Suggestions For Sonoma: Three Key Areas

Near the end of the month the GPCA is convening a little confab to look at going-forward strategies for the GPCA. Since I can't be in Sonoma then, I offer my suggestions here:

As I noted on a comment on CA Greening recently, the Green "brand" often has negative connotations for voters, whereas the Green 10 Key Values are often embraced when presented without the Green label. Clearly there is a disconnect between the Green image and Green aspirations. For any electoral strategy to work, Greens need a brand-building strategy -- both for Greens and potential non-Green voters for our candidates.

I think there are three major contributing factors to folks having the wrong idea about Greens.

Watch Your Language! Toward A Green Lexicon

First, our choice of language to communicate with the public and each other needs to be cleaned up. We often describe something acceptable or even desirable to mainstream America in such strident cant that it is perceived as fringe and crackpot.

For example, many folks who have chosen a Green Party path have come in from the left, perceiving that some Green core values at least mirror their own values. With those folks has come the language of the left: Terms like "solidarity" "struggle" "class warfare," etc. pepper their left-leaning dialogue -- and, not incidentally, public-oriented Green Party communications.
This gives the false impression that to be Green is to be on the left. Maybe even on the far left.

There is, to be sure, some confusion about this even among putative Greens. (See my "Left, Right and Green" for a longer screed on this topic. )

Fundamentally, while many of the ideas of the 10KV have been espoused by the left in some forms, the Green Party form is new; there are also values that have been espoused by the right in other forms. One needs to be mindful of the saying attributed to Petra Kelly, "Not left, not right, but forward Green."

One would not want to issue a Green press release "in solidarity with the worker's struggle for liberation in the battle against capitalist corporate criminals," and yet I have seen language nearly this trite and nearly this stereotypically "red" in Green writings. Neither would one want to steal from the radical right and rail against "activist federal judges who impose immoral practices and condone immoral laws" in order to promote "Grassroots Democracy" and the right of a state to have stricter environmental standards, for example.

In each case there is a Green way to phrase the same point, without either resorting to the failed lexicon of the right or the left.

A Little Green Education

The unvarnished 10 KV are appealing to a broad spectrum of people. When presented in the frame of reference of the average American, and stripped of the language of the extreme left or right, many people find the 10 KV common-sensical and non-threatening.

Sometimes though a little education is required. "Ecological Wisdom" can sound all "weird and treehuggerish" or can it be a simple common sense injunction to conduct our activities so we don't poison our planet. There are many ways to engage in ecological wisdom without emphasizing gloom, doom and sacrifice. (For an example, see my "Get Off Your Would-But" at my other blog-space.)

By highlighting the 10 KV (in neutral language) and providing a modicum of person-to-person education, and then explaining that these are Green Party, not just greenie values, the Green Party brand might acquire a better, more true, more electable image.

All Politics Is Local; Most Politicos Were Local Yokels Once

I've said it over and over. So I'll make it brief: Greens should concentrate on gaining local non-partisan elected and appointed office, both to gain experience in actual governance -- something we lack -- and to build a base of local voters who know Green leaders as good leaders they can vote for in partisan elections. Local partisan elections won by known local leaders can translate into state-level partisan elections, etc.

Again see my prior screed "Musings on City Planning Leads to A Local Government Primer for Local Greens."


There it is, in a nutshell:

1. Speak to America in plan American-speak -- not political-cant nor activist rant.
2. Politely educate on the 10KV
3. Go Local

These common sense approaches could go a long way to getting past the distorted image that the Green Party has accumulated over the years, and let the actual, common sense Green approach recomend itself.