From: cliftonr@netcom.com (Pope Clifton)
Subject: Re: Greens vs. Property Rights
Reply-To: 74170.3676@compuserve.com
Organization: t.b, t.p.d, & a.d
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 06:16:07 GMT

(I am posting the following response for my wife; using the Reply command
in your newsreader should route your email to her.  She does not currently
have news access except via my account.)

Mike Arras (arras@forwiss.uni-erlangen.de) wrote:
: [ It is said ] that many environmentalists are anti-property rights.  Would
: anyone care to guess at what percetage of "greens" are against property
: rights?  Is it in the party line?

This is being posted on my husband's account, so don't flame him
for my thoughts.

I'm a Green, member of the State Steering Committee for the Hawai'i
Green Party.  Don't blame them for my personal opinions either.

Questions about private property rights and Green beliefs go
directly to the heart of struggles being waged within the Greens at
this moment.  Leftist Greens have captured the national leadership
of the Greens/Green Party USA.  They organized as the Left Green 
Network, outside the regular Green meetings and then used their 
organized clout to take over.  

The victory of the Left Greens may have been a pyrrhic victory. 
Well-known Green activists such as Christa Slaton, Dee Berry,  and
John Resenbrink have left the national leadership.  Resenbrink has
started his own coordinating group, the Green Political Network. 

The few Green parties on the ballot (Alaska, California, Hawai'i,
New Mexico, and Arizona) have also shown a tendency to distance
themselves from the certain electoral death of defiant Leftism. 
The California Green Party sent its own delegation to the recent
conference on environment and development in Rio, declaring that
the Greens/Green Party USA did not represent their views.  Hawai'i
Green Party leaders have discussed disassociating our group from
the national leadership, though no action has been taken as yet.  

There is a national platform, developed under the auspices of the
current Left leadership.  Among other things, it calls for taking
over the energy and transportation industries and putting them
under what I believe they called "direct democratic control."  (I
don't have a copy of the national platform at the moment, so can't
quote with any assurance.)  I could multiply examples if I had the
platform at hand. 

However, this platform does declare that it is not binding upon the
local Green parties, which have in fact developed their own
platforms.  I have a copy of the California platform; I helped
write the Hawai'i platform.  The California platform is more
moderate than the national platform, though I found much in it that
seemed ill-considered.  The Hawai'i Green platform is even more
middle of the road. 

I hope that this clarifies some of the issues being discussed in
this topic.  There are several Green platforms.  There are several
Green groups.  There is indeed a significant Left lean at the
national level, but this is far from being the case in local
groups.  

I am distressed by the confusion and infighting in the Greens, but
still hopeful that this is a temporary condition.  

I can receive E-mail at a Compuserve address: 74170.3676@compuserve.com

Karen Lofstrom
--
cliftonr@netcom.com     Home: +1 808 521 9073  Work: +1 808 625 3234
Clifton Royston, Pope of the Church of the Subgenius in Paradise
"Some lives are like that." - Mark. Gooley
Xref: sparky alt.politics.greens:51 talk.bizarre:43401