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Is the Green movement in the US going through something akin to the Hegelian dialectic? Frame the dynamic like this:
GPUSA can perhaps be regarded as the early organizational expression of the American Green movement, and can represent Hegel's "thesis." Given GPUSA's internal contradictions-bureaucratic, top-down behavior that betrays the pillar of grass-roots democracy; conflict between "movement" and "electoral" Greens-an oppositional force develops within the Green movement: the Green Politics Network (GPN). Frustrated by GPUSA's failure to institute organizational reforms and by GPUSA's aversion to electoral politics, the GPN splinters off and leads the foundation of the Association of State Green Parties (ASGP), which in Hegel's dynamic represents the "antithesis." Disturbed by the threat that the split between GPUSA and ASGP represents to the American Green movement, a third force develops: the Unity working group, which seeks to fashion a united and reformed national Green party -- Hegel's "synthesis."
Within the unity movement, Michigan and Minnesota provide an interesting contrast in the pursuit of strategies for achieving the reforms prerequisite to unification. Michigan Greens maintain membership in both ASGP and GPUSA, in order to promote from within each organization unity and the requisite reforms. Minnesota Greens, on the other hand, have taken a position that the state party and various locals should refrain from membership in either ASGP or GPUSA as an incentive for these organizations to first implement reforms.
What reforms are necessary? They are in part structural and in part political.
For GPUSA, structurally it must at a minimum vote in Lawrence to establish a pre-eminent role for state parties. As a practical matter, ASGP will not negotiate without this reform.
For GPUSA, structurally it must at a minimum vote in Lawrence to establish a pre-eminent role for state parties. As a practical matter, ASGP will not negotiate without this reform. GPUSA can maintain its laudable emphasis on activist grassroots locals and proportional representation from within a state-based national party structure. The reform will also accommodate the significant constituency of Greens who do want to engage in national electoral politics, which is a state-based system.
Another key structural reform would be the simplification of GPUSA's Byzantine by-laws. Conversion to a state-based system would actually help in this regard; for example it would do away with the structural level of "regions" and the complicated and confusing notion that a state can be a "region" for purposes of GPUSA membership.
From a political standpoint, GPUSA members should elect new leadership in Lawrence. Those in GPUSA's leadership who have engendered distrust through a numerous actions over the years -- I do not have to repeat the litany -- should be replaced or stand aside. New leadership would build confidence that GPUSA represents the mass of grass-roots Greens rather than a self-perpetuating, top-down elite.
GPUSA should be on notice. With reforms it can advance the unity process significantly and help heal the divisions in the Green movement. Otherwise, it may face on a more widespread basis the impulse of locals like the Northeast Ohio Greens to consider withdrawing from the organization altogether.
For ASGP, structure is not so much at issue. Its simple, straightforward by-laws provide, in theory, a grass-roots, bottom-up system for the state parties on the Coordinating Committee to formulate policies with fellow states.
The primary reform that ASGP needs to undertake is political: to resolve the undemocratic behavior of its GPN-dominated Steering Committee. (The Steering Committee is elected from the Coordinating Committee and consists of three Co-Chairs, the Secretary, and the Treasurer). Two recent incidents highlight the problem.
Ironically, by acting in an undemocratic, top-down fashion, the GPN veterans on the Steering Committee are behaving in precisely the same manner they decried regarding GPUSA.
Soon after its election at the Portland, Oregon ASGP meeting, the Steering Committee sent a letter to one of the newly-elected Co-Chairs, Oliver Peters of Nevada, asking him to resign for alleged misrepresentations he made in Portland. The letter imposed a 7-day deadline for a response or else a resignation would be assumed. The Steering Committee had no authority from either the by-laws or a vote of the Coordinating Committee to take the action it did. Only after strenuous objections lodged by the Michigan delegation did the Steering Committee put the Peters matter to a vote of the full Coordinating Committee. (The Coordinating Committee voted in favor of removing Peters from the Steering Committee.) The second incident concerned the Unity movement itself. Upon returning from the Unity working group meeting in Minneapolis, the Michigan delegation submitted a request for a vote to enter into the Unity negotiations. The Steering Committee thwarted this proposal and instead submitted its own motion that was heavily biased against the Unity negotiations.
The Steering Committee's behavior in the latter instance may be accounted for by the GPN's long-held mistrust of GPUSA. The GPN may perceive that the Unity movement represents a "front" for the GPUSA to again achieve dominance over the national Green movement, and that Unity threatens the achievements that the GPN and its offshoot ASGP have struggled long and hard for. It is certainly all right to have such a view, but GPN veterans should advance it as individual delegates from their states, not from official positions on the Steering Committee.
Ironically, by acting in an undemocratic, top-down fashion, the GPN veterans on the Steering Committee are behaving in precisely the same manner they decried regarding GPUSA.
The primary reform for ASGP, then, is to evolve beyond and transcend its origins in the Green Politics Network to represent the larger constituency of Greens nationally. GPN folks may find it hard to "let go" of the organization they have nurtured. However, if they attempt to maintain control of the organization to the point of acting in a top-down, undemocratic manner on issues like Unity, ASGP's appeal will prove very limited to Greens who take the pillar of grass-roots democracy seriously. ASGP will reach a glass ceiling in membership; the Minnesota strategy will prevail over the Michigan strategy.
That pillar of grass-roots, bottom-up democracy may well be the key to the requisite reforms in both organizations. It is incumbent upon the mass of grass-roots Greens to become the agents of reform and the ultimate synthesis of GPUSA and ASGP into a unified national Green organization.