, Rinehart & Wins ton, 1983), The Politics of the Solar Age by Hazel Henderson (Anchor/ Doubleday, 1981), and The Challenge of Humanistic Economics by Mark Lutz and Kenneth Lux (Benjamin/Cummings, 1979); in politics, Rethinking Liberalism edited by , Waiter Truett Anderson (Avon Books, 1983), The Ecology of Freedom by Murray Boochin (Cheshire Books, 1982), Beyond Adversary Democracy by Jane Mansbridge (University of Chicago Press, 1980), Human Scale by Kirkpatrick Sale (Putnam, 1982), and New Age Politics by Mark Satin (Delta Books, 1979); in science, The Reenchantment of the World by Morris Berman (Cornell University Press, 1981) and The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra (Bantam Books, 1983); in futurism, Seven Tomorrows by Paul Hawken, James Ogilvy, and Peter Schwartz (Bantam Books, 1982), An Incomplete Guide to the Future by Willis Harman (Norton, 1979), and Beyond Despair by Robert Theobald (Seven Locks, 1981), and in feminist theory and activism, The Anatomy of Freedom by Robin Morgan (Anchor/Doubleday, 1983) and The Politics of Women's Spirituality edited by Charlene Spretnak (Anchor/Doubleday, 1982); in Black history, The Other American Revolution by Vincent Harding (Center for Afro-Ametican Studies, UCLA, 1981); and in global perspectives, Building a Sustainable Society by Lester Brown (Norton, 1981), On the Creation of a Just World Order edited by Saul Mendlovitz (Free Press/Macmillan, 1975), Toward a Human World Order by Gerald and Patricia Mische (Paulist Press, 1977), and Person/Planet by Theodore Roszak (Anchor/Doubleday, 1978). It is true, however, that these works are not widely known as a body and that the visionary thinkers do not always agree. Moreover, the concrete, practical side to most of their theories has not been developed. We do have years of experience, though, in certain kimis of holistic political practice. The ecology and peace movements have discovered their common ground, the feminists have held ecofeminist conferences and peace actions, and countless networks working towards comprehensive, nonviolent social change have developed. 186
Most of these people are working with a 'big picture' orientation, rather than single-focus problem solving. They are among the fifteen million adult Americans who, according to recent studies by the research institute SRI International, are basing their lives fully or partially on such values as frugality, human scale,' selfdetermination, ecological awareness, and personal growth. In addition, the holistic health movement seriously challenges the mechanistic approach of the medical establishment. Many churches are now reinterpreting the Scriptural charge to 'have dominion over the earth,' reading it as a call to stewardship rather than exploitation, and some are even going beyond stewardship to deep ecology. Numerous positive steps have been taken towards realizing that our existence is part of a subtle web of interrelationships. - yet these fall far short of creating an effective political manifestation of the new paradigm. We believe it is essential that Green ideas enter the American political debate at all levels. Currently the Democratic and Republican parties struggle fruitlessly to apply outdated and irrelevant concepts and priorities to our burgeoning crisis. They are .unable to respond effectively to changing conditions such as the end of the fossil-fuel age and the growth of global interdependence and so are leading us towards disaster. As the quality of life in this country declines and hardships in the Third World increase, the oldparadigm parties are losing credibility. Ronald Reagan was elected president with only 28 per cent of the eligible vote; hopelessness and fearful apathy carried the majority. Behind the rhetoric of both parties, it is apparent that one of their shared functions is to remain nonideological, to diffuse dissent rather than standing for a coherent programme. To consider the possibilities for Green politics in the United States, we should first reflect on the lessons from West Germany with the understanding that Green politics here, as in other countries, must grow from our own cultural and political tradition and from our current situation. First, moving into electoral politics put a great deal of stress on the Green movement, although it brought many advantages. Because of the demands of campaigning and the critical scrutiny of the press, the Greens needed fully developed positions on scores of issues almost as soon as they declared party status. Once they won 187
seats in the legislative bodies, a great deal of their attention shifted from evolving responses and comprehensive positions to internal power struggles and ongoing debates on legislative strategy. The stress on the Green legislators themselves is generally intense since the grassroots constituency demands attention, the party's gqverning bodies expect results, and the working relationships within the Fraktion groups are often uneasy and distrustful. In addition, the media are always waiting for any misstep. Hence a movement's entry into electoral politics should be preceded by a great deal of preparation and attention to the predictable problems - if it is to be undertaken at all. Second, the presence of the Marxist-oriented faction within the Greens has increased the political awareness of many ecologists and provided a valuable ongoing critique of Green ideas - but at what · cost? It cannot be said that the radical-left Greens have advanced the development of radically Green political thought. On the contrary, they have often put the brakes on that process and created endless struggles. In hindsight, perhaps some of the strife could have been avoided, although that is difficult to say. In this country many 'alumni' of the New Left have come to realize various limitations of Marxist theory, and are sincerely seeking new options for nonviolent social change. Fringe groups on both the left and the right, however, with well-defined political philosophies that overlap only somewhat with Green ideas would probably make a more negative than positive contribution in the long run to the growth of Green politics in the United States. Third, while the Greens officially oppose all exploitation including that of women by men and include a number of proposals on women's issues in their programmes, neither feminist analysis of major problems other than sexism nor postpatriarchal practices are actively encouraged. Hence many women stay out of the party, and the Green analysis of several issues is not as comprehensive as it could be. Moreover, the Greens' political style is often built around competition, aggressive strategies, and dominance - quite at odds with their principles. These problems could be avoided, or at least lessened, by seeking truly holistic, that is, all-encompassing, analyses from the beginning and by incorporating a postpatriarchal style of politics, such as many groups in the American peace and anti-nuclear-power movements have done. Fourth, the rotation principle for elected officials has proven to 188
be more trouble than it is worth for the Greens in West Germany. Corruption by the system may be as large a threat here as there we certainly have our share of egotistic, unresponsive politicians but other means should be devised to address it. If a Green movement were to field candidates in the United States, those individuals should be able to serve a full term, whether that be two, four, or six years. Placing a limit such as one or two terms is a possibility, but then the movement would forfeit the eventual power of seniority positions on legislative committees. A more important practice would be to rotate internal positions of power (which should be as decentralized as is practical) on a staggered schedule so that no more than one-third or one-half of an elected committee is new and the continuity of experience is unbroken. Fifth, politics is about how people treat one another as well as the power relationships among groups and classes. The selfaggrandizing mode of some Greens and the detached, self-protective mode of others have often blocked the kind of unified action that would best serve their political goals. When fear is the core motivation for personal behaviour - fear that there is not enough recognition, enough attention, enough appreciation, enough acceptance, enough love to go around - then the creative energy of the group is constricted and the practical expression of Green ideals remains out of reach. Individuals in a Green movement must share a commitment to personal development (which means work) towards wisdom, compassion, and a deep understanding of the essential oneness of all beings or else the larger transformation of society will never be achieved. If such values are not actively accepted as guiding principles, the political work of 'saving the world' often results in miserable interior lives and uncomfortable interpersonal relations, as many German Greens could testify. Sixth, conflict within a movement is unavoidable because of the range of opinions on strategy, tactics, short-term and even longterm goals. The challenge is not to deny conflict but, rather, to deal with it creatively and positively: Green politics in West Germany often entails one faction's or group's temporarily conquering another, which leads to resentment and blocks the synthesis of good ideas. American Greens would have at their disposal a number of techniques for incorporating the best of conflicting proposals in 'win-win' (rather than 'win-lose') solutions, such as the methods
189
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presented by the Harvard Negotiation Project (see Gelling to Yes by Roger Fisher and William U ry, Penguin Books, 1983). Seventh, trust and bonding are positive elements in Green groups at local levels, but are generally absent at state and national levels. Members of the Green Fraktion in state legislatures as well as the Bundestag are usually strangers thrown together and then submitted to numerous and unrelenting pressures. The estrangement that results could probably be lessened or avoided if all newly elected representatives in a party or movement went. on a weekend retreat together in between their election and taking office. The aim would be to get to know each other as multifaceted persons rather than potential adversaries. Such retreats should be repeated, perhaps seasonally. In addition, ongoing attention to group dynamics should be an inherent, not peripheral, part of the political process. Frequent evaluation is essential. Also, stress reduction techniques should be shared and practised. Eighth, perseverance and flexibility are essential. The Greens failed to win the 5 per cent of the vote necessary for representation in the European Parliament election of June 1979, again in the Bundestag election of March 1980, and again in several state elections. In response they continued to develop their programmes and organize broad-based support among the citizens' movements and the general public. Ninth, perhaps the most important lesson from the German Greens is that we do not have to hide our deepest longings and highest ideals to be politically effective. Entering politics usually means having to tone down or even give up a visionary goal in order to be more pragmatic or safe. The Greens have shown us that an undaunted call for an ecologically wise, nonexploitative, peaceful culture in which spiritual values are honoured does resonate with people. A call to move beyond the old mechanistic ways of thinking to deeply ecological concepts that more closely follow nature's ways is not, after all, political suicide. What we require are thoughtfully . developed positions and good organizing. If Green politics is to develop in this country, we first must develop a coherent view. By that we mean a coherent world view, which would give rise to a set of values and ethics, which in turn would lead to a political analysis (for example, an analysis of the power relationships among corporations, the military, the government, 190
...
the unions, and the professions), from which would emerge specific programmes and strategies. Next wc would have to articulate this view effectiv~ly in public and mobilize the response. A core problem of new-paradigm politics is that accessible language sufficient to present the long-term goals dynamically and persuasively has yet to be developed. Finally, we would effect change - either within or outside of the electoral system, or both. The power of Green politics lies at the grassroots level, but we believe a national organization is also necessary to encourage and sustain the people involved, as well as to benefit from the media attention. We suggest five possible forms of such an organization, not as a rigid plan but merely as a basis for discussion.
• A Green Network Since the ecological view of reality is one of a network of relationships, the network structure would be especially appropriate. Networks tend to be nonconfrontational and to require little commitment, so they have succeeded in attracting many people during the past decade and introducing them to political thinking. A Green network would link existing decentralized groups and networks of groups in such a way that they could address the political system. They could engage in political discussions and educational activities and exchange creative suggestions for living by Green ideals and values. There are already a number of social-change networks around the country pursuing such activities. They are a necessary first step in the building of a political movement, but in our view they are insufficient. Their limited functions do not translate easily into the activities necessary for political actions, and they carry no responsibility to formulate programmes and carry them out. They are, in short, not politically empowering, but they provide a good entry level for many people.
• A Green Movement Such a movement would be a national membership organization that would formulate a coherent view and present proposals to the two parties at all levels. It would act as politically as a party, and might include a fund-raising political action committee (PAC), but 191
would not run candidates for office. It could select 'shadow cabinets' at all levels of government to comment publicly from the Green perspective on the actions of cabinet members, state officials, and city councils. A Green movement could be effective in persuading legislators through paid lobbyists (pooling resources of organizations would increase the currently small- number of Green-oriented lobbyists) , volunteer. work in campaigns, and the delivering of large numbers of votes through endorsements. The movement could receive ideas from the grassroots level and present them directly to legislators, as well as suggest practical proposals to local chapters and relay information and models among them horizontally. It could also hire professional organizers to enlarge the movement and could support a think tank in conjunction with forming a consortium of Green-oriented research institutes. Although a movement would require greater commitment than a network to social change and to the process of (nonviolent) struggle, it would be more effective. It would also be more open-ended, dynamic, and welcoming towards innovation than a party. Hence it would have a broader appeal, both ideologically and in the variety of people it would attract.
• A Green Caucus Within the Movement The caucus would be an arm of the larger Green movement that would work with, and sometimes directly provide Green candidates for, both the Republican and Democratic parties. This part of the movement would concentrate on electoral and legislative strategies at all levels. The Green elected officials would present new-paradigm politics in the forums of power and could use the media attention to the advantage of the movement. This option would avoid a split between those Greens who favour entering electoral politics and those associated with citizens' movements who feel that is an error. However, the caucus would have to walk a fine line between sincerely cooperating with the major parties and standing firmly for Green principles and the long-term vision for society. Most of our elected officials probably would be afraid to embrace Green ideals because they 'owe their electoral victories to campaign contributions from corporations and other monolithic institutions. The caucus would have to proceed on 192
an item-by-item basis in the legislative bodies and would encourage dialogue between the mechanistic, growth-oriented and the ecological, qualitative points of view.
• A National-Membership Green Caucus Instead of a Movement This option would allow people to indicate when joining the Green caucus whether they wished to be affiliated with the group in the Democratic or Republican party. Like the caucus within a movement, this option would be much less expensive to form and operate than a party. However, the danger exists that Green ideas would be co-opted and adopted only to a superficial degree by the major parties. Moreover, working conditions for the Green caucus within the parties might be difficult if the other politicians did not trust colleagues whose first allegiance is to another group. This option would probably alienate some Green supporters who disapprove of entering electoral politics directly, but it would provide good insider experience. The possibility exi~ts, of course, for American Greens to form their own party if coalition within the major parties is found to be impossible. However, the cooperation must be attempted sincerely, not with constant threats from the Greens to bolt for the door each time a problem arises. Americans are pragmatic people. Before supporting a Green party, they would want to be shown convincingly that working along Green lines within the old-paradigm parties is impossible.
• A Green Party If organized intelligently, a Green party could have a broad base and would legitimize the movement. It would require leaders with different qualities from those in caucus work and, unfortunately, an enormous amount of money. At the mention of a party, one thinks of national media exposure, speeches in Congress, extensive secretarial and support services, and access to classified or at least behind-the-scenes information. All of that follows only if one's candidates get elected. The high cost of campaigns in this country makes it extremely difficult to win unless a candidate attracts money from corporations or other monolithic institutions, which would be unlikely for the Greens. On the other hand, if a party's 193
presidential candidate appears on the ballot in thirty states and wins over 5 per cent of the vote, and if the party will run in at least ten states in the following election, the Federal Election Commission awards matching funds through a formula based on the number of votes. John Anderson, for instance, won 7 per cent of the vote in 1980 and later received about $6.5 million (much less than what his campaign had cost). Unlike the German Greens, the American party would not receive the governmental payment of $1.40 per vote, which has yielded die Griinen such a sound financial basis. Similarly, our efforts would not bring us the legislative seats they have won because we lack proportional representation in our system of government. To win hundreds of thousands of votes means nothing unless one can beat the big-money candidates at district and state levels. Winning votes up to the time of the first major success is not only expensive but also extremely difficult because third parties are perceived as losers by most of the American public, who are not inclined to waste their vote. The inevitable early losses could be demoralizing to party members. Another consideration is that Green ideas might become rigid within a party framework. The ecological truth that all living systems are in process has not yet found a place in politics, so the public expects fixed positions. Many a politician impresses voters by reminding them that his political positions have not changed one iota in the past twenty years. Meanwhile, biological conditions and economic and social constellations changed at extraordinary rates, but reality is ignored in favour of the comforting illusion of stasis. Denying change is still one of the biggest ruses in party politics, and people with consistent but evolving positions are suspected of lacking competence. Just as we believe a network to be an insufficient political form for Green ideas, so we believe that moving into electoral politics prematurely would be an error. Considering the political system and traditions in this country, a bipartisan caucus is probably the shrewdest choice, although Green candidates could run at the local level as Independents. However, whether or not a caucus or party evolves later, the soundest starting point is a well-organized, grassroots, national Green movement that develops a coherent view and comprehensive programmes to present to law-makers and the 194 (
public. The structure should respect local and~egional autonomy within a framework of shared values and should have only the minimal amount of national coordination necessary to present the movement as a potent element in American politics. Combining ecological concepts with the realities of the American governmental structure, we suggest five strata of organization for the Green movement: local, bioregional, state, macroregional, and national. Three are familiar, but the 'new' concept of regionalism has been quietly emerging - from its long but dormant role in American history - as a major focus in ecodecentralist politics. Bioregionalism has taken on a deeper meaning than mere localism, one more akin to the Native American sense of abiding respect for the natural forces and the surrounding life forms, the survival of which we now understand to be essential for our own. Peter Berg, director of Planet Drum Foundation (see Appendix C), defines a bioregion as both a geographical terrain and a terrain of consciousness, both a place and the ideas that have developed about how to live in that place. In Reinhabiting a Separate Country (Planet Drum Foundation, 1978), he wrote: A bioregion can be determined initially by use of climatology, physiography, animal and plant geography, natural history, and other descriptive natural sciences. The boundaries of a bioregion are best described by people who have lived within it, through human recognition of the realities of living in a place. All life on the planet is interconnected in a few obvious ways and in many more that remain barely explored. But there is a distinct resonance among living things and the factors which influence them that occurs specifically within each separate place on the planet. Discovering and describing that resonance is a way to describe a bioregion.
To date, at least twelve bioregional congresses have been formed, such as those of the Great Lakes area, New York State, and the Ocooch Mountains of southwestern Wisconsin. Scores of smaller groups are also active throughout North America, located, for example, in the Slocan Valley in British Columbia, the Rio Grande, the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, the Ohio River Basin, Cape Cod, the High Plains of Wyoming, the Kansas River Watershed, and the Hudson River Valley. The extremely varied nature of their activities is demonstrated by bioregional periodicals, which feature articles ranging from interviews with octogenarian residents to information 195
on local watershed systems to reports on 'natural provision enhancement projects' (restoring the economic base of a community through reforestation, cleaning a river for salmon production, and so forth) to innovative political theory. As bioregional journals are gener,ally energetic and avant garde, many of their enthusiasts would agree with G. Pedro Tama, editor of Siskryou Country in northern California, that ' the underground press of the sixties and seventies is rapidly becoming the bioregional press of the 1980s.' The first continental gathering of bioregionalists, the North American Bioregional Congress (see Appendix C), will be held near Kansas City in May 1984; it is being coordinated by David Haenke of the Ozark Area Community Congress, along with a council of other Greenoriented activists. Ecodecentralists believe bioregions are the answer to 'Decentralize to what?' They want us to see where our water, our food , our energy, and our products really come from and to understand the natural carrying capacity of our area in order to develop an economy in balance with the ecosystem and minimize dependence on imported food and fuel. Many bioregionalists such as those at the Center for Studies in Food Self-Sufficiency in Burlington, Vermont, and the late Peter Van Dresser, whose book Development on a Human Scale was a pioneering work, have been conducting research on economic self-sufficiency. The most fully developed bioregional organization is probably the Ozark Area Community Congress (OACC), founded in 1976 and based on the principle of 'political ecology,' by which the Congress means that political consciousness must be bioregionally oriented and must operate as an extension of natural or ecological laws. The Congress, which considers itself an alternative representative body for the Ozarks, is committed to achieving regional selfreliance and sustainable economics by using renewable resources and respecting the integrity of the environment. By late 1983 OACC had held four congresses, attracting not only scores of regional enterprises and groups but also participants from national and international organizations. OACC maintains ten standing committees - peace, feminism/human rights (Mother Oak), water, energy, agriculture/forestry, health, communication/education, economics, communities, and spiritual/cultural - which implement the principles in the OACC Green Platform as well as various resolutions. One of the core groups, New Life Farm, publishes 196
several OACC brochures on water quality, regional seasonal diet, and the Ozark Regional Land Trust; posters of the regional geohydrology and the subtle signs of the seasons; maps; a bioregional directory (the Green Pages); and a booklet on the Native American cultures of the Ozarks. Not all bioregional organizations are rural, however. In fact, most of them span cities, suburbs, and country areas, and some are predominantly urban such as the Lower Hudson Estuary Group, which is gathering information ori the natural systems there, and the Reinhabiting New Jersey group. The concept of macro regions reached a broad auqience through Joel Garreau's book The Nine Nations of North America (Avon Books, 1982) and now even Madison Avenue designs advertising campaigns stessing regional themes and speech patterns. However, bioregionalists dismiss Garreau's divisions as too rooted in oldparadigm thinking and lacking a sense of deep ecology. Using the bioregionalists' concept of soft borders, it would be possible to divide North America into macroregions such as the northeastern woodlands, the Appalachian highlands and Piedmont, the southeastern coastal plain, the Caribbean, the Great Lakes area, the prairies, the Ozark highlands, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountain range, the Great Basin, Mex-America, and the Northern Pacific area. These are merely our suggestions;1 a Green movement would generate its own macroregional structure and might wish to consult Planet Drum Foundation, whose staff is working on a biopolitical map of North America. The form in which bioregional consciousness might manifest itself in government is a favourite topic among bioregionalists. Some view their movement as the means to evolve a quite radically decentralized future. Like the German Greens they consider the nation-state to be inherently dangerous, aggressive, and ineffective. They maintain that the association of security with large size, which unfortunately is deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness of our patriarchal cultures, must be discarded in the face of evidence that bigness has led to big exploitation, big wars, and big suffering. A representative of this position is Kirkpatrick Sale, who has been researching bioregionalism for his forthcoming book Centrifugal lOur delineations of the macroregions draw upon similar areas identified by Carl Sauer in Man in Nature: America Before the Days of the Whitt Man, which was published in 1939 and has been reissued by Turtle Island Foundation in Berkeley.
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Force: The Bioregional Future. He believes that many of the crises we face are the result of ignoring bioregional realities. In the newsletter of the E. F. Schumacher Society of America (Fall 1983), Sale expressed a position that closely parallels the philosophy of the German Greens: We finally comprehend that if there is to be salvation for this world, it will come through the development of bioregions into fully empowered, politically autonomous, economically self-sufficient social units in which bioregional citizens understand, and control, the decisions that affect their lives.
Other activists believe that bioregionalism will lead to ecologically wise organizations responsible for everyday self-government, wielding increasing degrees of influence over the 'professional government.' A third idea, developed by Peter Berg and other bioregionalists, is that state borders could be redrawn to reflect ecological imperatives, preserving a system of federation even while radically restructuring it. Projections for possible governmental structure, however, are less compelling to most bioregionalists than the here-and-now work of developing ecologically wise ways of thinking and being. The need for a new ethic is a core motivation for the bioregional movement, as Berg states: 'There has to be a transition from Late Industrial Society towards shared values, goals and understandings that fit in with rather than contend against the regenerative process of the biosphere. We need to begin building a dwelling in life instead of on top of it.' At all five levels the Green movement could organize study groups that would gather information, discuss Green perspectives, and formulate Green proposals to present to lawmakers and the public and to incorporate into a comprehensive programme. Applying the holistic world view entails asking fundamental and interrelated questions currently absent from the political dialogue in America. In particular, questions of sustainability and long-term goals must be raised. We are recklessly living off future generations, abiding by irresponsible policies simply because the 'future' to our presidents means the next four or eight years, to our business community it means the next few financial quarters, to our labour unions the next .contract term, and to most people the next decade or two. A Green perspective encourages finding our place in the ecosystem, 198
realizing that our very existence depends on the continuity of interdependent living systems. If we bankrupt those systems through greed and stupidity, we destroy the life supports for ourselves and our descendants, thereby severing the human chain of generations that has spanned millions of years. With sustainability as the key to their proposals, the various Green study groups would formulate public policy statements. We do not attempt such an ambitious task here but, rather, present suggestions of Green responses to several current issues: energy, employment, national security and conversion of the arms industry, healthcare, and school prayer. With these examples we wish to illustrate three principles of Green thinking. First, there is a wealth of already published Green-oriented ideas that can be tapped and synthesized in solving our problems creatively. Second, measures must be ecologically sound and socially responsible; they must, in short, have a future. Third, one cannot successfully address particular problems - such as the danger of the arms race, the enormous defence budget, or the unemployment problem linked to conversion - without responding to their interconnected nature. Green solutions, like the laws of our ecosystems, are based on systemic interrelationships. Waiter Truett Anderson, editor of Rethinking Liberalism, has observed that our glittering consumer society is as precarious as the glittering court of prerevolutionary France. The United States comprises 5 per cent of the world's population and uses approximately 30 per cent of its energy. Our enormously powerful and expensive military forces exist, as Secretary of Defence Caspar Weinberger reminded Congress in his annual report for fiscal year 1984, not only to protect us but 'to protect access to foreign markets and overseas resources.' Once our multinational corporations expropriate those resources, usually on terms that cause great hardship over time in the Third World, they - in cooperation with the big labour unions, who seldom look beyond the immediate issues of wages and, growth - produce for us planned obsolesence; toxic products; polluted air, soil, and water; and manipulate advertising campaigns to convince us that the quality of American life has everything to do with having and little to do with being. Do we need to continue being the energy hogs of the global community - or could we drastically reduce our consumption with some rational planning and very little sacrifice? According to Arthur 199
Rosenfeld, a physicist with the American Council for an EnergyEfficient Economy, the United States could practically export oil if we would simply retrofit our buildings and homes (an occupation that would create many new jobs) and manufacture only energyefficient cars and large appliances, none of which would require spartan living. He emphasizes that our televisions, blenders, hair dryers, and so forth, use nothing compared to the energy that goes through the roof and walls. Hunter and Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, have determined that economically justifiable uses of electricity, an extremely expensive form of energy, amount to only 8 per cent of all delivered energy in the United States, as in most other industrial nations. Since that 8 per cent is already supplied twice over by existing power stations, why do both the Democratic and Republican administrations continue to lead us down the 'hard energy path' (nuclear reactors, coal plants, offshore oil drilling, expanded strip mining, and synthetic-fuel projects)? Why has government-supported research on the soft energy path (passive and active solar heating, passive cooling, small hydro dams, wind power, solar cells, cogeneration, liquid fuels from farm and forestry wastes, and means of energy efficiency) nearly ground to a halt? Why are there few tax incentives and low-interest loans to encourage the use of such sources? Why are our engineering colleges training our future technocrats only in the hard energy path as if there were no tomorrow? And why do we, the technopeasants in the voting booths, gQ along with such irrational policies when we know that corporate campaign contributions and influence are behind them? Many communities have decided not to go along anymore. For example, the citizens of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, mobilized themselves in 1979 for rapid and extensive weatherization of their town. Using $95,000 in seed grants from three federal agencies (ACTION, HUD, and DOE), they established local training centres and recruited five hundred volunteers for the three-month project. By spending an average of $7~ per house, or $102,200 for the programme, they saved 150 gallons of oil per household the first winter, or $600,000 for the town . The Lovinses report that at least twenty other communities have adapted the techniques pioneered in Fitchburg . .Another example of grassroots progress in energy usage is the thousands of inexpensive solar greenhouses built by the Hispanic 200
community in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. Averaging less than $200 each for construction, mostly from scavenged material, the solar greenhouses not only provide most or all of the space heating but extend the families' growing season from three months to year-round. Other renewable sources of energy, such as wind power and geothermal heat, are being used in the Valley as well, and the local bankers are now reportedly hesitant to extend loans on any nonsolar building. The Lovinses have written extensively on the enormous savings our country could realize if the . renewable-resource, resilient technologies were not handicapped in the market by the huge federal subsidies and favourable policies for nuclear power and fossil fuels . They call for free competition among all energy technologies (see 'The Fragility of Domestic Energy' by Amory and Hunter Lovins in The Atlantic Monthly, November 1983). Suppose small-scale, worker-owned businesses will predominate and labour-intensive rather than capital-intensive investments will be made. The fact remains that there are not going to be enough jobs to go around . It has been estimated that 40 per cent of the current white-collar jobs could be eliminated by computerization, and the current push to modernize American industry ('reindustrialize America') probably will mean more automation. If the remaining jobs were redistributed so that everyone worked halftime for nearly the same pay as now while machines did most of the production and business operations, many people would develop serious personal problems because self-esteem and identity are intertwined with the job ethic in our culture. This is true especially for men, who often dread retirement. Given our circumstances, is it not time to encourage an ethic of ecology and self-realization? There will always be plenty of work to be done in an ecodecentralized, nonexploitative society: community service to increase direct control of numerous activities and decrease government bureaucracy, lifelong education, care of our elderly, care and education of young children, bartering of goods and services, neighbourhood food and other cooperatives, community structures for societal and individual rites of passage, and participatory cultural programmes. Why should any of these be devalued if they are not monetarized as jobs? Beyond the need to secure necessities, what motivates us to work? What human and ecological values should be expressed in the inevitable restructuring of work? Shall we measure our society's progress in providing opportunities for self-development by the 201
basic human needs index proposed by the United Nations Environment Program? Shall we consider the comprehensive physical quality of life indicator proposed by the Overseas Development Council? Or shall we cling to the GNP as our sole measure of wellbeing, one that rewards the shrinking pool of job-winners and transforms everyone else into unproductive, idle dependants of the government? It is the issue of jobs that has stumped the peace movement in considering conversion of the weapons industry. How can we scale down the huge military-industrial complex, and hence the defence budget, without creating more unemployment and increasing our vulnerability? A Green response, while mindful of the long-term goal of a nonviolent, demilitarized world, would address this immediate problem from many directions. First, real threats to our security do exist in this world, yet our government could adopt a new policy that includes restructuring the military to rely more on human power than on firepower and more on simple weaponry than on complex, high-tech devices, as James Fallows suggests in National Deftnse (Random House, 1982). The defence budget, which now consumes nearly one-third of our tax dollars ($260 billion in 1984), could be cut by 40 per cent through reducing the surplus, dangerous, and interventionist elements of US forces, as the Boston Study Group demonstrates in Winding Down: The Price of Defense (Freeman, 1982). Similar analyses have been developed in The Baroque Arsenal (Hill & Wang, 1981) by Mary Kaldor and in Reforming the Military, a booklet edited by Jeffrey Barlow and published in 1981 by the conservative Heritage Foundation. In addition, we could conduct serious negotiations with the Soviet Union for bilateral reductions of nuclear weapons, and urge other nations to join us in stabilizing the Third World by giving I per cent of our GNP directly to citizen-controlled development programmes. We could also conduct serious studies of social defence and the eventual establishment of zones throughout the world that would have only defensive weapons, as well as scenarios for achieving and maintaining a demilitarized world. In Toward An Alternative Security System (World Policy Institute, 1983), Robert Johansen delineates seven policy models for the global system: a nuclear-war-fighting capability, a policy of mutually assured destruction, a minimum deterrent posture, a defensive 202
weapons system, a peace-keeping federation, defence through civilian resistance, and a policy of global security. The seventh model is in harmony with Green politics, as it incorporates some .of the features of conventional defence, a peace-keeping federation, and social defence but emphasizes the fact that no one country in the increasingly interdependent global community can be secure any longer unless everyone is secure. This policy model stresses longterm interests over short-term advantages and advocates greatly expanded positive incentives rather than negative military threats to influence other nations' security policies. It incorporates human rights in the positive image of peace so that securing the basic rights and basic needs of all people becomes as important a guideline in decision making as securing the institutions of the state. Since the nuclear and environmental policies of 'foreign' governments affect each of us, this model teaches that, rather than 'my' and 'their' governments, the realistic view is one of 'my immediate' and 'my more distant' governments. Finally, it shifts the most vital line of defence away from new generations of nuclear weapons towards a new code of international conduct to restrict the use of military power. With such a security policy, a large portion of the people now developing and building weapons would not need to do so. The Mid-Peninsula Conversion Project in Mountain View, California, estimates that two million jobs are linked to defence contracts, so the displacement from a shrinking arms competition would be sizable. The traditional response of the left to such a. situation is to create huge government-supported work programmes, while the right would have those workers fend for themselves in the 'free' market. Conversion specialists offer a third alternative. They help defence-oriented factories and businesses develop 'alternative use planning' by encouraging the formation of joint committees of workers and management. They discuss switching from the production of weapons to that of products such as light-rail vehicles, commuter aircraft, and alternative energy systems. The only industrial planning in this country at the national level, so conversion specialists maintain, is strictly defence planning. If the federal government offered the same kind of financial inducements, for example, loans, tax breaks, and contracts, to converted companies as it does to defence-oriented companies, conversion would flourish. A Green perspective would link certain criteria to those financial 203
incentives: the new product or service would have to be socially necessary; production would cause minimal damage to the environment; distribution would be limited largely to the macroregion and adjacent ones (to avoid the demands oflong-distance transportation and fuel); the business would be democratically operated 2 and at least partially employee-owned; and the scale of the operation would be appropriate, that is, no larger than what would benefit the people affected. A Green response to the problem of conversion incorporates awareness not only of ecological balance and socially responsible production but also of the dignity and creativity of the individuals in the workforce. The~efore, an auxiliary conversion programme should be available for those weapons makers who wish to leave their old firms and· develop their own businesses. Since the defence industry provides no products or services to sell to our society, the workers involved - scientists, engineers, . managers, secretaries, steelworkers, and assembly line workers - are actually receiving federal grants as their salaries. Those salary grants could be continued during a transition period of perhaps three years as part of a voluntary programme that would encourage some of the workers to develop new businesses by attending seminars, workshops, and courses on sound business practises that are nonexploitative and ecologically wise; study of successful and failed businesses in their area would be emphasized. Some people would take jobtraining courses or college degree programmes. Some might want to form cooperatives or neighbourhood cottage industries, while others would create more technological enterprises. Once a group had developed a comprehensive business plan for the first several years of operation, it could apply to the government for a low-interest seed loan. Among the criteria for judging the business proposals would be the Green-oriented considerations cited above. The programme would include information-sharing networks for people developing and operating similar types of businesses. Such a flowering of selforganized, self-determined businesses all over the country would also create jobs for unemployed people other than the former weapons makers because businesses utilize numerous service operations. In 2 See Workplace Dtmocracy and Social Changt, eds Frank Lindenfeld and Joyce Rothschild-Whitt (Porter Sargent, 1982), for analyses and first-person accounts of new syst~ms of work and participation.
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addition, small companies tend to be labour-intensive rather than spending huge capital outlays on automation. This dual programme would facilitate conversion among both types of workers: those who do not wish to leave the security of their current place of employment and those who wish to create their own enterprise. Our suggestions are merely preliminary and would require a great deal of development, but they do address the essential issue largely overlooked by the peace movement, that lowering the levels of armaments - even temporarily with a freeze on research and production - will never come about without creative, sound programmes for conversion. No American president is going to agree to any proposal in Geneva or in our Congress that would substantially increase the unemployment rolls. If we · are serious about de-escalating the arms race, every community 'Yith a defence contractor should begin developing proposals for partial or full conversion. If we are equally serious about sustaining life on Earth, those proposals must be ecologically sound and socially responsible. On the issue of healthcare, do we want to devise governmentsupported and/or private schemes that merely increase everyone's access to mechanistic, invasive, dehumanizing medical practices or shall we emphasize a holistic model of health that takes into account the interactions and self-organizing dynamics of the body/ mind system? Studies have demonstrated that many symptoms of disease are indeed expressions of dis-ease, that is, negative states of mind relating to one's self-concept or personal perceptions. Relationships with family and friends, for instance, have been established as an important factor in health: discon'n ected or partially isolated people are statistically' less healthy. Often illness is manifested, consciously or unconsciously, as an escape route out of stressful, unpleasant situations (see Gelling Well Again by O. Carl Simonton, Stephanie Matthews-Simonton, and James Creighton, Bantam Books, 1980). With the striking disproportion between the cost and effectiveness of modern medicine, would it not be wise to emphasize 'wellness' and healthy life-styles through health education and promotion programmes? A Green response to the rising tide of interest in holistic medicine would encourage that movement to avoid the pitfall of 'victimblaming' in analyzing illness and be truly holistic by giving proper weight to all the factors that contribute to ill health: not only inner 205
dynamics, but also environmental factors (such as exposure to lead, asbestos, or toxic chemicals), employment conditions (such as stressful, tedious, or demeaning tasks), and societal phenomena (such as competitive situations, impersonal city life, and the threat of nuclear holocaust) . A Green movement would promote a systems view of health, defining health as an experience of well-being resulting from a dynamic balance that involves the physical and psychological aspects of the organism, as well as its interactions with its natural and social environment (see the chapter on ' Wholeness and Health' in The Turning Point by Fritjof Capra). The poisoning of our biosphere has been so extensive that even wisdom about the self-organizing and self-healing powers of our organism is not going to preclude the need for a great deal of medical care in the future. A Green perspective would pres~ rve those- sensible and successful treatments that have been developed by conventional medicine but would integrate them into a larger framework of holistic healthcare and healing that actively involves the patient: This framework would also include freedom of choice by allowing access to a range of therapeutic models and techniques, such as acupuncture and homeopathy, that have long and successful traditions in other countries. The American Council of Life . Insurance, which is hardly a radical group, published a report in 1980 predicting that in fifty years 'osteopaths, acupuncturists, massage therapists, and ethnic healers' will have roughly the same status and earnings as the traditionally trained allopathic doctors. Perhaps the most immediate· issue in healthcare today is the question of how we shall pay for it. Some states and communities have taken transitional steps towards a more balanced, less profithungry system. For example, in 1983 the state of California initiated a reform of the medical and insurance payment systems. It is generally agreed that hard decisions lie ahead, such as whether a large sum of money should be spent on one coronary operation or on providing good primary care to a great number of people. In addition, we are most likely going to experience an increase in degenerative diseases such as hypertension, arteriosclerosis, cancer, and many geriatric ailments, which are significantly related to environmental stress factors . A Green perspective would encourage comprehensive programmes of healthcare, that is, 'package plans' that integrate biological, psychological, social, and environmental approaches to diagnosis and healing. 206
Is the Green respect for spiritual values served by prayer in the schools? Only if it honours the pluralism of the American tradition. A Gallup poll in September 1983 found that 81 per cent of the American public favour school prayer. We doubt that the percentage would be so high if the imposition of one particular kind of prayer were specified . Most people want to desecularize our culture and let a rich spiritual life grow. Why not have our children begin their school day with five minutes of silence, which they could pass in contemplation and, if they wished, in offering a prayer to God, Goddess, the cosmos, or their favourite tree? And why have them sit in isolation during- those moments? If they stood and joined hands in a circle and closed their eyes, they might experience a ' body parable' of our essential unity - a relevant teaching from preschool through graduate seminars. The network of issues a Green movement would address is far more vast than this brief sampling. It might initiate a Constitutional amendment to change our system of representation in legislative bodies to a proportional one, such as West Germany has. The 5per cent hurdle would keep out fringe groups but allow into our government a great deal of creative political thought, which is not forthcoming from -the old-paradigm parties. If a Green movement is to become a political reality in this country, it will have to overcome several initial problems, both internal and external. The first is the issue of who may become a member. Green politics attracts people who have been searching for a way to transform new-paradigm understandings into political practice, people who were previously somewhat apolitical but now realize that single-issue citizens' movements are inadequate by themselves, and political people who were dissatisfied with their old party or movement and now embrace Green ideals. Unfortunately, in nearly every country where a Green movement has been established, it has also attracted opportunistic persons from unsuccessful political groups on the right and the left who enter the new movement with hidden agendas and dishonest tactics. Identifying and banning them are difficult for two reasons: individuals from any political background may sincerely change their thinking and adopt Green politics, and a diversity of opinions within the framework of Green goals and values should be honoured. However, persons who
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undermine the progress of Green political development by repeatedly trying to impose their own incongruous priorities should not be allowed to ruin the movement. One of the first orders of business during the movement's founding stage should be the creation of a statement of principles and goals, more detailed than the 'four pillars,' to which all members would adhere. Although allegiance to such a declaration would not preclude the possibility of dishonesty, it would clarify the movement's expectations of its members. If infiltration actually occurs, additional means would have to be devised to address it. A second internal problem is that the movement may be heir to unconstructive personal attitudes that should be addr~ssed . As Green politics attracts a broad spectrum of citizens interested in developing possibilities beyond the limits ofleft and right constructs, it is important that people actively work at recognizing the positive aspects of all proposals and perceiving the genuine concerns behind them. A Green movement could avoid a failure-prone posture by tapping the enormous amount of ethical, moral, and spiritual power that is inherent in Green ideals. The struggle is not to smash ' bad guys' or to fight for short-term gains for one group or even one class but to effect systemic change that will yield a better life for all people, all our partners in nature, and all the generations that may follow us. Another destructive attitude might be negativity towards people with leadership abilities. In an effort to find more democratic models than the traditional pyramid structure, many of us experienced the 'tyranny of structurelessness' in political groups in the early 1970s where unofficial channels of information, and hence control and power, developed to fill the void. Groups in the feminist, peace, anti-nuclear-power, and ecology movements since then have found small steering committees and well-defined positions - such as facilitator, note-taker, correspondent, agenda-maker and timer, and process-watcher - to be effective. These positions are rotated not to thwart potential monsters in our midst, but to encourage as many people as possible to take a central role and develop leadership skills. Competent leaders are essential for the success of a movement. They should be supported and encouraged at all levels. Numerous other internal problems may arise, as we discussed earlier. Certainly one of the major challenges will be to arrive. at
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agreement among a broad spectrum of members on the key principles, such as the extremely complex issue of decentralism. As Kirkpatrick Sale demonstrates in Human Scale, the decentralist impulse has been a stubborn, if minority, position within American politics since the beginning. Its era of greatest success was the late nineteenth century, when the Populist party achieved electoral victories from Texas to the Carolinas, even gaining control of the North Carolina legislature in 1890 and passing laws for local selfgovernment through county autonomy. The first two decades of this century, however, saw the triumph of the centralized government's power through federal laws such as the Income Tax Amendment, the Federal Reserve Act, the Prohibition Amendment, and the Selective Service Act. Still, the decentralist spirit did not disappear. The Agrarian movement of the 1920s and 1930s, the cooperative movement, and various 'home-grown radicalisms' joined to found the journal Free America, which existed from 1937 to 1946 with this creed: Free America stands for individual independence and believes that freedom can exist only in societies in which the great majority are the effective owners of tangible and productive property and in which group action is democratic; in order to achieve such a society, ownership, production, population, and government must be decentralized. Free America is therefore opposed to finance-capitalism, fascism, and communism.
With decentralist values reaching so far back in the American tradition, how did we end up with the huge monolithic institutions that control most of our economy, politics, healthcare, and culture today? Sale explains: The centralizing tendency has always existed in this country alongside the decentralizing - for every Anne Hutchinson a Governor Winthrop, for every Jefferson a Hamilton, for every Calhoun a Webster, for every Thoreau a Longfellow, for every Debs a Wilson, for every Borsodi a Tugwell, for every Brandeis a Frankfurter, for every Mumford a Schlesinger, for every Schumacher a Galbraith.
Some Green-oriented thinkers in this country are strict, almost absolutist, decentralists. They maintain that the general lack of corruption in the federal government would also prevail at local levels if local government was made the focus of our system. Centralists, on the other hand, insist that impartial inspections and 209
investigations, civil rights, control of acid rain, equitable allocation of resources, and countless other matters must be handled by a strong federal government. It is likely that a Green movement would opt for neither of those either-or positions but, rather, for a holistic both-and approach: appropriate governance. Green politics in this country would support a great deal of decentralizing in government, the economy, and energy production. At the same time, it might well support accountable, responsive federal power to safeguard the shared values of an ecological, non exploitative society. For instance, our federal government would determine that air pollutants must not exceed a certain level beyond which serious diseases result, but wQuld leave the means of compliance up to each state to determine. Of course, the false decentralism of the Reagan Administration is a farce, because it demands, for example, $260 billion from us in 1984 alone to feed a bloated defence budget and then sends only a relatively small amount of our tax dollars back to the states, leaving them unable to address our problems adequately. In addition, the federal government has persistently increased its proportion of tax revenues from sources that overlap with those of cities and states, for example, gasoline tax. Much of our tax money that is allocated for the poor goes instead to intermediary federal bureaucracies, causing many people to wonder whether direct grants to poor families, administered at state or local levels, might not be more efficient. The tensions between the desire for autonomy and the reality of interdependence are but one conflict a Green movement would have to reconcile creatively. Mark Satin, editor of New Options, suggests that people are decentralists in their hearts but centralists in their heads. Like the German Greens, who call for a global federation to address issues of ecological balance and peace, he feels, 'We'll always need a referee.' One of the external problems a Green movement will face is that several groups will probably claim to be the national Green party or movement with little justification. 3 The Citizens party, for example, considers itself the American counterpart of the West German Greens. I t received an endorsement from a few of the 3 The 'International Green Party' led by Randy Toler claims to have twenty thousand members, five million supporters, and close affiliations with Petra Kelly (which she denied unequivocally in several p~ss confe~nces during her American lecture tour in September 1983), but many people suspect that it is scarcely more than a one-person conceptual art project!
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Greens in its early stages and prints their symbol, the sunflower, on its material along with its own, the fir tree. However, the politics of the Citizens party is less Green than socialist grafted with some environmentalism. For example, its leaflets blame our problems solely on corporations rather than pointing out the entire web of interrelated causes and the need for decentralization and structural changes in our economy. Apparently, the discrepancy went unnoticed by the Citizens party until its convention in San Francisco in September 1983, which featured keynote addresses by three German Greens: Rudolf Bahro, Hannegret Hones, and Christine Schroter. After those speeches, a guest delegate, David Haenke, was able to convince seventeen of the scores of delegates to form a Green caucus in order to introduce and encourage Green ideas in the party. The caucus was denied a permanent, nonvoting seat on the party's executive committee, but was accorded a Green column in its newsletter, Citizens Voice. In an article Haenke wrote at the convention for the daily newsletter there, he told of being pointed towards the door after identifying himself to a member of the Citizens party as 'a political ecologist who was not and never had been a leftist.' Haenke reminded party members that, unlike in the West German Green party, the 'decentralist, conservative right and the rest of the political spectrum' were missing and would probably not be welcome in the Citizens party. Although the party has achieved some admirable successes at grassroots level, it is our feeling after attending the Citizens party's convention that many people are members because it is currently the only national organization that addresses even a few of their desires for a new politics. Whether the Citizens party could actually become Green in the true sense of the word after such a firmly rooted founding in a different political tradition is questionable. Another external problem about which a Green movement should not be naive is possible harassment by a reactionary "fringe group that regularly denigrates the Green party in West Germany via its European chapters. This group is known variously as the National (or International) Democratic Policy Committee, the National Caucus of Labor Committees, the US (or European) Labor Partyor, most commonly, as 'the Lyndon LaRouche people.' They were identified as being the disrupters at lectures Petra Kelly gave in New York, Washington, and Los Angeles in September 1983, 211
shouting from the audience that she is a 'whore' and a 'Nazi.' The Los Angeles lecture was held on the campus of the University of Southern California, where the audience behaved in exemplary fashion: they chanted in unison 'Out! Out! Out!' at the handful of disrupters, who, as is their usual pattern, were scattered throughout the assembly. The police were on hand, but their services were not necessary. Such annoyances, however, are hardly the major external problem a Green movement will face. To achieve their goals, American Greens will have to accomplish a dynamic expansion of their ideas into mainstream consciousness. The extent of this problem was expressed to us by a high-level bureaucrat who has experience in both state and federal government. We asked him to read this chapter of our manuscript, and he responded: 'When 1 think about some of the idiocies of old-paradigm politics, 1 get really angry. And when 1 read about these Green ideas, 1 think, "Right, this is probably the way we should go." But then 1 consider how far these ideas are from the way policy-makers think, and 1 drift off and end up thinking about some of the really great football games I've seen in my lifetime.' What to say? Without dismissing the enormous challenge of getting from here to there that all idealists and realists face, we can take heart in the successes of the German Greens. Many of the very same policy-makers in West Germany who insisted not long ago that Green proposals are utterly impossible are now adopting and implementing some of them. Another problem in applying Green ideas is that, despite their frequent complaints, people are in the habit ofletting the monolithic agencies and institutions make decisions for them. The Green ideal of self-government and participatory democracy requires involvement, time, and effort. Combining such hindrances with the inevitable personality conflicts, one may wonder whether there is any hope for mobilizing Green forces of change. 4 The answer lies in whether enough of us come to realize, as the German Greens have, that the matter at hand is survival. Not everyone will be willing to look directly at such a stark fact, either because of psychological defence mechanisms ('I don't want , See Nothing Can Be Done, Everything Is Possible (Brick House, 1982) by Byron Kennard for a witty dose of reality, as well as inspiration, on the possibilities for social change.
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to know how bad things really are') or because of seemingly irrational, yet usually self-serving, defence of the status quo. For example, books such as Global 2000 Revised by J ulian Simon and the late Herman Kahn argue that because some of the projections in The Limits to Growth and similar reports were incorrect, we should ignore all warnings from ecologists and proceed with full-speedahead industrial growth and use of resources. It should be obvious that no amount of quibbling over the specific year in which we will deplete various minerals, ores, and fossil fuels can alter the fact that we are living in a biosphere with a finite amount of physical resources. Pretending that the human race is somehow above the dynamics of the ecosystems, of which we are a part, is sheer hubris and will lead to a fall of catastrophic proportions. Although an effective Green movement in the United States will not manifest itself automatically, its potential far outweighs the possible problems. There are literally thousands of groups and periodicals that are working along the lines of Green politics. The Networking Institute lists 2,000 such organizations, and New Options, Inc. lists 1,600 change-oriented periodicals. From these two resources we contacted more than 500 groups and selected a representative list of one hundred (American edition, Appendix C 5 ). In our opinion, these groups are working with means and goals that are consistent with Green politics; together their membership is over 2 million. If a Green movement is to develop in this country, many of the organizers will probably come from these and similar groups. Moreover, we hope that local Green groups will contact these organizations for resource material in the various areas we have delineated. When we were in the final stages of writing this book, people began to learn about Green politics, beyond the media distortions, through the speeches and interviews of several German Greens who made lecture tours of the United States. In public forums we also shared our research on the Greens and our ideas for Green politics in this country, which were met with a great deal of enthusiasm. Many people asked us, 'When? Where? How?' As soon as we do it. In " The list of one hundred American organizations has not been included in this edition, nor has it been possible to compile an equivalent list of green-oriented British organizations.
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our own towns and cities. By expressing Green ideals to a broad cross section oJ groups and individuals and inviting them together. The first gathering m_ight be a fund-raising picnic or fair or party at which Green values and goals could be discussed and community groups working in beyond-Ieft-and-right modes could display material. Local groups might then decide to establish task forces for projects such as weatherizing the homes and buildings in a community as Fitchburg, Massachusetts, did, thereby taking .their first step on the soft energy path. The Green organization might wish to conduct a 'goals and futures project' to considc~r various scenarios for the future of their town, developing such policymaking tools for their local government as an agenda of long-range, intermediate, and short-term goals, along with analyses of issues and planning for legislative policies. The Insititue for Alternative Futures has assisted numerous towns and regions with such 'Year 200 Projects,' and their director, Clement Bezold, has edited a helpful anthology, Anticipatory Democracy (Random HouseNintage Books, 1978) . In conjunction with such a project, the local Greens might establish study groups on various issues who could gather information and develop Green proposals to be discussed and refined by the larger group - incorporating the wisdom of our elders and the fresh insights of our children - and then present them to officials and community groups. Orie of the central aims of grassroots ' Green politics is to make the question 'How do I live?' a key issue in social activism, that is, to make everyday life the focus . The 10.cal groups could send representatives to bioregional and eventually state and macroregional meetings as well, but it is important as the grassroots level develops to have some coordination at the national level. The business of a founding convention would include developing a statement of principles, deciding on the structure for the movement, suggesting guidelines for the prpcess of a meeting, deciding on a name (some people feel 'Green' is too narrowly associated with environmentalism in this country), and establishing a .newsletter by which to convey ideas and inspiration among the local groups. Such decisions would require a great deal of preliminary work, of course. If there is an immediacy to Green politics, there is also a deep optimism that we have taken the first steps. Both the right and the left will attack our course, as the Greens in other countries have found . Perhaps the words of a courageous Green in West Germany, 214
Rudolf Bahro, can inspire us: 'When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure.' The carrot of 'security' has been used in the past to lead people out of crisis situations into fascism when no comprehensive alternatives existed to challenge that drift with sufficient strength. Anyone who seriously examines the ecological and economic underpinnings of our system can see that we are heading for a staggering escalation of the current interrelated crises. At that point will the increasingly powerful centralized states that nuclearism is feeding enact 'emergency measures' with all the repressive force the old-paradigm institutions can exert? Or will we be well on the way to building a regionalized global community that is ecologically wise, nonexploitative, and spiritually grounded? The future, if there is to be one, is Green.
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Appendices
Appendix A
The Structure and Operation of the Green Party in West Germany
The fundamental unit of the Green party is the local group. The groups meet biweekly or monthly and control the membership of the party in that in many local chapters the members must approve a person's application, on the grounds of sincere acceptance of Green principles and goals, before she or he can join. Local chapters also keep the party membership records, which are sent to the national office through the county and state offices. Dual membership with another political party is not allowed. Local groups collect party dues via a sliding scale of 5 to 20 DM ($2-8) per month. Of that, usually 4 DM are sent to the state office, which in turn foryvards 2 DM to the national office. The state office then distributes most of its share to the county groups. Some counties maintain offices, while others prefer to spend most of the money on projects. (In all the Green offices we visited, by the way, we never saw a filing cabinet. Instead, the Greens file records and correspondence in looseleafbinders stored on bookshelves that line the walls.) Some local chapters permit nonmembers, such as representatives from citizens' movements, to vote on Green decisions. This policy is in keeping with the Greens' desire to cultivate a broad-based Green movement, only part of which is the political party. They wish to serve the needs and concerns of the entire grassroots level (die Basis) including those activists who do not wish to enter electoral politics. Individual members and nonmembers send proposals or problems directly to Green office holders or party committees at all levels. In most local chapters, however, nonmembers are barred from voting although they are invited to participate in discussions. When this rule has been challenged, it has generally been by radical-left groups rather than citizens' movements. For example, Green members in the Nuremberg chapter who had formerly belonged to Communist groups attempted in June 1983 to achieve open voting, w.ith an eye towards packing the meetings with their 219
ideological colleagues. H owever, the core group of Greens was able to narrowly defeat the proposal. In a large city the next level of structure is the city-quarter group and then the citywide organization (Stadtverband). Where the Greens have succeeded in getting onto the city council, there is also a group of Green council members and their assistants (Stadtratsgruppe) . In most areas, however, the next level after the local groups is the county organization (Kreisverband) . In rural areas, this group, rather than the local one, may handle membership and collect d ues. Countywide meetings are usually held once a month and are open to all members. There may also be a group of Greens who have been elected to the county legislature (Kreistagsgruppe). The highest-ranking body in the state - at least theoretically - is the statewide assembly (Landesversammlung) , which meets semiannually. In som-e states, this meeting is open to all members, in others to delegates who are elected at the county level with one person representing every twenty members. The assemblies vote on major policy positions, priorities, and strategies. They also select a . candidates' list for elections to the state and federal legislatures. A statewide steering committee (Landeshauptausschuss) is either elected by the assembly or comprised of one delegate from each county. These people are the main decision makers for the statewide party throughout the year. They meet at least monthly to coordinate actions with citizens' movements, decide on budgetary matters, respond to proposals and problems presented by local groups .or individuals, issue press releases, prepare for statewide assemblies, and so forth. The assemblies can be called either by the steering committee or by one-third of the county groups. To carry out administrative tasks, the statewide assembly elects an executive committee (Landesvorstand) . This body is usually small, for example, five members in the state of Baden-Wiirttemberg, seven in Hesse, and thirteen in Bavaria. Some states elect one to three speakers from the executive committee but others do not. A treasurer and a secretary seem to be the only indispensable positions. At state, county, and local levels one usually finds working groups on a wide variety of issues. One of the functions of the statewide steering committee is to coordinate these groups through the state office and to act on their findings and recommendations. The topics are usually the same as those the Hesse programme focuses on (see 220
Chapter 6), although priorities vary in ditTerent towns and regions. However, we were surprised to find Third World working groups even in small local organizations. They investigate the source of various imported products, raw materials, and foodstutTs in their town and determine whether the local patterns of consumption are contributing to exploitation and sutTering in the Third World. If so, .alternative patterns and/or worker-owned sources are then sought and publicized. The statewide steering committee also selects one person to serve on the board of the state's Oko-Fond (see Chapter 2), along with two Greens chosen by the statewide assembly and two non-Greens from the citizens' movements. As we explained, each state's OkoFond receives money from the 'surplus' in the salaries of Green state legislators and the Bundestag parliamentarians. It then awards loans and grants to various enterprises in the larger Green movement, such as model projects for alternative energy, legal fees for environmental groups, ecological research investigations,. peace camps, and publicity needs for numerous citizens' movements. A small minority of Greens feel that at least some of that money should stay within the party and be spent on developing the party infrastructure. . In those states where the Greens have won election to the legislature - Baden-Wiirttemberg, Hesse, and Lower Saxony there is also a parliamentary group (Landtagsgruppe) consisting of the legislators, their successors, and the assistants. The Greens have also won seats in the combined city-councillstate-legislatures (Biirgerschaft) of the three city-states: Berlin, Bremen, and Hamburg. In Berlin the Greens ran as part of the leftist Alternative List (AL) and in Hamburg they ran in coalition with the AL, but in all three city-states the working partnership between the Greens and those radical leftists began to unravel during the summer of 1983, leading to various schisms. Ideally, the state legislators work closely with the statewide steering committee and its executive committee, but this is not always the case. Part of the problem is that the legislators must spend nearly all their time addressing duties such as initiating and responding to bills, serving on countless governmental and Fraktion committees, dealing with the media, and responding to various Green individuals and groups. Most of the Green Fraktion groups at 221
the state level see themselves as parallel to the statewide steering committee rather than responsible to it. A somewhat rivalrous relationship between the Hesse Greens and the Baden-Wiirttemberg Greens became apparent during our . discussions of this issue with them. Several Hesse Greeris, who are quite proud of the democracy demonstrated by their lack of a speaker and 'stars,' suggested to us that the best known of the Baden-Wiirttemberg legislators, Wolf-Dieter Hasenclever, a former speaker of the party there, controls not only the Fraktion but the entire state party. Several Baden-Wiirttemberg Greens dryly responded that a powerful man on the Frankfurt city council and a few others exert a great deal of influence over the Green Fraktion in the Hesse legislature. (We did hear complaints from Hesse Greens at the county level that the Frankfurt people carry too much weight in the state party.) The Baden-Wiirttemberg Greens charge that such covert control is less democratic than the openly acknowledged influence of a popular elected official such as Hasenclever. On the national level one finds a similar structure along with an exponential increase in the problems and the intrigue. Theoretically, the highest level body in the entire party is the national delegates' assembly (Bundesdelegiertenversammlung) held annually in November. Delegates are elected not by the state parties but directly from the grassroots level of local or county groups; currently, every twenty members are represented by one delegate. This assembly votes on political issues and policy decisions. Sometimes special national assemblies are also called, such as the one at Sindelfingen in January 1983 to finalize the economic programme for the national election in March, and the one at Hannover in June to establish working groups at the national level. The ongoing business of the party is conducted by a national steering committee (Bundeshauptausschuss) consisting of forty members. They are elected for a two-year term but may step down after one year. The number of delegates a state is allowed to send to this body corresponds to its membership. It meets approximately every six weeks. Sometimes the national steering committee is called upon to solve a problem or to endorse a particular action within the Greens, which usually entails much debate. However, its two main functions are to serve as the link between the grassroots level and the national executive committee, and to channel information from the grassroots level to the Bundestag Fraktion and back. The 222
delegates are required to follow the 'imperative mandate' of their state organizations when voting on an issue, although they may express personal disagreement with their state party's position. Proposals and problems are sent to the national steering committee both by groups and by individuals. A small administrative body, the national executive committee (Bundesvorstand) meets two or more times during the six-week intervals between the meetings of the national steering committee. These eleven people are elected for two years by the annual delegates' assembly. To win a seat a candidate must receive an absolute majority. From this committee the delegates elect the three speakers of the party. As of the November 1983 assembly the speakers were Wilhelm Knabe, Rebekka Schmidt, and Rainer Trampert. The national executive committee was the focus of attention of the party and the media until the Greens entered the Bundestag in March 1983. The members we spoke with denied that being pushed out of the spotlight by the Fraktion in Bonn has been a concern, although other Greens disagree. One of the radical-left members of the committee dismissed such suppositions with the favourite Marxist rebuttal: 'That is a psychologizing of the situation.' After twenty-seven of the Greens became federal parliamentarians, with all the privileges that entails, the three speake!s of the national executive committee requested that the party 'professionalize' their own positions by paying them salaries and providing secretaries. In truth, the members work very hard, enduring relentless schedules of marathon meetings. An even more important concern, though, was the question of to whom the Bundestag Fraktion should be responsible. As the paramount standing body of the party and the channel for both state and grassroots concerns, the national executive committee felt the Fraktion in Bonn should be clearly under their control and should follow the 'imperative mandate' channeled through the party structure. Several parliamentarians, however, felt their responsibility was to the state that had elected them. In the first few months after the election of the Bundestag Fraktion, the national executive committee established a watchdog group of three people to visit Bonn periodically and report back to them. The parliamentarians claimed such a system was not useful as there is so much activity going on within the Bundestag Fraktion
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that no one can grasp the entire picture on periodic visits of a few hours. The national executive committee also convened the Hannover assembly in June to establish working groups on various issues that would send their findings and proposals to the Fraktion via the executive committee. The national executive committee was miffed to learn later that several parliamentarians wanted the Fraktion to establish its own working groups to suit the demands of the legislative system more closely. This question of control and responsibility was one of the major issues addressed, although not effectively, at the national delegates' assembly in Duisburg in November 1983. The national exe.cutive committee also hires the general manager (Bundesgeschiiftsfohrer) , who has been Lukas Beckmann since the founding of the party. He is assisted by Eberhard Walde. The manager conducts the party's business with a staff of eight people in a two-story house in Bonn, identified as the national headquarters by a small sign bearing the party's logo and a sunflower. The unimposing architecture and the bicycles chained to the fence along the garden stand in wry contrast to the high-rise that is the headquarters of the Christian Democrats and the modernistic grouping of 'functional' boxes that houses the Social Democrats. Both. declare their presence with huge initials thought to be an eyesore by many people. On the other side of Bonn, the Green parliamentarians were assigned to a high-rise office building that is part of the government complex. Most of them taped over the air-conditioning vents, opened their windows, and hung posters on the walls. Still, they consider the building an oppressive environment. The Fraktion stationery optimistically shows vibrant sunflowers overgrowing the boxlike government buildings on which the dove of peace has lighted. The Fraktion group currently is composed of twenty-eight parliamentarians (twenty-seven Greens plus one person from the Alternative List in West Berlin), the twenty-eight NachrUcker, about thirty specialist assistants, and about twenty secretaries. Most , of the parliamentarians do not have a secretary and share the office tasks with their assistants. The group has a business manager, Michael Vesper, and a parliamentary manager, Joschka Fischer, who maintains direct communication with the president of the Bundestag and keeps track of the Greens' turns to speak the~c. 224
The Fraktion group spends an inordinate amount of time in meetings, as well as in the Bundestag sessions. The parliamentarians and their successors meet weekly - often for eight hours beginning in the evening! They also hold all-day sessions during crises. Like all bodies within the Greens, the Fraktion tries for consensus but operates according to majority rule. In addition to serving on standing committees in the Bundestag, the parliamentarians and tQeir successors are organized into work"ing groups. These meet weekly and are clustered around the following topics: business and finance; women and society; rights and community; disarmament, peace, and international affairs; and the environment. In addition, the fifty-person staff meets regularly to discuss issues in working conditions and salaries. The women's group - parliamentarians, Nachriicker, specialist assistants, and secretaries - meets to discuss sexism within the Fraktion group. They also explore the possibilities of developing a new style of politics in the Fraktion to replace the patriarchal one that was established quickly in the beginning. The staff focuses on the division of labour that makes men 'official' and women 'supportive.' The women's group played a central role in a 'sex scandal' that was featured in German and American newspapers in August 1983. A fifty-three-year-old male Green parliamentarian entered the office of a twenty-six-year-old female specialist assistant, a biologist, and grabbed her breasts. Shaken, she told him to leave. She then went to other women in the Fraktion group to warn them, only to learn that he had made similar assaults on several other women. She composed a letter calling for a meeting of the women's group to discuss the problem but not mentioning the man by name. (She told us she was able to pursue a course of activism rather than ~tunned silence because of her experience working in a campaign against sexual harassment at McGill University in Montreal in 1978--80.) A reporter for Bild am Sonntag, a newspaper with standards similar to those of the National Enquirer, is believed to have stolen a copy of the letter from the mail boxes and asked around until he had ascertained the man's identity, which appeared with a photograph and large type on the front page the next day. Several male parliamentarians were angry with the women for having addressed the matter semipublicly, if discreetly, since, as they saw it, it was merely a matter of one man's crisis. The women maintained that it was a widespread pattern in patriarchal culture and
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called a press conference to invite women all over West Germany to send accounts of sexual harassment in the workplace. 'The Green party is not an island in patriarchal society but a part of it,' stated Sarah Jansen, one of the leading activists in the women's group. 'It's just that we can discuss this matter openly without fear of losing our jobs, unlike most other women.' The sensationalist publicity increased, including a cover story in . DeT Spiegel, until the man finally resign~d. Most of the pressure for his resignatipn came not fro!ll the women, many of whom felt he should be allowed to stay, but from a few powerful men who felt competitive with the accused man and delighted in this excuse for his ·ouster. In. fact, it was one of those men who informed Bild am Sonntag of the attacker's identity. Since these internal dynamics were not made public, many Greens feel the women were used because they appeared to have demanded vengeance on top of the man's public humiliation. The Green women's group did wage a successful campaign in the national media and in meetings with unions to bring attention to the problem of sexual harassment, and the Green FTaktion appeared responsive because it hired two women to edit a book (half documentation and half analysis) that will draw on the hundreds of accounts that have been received. However, a backlash of 'feminist-phobia,' according to the victim of the assault, manifested within the FTaktion, with several men directing sustained hostility towards her over a period of months and accusing her of having fabricated the entire incident (even though several similar complaints had been made in the man's home state as well as in the FTaktion group). They planted the rumour that she had orchestrated the incident in order to improve the political position of her feminist boss, who, as an activist scientist, was the logical choice among the Green parliamentarians to succeed the ousted man as head of the committee on science and technology in the Bundestag (the only committe chair that was allotted to the Greens). The men successfully blocked the feminist scientist's appointment to that chair, selecting instead a much less feminist female parliamentarian who had been working on another committee altogether. 'They think only in terms of power politics here so they suspect my motivation,' the woman who was attacked told us. 'Those men seem incapable of understanding that someone could act out of feelings of being hurt and humiliated.' In the final analysis of this incident, then, the Fraktion publicly appeared responsive, while
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privately a group of male parliamentarians operating with patriarchal values had eliminated a male competitor, branded his victim a liar, and penalized her feminist boss. Unofficial concentrations of power are sometimes a problem within the Greens, but their avowed position is to keep power decentralized. That is why Green rules forbid anyone to serve on more than one body within the party. This is in contrast to the major parties, in which the speaker of the Bundestag Fraktion is also the speaker .of the party, and several entrenched members each control various operations. . . For the same reason, the Greens generally prefer leadership by committee rather than by individuals. They elected three speakers of the Fraktion for a one-year term: currently, Marieluise BeckOberdorf, Petra Kelly, and Otto Schily. However, like so much else in the Greens, these selections did not come about without a struggle. Schily, who is very popular with the left for his role of defence attorney for terrorists during the 1970s I and is considered by some people more a 'radical liberal' than a Green, received the highest number of votes, followed by Kelly and then Beck-Oberdorf. Schily then suggested that he be the speaker for the Fraktion and the two women could be his assistants, or vice-speakers! Men as well as women successfully opposed Schily's plan on the grounds that it violated basic Green principles; they voted instead for Roland Vogt's counterproposal for a triumvirate. In many other respects, however, the Fraktion did slip into conventional and often patriarchal forms and styles. For reasons no one could explain to us, the three speakers in the Bundestag are the same people who preside over the Fraktion meetings, which is a centralizing of power that easily could be avoided. I Terrorism is antithetical to Green principles, and we found no support for it among the Greens as a political tactic. However, we were surprised to encounter a general sympathy among many Germans under forty for those individuals who had become terrorists in the mid-1970s because of 'frustration ' with the political options then .
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Appendix B
Addresses of Green Parties
AUSTRIA:
ALO Mohrstrasse 10 A-5020 Salzburg Austria
BELGIUM:
Agalev Onderrichtstraat 69 B-I000 Brussels Belgium Ecolo Rue Basse Marcelle 26 B-5000 Namur Belgium
CANADA:
The Green Party of British Columbia 214-1956 W . Broadway Vancouver, B.C. V6J IZ2 Canada
Les Verts - Parti Ecologiste Cite Fleurie 65 Boulevard Arago F-75013 Paris France GERMANY:
Die Griinen Colmantstrasse 36 5300 Bonn 1 West Germany EUROPEAN GREENS:
Dirk J anssens, Secretary c/o Agalev Onderrichtstraat 69 1000 Brussels Belgium IRELAND :
Comhaontas Glas 15 Upper Stephen Street Dublin 2 Eire
FRANCE:
Les Verts 52 rue Faubourg Poissonniere F-7501O Paris France 228
LUXEMBOURG:
Dei Greng Alternativ Boite Postal 2711 Luxembourg
SWEDEN:
UNITED STATES:
Box 22096
Committees of Correspondence
S-10422 Stockholm Sweden
St Paul, Minnesota 55104
Milj6partiet
P.O. Box 40040 USA
UNITED KINGDOM:
Ecology Party 36/38 Clapham Road London SW9 OJQ England
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Appendix C
The Spiritual
Dimensi~n
of Green Politics*
by Charlene Spretnak
Coming of age in the modern era marks a passage into emptiness. At puberty we put aside the ways of childhood, not only the toys and stuffed animals, but also our secret and magical sense of the world, our special relationship with the family pet, with the big tree in the backyard, with the old delivery man, and with our favourite grandparents. We had entered pre-school shining forth with a very . personal cosmology and a numinous sense of the world around us. This we had expressed in totemic finger-paintings of smiling suns and lovable animals and later in stories and puppet shows our grade-school teachers encouraged us to create. All that we left behind as we moved anxiously into the adult world through gradual steps during adolescence. We began to pay some attention to the journals and magazines our parents subscribed to and to the news analysis programmes they watched on television. We ceased to tune out their discussions with other grown-ups, and we even tried to listen to the weekly sermons in church - until they became too abstract and boring to hold us. Everywhere we sought clues to the adult worldview, which would replace the childish one we had proudly outgrown. We discovered that the adult world was brimming over with things to do, both work and diversions. After going to a job or studying, people drove fast cars, went to the movies, cheered at sporting events, watched sit-corns on television, visited amusement parks, and shopped and shopped and shopped. So endlessly varied and attractively marketed were the diversions that many of us moved unquestioningly into the modern world. Others of us gradually realized, with a low level of horror, that there is no inner life in a modern,' technological society. We retreated with disillusionment • The 1984 lecture of the E. F. Schumacher Society of America, delivered by Charlene Spretnak on 27 October in New Haven, Connecticut.
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we could not articulate into private worlds of reading books or making art or, for some, futile acts of rebellion. In my own life, I rationalized a way out: I would go to a churchoriented university because r~ligion probably ~eld the answer to counter the emptiness 'of modern society and I had simply missed it since my parents, although Catholic, had sent us to the public schools in our suburb, which were quite good. I matriculated as an optimistic pilgrim at a Jesuit school, St Louis University. Any literary historian familiar with the biographies of numerous sensitive writers educated by the Jesuits could have predicted the outcome: I paid my money, received a good education, and lost my faith - in the Catholic Church in particular, and Christianity at large. I was not embittered, merely disappointed at what seemed to me to be a spiritual emptiness. I drifted for a couple of years as an agnostic sceptic, moving in and out of a Ph.D programme at a prestigious university that seemed to me devoid of meaning and arriving eventually in India in late 1969. There I searched for spiritual teachings that illuminated the human experience, but did not entail guru worship, ritual and other cultural baggage, or the subjugation of women. I found it in Buddhist Vipassana ('insight') meditation, which by the way, turns out to be the same kind of meditation practised by E. F. Schumacher and advocated in his book A Guide Jor the Perplexed (1977). Sometime later, when I was back in the United States, I became interested in feminist research into pre-Christian cultures in Europe, focusing in my own work on pre-Hellenic mythology. I learned new meanings of ritual by participating in feminist spirituality groups where Nature and the mysteries of creation, our bodies, our feelings, and our transformative powers were honoured - rather than top-down rituals from some religious institution. Although my own practice has remained Vipassana meditation, I also study Taoism and Native American spirituality, which turns out to be a bittersweet experience. To explore a philosophy of life as profoundly Nature-based as either of those paths is to realize how very far our society is from comprehending, let alone abiding by, the deepest levels of ecological wisdom. One encounters, for instance, the frustration of the Hopi man who had been asked too many times to explain how Hopi economics and culture related to their intimate reverence for Nature: 'Almost everything we do is a 231
religious act, from the time we get up to the time we go to sleep. How can the white man ever understand that?" THE PROMISE OF GREEN POLITICS When I began learning of the Green Party in West Germany, I was intrigued by their slogan - 'We are neither left nor right; we are in front' - and by their key principles of ecological wisdom, social responsibility, grassroots democracy, non-violence, decentralization, and post-patriarchal consciousness. But I was most intrigued by the occasional mention in their publications of ' the spiritual impoverishment of modern society' or of 'an industrialized society'. I . thought, 'Aha! They have found an antidote - and they have integrated it with the new politics!' This was my main motivation for pushing aside other projects in my life, convincing a holistic friend who is a native speaker of German (FriDof Capra) to join me, writing a book proposal, studying reams of Green publications, and flying to West Germany inJune 1983. My first group of interviews were with Green parliamentarians in the Bundestag. I asked questions on the entire range of Green politics, and then near the end I asked each one, 'Is there a spiritual dimension to Green politics?' Nearly all of them answered in the affirmative, after which I asked, 'How is it manifested? I don't notice much attention to it.' At that point they would often look down or look out the window and finally explain that because the Nazis manipulated religion, especially a pre-Christian, Naturebased religion (the Nordic myths and 'sacred' soil of Germany), it is practically verboten to bring religious impulses into German politics today. In addition, I was told that those German Greens who had come from a Marxist .background squelched talk of spiritual values and the feelings of reverence for Nature, which had been prevalent in the Greens' first campaign, the European Parliament election ofJune 1979. In short, I learned on my research trip that the spiritual dimension of Green politics is an extremely charged and problematic area in West Germany, though it provides motivation for many Greens there.· • Since my research trip in 1983, I am pleased to note that an activist group called 'Christians in the Greens' has been formed within the West German Green Party.
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While my spiritual quest drew a blank in West Germany, I did learn a great deal about Green politics, and I have since then learned still more through trying to establish Green -politics in this country. The core concepts are sustainability and interrelatedness. In fact, one could say that human systems are sustainable to the extent that they reflect the fact of interrelatedness: the dynamics of Nature arching and stretching through the cycles of her permutations; the dynamics of humans interacting, deftly or brutally, with the rest of Nature; the dynamics of the person interacting with a system and that system with others. That is why the Greens have such slogans as 'No investment without a future!' Enterprises that deplete resources in needless quantities when alternatives are feasible are not sustainable over time; neither are businesses that breed alienation and resentment among workers because all matters of control and profit are far removed, whether in a highly centralized socialist government or a gargantuan corporation. The Green principle of ecological wisdom always occupies the primary position because it means far more than mere environmentalism or saving what's left. The Greens have in mind deep ecology. Deep ecology encompasses the study of Nature's subtle web .of interrelated processes and the application of that study to our interactions with Nature and among ourselves. Principles of deep ecology are that the well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on earth have inherent value, that richness and diversity of life forms contribute to the realization of these values and are also values in themselves, and that humans have no right to reduce this richness and diversity except to satisfy vital needs. 2 Human systems may take from Nature lessons concerning interdependence, diversity, openness to change within a system, flexibility and the ability to adapt to new events or conditions outside the system. With that model, one can easily guess that Green politics eschews human systems - whether economic, political or social - that are rigidly constructed around an ideal of tightly centralized control. Rather, Green politics advocates decentralizing political and economic power so that decisions and regulations over money are placed at the smallest scale (that is, the level closest to home) that is efficient and practical. 3 In the area of economics, Green proposals are built on the ideas of E. F. Schumacher (who was often cited as a primary influence by the German Greens during my interviews) and others who advocate locally or regionally oriented enterprises 233
that are employee-owned and operate with workplace democracy. As such, Green politics stands as a distinct alternative to socialism. Although Green political movements are taking root in many parts of the world - and not only in industrialized countries several aspects of the Green vision for society are only in an embryonic stage. Still, enough work has been done at this point that one can speak not only of Green ideas for sustainable economy and sustainable democracy but also for a sustainable world order, sustainable modes of health maintenance, and sustainable education which would teach conflict resolution. It is when we turn to the issue of spiritual matters that we are faced with a huge hole in Green politics 4 : What is sustainable religion? BEYOND HUMANISM, MODERNITY, AND PATRIARCHY Any delineation of spiritual values within the VISIOn of Green politics must reflect three essential elements of the cultural direction in which the movement is growing. First, Green politics rejects the anthropocentric orientation of humanism, a philosophy which posits that humans have the ability to confront and solve the many problems we face by applying human reason and by rearranging the natural world and the interactions of men and women so that human life will prosper.5 We need only consider the proportions of the environmental crisis today to realize the dangerous selfdeception contained in both religious and secular humanism. It is hubris to declare that humans are the central figures of life on Earth and that we are in control. In the long run, Nature is in control. Commenting on the delusion of our anthropocentric self-aggrandizement, the biologist Lewis Thomas has written: Except for us, the life of the planet conducts itself as though it were an immense, coherent body of connected life, an intricate system, an organism. Our deepest folly is the notion that we are in charge of the place, that we own it and can somehow run it. We are a living part of Earth's life, owned and operated by the Earth, probably specialized for functions on its behalf that we have not yet glimpsed .6
In rejecting humanism, Green politics separates itself from much of the 'New Age' movement and from Teilhard de Chardin's thesis that one of our purposes is to ' humanize' Nature. Our goal is for human society to operate in a learning mode and to cultivate 234
biocentric wisdom. Such wisdom entails a sophisticated understanding of how the natural world - including us - works. I disagree with most critics of humanism when they declare that our problem has been too much reliance on 'reason' and not enough on emotion. In fact, we have been employing merely the truncated version of reason used in mechanistic culture to focus attention on only the most obvious 'figures' in a situation while ignoring the subtle, intricate field around them. In the area of human systems, emotions are always part of the field . If we valued a comprehensive grasp of the context, or gestalt, of various situations, we civilized humans would not have to stumble along ignoring most of the contextual data, arriving at inadequate conclusions, and congratulating ourselves on our powers of 'reason'. In Germany I sometimes heard fears that any turn away from rationalist solutions is extremely dangerous because it could lead to the kind of mass manipulation the Nazis employed so successfully. The essential point is that holistic, or ecological, thinking is not a retreat from reason; it is an enlargement of it to more comprehensive and hence more efficient means of analysis. Green politics goes beyond not only the anthropocentric assumptions of humanism but also the broader constellation of values that constitute modernity. Modern culture - as we all recognize since we live in the belly of the beast - is baseq on mechanistic analysis and control of human systems as well as Nature, rootless cosmopolitanism, nationalistic chauvinism, sterile secularism, and mono-culture shaped by mass media. Some critics of modernity have noted that it consists of revolt against traditional values even to the extent of being 'an unyielding rage against the official order'. 7 An enthusiast of modernity has little use for the traditional institutions that further human bonding - the family, the church, community groups, ethnic associations - championing instead an 'individual-liberationist stance' .8 The values of modernity inform both socialist and capitalist nation-states. It is not surprising that citizens' resistance networks in socialist countries often find a resonant home in the churches and that both liberal and conservative churches in capitalist countries are rethinking religion's contemporary role as an inconsequential observer who is to make accommodations to the modern world and not interfere with 'progress'.
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Most critics of modernity, while unable to suggest a comprehensive alternative, conclude that the transformation of modern society is 'going to have something to do with the religion' . Whatever the particulars of post-modern culture, it will not signify an uncritical return to the values of the medieval world that immediately preceded the Enlightenment or those of the 'Gilded Age' preceding World War I and the aggressive burst of modernism that followed it. The pioneers of modernity were right to reject certain conventions and restrictions that were stultifying to the human spirit. But, with the impulses of a rebellious adolescent, they destroyed too much and embraced a radical disregard for limits, especially concerning the natural world. What we need now is the maturity to value freedom and tradition, the individual and the community, science and Nature, men and women. The third cultural force that Green politics counters is patriarchal values. In a narrow sense these entail male domination and exploitation of women. But in a broader sense the term 'patriarchal culture' in most feminist circles connotes not only injustice toward women but also the accompanying cultural traits: love of hierarchical structure and competition, love of dominance-orsubmission modes of relating, alienation from Nature, suppression of empathy and other emotions, and haunting insecurity about all of those matters. 9 These traits usually show up in anyone, male or female, who opts to play by the rules of patriarchal culture. In recent months I have been reading all the critiques of modernity I could find. Most of those that made it into print are by men, and I must note tha.t 'post-modern' seems to be edging out 'post-patriarchal' as the blanket term for our evolving stage of transformation. I do not object to that, actually; it will probably play better in Peoria. I believe those male authors are sincere in including and valuing the feminist critique of contemporary society - and I even came across a male Catholic theologian who declared that we live in a 'hyper-masculinized modern culture'. 10 Imagine my surprise. (I must also note, however, that these well-intentioned men never seem to notice, while rhapsodizing over the need to return the 'feminine symbol' to our notion of deity, that no flesh- and-blood females have been invited to speak on their panels, at their conferences, or in their journals.) It is not when post-modern critics examine the present or the future that feminist insights are missing but, rather, when they 236
analyse history, that is, the historical. roots of modern society. Nearly always they lay blame at the door of the Enlightenment, which bequeathed upon us the mechanistic world view of Descartes, Bacon and Newton. This, they maintain, w~s the beginning of modern perception; before which there was the era of classical or traditional religion (Christian, Jewish, Roman, and Greek), and before that was the tribal era. They are forgetting a little detail: the neolithic era! We did not leap from the tribal stage into Classical Greek Society. For several thousands of years our neolithic ancestors lived in agricultural settlements. The archaeology of such settlements in Old Europe has revealed sophisticated art and religious symbols reflecting reverence for Mother Earth, the elements, and animals; egalitarian graves; and no fortifications or evidence of warfare before the invasions of the barbarian Indo-European tribes from the Eurasian steppes. 11 Picture yourself as a witness of that decisive moment in history, that is, as a resident of the peaceful, artful, Goddess-oriented culture in Old Europe. (Don't think 'matriarchy'! It may have been, but no one knows, and that is not the point.) It is 4500 BC. You are walking along a high ridge, looking out across the plains to the east. In the distance you see a massive wave of horsemen galloping toward your world on strange, powerful animals. (The European ancestor of the horse had become extinct.) They brought few women, a chieftain system, and only a primitive stamping technique to impress their two symbols, the sun and a pine tree. They moved in waves first into south-eastern Europe, later down into Greece, across all of Europe, also into the Middle and Near East, North Africa and India. They brought a sky god, a warrior cult, and patriarchal social order. And that is where we live today - in an Indo-European culture, albeit one that is very technologically advanced.· Once reverence for the mysteries of the life force was removed from Nature and placed in a remote judgmental sky god first Zeus, then Yahweh - it was only a matter of time before the 'Great Chain of Being' would place the sky god at the top of 'natural order' and Nature at the bottom (trailing just behind white women, white children, people of colour, and animals.) True, that • I am not suggesting that the pre-Indo-European neolithic era was perfect, nor that we should attempt to return to it. However, their art and artifacts demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of our interrelatedness with Nature and her cycles. Their honouring of those contextual processes holds lessons for us in sustainability.
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medieval schema was rather organically conceived, but was it really such a radical break for the superstars of the Age of Enlightenment to look at the bottom of the chain and declare that Nature was actually an inert mechanism much like a clockworks, fully suitable for firm and systematic management by man? There is absolutely no doubt that the Enlightenment altered the course of human culture a great deal, but regarding it as the only source of our contemporary crisis reveals a shallow sense of history. Gary Snyder, who is a deep ecologist and a historian of culture as well as a poet, has expressed the matter quite succinctly: 'Our troubles began with the invention of male deities located off the planet.' 12 The spiritual dimension of Green politics, then, will have to be compatible with the cultural direction of Green thought: posthumanist, post-modern, and post-patriarchal. That direction will probably come to bear the inclusive label 'post-modern' - unless that tag has already been ruined almost before we have begun. Ever alert for the word of the moment, designers and advertisers ·have seized upon it to the extent that I now receive circulars in the mail urging me to purchase post-modern furniture, post-modern clothing, post-modern jewellery, post-modern haircuts, and so forth. Not only has the term been trivialized but these products lack any harmony, grace or organic beauty - being, in fact, terminally modern, punky, disjointed and ugly. The term may indeed be lost. GREEN CRITERIA FOR AN ANSWER In exploring the spiritual dimension of Green politics, we can consider the questions from two directions. First, what is spiritual about Green politics itself? Second, what can Green principles contribute to the contemporary evolution of post-modern religion? In addition to being true to the cultural direction of Green thinking, any aspect of the Green vision for society must be savvy about the facts of realpolitik, as well as Green principles and process. A primary consideration is that a delineation of the spiritual dimension of Green politics must honour the religious pluralism in our society. (There are 1200 kinds of 'primary religious bodies' in the V nited States. 13 ) Second, it should resonate with people who are members of churches, synagogues, temples, etc. (69% of the VS population above age 18 14 ) and with unaffiliated people who hold spiritual beliefs. (Ninety-four per cent of the VS population above 238
age 18 believe in God 'or a universal spirit'.'5) Third, it should resonate with people who are members of the Green political movement and with supportive non-members. (The latter constitute the essential base of support for Green parties in many countries. For example, Green party membership in West Germany was only 30,000 during the 1983 Bundestag election, but two million people voted Green.) Fourth, it should inspire people to do their own thinking about the matter, rather than pushing a 'package' at them. Last, it should integrate or be in harmony with the key principles of Green politics: ecological wisdom, social responsibility (personal, local, national, and global), grassroots democracy, non-violence, decentralization of political and economic power, and postpatriarchal consciousness. My own response to the need to define the spiritual dimension of Green politics has been shaped by my experiences during the past two years. Studying at close range a political party, in West Germany, and then co-founding a Green political organization* in this country has changed me. I now pay more attention to what is rather than concentrating solely on theories of what might be. What is in the area ofreligion is the Big Boys, Judaism and Christianity. We cannot hope to achieve broad-based social change by working only within circles of alternative religion. I am still attracted to the realm of ideas and visionary possibilities, but only in so far as they address getting to there from here. I have become interested in 'spirituality at the precinct level' and in cutting across dividing lines in our pluralistic culture. To be successful, the/ expression of the spiritual dimension of Green politics must pres/nt some rather complex ideas in very simple and commonsense terms without watering down the power inherent in spiritual impulses. (Frankly, I never expected my personal development to gravitate toward the • Our Green organization, the Committees of Correspondence (which was the name for grassroots political networks in the American Revolutionary Era and several times since then), is not a third party but, rather, a regionally based movement working in various areas to advance ecological populism and the Green values stated above. Our organization has been endorsed by many nationally known religious and community leaders who are committed to a post-modern vision for society that goes beyond what either the left or the right has to offer. For information please contact Committees of Correspondence, P.O . 40040, St Paul, MN 55401, USA. I wish to emphasize that all proposals in this lecture are merely my own and are merely a beginning. They have not been presented to the Green organization and are not official positions of that group.
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mentality of a Chicago ward boss [shrewd politician] but, alas, here I am.) WHAT IS SPIRITUALITY? My own working definition of spirituality is that it is the aspect of human existence that explores the subtle forces of energy in and around us and reveals to us profound interconnectedness. A materialist explanation of life works somewhat well at the gross levels of perception, much as Newtonian physics can explain the behaviour of matter in a certain middle range. At the subatomic and astrophysical levels, however, Newtonian explanations are inadequate. Similarly, our perceptions at the gross levels - that we are all separate from Nature and from each other - are revealed as illusion once we employ the subtle, suprarational reaches of mind, which can reveal the true nature of being: all is One, all forms of existence are comprised of one continuous dance of matter/energy arising and falling away, arising and falling away. The experience of union with the One has been called God consciousness, cosmic consciousness, knowing the One mind, and so forth. It is the core experience common to the sages of all the great religions and has been expressed in the rapture of Christian saints as well as the simple words of a haiku poem. It is not a one-time realization but, rather, a level of understanding that deepens as one continues spiritual practice. To live with a deep awareness of the elemental Oneness of all creation is to partake of 'God consciousness'. Such experiential, rather than merely intellectual, awareness of the profound connectedness is what I hold to be the true meaning of being in 'a state of grace'. BACK TO BASICS Green politics is about values in our daily lives, how we live and love and work and play. Core values are informed by deep thinking and existential explorations, which are spiritual perceptions. I would like to consider our core values by exploring three basic questions: Who are we (or What is our nature?)? How shall we relate to our context (the environment)? How shall we relate to others? I.) Who are we? What is our nature? Moving from where wc are 240
now, we can draw some negative lessons from the modern answers to this pair of questions: we are not mechanistic cogs in the 'machinery' of society, neither indistinguishable blobs in 'the masses', nor isolated competitive units. We are not alienated creatures who have a need to seek 'freedom' from Nature and traditional modes of human bonding. The societal systems of a modern culture often inflict what the Greens call 'structural violence' to the person because of the dehumanizing assumptions and expectations. Apathy, numbness, and resentment are the results. Hence such an interpretation of our nature is not humane and is not sustainable over time. We discover our true nature not by absorbing cultural projections but by cultivating self-awareness and self-knowledge. Schumacher filled several pages of A Guidefor the Perplexed with injunctions from the great religions that one must pursue the inner journey. He asserted that the traditional function of religion has been to teach the basic truth that 'at the human Level of Being, the invisibilia are of infinitely greater power and significance than the visibilia.' 16 It is because Western civilization has abandoned religion and lost that teaching, Schumacher felt, that our society has become incapable of 'dealing with the real problems of life at the human Level of Being'. 16 In order to seek 'knowledge for wisdom', rather than settle for the much narrower 'knowledge for manipulation', Schumacher personally chose the practice of Buddhist Vipassana ('insight') meditation, in which one meticulously observes the workings of one's own mind and experientially grasps the profound truth of Oneness and eternal flux, even to the level of the most minute vibrations ever rippling in and around us. However, Schumacher's personal choice, which is also my own, is not useful for us here, as it is extremely unlikely that most Americans will ever practice Buddhist meditation.· (I know this from family reunions in Ohio!) A more practical way for postmodern religion to counter the emptiness of modern life would be to investigate, elevate, and promote the teachings and practices inherent in every religious tradition that further inner growth leading to wisdom. With Christianity and Judaism that may require some • I am not suggesting that we overlook the scores of thousands of ethnic Buddhists who are recent immigrants to the US, from South-east Asia nor the many American born Buddhist meditators. I mean only that their numbers will probably always be comparatively small.
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digging, as their 'mystical' traditions have been shunted off to the sidelines. In fact, so peripheral a role do they play in the twentieth century that Freud insisted the J udeo-Christian tradition 'keeps people stupid' because it hands them everything and denies, even forbids, them the individual quest that results in true growth and wisdom. I disagree with Freud that Western religion is devoid of such possibilities, although one mostly finds hierarchically dictated rituals (services) with minimal personal involvement and some prescribed individual spiritual practices that are merely devotional in natu're. These observances have a soothing effect and serve to block out the harshness of the modern world periodically - and as such they should certainly not be banned - but religion should be more than a playpen. I emphatically take issue with those critics of modern society who charge that liberal theology has become 'too personal' or 'too privatized'. I do agree that modern religion has largely receded to an inconsequential sphere of influence, but at the level of the person, of the inner life, one would think that Western religion is spiritually bankrupt! What would the life of the person be like with post-modern religion in a Green society? First of all, every person would be encouraged to have a daily spiritual practice, which might be reading the Bible for a half-hour, or meditating, or performing various spiritual exercises of contemplation. 17 The purpose of the practice would be to cultivate wisdom, loving kindness, compassion for all living things, sympathetic joy, and equanimity (a calm and balanced mind that does not react blindly to the words and deeds of others). Can you imagine going to work and encountering people all day long who were trying to apply the lessons and inspiration from their morning spiritual practice?! In this vision most people would also meet once a month or even once a week with a small group of peers to discuss occurences in their spiritual practice and ways to put spiritual goals such as compassion and loving kindness into action in their community. In addition, it would be commonplace for people to make a spiritual retre~t once a year, to spend approximately a week mostly in silence and contemplation with other members of one's church or a non-sectarian organization. Lectures, group discussions, and one-to-one interviews could provide spiritual guidance, but most of the time would be quiet space, away from daily responsibilities, time to nurture the inner life.
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Spiritual experience would not be limited to the morning practice or weekly church service or group meeting. We would increase our awareness of 'spiritual moments' .in the most ordinary human experiences. I agree, for instance, with most critics of modern religion who surmise that post-modern religion will have 'more to do with the body'. I believe we need only pay attention to our body wisdom rather than seeking transcendence 'above' the body to realms of the sky god. Music, dance, and ritual are recognized ways to move one's consciousness beyond the mundane perceptions of the illusion that all beings are separate, mechanistic entities to the consciousness of Oneness. But we have not yet recognized the teachings I call 'body parables', which are inherent in our sexuality. (I will give examples here from women's sexuality since that is my own experience, but I do not feel that body parables occur only in women.) First, it is difficult for women living in patriarchal culture to acknowledge any positive aspects of menstruation since it is now called 'the curse' rather than 'the sacred blood', which was represented by red ochre rubbed on sacred statues of the Goddess from at least as far back as 25,000 BC until the time of the IndoEuropean invasions into Europe around 4500 BC. The first day of menses, however, is experienced by many women as a consciousness of 'soft boundaries' of the self and of openness. The sense that boundaries or separations between beings are only illusory is even stronger in the experiences of pregnancy, natural childbirth, nursing, and motherhood when the distinction between me and not me becomes 'a little blurred to say the least', as a friend of mine has put it. 18 In modern psychology, of course, any sense of one's own boundaries or delineations being softened is interpreted as unhealthy. In fact, it is merely an experiential contact with the deeper truth of life on Earth. , What is perhaps the primary body parable occurs in the postorgasmic state. It is true that both partners during the act of sexual union experience moments of oneness between "themselves. It is after climax, however, if we focus awareness instead of chattering or lighting up a cigarette, that women often experience a peaceful, expansive mindstate, an oceanic, free-floating sense of having no boundaries. * This mindstate is similar to a particular experience • Most males describe their post-orgasmic state as a somewhat unpleasant time when they feel vulnerable and even fearful. In France, men call it It petit mort (the
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people strive for in meditation halls, and it reveals a teaching about the nature of being: boundaries, as modern physics has agreed, are arbitrary and relative. Onenesll and interrelatedness is the deep reality. This spiritual interpretation of the function of the orgasm, by the way, affords what I believe is the only answer to the question that has always baffled physiologists: 'Just why does the female have a clitoris? It has no function in reproduction. It's just there for sexual pleasure!' Indeed - and orgasmic pleasure can be a gateway to experiencing the profound Oneness, or knowing grace. (I do not expect a papal encyclical to be forthcoming on this spiritual experience, as the church fathers generally deny the existence of the clitoris altogether, insisting that God gave us our genitals strictly for purposes of procreation. Women merely smile at that - and perhaps God herself is chuckling.) 2.) How shall we relate to our context, the environment? In 1967 Lynn White, a professor of history at UCLA, published in Science 'The Historical Root of Our Ecologic Crisis', a critical analysis of the attitudes Western religion has encouraged toward our environment. Since then ecologists often point to the injunctions in Genesis that humans should attempt to 'subdue' the Earth and have 'dominion' over all the creatures of the Earth as being bad advice with disastrous results. In fact, Bill Devall, co-author of Deep Ecology, spoke for many citi'zens when he declared in August 1984, 'Unless major changes occur in the churches, ecologists and all those working in ecology movements will feel very uncomfortable sitting in the pews of most American churches.' The disparity between J udeo-Christian religion and ecological wisdom is illustrated by the experience of a friend of mine who once lived in a seminary overlooking Lake Erie and says he spent two years contemplating the sufferings of Christ without ever noticing that Lake Erie was dying. 19 Even when Catholic clergy speak today of St Francis of Assisi, whom Lynn White nominated as the patron saint of e~ologists, they often take pains to insist he
little death). Perhaps this response is merely a result of social conditioning in patriarchal culture. Perhaps in a post-patriarchal culture men would have fewer existential fears, would experience their post-orgasmic state as positive, and would discover it to be a body parable,
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was not some 'nature mystic',20 which, of course, would taint him with 'paganism'.* Religion that sets itself in opposition to Nature and vehemently resists the resacralizing of the natural world on the grounds that it would be 'pagan' to do so is not sustainable over time. The cultural historian Thomas Berry has declared that we are entering a new era of human history, the Ecological Age. How could our religion reflect ecological wisdom and aid the desperately needed transformation of culture? First, I suggest that J udaism and Christianity should stop being ashamed of their 'pagan' inheritance, which is substantial, and should proudly proclaim their many inherent ties to Nature. How many of us realize that the church sets Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox and that most of the Jewish holy days are determined by a lunar calendar. 21 Deliciously 'pagan' and there's lots more. Numerous symbols, rituals, and names in Jewish and Christian holy days have roots directly in the Naturerevering Old Religion. The list is a long one and should be cause for self-congratulation and celebration among Christians and Jews. Second, I hope the stewardship movement, which is gaining momentum in Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish circles, will continue to deepen its analyses and its field of action. 22 Those people are performing a valuable service by reinterpreting the overall Biblical teachings about the natural world and finding ecological wisdom that balances or outweighs the 'dominance' message. Virtually all spokespersons for the stewardship movement emphasize that nature is to be honoured as God's creation. In fact, 'creation-centered spirituality', as the Catholic theologian Matthew Fox has labelled it, is the realization that Nature, including our own bodies, is God's primary and fundamental revelation to US. 23 The Protestant theologian John Cobb suggested similar perspectives in 'process theology' in the early 1970s. 24 It is possible that those learned gentlemen and their followers may one day regard communion with God's creation, Nature, as the kind of theologically sophisticated, elemental spiritual experience that Alice Walker expressed in her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel . The Calor Purple when one black woman in rural Georgia explains to another that God 'ain't a he or a she, but a It'; • 'Pagan' is from the Latin word for 'country people', pagani. It has nothing to do with Satan-worship.
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It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at' apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be: And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found it . . . My first step away from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then .birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a~otherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed . And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.25
I am encouraged that a religion-based respect for Nature is showing up in numerous articles and books, especially books like The Spirit of the Earth (1984), in which John Hart urges study of and respect fbr Native American religious perspectives on Nature, because that is the indigenous tradition of our land, and suggests compatibility between their religion and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yet why is it that attention to loving and caring for Nature rarely makes it into the liturgy today? I recently came across a newspaper article by Harold Gilliam in the San Francisco Chronicle describing a magnificent ecological service that spanned twenty-four hours, begil:ming at sunrise on the Autumnal Equinox, and took place in the gothic cathedral on Nob Hill in San Francisco, Grace Cathedral. At the sound of a bell and a conch shell, the Episcopal Bishop of California opened the service: We are gathered here at sunrise to express our love and concern for the living waters of the Central Valley of California and for the burrowing owls, white-tailed kites, great blue herons, migratory waterfowl, willow trees, cord grass, water lilies, beaver, possum, striped bass, anchovies, and women, children, and men of the Great Family who derive their life and spiritual sustenance from these waters. Today we offer our concerns and prayers for the ascending health and spirit of these phenomena of life and their interwoven habitats and rights .. .
Poets, spiritual teachers, musicians, and ecologists all participated in the service, which inCluded whale and wolf calls emanating from various corners of the cathedral's sound system, as well as the projection of Nature photography onto the walls and pillars. Gary Snyder and his family read his 'Prayer for the Great Family', which is based bn a Mohawk prayer. * The celebrants poured water from all the rivers • 'Prayer for the Great Family' may be found in Gary Snyder's Pulitzer Prizewinning volume of poetry, Turtlt Island (New Directions Books ).
·246
of California into the baptismal font. They committed themselves to changing our society alld our environment into 'a truly Great Family', and they assigned to each US Senator a totemic animal or plant from his or her region in order to accentuate the rights of our non-human Family members. I read the account with awe and then noticed with sadness that it was dated 17 October 1971. (No subsequent ecological services took place in that church because a few influential members of the congregation pronounced it paganism.) How many species have been lost since then, how many tons of topsoil washed away, how many aquifers polluted - while we have failed to include Nature in our religion? Knowledge of Nature must precede respect and love for it. We could urge that ecological wisdom regarding God's creation be incorporated in Sunday School as well as in sermons and prayer.· We could suggest practices such as the planting of trees on certain holy days . We could mention in the church bulletin ecological issues that are crucial to our community.26 There is no end to what we could do to focus spiritually based awareness and action on saving the Great Web of Life. 3.) How shall we relate to other people? This last basic question has two parts: distinction by gender and then by other groups. Our lives are shaped to a great extent not by the differences between the sexes, but by the cultural response to those differences. There is no need to belabour the point that in patriarchal cultures the male is considered the norm and the female is considered 'the Other' . For our purposes here, however, it is relevant to note that Judeo-Christian religion has played a central role in constructing the subordinate role for women in Western culture. Suffice it to say that the eminent mythologist Joseph Campbell once remarked that in all his decades of studying religious texts worldwide he had never encountered a more relentlessly misogynist book than the Old Testament. Numerous Christian saints and theologians have continued the tradition. The results for traditional society of denying women education and opportunity have been an inestimable loss of talent, intelligence, and creativity. For women it has meant both structural and direct • I will pass along my mother's technique for getting the priest's attention: she critiques his sermon on the back of the collection envelope before dropping it into the basket in church!
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violence. Of the former, Virginia Woolfobserved that women under patriarchy are uncomfortable with themselves because they know society holds them in low esteem. The structural violence of forced dependency sometimes provides the conditions for physical violence, that is, battering. Finally, patriarchal culture usurps control over a woman's body from the woman herself, often inflicting tortuous pain. In China today women are forced to undergo abortions even in the third trimester under the government's one-child-only policy. (The women who must undergo forced abortion are those who have incurred shame and the wrath of their husbands a,nd in-laws by previously giving birth to a girl and later try desperately to carry a boy child to term unnoticed by the government. Sometimes the women in that patriarchal culture simply drown themselves immediately after giving birth to a daughter.) People sometimes accuse the Greens of being hypocritical in calling themselves a 'party of life' and adopting a 'pro-choice' stance on abortion. Last spring the European Greens, a coalition of Green parties throughout Western Europe, endorsed, after much debate, a position against social and political sanctions that force birthing and for free choice. The quality of the debate in Green parties over abortion has more integrity than that currently being waged in American politics precisely because all aspects of the issue are considered. Because this issue is germane to my topic today, I will briefly offer some of my own views on the aspect of violence. In our country, church leaders of many varieties are demanding an end to all legal abortion. I suspect they can maintain a position demanding the criminalization of abortion only because they have never witnessed a woman going through pregnancy, labour and delivery - or else they believe the 'biblical injunction that woman is supposed to suffer. Sometimes birth is text-book simple, but usually it is not.· Some men say they remember their wife's screams for months. Many men say the birth experience made them 'prochoice' on the abortion issue because they would never want to force any woman to go through such an ordeal against her will. There comes a time at the end of life when life is not viable • I am not speaking from embittered experience, as I had a medically un complicated pregnancy and a brief, nearly painless delivery using Lamaze techniques plus meditation skills of concentrating the mind. Without those two advantages, it wou ld have been a very.different story.
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without machinery, and most people say they would like the machinery turned off if it came to that. Similarly, there is a time at the beginning of life when a fertilized egg and then a fetus is not viable life unless the woman is willing to give over her body and accept the suffering. To force a woman either to give birth or to abort is violence against the person. Most men and women know this in their hearts. They also know that countless women do not have the financial and other resources for the twenty-year task of raising a child. That is why a Gallup poll in June 1983 found that only 19% of American Catholics and 16% of the total American population want abortion to be illegal in all circumstances. The Gallup organization is currently conducting a similar poll, and it will be interesting to see whether patriarchal religion's campaign 'Save the embryo, damn the woman' - has changed people's minds. Men, too, suffer under patriarchal culture. Because woman is regarded as the denigrated 'Other', men are pressured to react and continually prove themselves very unlike the female. This dynamic results in what some men have called 'the male machine'. It has also skewed much of our behavioral and cognitive science since thousands of careers and volumes of commentary on 'sex differences' have been funded, but no recognized field of 'sex similarities' exists. 27 That would be too unnerving. The most serious effect of men under patriarchy needing to prove themselves very different from women is the function of military combat as an initiation into true manhood and full citizenship. This deeply rooted belief surfaced as an unexpected element in the struggle to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, for instance. Feminist lobbyists in state legislatures throughout the 1970s were repeatedly informed, 'When you ladies are ready to fight in a war, we'll be ready to discuss equal rights!,28 Such an orientation is not sustainable in the nuclear age. What role could religion play in removing the cultural insistence on women as Other and men as God-like and hence inherently superior? How could religion further the Green principle of postpatriarchal consciousness? We know the answers because they are already being tried: women must have equal participation in ritual (as ministers, rabbis,' and priests); language in sermons and translations must be inclusive; and the Godhead must be considered female as well as male. These solutions are not new, but neither are they very effective because so many people do not take either the
249
need or the means seriously. Instead, they resent these efforts an-d feel silly and somewhat embarrassed with the notion of a female God. Being forceq to say 'God the Mother' once in a while is pointless if people have in mind Yahweh-with-a-skirt. We must first understand who She is: She is not in the sky; She is Earth . . Here is Her manifestation in the oldest creation story in Western culture: THE MYTH OF GAlA Free of birth or destruction, of time or space, of form or condition, is the Void. From the eternal Void, Gaia danced forth and rolled Herself into a spinning ball. She moulded mountains along Her spine, valleys in the hollows of Her flesh. A rhythm of hills and stretching plains followed Her contours. From Her warm moisture She bore a flow of gentle rain that fed Her surface and brought life. Wriggling creatures spawned in tidal pools, while tiny green shoots pushed upward through Her pores. She filled oceans and ponds and set rivers flowing through deep furrows . Gaia watched Her plants and animals grow. In time She brought forth from Her womb six women and six men. The mortals thrived but they were continually concerned with the future. At first Gaia felt this was an amusing eccentricity on their part. However, when She saw that their worry about the future nearly consumed some of Her children, She installed among them an oracle. In the hills at the place they call Delphi, Gaia sent up steaming vapours from Her netherworld . They wafted up from a cleft in the rocks, surrounding a priestess. Gaia instructed Her priestess in the ways of entering a trance and in the interpretation of messages that arose from the darkness of Her Earthwomb. The mortals travelled long distances to consult the oracle: Will my child 's birth be auspicious? Will our harvest be bountiful? Will the hunt yield enough game? Will my mother survive her illness? Gaia was so moved by their stream of anxiety that She sent forth other. portents of the future at Athens and Aegae. Unceasingly the Earth-Mother manifested gifts on Her surface and accepted the dead into her body. In return She was revered by all mortals. Offerings to Gaia of honey and barley cake were left in a small hole in the earth before plants were gathered. Many of Her temples were built near deep chasms where yearly the mortals offered sweet cakes into her womb. From within the darkness of Her secrets, Gaia received their gifts.29
Having addressed the self, Nature and gender, we now come to the last half of the last basic question, How shall we relate to groups and other individuals? There are, of course, a multiplicity of groups in society at the levels of family, community, region , state, nation , and 250
planet; I am speaking in general terms here because of the time constraint. We must first analyse how our own mode of living affects others in the Great Family: Does the nature of our existence impose suffering on others - or does it support and assist those who are less privileged than we? Here we can enjoy the convergence of spiritual growth and political responsibility in the spiritual practice of cultivating moment-to-moment awareness, being fully 'awake' and focused . on our actions - a simple-sounding yet demanding task. There is a story in Zen of a student who studied very hard to ' master certain religious texts and then went before his spiritual , teacher to be questioned. The roshi asked simply, 'On which side of the umbrella stand did you place your shoes?' The student was defeated; he had lost awareness (or 'spaced out', as we might say!). We can begin our day by focusing mindfulness on our every act. Turning on the water in the bathroom. Where does it come from? Is our town recklessly pumping water from the receding water table instead of calling for conservation measures? Where does our waste water go when it leaves the sink? What happens after it is treated? Later we are in the kitchen, making breakfast. Where does our coffee come from? A worker-owned cooperative in the Third World or an exploitative multi-national corporation? Obviously, it is exhausting to continue this practice very long unless one is adept. (It is difficult - so much so that a friend of mine has added an amendment to a popular spiritual saying: 'Be here now - or now and then.') But everyone can practise some mindfulness. If we analyse our own situation, we may discover that we are benefitting from the suffering of others - and that we ourselves are uncomfortable with the structural systems in which we work. When one thinks of religious people working for economic and social change, the 'liberation theology' movement probably comes to mind because of its size in Latin America and its coverage in the press lately. In that movement grassroots Catholic groups (base communities) meet frequently to discuss the teachings in the Gospels and applications of Marxist analysis. But there is another way: a religion-based movement for social change is beginning to flourish that is completely in keeping with Green principles of private ownership and cooperative economics, decentralization, grassroots democracy, non·violence, social responsibility, global awareness - and the spiritual truth of Oneness. 251
This type of call for economic and social change is gaining momentum in Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish communities. We see it, for example, in the statement issued by the Catholic Bishops of Appalachia, This Land Is My Home: A Pastoral Letter on Powerlessness in Appalachia, which calls for worker owned businesses and communitybased economics. We see it in Strangers and Guests: Toward Communiry in the Heartland by the Catholic bishops of the Heartland (Midwest) and in The Land: God's Giving, Our Caring by the American Lutheran Church, a statement which was then echoed by the Presbyterian church. Both of these statements address ecological use of the land, and Strangers and Guests calls for small-is-beautiful land reform as the only sustainable course for rural America. Developing the applications of such principles as 'the land should be distributed equitably' and 'the land's workers should be able to become the land's owners', the Heartland bishops discuss elimination of capital gains tax laws which favour 'wealthy investors and speculators' and disfavour 'small and low-income farm families', taxation of agricultural land 'according to its productive value rather than its speculative value', 'taxing land progressively at a higher rate according to increases in the size and quality of holdings' (a proposal in th~ Jeffersonian tradition), and low-interest loans to aspiring farmers as well as tax incentives for farmers with large holdings to sell land to them. We see Green-oriented economic and social change now promoted in the Jewish periodical Menorah and by the Protestant multidenominational association Joint Strategy and Action Committee. The lead article in a recent issue of the JSAC newsletter began: If you want to know what eco-justice is, read the Psalms. The dual theme of justice in the social order and integrity in the natural order is pervasive and prominent. The Book is, in large part, a celebration of interrelationships, the interaction, the mutuality, the organic oneness and wholeness of it all that is, that is to say, the Creator and the creation, human and nonhuman.
The Green-oriented Jewish and Protestant leaders seek to locate justice and ecological wisdom in the Old Testament. Green-oriented Catholics usually turn to the papal encyclicals, especially Pope Pius Xl's 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo anno (Forry Years Afler)* which • Quadragesimo anno was a commemoration and expansion or Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum (Of the New Situation) .
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established three cardinal principles: personalism (the goal of society is to develop and enrich the individual human person), subsidiarity (no organization should be bigger than necessary and nothing should be done by a large and higher social unit that can be. done effectively by a lower and smaller unit), and pluralism (that a healthy society is characterized by a wide variety of intermediate groups freely flourishing between the individual and the state.)30 Sounds like a lot of Green party platforms I've read recently! Andrew Greeley argues in No Bigger Than Necessary that Catholic social theory is firmly rooted in the communitarian, decentralist tradition and that Catholics who drifted into Marxism in recent decades are simply unaware that their own tradition contains a better solution. Joe Holland, a Catholic theologian with the Center of Concern in Washington, DC, argues, however, that left-oriented Catholics have never embraced 'scientific Marxism' and the model of a machine-like centralized government and economy. They are attracted, rather, by communitarian ideals and are uncomfortable with the modernity of many socialist assumptions. 31 Hence, we may assume, and I believe Joe Holland would agree, that many of these lukewarm leftists in Catholic circles would readily become Green. The possibilities for locating and working with Green-oriented activists in mainline religions have never been better. Within our own Green political organizations, however, th.e question remains of how much religious content is proper in pluralistic meetings and publications. I myself am uncertain about how much overt spirituality the 'market will bear' in Green conferences and statements, and I am often dissatisfied afterwards because I and oth Spirituality: The Call to Take Care oJ the Earth by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson (New York; Harper and Row, 1984); The Spirit oJ the Earth: A Theology oJ the Land by John Hart (New York: Paulist Press, 1984); Ecology and · Religion: Toward a New Christian Theology oJ Nature by John Carmody (New York: Paulist Press, 1983); and Earth May Be Fair: Reflections on Ethics, Religion, and Ecology ed. by Ian G. Barbour (Englewood Cliffs: New Jersey, 1972). 257
23. See Original Blessing by Matthew Fox (Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Company, 1983) and Cry of the Environment: Rebuilding the Christian Creation Tradition, ed. by Philip N. Joranson and Ken Butigan (Santa Fe: Bear and Company, 1984) . 24. See A Christian Natural Theology: Based on the Thought of Alfred North Whitehead by John Cobb (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965) and Process Theology: Basic Writings, ed. by Ewart Cousins (New York: Newman Press, 1971). 25. Alice Walker, The Color Purple (New York: Harcourt Brace . Jovanovich, 1982), p. 167. 26. See Byron Kennard, 'Mixing Religion and Politics,' Ecopinion, Audobon, March 1984. 27. Ruth Bleier, Science and Gender (New York: Pergamon Press, 1984). 28. See 'Naming the Cutural Forces that Push Us Toward War' by Charlene Spretnak, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Summer 1983. Also see the chapters on 'The Soldier' and 'War' in A Choice of Heroes by Mark Gerzon (Boston: Houghton Miffiin, 1982). 29. Charlene Spretnak, Lost Goddesses of Early Greece: A Collection of Pre-Hellenic Myths (Boston: Beacon Press, 1981). Also see The Divine Female: The Biblical Imagery of God as Female by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott (New York: Crossroad, 1984) for some useful compromise positions on the Great Mother. 30. Andrew M . Greeley, No Bigger Than Necessary (New York: New American Library, 1977), p. 10. 31. Joe Holland, The Postmodem Paradigm Implicit in the Church's Shift to the Left (Washington, DC: Center of Concern, 1984). 32. Dharma and Development:' Religion as Resource in the Sarvodaya SelfHelp Movement by Joanna Macy (West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 1983), 33. See for example, New Genesis: Shaping a Global Spirituality by Robert Muller (Garden City, NY: ImagelDoubleday, 1984) and Toward a Human World Order by Gerald and Patricia Mische (New York: Paulist Press, 1977).
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Index
Abortion, 17, 101-4 Acid rain, 32, 85, 121, 158 Action Committee of Independent Germans, 14 Action Third Way, 15 Adenauer, Konrad, 56 Advertising, 86, I 14 Agalev party, 169-71, 175 Agee, Phi lip, 68 . Agriculture, 87 Aid to Third World, 60 Alexanderplatz demonstration, 68-9 Alternative lists, 16, 23 Alternative movement, 13-14 Alternative projects, 89-90 Amnesty International, 162 Angry young Germans, II Anthroposophy, 15,51 Anti-Green propaganda, 99 Appropriate technology, 29 Assemblies Set Conferences Association of Ecological Research Institutes, 33 Austria, 167, 172 Baader-Meinhof gang, 12 Bad process, 146--50 Bahr, Egon, 138 Bahro, Rudolf, 8, 16,24-6,52-3, 64, 75, 83,93, 141, 147, 152,211 Barnet, Richard, 81 Basis, Die, 35, 36, 37, 123 Bastian, Gert, 41-2, 53, 57- 9, 68, 69, 71 , 73,75, 148-9 Bateson, Gregory, 30, 31 BBU, 15 Beckman, Lukas, 15, 16-17, 19, 52, 68, 126, 143-4 Beck-Oberdorf, Marieluise, 19,47,49, 69, 73 Belgium, 163, 167, 169-72, 179 Berrigan, Philip, 68, 71
Bertell, Rosalie, 68 Beuys, Josef, 15 Bioregionalism, 195--8 Blueprint for Survival, 163 Boil, Heinrich, 153 Books on new-paradigm politics, 186 Brandt Commission, 157 Brandt, Willie, 72 Brazil, 159 Bread for the World, 60 Bremen Industrial Workers' Alternative List, 23 Britain, Greens in, 167, 173 British electoral system, xxii-xxiii, 165, 173 'Browns', 13 Bundestag elections, 18 Burgman, Dieter, 17 Bush, George, 66 Cable television, 107-8 Callenbach, Ernest, 14 Canada, 166-7 Candidate selection, 119 Carr, Adriane, 166 Census, German national, 107 Changes, means of initiating, xx-xxii Christian Democrats, 18, 104-6, 113, 1281 136, 137 . Citizen-based networks, 162 Citizens party, USA, 210--11 Club of Rome, 13, 162, 163 CND, 173 Coalition with Social Democrats, debate over,S, 131, 139 Commoner, Barry, 68, 81 Communication, 124-6 Computer files, 107-8 Conferences, congresses and assemblies 1979, Offenbach, 16,24-5,34 1980, Karlsruhe, 16 1980, Saarbriicken, 17
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1980, Dortmund, 17 1982, Hagen, I? 1983, Sindenfingen, 17,22,40,81 1983, Nurert:lberg, 68 1983, West Berlin, 68-9 1984, Liege, 180 Conversion of jobs, 203-5 Culture, 116 Daly, Herman, 138 Decentralization, 45-6, 208-9 of production, 86-7 Deep ecology, 29, 50 De~nce, 54-76, 160-2 and jobs, 202-3 Delbascourt, Cecile, 170 Delore, Michel, 180 Ditfurth, Jutta, 125 Dreyeckland, 45-6 Dutschke, Rudi, 12, 15, 16 Ebermann, Thomas, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 129 Ebert, Theodor, 58 Eco-Greens, 4, 20 Ecolo party, 169--72 Ecological medicine, 114 Ecology party, UK,.xxiii, xxiv, 167, 173 Economic-miracle generation, 5 Economic Programme, 82-4, 88-100, 138,140 Economics, conventional, 77-9 Education, 112-13,206--7 EEC, 176-9 Ehmke, Wolfgang, 32 Eigen, Manfred, 30 Election campaign, 120--22 Ellsberg, Daniel, 68, 71 Employment, 88-90 See also Work Energy, 199--201 Energy modelling, 80 Energy production, 87 Erler, Gisela, 145 European Green movement, 174-81 European Parliament, 164-5, 174, 176-7, 180 Exterminism, 64n Falk, Richard, 55, 68 Federal Environmental Agency, 33 Federal Programme, 17,28,31,35,47, 59,60,81-2, 101, 112, 113, 114
260
Feminism, 47-50 Set also Sexism, Women Finland, 76 Forrestcr, Jay, 81 France, 173-4 Free Democrats, 128 Free International University, 15 Friends of the Earth, 162, 180 Fromm, Erich, 51 Further PoliticaI'Association - The Greens, 15--16 Garreau, Joel, 197 Geiger, Jack, 68 Geissler, Heiner, 126 Genetic engineering, 108-9 Global 2000 Report, 135, 157,212 Glotz, Peter, 138 Gottwald, Gabi, 61 Graham, Katherine, 146 Grassroots democracy, 34-40, 98, 160 Green Action Future, 14 Green Caterpillar, 18 Greens, in Austria, 167, 172; in Belgium, 163, 167, 169--72; in Britain, 167; Budestag elections, 18; in Canada, 166-7; candidate selection, 119; factions of, 3-4; in France, 173-4; first election, 16; in Ireland, 172; grassroots party structure, 123, 219--27; in Italy, 168-9; in the Netherlands, 167-8; in New Zealand, 163-4; and Marxism, 13, 18-27,42-4,50--51,138-42; problems of, 137-50,207-13; publications, 120, 124-6; and the SPD, 129--32; in Sweden, 172; in Switzerland, 167, 172; in town council elections, 17; in USA, 185--215; wings of, 3-4; women in, 47-50 Greenham Common, 68, 69 Group Z, 4, 24, 26, 43, 139--40 See also Marxism Growth, 159--60 economic, 83-5, 88 Gruhl, Herbert, 13., 14-15, 16 GrUlInI, Die, 125 Guest workers in Germany, 115 Haenke, David, 196,211 Hamburg Greens, 21-5, 66, 69 Hamburg situation,. 128-9
Harvard Nuclear Study Group, 55 Hasenclever, Connie, 17 Hasenclever, Wolf-Dieter, 17, 133 Haussleiter, August, 14, 16, 17,26,34, 40, 56, 76, 123, 125, 152 Health, holistic, 114,205-6 Henderson, Hazel, 81 Hickel, Erika, 108-11 Holistic Greens, 3-4, 47, 140-41 Honecker, Erich, 69 Hones, Hannegret, 211 Horacek, Milan, 15, 68, 73 Housing, 87 IIIich, Ivan, 13 Industrial systems, 162 Institute for Alternative Futures, 214 Ireland, 172 Italy, 168-9 Jannsen, Gert, 113 Janssens, Dirk, 169, 170, 174 Jantsch, Erich, 30 Jentzsch, Barbara, 146 Jobs See Employment Kelly, Petra, 6-10,12,15,17,22,41, 42, 48,50, 52,57,59,62- 3,67-8, 69, 70, 73, 102, 133, 136-7, 139, 147, 150, 152, 177 K-Gruppen , 12, 16, 19 Knabe, Wilhelm, 17, 20 Kohl , Helmut, 18 Kohr, Leopold, 161 Kremer, Martha, 148 Kretschmann, Wilfred, 25 Lappe, Frances Moore, 81 Lead-free petrol, 137 Limils 10 Growlh, 13,212 Lippelt, Helmut, 27, 94, 152 Livingston, Robert, 68 Lovins, Amory, 81 Report; 200-1 Lyndon LaRouche people, 211 Mander, Jerry, 86 Mann, Norbert, 17 Maren-Grisebach, Manon, 17,30,69, 73, 74, 116-17 Marxism and the Greens, 13, 18-27,42-4, 50-51, 138-42
and students, 11-12 See a/so Hamburg Greens Maturana, Humberto, 30 Media, 116 in USA, xii-xiv Medicine, holistic, 114,205-6 Membership of Green groups, 107-8 Merchant, Carolyn, 110 Meyer, Emilie, 35-6, 145 Mische, G. & P., 161-2 Money, 90, 158 Morawski, Klaus Peter, 143 Motherhood, 127 Moyers, Bill, 144 Miiller, Joachim, 20, 82-5, 88, 90, 91-2, 94-6, 129-30, 132 Multicoloured Lists, 16 Nachriu:ker, 40, 145 Nation-states, 57, 161 National organization, forms of, 191-4 Nazi era, effect of, 126-7 Neddermeyer, Helmut, 16 Netherlands, 167-8 Network science, 30-31 Networking Institute, 213 New Zealand, Values party, 163-4 Nicaragua, 60, 61 Niles, Thomas, 70 Nonviolence, 40-45, 65, 130 Nuclear missiles in Europe, 54, 62, 70-71 , 73 Nuclearism,55n
Odum, Howard, 81 Oko-Fond, 37-8 Orgonas, Beate, 143 Ozark Area Community Congress, 197-8 Palme Commission, 161 Peace education, 113 Peace movement, 43-4, 65-7,72, 136, 202 Peace programme, 55-76 Pershing 11 missiles, 70-71 Pierlot, Jean-Marie, 169 Pollution, 158 See a/so Acid rain Porritt, Jonathan, 173 Potthast, Gabi, 48-9, 68, 69, 106, 142, 148 Prigogine, I1ya, 30 Private property, 93-4
26 1
Problems of Greens, 137- 50, 207- 13 Proportional representation, 119 Publications, 120, 124-6 Radical-left Greens, 4, 42-4 Set also Marxism Rape within marriage, 105-6 Recycling, 87 Reents, Jiirgen, 21, 22, 43-4, 66, 73 Regional organization, 45-6, 57 Representative democracy, 118 Rilkin, Jeremy, 80, 108 Roelants, Franr,;ois, 168, 170 Rosenfeld, Arthur, 199-200 Roszak, Theodore, 81 Rotation principle, 38-40, 145-6, 188--9 Runway West, 120-21, 132 Sale, Kirkpatrick, 197-8, 208--9 SALT 11 treaty, 71 Satin, Mark, 210 Schaller, Thomas, 36-7 Schell, Jonathan, 55 Schily, Otto, 32, 69, 73 Schmidt, Helmut, 72- 3, 138, 151 Schools, 206-7 Schoppe, Waltraud, 49, 52, 69, 103-6, 140 Schroter, Christine, 211 Schumacher, E.F., 13,80, 163,231 , 233 Schwalba-Hoth, Frank, 130 ' Schwenninger, Waiter, 60-61, 69, 71 Science Set Technology Self-help Network, 14 Self-management, 98 Sexism, 142-6 Set also Feminism, Women Sharp, Gene, 44, 58 Social defence, 58--9, 160-62 Social Democrats, 5, 18, 22, 33, 72-3, 104-6,113, 128, 129-31 , 137-8 Social ecology, 29 Social Programme, 114-15 Social responsibility, 33-4 Spirituality, 50-53, 127, 206-7 Spontis, 12 Steiner, RUdolph, 15 Student revolt, 1968, 10-12 Suhr, Heinz, 69 Sweden, 172 Switzerland, 167 Symbols, 126-7
262
Systems view of economics, 79-81 of life, 29-31 , I11 Tax, 95, 97-8, 210 Technology, 88, 107- 12 Television, 86 Set qlso Advertising Third World, 59-62, 84, 96-7, 160 Tho'!las, Wally, 166 Town council elections, 17 Traffic, 87 Trampert, Rainer, 17, 21 , 22- 3, 83 Transnational corporations, 159 Trend-Radar, 151 Unemployment, 84, 90-93 Unilateral disarmament, 63 United Nations, 59, 61 Unlimited growth, 83-4 USA, 185-215 electoral system, 193-5 Green delegation to, 69-71 , 146 media in, xii-xiv peace movement in, 62 USSR and Germany, 56 Green delegation to, 73-4 Utopia, 14, III Val ues in science, I 10 Visionary/holistic Greens, 3-4, 140-41 in USA, 185-7 Set also Spirituality Vogel, Hans-Jochen, 73 Vogt, Roland, 15, 21,26, 37, 40, 41 , 63-4, 68,69, 139, 150, 165, 177 Vollmer, Antje, 32 von Ditfurth, Prof. Hoimar, 121- 2 von Kiigelgen, Gisela, 51 Wald, George, 68 Water, 87-8 Weatherizing, 200, 214 Weber, Max, 177 Women, 47-50, 101-7, 188 Women's Pentagon Action, 67 Women's protest, '17 Work, 88-93, 201-2 Yans, Raymond, 171 Zimmermann, Friedrich, 137 Zinn, Howard, 68
1••••110'1
GREEN
POLITICS THE GLOBAL PROMISE
The German Greens, in their call for a new world order based on ecological considerations, are challenging the basic assumptions of the Left and the Right. Their electoral successes make them relevant internationally and their influence is now being felt in Britain, in France, in Italy and throughout Europe, as well as in the United States. Calling themselves an anti-party party, with the slogan 'We are neither left nor right, we are in front' , they stand for a programme based on ecological wisdom, social responsibility, grassroots democracy, sexual equality and non-violence at all levels. In their economic thinking the Greens stand for a decentralized, equitable and flexible system - one which gives people a significant degree of control over their lives. And with their opposition to the cold-war policies of most governments, they offer a new leadership to the increasingly anxious peoples of Western Europe. Green Politics outlines, incisively and clearly, the problems and issues facing the Greens, and shows their relevance to the wider world. Although generally in favour of the ideas and values of the Greens, the authors have criticisms to make of their specific proposals and approaches. The result is a book of great depth and insight - a realistic look at the Green alternative to 'politics as usual' .
,An excellent analysis' Jonathon Pom'tt,
FRIENDS OF 1HE EARTH
'A thoughtful, admiring account of the young activists' beliefs (ecology, social responsibility, grassroots democracy and non-violence) and methods' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
'The ftrst book to address the origins, position and course of the new ecological movement' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
Front cover illustration James Marsh
ISBN 0-586-08523-8 ,.
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