permaculture

[Mark <mpludwig@facstaff.wisc.edu>]

At 02:15 PM 9/19/02 -0400, you wrote:

> I'd like to hear some opinions please, on the following:
>
> While attending the "One Earth" conference at the Omega institute 
> recently, David Orr challenged us all to get involved politically, to make 
> use of our (still functioning) democratic institutions to "start attending 
> those long, impossibly boring meetings" and make our voices heard.
>
> In response to this, a member of the audience got up and asked us all why 
> we weren't all active members of the Green Party - imperfect as it may be, 
> she said, here is an up and running institution ready for our inputs.......
>
> I have been printing out their material all morning and I like what I'm 
> seeing.
>
> How about the rest of you ? WHy aren't we taking this forward into the 
> political realm and why not use the Green Party to do it ?
>
> Claude

Claude,
I'm both a Democratic party delegate to the WI party and the WI chair of 
the Democratic Freedom Caucus (www.progress.org/dfc).

The greens sound so great on paper IMO because they so seldom win elections 
and never a majority in this country to my knowledge.  It's very easy to 
criticize when you never have to govern.  You get to be strident and pure 
since you never have to cut a deal or hold your nose and vote for the 
imperfect solutions.  If this country had a proportional representation 
situation like most parliamentary democracies things would be different, 
but in a winner take all system like in the USA a vote for a Green is 
usually a waste.  Further I have been less than impressed by some of the 
candidates, Ralph was OK except for all the lies about the Dems and GOP 
being the same (the past few years have shown that in spades), but Jim 
Young, our Green candidate for Governor, is a windy bag of lite platitudes 
and misinformation IMO.  The broader debate in the majors tends to give the 
people a crack at a better slate.  Of course GW Bush hardly makes my case....
M

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Mark P. Ludwig
Poultry Research Lab
University of Wisconsin -Madison
608-262-1730 WK
608-846-7125 HM