Running on Green 
By Bill C. Davis
Green Party of Connecticut

	Bill Davis

On a plane coming back from Munich at the end of November 2004, I sat next to a young biologist who lives near Vienna. We talked about the sudden disparity between the euro and the dollar, which seemed to accelerate after the Nov. 2 American election. I asked him why he thought the U.S. currency was tumbling in value and hitting record lows against the euro. 

He considered the problem like a scientist, looking to the front of the plane for a moment as if searching there for a reason or workable theory. "There's too much blood on your dollar," he said.

I saw hope in his use of the preposition on. Inherently the dollar is not red or blue. The dollar is green. To me, the antidote to the biologist's diagnosis is to redeem the core reality of the dollar. The blood on the dollar is painted on with strokes of greed, fear, pathology and power grabs. These impulses exist in humans and corporate constructs. Government, by its very definition, exists to tame, mentor, govern and cap these impulses into a civilized and humane system. A higher consciousness is meant to operate in the corridors of power in Washington. If it does not, integrity, security, liberty and democracy collapse.

What our government does with our treasury speaks volumes. As Francis of Assisi put it, "Where your treasure lies, there lies your heart." When supposed representatives for the common good become double agents for specific corporate requests, and when transnational greed becomes synonymous with national interests, the population feels confused, lost and cheated. As policies and actions mock the rhetoric we would like to believe in, citizens literally become depressed.

In the theatre, when an actor enters from the audience it gives that character a relationship both with the people watching and the characters on stage. So not from the wings but from the audience, I step up to say, "What can I do? How can I help? What is the common good, and what are healthy policies? How can the common good be protected, and how can healthy policies be promoted?" 

Those are the questions I want to ask in a campaign. If some answers are revealed, I would like to deliver those answers and the remaining questions to Washington. It's not that I want to be a congressman, but I want our country to be what it says it is. If being part of Congress will help that, then I volunteer to campaign for Congress on the Green Party ticket for the Fifth District of Connecticut in 2006. Oddly enough, the fact that I don't want to be a congressman may be the first qualification for being one.

The distinction made between our government and its people can't be sustained any longer. If we announce to the world that we are a government "of, by and for the people," then that's what we must be.

What would it mean to us if we participated in, promoted and stood for environmental and international justice? What would it mean if we moved from hyper-consumerism to an inventive, creative, energy-independent society? What if each home in America were retrofitted to produce more energy than it consumes? What would it mean if health care were reflected in positive wellness systems rather than simply the distribution of drugs to mask symptoms? What would it mean to American citizens if we had a government that established frameworks for all of those possibilities and more, and if we had a government that knew that the time for this is now? As well as returning the Green to our dollar, it would mean the world to us.

Bill C. Davis is a playwright and will be running for Congress as a Green in 2006. Visit www.votebillc.org. 

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