Category:Green Platform

Founding US Green Party Platform - 2000

One quick story, again looking back at the drafting of the US Green Party founding platform.

The "3-Ds": Discussion, debate and decision-making...

Interesting backstory here. In Santa Fe, NM, where I was presented with the challenge of drafting a national platform, coming out of the 1994 NM Green Party campaign, which then was expanded as a result of the campaign's success into a proposal for a "40 State Green Organizing" plan. Your siterunner wrote it up and the NM Green Party endorsed the plan, then I brought it to the California Greens for their support. In 1995, the NM Greens held the national Green Party gathering at UNM and the "Great Kiva' and the 40 State plan was presented and supported, beginning a process that led to the 1996 Green presidential campaign. The drafting of a national platform began and I was faced with "process", a famous (or infamous) word in the Green Party lexicon. Often, too often, political process had gone in counterproductive directions and it was clear that better process was needed if the new national plaform was to be both democratic in its process and successful in its goal, which I put forward as the basis for "serious, credible, platform-based" campaigns. The larger goal was to have serious, well-developed positions and to turn those positions/policies into reality. This was to become what was sometimes called a "mantra."

In Santa Fe at the time, the world wide web was just rolling out. I was tagged by the state legislature to join the NM State Board of Ed and one of my key tasks, as a technology leader, was to expedite and faciliate the web development and policies for all the schools and districts in the state. I also was working with "Roadrunner", the local ISP to develop an effective website for the Green Party process. I obtained and registered gp.org and built a website to reach out and interactively engage with Greens across the country in a "3-D" process, using the NM Green Party platform as a beginning point and then expanding the structure and positions/policies into national and international reach. The interactive capabilities of the Internet made this process possible and the guidelines of what I called the 3-D: discussion, debate and decision-making guided the steps of the process.

In the meantime, Warner Bros decided they wanted to grow their web/cable business and so made an offer to the local owner in SF, one she 'couldn't refuse', financially speaking and one that to this day continues to fund NM ISPs, and so the Roadrunner brand and domain went to Hollywood (back to Hollywood so to speak) and Cybermesa and a number of other domains became our new transit to local Green politics.

From 1995 to 2000, your siterunner guided and drafted and eventually the 2000 "official" as it was described founding platform of the new national Green Party was approved at the 2000 national convention at the Rennaisance Center in Denver by some 2000 delegates from around the country.

The 3-Ds and online discussion, debate and decision-making had led to a serious and credible Green foundation platform.

Green Parties in the United States

The Founding U.S. Green Platform and First Presidential Campaign, by Steven Schmidt

– Presented to the German Historical Institute Conference in Washington DC

“The Origins of Green Parties in Global Perspective” – May 26, 2004, GHI/Boll Institute

Founding US Green Party Platform and First Presidential Campaign

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US Green Party National Platform - Official National Platform

Approved in 2000 / National Green Party Convention / Denver, CO

http://gpus.org/committees/platform-committee/2000-platform/

Green Party founding platform / 2000 / PDF

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The Ten Key Values of the Green Party of the US_'the KVs' of Founding Platform approved in Denver, CO, 2000

The U.S. Green Party "Ten Key Values"

https://www.scribd.com/doc/253446615/The-Ten-Key-Values-of-the-Green-Party-of-the-US-the-KVs-of-Founding-Platform-approved-in-Denver-CO-2000

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As I look back at the drafting of the U.S. Green Party's Key Values adopted formally as I presented them to the 2000 national Green Party Convention in Denver, along with the founding Green Party national platform, it remains for future greens, whether formally affiliated with the Green Party in the US or greens who share core values of Green parties to do their best in bringing the values and positions of green thought into reality.

The politics of the present era clearly demand the independent, future-oriented vision of green, environmentally focused 'planet citizens'...

-- SJS March 2015