Editor’s note: This is the first edition of Green View, which we are happy to announce will be a regularly appearing political column running the third week of every month. 

Readers of the Tompkins Weekly are accustomed to reading the “Republican View” and the “Democratic View”. The “Green View” is offering an alternative to more of the same. There is of course some divergence on the issues between the two major parties. However, under the corporate “duopoly”, as Joe Biden himself promised to his wealthy donors, nothing is going to fundamentally change. Yet fundamental change is vital if we are to avert climate catastrophe, if we are to become an equitable society, if we are to end our involvement in criminal and potentially world-ending warfare. 

Tomkins Weekly
By Carolina Cositore Sitrin
February 21, 2024

In April, Gallup polling found that a record 49% of Americans see themselves as politically independent – the same as the two major parties put together. The Green Party speaks to and for those Americans.

The Green View makes its debut on these pages thanks to the foresight of the Tompkins Weekly editors. In future views, the Greens will write about local issues or national issues affecting us locally. For this first view for those of you who may not be familiar with the Green Party yet, let me tell you what we stand for generally. Please feel free to contact us with any and all questions about specificity. Locally you can email [email protected] and/or nationally visit www.gp.org.

The Green Party proposes a hopeful, optimistic vision of future human society. We are positive, but not pie-in-the-sky Pollyannas, and have definite concrete demands on our platform. We do realize this will mean work, but we, including you, are up to it. This leads naturally to what we stand for. The Green Party has four pillars: Democracy, Social Justice, Ecology and Peace. In brief, we mean by them:

Democracy. We demand public financing of elections, open debates, and more representative voting systems.

Peace. Our country’s long wars and worldwide military presence are immoral and unsustainable. Our military budget must be cut dramatically.

Ecology. The human cost of climate change is too high. We need to get off fossil fuels and on to renewable energy.

Social Justice. We suffer grotesque economic inequality, and the most vulnerable are hit the hardest, especially with the rise in food and energy prices. We demand a living wage and a real safety net.

The Green Party has a mature and detailed platform which can be found at www.gp.org/platform. I will tease you with a taste:

There is absolutely no question that we need political reform. This includes electoral reform, voting rights, ballot access, campaign finance reform and enactment of ranked choice voting. This latter is important and we will be explaining more about ranked choice voting in the future.

Political reform is meaningless unless it translates to our communities, to our families and children, to human rights and women’s rights.

To function as a democracy, we must have free speech and today that means media reform.

Our foreign policy needs urgent revision. We need to regain control of authorization for use of military force and the defense budget and not leave that subject to lobbying groups and arms manufacturers.

Naturally, we must have domestic security and regain freedoms lost after 9/11. Greens believe that the systematic degradation or elimination of our constitutional protections must stop and that Congress must take corrective measures to guarantee citizen protections.

Space may be the final frontier but rather than peacefully trekking through it, it has been militarized. We Greens encourage the peaceful exploration of space, which will not incidentally stimulate our children in math and the sciences, but we oppose any form of space-based military aggression.

In short, we Greens are grassroots activists, environmentalists, advocates for social justice, nonviolent resisters and regular citizens who’ve had enough of corporate-dominated politics. Government must be part of the solution, but when it’s controlled by the 1% it is part of the problem. The longer we wait for change, the harder it gets. Get involved.

Get the Green Party back on the New York ballot. Go Green.

Carolina Cositore Sitrin is a retired teacher, social worker and editor, non-retired activist and a resident of Dryden.