THE GREEN MOVEMENT DOESN'T NEED A POLITICAL PARTY  

The Green movement was originally a loose coalition or network of six main
constituencies:  radical ecologists, peace activists, feminists, social
justice activists, decentralists, and participatory democrats.  The basic
socioeconomic and political principles of these six groups are essentially
anarchist -- that is, they imply opposition to hierarchy, bureaucracy,
patriarchy, authoritarianism, and the State.  Hence they also imply
opposition to the electoral political system, which is thoroughly
hierarchical, bureaucratic, patriarchal-authoritarian, and statist. 

Green political activity at the national or state level merely ratifies
the statist electoral system.  There may be something to be said for
limited participation by Greens in local elections, since as Bakunin
recognized, local politics is often permeable to influence by ordinary
citizens (though in a huge city like (e.g.) Los Angeles, this is probably
not true). 

The State -- along with the corporate industrial system it serves -- is
the root cause of the ecological crisis and also of the main problems
addressed by feminist, social-justice, and peace activists (e.g.
discrimination, wealth disparity, militarism, etc.)  These problems will
never be solved until the State and capitalism are dismantled and replaced
by a decentralized federation of worker-controlled enterprises which are
responsive to local participatory-democratic community assemblies in which
Green principles of social and ecological responsibility prevail.  

Creating this new society from the ground up is the goal that Greens
should be working toward, through local grassroots organizing, by forming
affinity groups, communes, neighborhood action committees, community
assemblies, worker-controlled business, etc., and by engaging in many
other forms of both "negative" (disruptive) and "positive" (constructive)
direct action.  We should not pursue the misguided statist goal of
electing candidates to state and national legislatures, which is a waste
of time because it coopts and diverts our energies from more radical and
effective forms of activism.


