Salad Days For Greens? : As Ecological Worries Mount, a U.S. Movement Takes Root

It was the blues as only a Green could sing them: “the hierarchy, patriarchy, eco-destructiveness blues,” to be exact. But most of the people spread out on the lawn at the University of Oregon here were too busy talking to sing along with the young folk singer.

Fueled by news of burning rain forests, radioactive air over Chernobyl, and the oil Exxon spilled on Alaskan waters, the Green party has suddenly emerged as an alternative power source in Europe. And Wednesday, as 250 delegates from California and most other parts of the country arrived in Eugene for a five-day conference of U.S. Greens, they shared an almost giddy sense that America, too, might be poised at one of those rare points in history where radical change--or at least a radical change in thinking--is possible.

‘Who Are the Greens?’

Delegates excitedly reported that with each new ecological disaster come calls and letters from people with a vague notion that the Greens have plans for harmonizing the human and natural worlds. “Who are the Greens?” the callers wonder. “Where do you stand?”

The problem is, after five years of organizing, U.S. Greens themselves aren’t sure.

“There are a lot of people in this country who would like for a Green movement to happen,” said Brian Tokar, 33, a bearded, frizzy-haired caricature of a ‘60s activist and a prominent theorist in a movement that disdains personal prominence.

Greens address the political and economic roots of environmental problems, and examine social problems such as poverty and racism as they fit into the natural ecology. So “there is a lot of expectation from the public” about what they have to offer, Tokar said. But so far, he conceded, U.S. Greens have been unable to define themselves clearly.

Are they the Greens who would work only at the grass-roots level, for instance, or the Greens who would capitalize on the public’s growing concern about the environment and launch a national party? Are they the Greens who would come out roaring with leftist rhetoric about capitalist oppressors, or those who would adopt the inoffensive slogan, “We are neither left or right, but out in front”?

Are they the movement of the ‘90s or, as one conference participant wondered, “just a bunch of leftover hippies?”

Conference-goers who figured those questions could be quickly hammered out in smoke-filled rooms had a lot to learn about the painfully gentle process of Green-style democracy.

The Greens sprouted as an anti-nuclear, pro-decentralized government movement in West Germany in 1979. By most accounts, Green thinking first spread to the United States in 1983, when Petra Kelly, an American-educated Green member of the German Bundestag returned to this country and made an impassioned pitch for Green philosophy on national television.

According to the book, “Green Politics,” by Charlene Spretnak and Fritjof Capra, in 1984, 64 U.S. Greens met in St. Paul, Minn., and created a system of local grass-roots Committees of Correspondence, based on the political units of that name during the American Revolutionary War. The gathering also founded a national clearinghouse in St. Paul, which remains the focal point of the committees’ activity.

The German Greens had conceived a broad philosophy based on “four pillars”: ecology, grass-roots democracy, nonviolence and social responsibility.” The U.S. Greens added to these a broad statement of “10 Key Values.”

Typically, no one at the conference was able to state even a ballpark figure for how many Greens there are, noting only that they are active in more than 200 U.S. locations.

So far that interest has produced negligible political clout, delegates conceded. But they take hope from what’s happening in Europe--where Greens captured 1,800 city council seats in France in March, and earlier this month doubled their seats in the European parliament to 39.

The next step in their evolution here, delegates said, is to develop a more unified national platform. Last year a call went out for anyone who was so inclined to submit a paper for discussion at this year’s conference (although for reasons perhaps only a Green can understand, they were called not papers but SPAKAS (Strategy and Policy Approaches in Key Areas).

Conference-goers found themselves confronted with more than 200 SPAKAS with a staggering variety of broadly and narrowly defined titles such as “The Decentralization of Money,” “Urban Sprawl Reduction Through Land Value Taxation,” “Educational Multi-Media Caravans,” “Human Relationships and Sexuality,” “Apartheid,” “The Return of Federal Land in the Black Hills to the Sioux Nation” and “Homophobia.”

So with SPAKAS lumped into 11 basic categories, working groups here dove in to debate and then consolidate each batch of papers into a single coherent statement.

Anyone who wondered why U.S. Greens have not arrived at a better-defined vision in five years had only to watch the SPAKA process. “Domination” in any form is abhored. Ask a Green to point out a leader, and they say “everyone here is key.” Even the 10 key values, a good Green will equivocate, “aren’t the 10 Commandments.”

‘Network’ or ‘Webwork’

One group spent several minutes debating how many minutes to devote to the next brief discussion. Another group grappled with the question of whether “networking” or “webworking” was the Greener term. And at a late-night meeting of the “left green network,” two people complained that the applause awarded some remarks somehow undermined the democratic process.

“I would like to reiterate the idea that we shouldn’t be clapping. . . ,” a woman said in a quavering voice. “I think it’s destructive.”

Her contribution received polite applause--although by later sessions, many delegates were expressing themselves with “silent clapping,” holding their hands in the air and quietly wiggling their fingers.

If the vaunted “process” sometimes struck outsiders as a bit silly, that’s only because the Greens are among the rare organizations that value openness enough to allow observation, several delegates pointed out. After all, who knows what those folks in the elephant and donkey hats do behind closed doors?

And this commitment to open democracy is as important to changing the world as any specific environmental policy, they said. “One of my highest expectations is that we will change the quality of debate in this country,” said Daniel Moses, the director of Sierra Club books in San Francisco. The recent presidential election “ . . . was an insult to people who pay attention to the issues.” Besides, the SPAKA process does work--if slowly. Under trees, on the streets of Eugene, in bars and in restrooms, delegates clustered and talked--prim women in golf garb and long-haired young men who looked as if they’d worn the same tie-dyed T-shirt every day since the Summer of Love.

The Biggest Schism

There are differences among Greens. The biggest schism is between so-called Left greens and less politicized Greens, particularly the so-called “spiritual” variety.

One evening at the conference, 150 or so activists formed a circle under a blue night sky to sing and pound drums and chant quasi-pagan hymns to Mother Earth. Another 75 or so met in a dorm lounge and discussed, among other things, whether eco-politics and religion mix.

The only major discord, though, occurred during the Saturday plenary session, when about 60 young men and women from the Oregon Marijuana Initiative, with babies in tie-dyed jumpsuits and a talking parrot in tow, burst into the auditorium carrying a 20-foot replica of a marijuana cigarette. Led by a New York man who claimed he had been “purged” from the Green movement by “Stalinist Greens,” they staged a brief sit-down demonstration, chanting: “We smoke pot and we like it a lot.”

Conference organizers diffused the situation by letting the dissident speak. The protesters later joined the Greens at a picnic, the scent of their intoxicant mixing with the aroma of tofu and other “vegan” that food organizers had prepared in deference to their members who eschew eating any meat or animal product.

In the forestry working group, more than a dozen people showed up to grapple over the SPAKAS. Among them were a stock indexer, two members of the radical Earth First! group, a forest scientist who co-founded the West German Green party, and a 33-year-old full-time activist who said his parents were about to curtail his monthly allowance.

‘Your Favorite Tree’

Also attending was Susan Shaughnessy, a public relations consultant for a lumber company near Yosemite, who said her employer had sent her to the conference to find out what the Greens were about. As the discussion moved from the question “What is your favorite tree?” into more substantive turf, she became immersed in the process, debating and synthesizing and even rushing out with a corps of volunteers to pound out a statement at the student computer center.

“I think I had a significant impact on the final report,” she said, smiling in near disbelief. “They were taking some really radical positions. I got them to soften the language.”

She was even there when the forestry group held an awkward press conference.

In Oregon, forests are the issue. Newspapers may run six or more forestry-related stories a day. Courtrooms and government offices resound with almost continuous testimony from environmental experts of every stripe.

So, as the delegates lined up to meet the press, the first question, fired by a local reporter, echoed the thoughts of many observers: Why in the world add yet another voice to the environmental cacophony?

Global Representation

The answer from those at the press conference, and Greens in general, is that the movement is the only one that approaches issues from a broad philosophical perspective. They are also the only movement, they say, that has a global representation, as evidenced by Green activists who showed up from Japan, the Soviet Union, Australia, Canada, India and other countries.

“The old-growth forests of the Western United States are unique in their quality and biological diversity and are a treasure of the whole world,” said Wilhelm Knabe, a co-founder of the West German Green party and current member of the Bundestag. “People here don’t realize how rare their forests are. The U.S. doesn’t have the right to misuse them.”

As they were read in whole or in part on Saturday before final review on Sunday, most of the SPAKAS combined serious proposals for change with more idiosyncratic touches.

The Social Justice SPAKA, for example, specifically supported paid maternity and paternity leave, leave to care for sick children or other family members, and the Roe vs. Wade abortion decision. It also included such statements as: “Because of the masculine role in general and the suppression of feelings in particular, men by and large lead shorter, less satisfying lives than women.”

‘A Basic Right’

Other papers summarized what would appear to be the most basic of Green views. That “our ecosystem can no longer support an ideology of perpetual growth and consumerism,” for instance. That “the health and survival of all life forms is interdependent,” and that “good health is a basic right for all rather than a privilege.”

As things wound down, most people seemed ebullient just to have survived the marathon decision-making process. Others were frustrated. “It’s like practicing scales when you want to play music,” a delegate from the San Jose area said.

On Sunday, delegates gathered again and voted on all the statements, most of which will be refined, rewritten and presented again in Boulder next year--when Greens hope to finally achieve a coherent national platform.

In the meantime, the delegates reached a consensus that they would increase their participation in local elections but not run a national slate in 1992.

At least a few delegates had hoped for a different decision.

“It’s my feeling that the environment is more important to the future than the cold war,” said Dorthea O’Neil, who served three terms as a Democrat in the New Hampshire state legislature. “It seems to me that a party with the environment as the most important part of its platform would have a good chance right now. But in some of these SPAKAS they’re talking about Utopia. Why waste your time?”

Other Greens warned against impatience.

“It will take a long time to purify the ocean and clean up toxic waste dumps,” said Daniel Moses. “The people who are suffering from these problems aren’t going to lose interest.”

As for Green-style democracy moving slowly, the process itself is as important as any results that derive from it, he said. “People sit with us and we hear them,” he said. “It’s not always the person with the sharpest tongue or the quickest brain who provides the most wisdom in a discussion.”

John Rensenbrink, a professor of politics and ecology at Bowdoin College in Maine, said the Green goal is “not just to gain power but to change the way power is exercised.”

“We are on the way to becoming a serious political opposition in this country,” he said. “Two years ago, we hadn’t learned to walk and talk. Now we walk and talk. We’re a child, and most people don’t take children seriously. But by next year, we’ll be a youth, and people will be looking at us differently.”