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City Green
by Gregory Gross
December 27, 2002

When I joined the Greens it was 1991(or some time around this date) because of the value system the Greens were working on at the time. The Ten Key Values is what made me believe that this movement can succeed where others have failed. Why did I feel this way? Ten years of Voodoo and Deep do-do(Reagan and Bush) had bushed me to the brink of just tunning out everything having to do with baby boomers and their fucked up way of avioding socail responsibility for screwed up policies. The generation that had seen the coming of age of several movements pretended for all of the eighties and part of the nineties that the issues of racism, gender, and class were the burden of some "others", but certainly not theirs. There is alot more I could go on about but the point is that in the mist of all this madness the greens looked a whole lot better than what was currently available.

I still believe the Green movement has a chance, but not by "clear cutting" the Ten Key Values. I also believe that the political wing of the Green in Ohio is seriously wacked. The last candidate choosen by the Green Party of Ohio was and still is virtualy unknown. Who is he? What are his accomplishments and how did he come to know of the green movement? I don't believe he was even asked what his views were, I believe the fact he is a self made millionare had everything to do with his "qualifications". If the Green Party of Ohio wants to be taken seriously it will have to stop making itself into a parity of everything that is wrong with politics in this country, and especially a party that calls itself "alternative". Alternative to what? From what I can see there's nothing happening, and the most qualified and solid candidate the greens have live in Dublin, Cleveland, and Athens County. So far none of them want any affilliation with what the Green Party is doing now.

2003 will mark the 10th anniversary of the Green Education Fund as well as the anniversary of Community Shares of Mid Ohio(CosMo). Cosmo has been the life blood(read money)that many other groups have prospered from, but not without hard work and some sacrifices.The members of the Green Ed fund are dedicated to education, not propoganda, of the issues that concern the environmental community. I believe that our social justice commitment is wanting, for like the rest of the environmental community hard social justice issues don't get much attention. Why? Fear, that's why. No one should be surprised to find fear amoungst greens on issues of race, gender, and class. These issues are used by the cowardly, who usually have no real values or issues of their own. These are the people who are most at risk when asked to produce a real agenda of what they want to do when elected. The Greens in general run a great risk by not tackling these issues but side stepping as Ralph Nader managed very skillfully to do(I'm sorry to hurt feelings but yes he did). Think of it this way, who will take seriously a candidate who in one hand has a strong ecological foundation, understands little or nothing about what is really wrong with our public school system, or how the long use of corporal punishment(beatdowns)has affected the way teachers relate to a student population they can no longer beat into submission.

I feel very positive about the battles greens fought during the nineties, and I believe that working in coalition with other activist was a great expirence and I won't forget the lesson that standing in a corner with your arms folded with a stern look on your face appears macho, but it doesn't get much done. Sometimes you have to go over to another person and say hey. we can get along long enough to do this. Right?