Blog #12

Prompt: "Would you join the Green Party or not?  What aspects of green values do you believe should be ideally incorporated into a "green" party?  Do these align, do you think, with the Green Party? Also, are the Earth First! activists justified in their actions?"

I think that my view on what a Green Party should be has changed since I entered this class.  Before taking POLI 477 the word “green” to me really only had environmental implications. Therefore, a Green Party would be one whose main concern is the environment. I would expect a platform that included things such as sustainable agriculture subsidies and alternative energy subsidies as well as increase in acreage of protected lands. Now that I’ve been in POLI 477 for a couple months, “green” has a broader meaning.  “Green” now encompasses social aspects of equality and openness. So I would expect a Green Party platform to have social facets as well such as improved local participation and decision making and increased availability of resources and opportunities.

After reading through the Green Party’s 10 key values, I think that they line up well with my current view on the meaning of the word green. There were still concepts in there that would not have immediately come to my mind as being “green” (such as non-violence), but I think everything works together well on their values page. And I would join the Green Party!

First of all when it comes to Earth First! I love the term ecodefender. I would feel empowered being called something like that. But I also don’t support vandalism and destroying private property. I understand wanting to make a point and to monetarily hurt a company seems like a good way to do that, but I still don’t agree with it.