A call to order
One Green's plea for solidarity
By Thomas Marti
Green Party of Pennsylvania

	Thom Marti, farmer and Green Pages editorial board member. Photo by Carolyn George / pixelatrix

I recently left my well-ordered role as an organizer for our small Adams County Green Party to be elected secretary of the Green Party of Pennsylvania. Although I spent two years as a delegate to the State Committee, I am now learning about process in a hurry, often finding myself acting as archivist, parliamentarian and ethicist. As an independent-minded farmer, I never paid much attention to process. Now I see it in a different light.

I have been surprised and shocked to see symptoms of Green disunity at local and state levels. I have also been associated with the editorial board of the Green Pages for a year and am dismayed to see signs of disunity at the national level as well. At all these levels, spirited discussions escalate into personal and factional disputes. Not that we should become a placid flock of sheep following a few strong leaders, but we cannot let our discussions escalate into conflicts that disrupt our meetings and cost us valuable organizers. Our strong passions cannot be allowed to plunge our democratic process into "Out of Order."

As I study parliamentary procedure, I am learning effective means for a strong chair to stifle such outbreaks. But stifling disruptions can also sow the seeds of rancor. I would like to propose a plan by which each and every Green can help solve this dilemma.

I call on each of the 350,000 registered Greens in our nation: when you find a contentious situation developing, stop! Take a deep breath; look your disputant in the eye; then take one half-step backwards, away from your strong ideas and opinions. Realize that if we divide the total of registered Greens by the population of the U.S. (280,000,000), we end up with a very small fraction indeed. So then we should look into the eyes of our recent adversary and again see a fellow organizer and perhaps a friend.

We need every organizer we can muster. In case anyone missed the news, the CEO of America Inc. has been re-elected. The Democratic Party is in disarray. We, the GP-US, look across the political landscape in amazement. We are the Left! This is our moment in history.

Organizing a third party in America has always been tough. The two major parties erect legal obstacles, and plenty of influential external forces are pleased to disrupt a minor party. And the tendency among activists is to turn our energy into anger and attack each other.

The Green Party of the United States needs to be working at every level, to exploit our moment in history. Look around you. The climate is changing, and the Resource Wars have begun. In 2005 we need to field many candidates for local office. These candidates will gain political experience, and many will win and prove that Greens can do the job. In 2006 these experienced candidates and campaign staffers will be ready to campaign for and win county and state offices. If we can stay focused, while our nation and our world spiral downward into chaos, we can win congressional seats in 2008! We Greens have never backed down from our Key Value of Ecological Wisdom. We hold the ethical high ground.

When I was a young sailor, I served under an old gunner's mate who used to yell at us hot-blooded young swabbies when we got to squabbling among ourselves. "When you are outnumbered and outgunned, you have to save your bullets for the enemy, not waste them on your friends!"
In Green solidarity, we can seize our moment in history.

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