Green Party Considers Adding Issues to Platform

Green Party activists from around the state finished their weekend meeting here Sunday with talk of adding several social justice issues to their national platform.

Among the matters discussed during the two-day meeting were homelessness, police abuse, logging, discrimination, Indian rights, marijuana legalization and animal rights.

“The Greens have been referred to as the environmental party, partly because of the name. But in Europe, the Greens were very self-consciously behind a lot of movements and social justice issues. I want to maintain the connection between all the movements,” said Lloyd Strecker, a Monte Rio Green Party activist who helped organize the event.

Humboldt County homeless activist Ruben Botello urged the group to help stop legislative moves that could force the homeless out of the woods near the Eureka harbor.

“It is another form of genocide, allowing all these beautiful men and women and children to die. It’s cold out there,” said Botello, a Vietnam veteran who has been homeless off and on since 1982, and who has staged several hunger strikes to get the attention of government officials.

“This reminds me of the same spirit of the ‘60s--peace and love,” he said. “The revolution is still going.”

Also in attendance was Bob Ornelas, one of three Green Party members who won control of the Arcata City Council this month. It apparently is the first time the Green Party has had a majority on a city council anywhere in the country.

Ornelas said his party won because people in the Arcata community of 17,000 “really enjoy who we are and what we are.