Fighting For Hope Part 4 (cont’d)Peace Is Possible: Appeal

[Part 4 (cont’d) of Fighting For Hope by Petra Kelly]

APPEAL

From Petra Karin Kelly and Hermann Verbeeck at the Nuremberg Tribunal against first-strike weapons and other instruments of mass destruction in East and West. 20 February 1983

The implication of our resolution, our decision, here for me as well as for Hermann Verbeeck, and I hope for all Green parties on an international level, is an appeal to ourselves, to all of us, to each and every individual that we finally do something. Both Hermann Verbeeck and myself have attempted in this appeal to express that which should inspire us, mobilize us, in our non- violent struggle against militarization and nuclear proliferation.

Fighting For Hope Part 4 (cont’d)Peace Is Possible: Open Letter To Pope John Paul II

[Part 4 (cont’d) of Fighting For Hope by Petra Kelly]

OPEN LETTER TO POPE JOHN PAUL II

Some reading for your visit to the Federal Republic of Germany in November 1980

“Apart from our parents, we should also respect our superiors, i.e. spiritual and temporal authority, guardians, teachers, masters and rulers. We owe respect and obedience to spiritual and temporal authority because their authority comes from God.” Quote from a Catholic catechism for the “religious instruction” of children, second edition, published in 1977. It is distributed in Bavaria and was recommended by the then Pope in a letter of thanks to its author.

Pope John Paul II, you paid your last visit to the Federal Republic of Germany in 1978 as Cardinal of Cracow. Two years later, you are returning as Pope. “I am sure that the people of our country will give you a warm welcome,” Cardinal J. Höffner said in connection with the Papal visit.

But I am wondering how we women, my sisters in the peace, alternative and women’s movements will receive you. Pope John Paul II, you are the person who recently told an audience of 120,000 people, “The one who has knowledge is the man, the one we have knowledge of is the woman.” How will we welcome you?

Catharina Halkes, a feminist theologian and lecturer at the Catholic University of Nijmergen in Holland, appalled by your pronouncements on the subject of women, described them as “even more dangerous than refusing to admit women to the priesthood.”

And I too am appalled that you rank women as second-class Christians. In Nuremberg, where I live, women and girls in various church communities are protesting a Holy See regulation, which you sanctioned, forbidding women churchgoers from serving on the altar. The instruction of the “Congregation for Sacraments and Services” in the Vatican is causing a great deal of bad feeling. In the passages outlining “some norms for celebrating and revering the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist,” it actually says, “However, women are not permitted to discharge the functions of an acolyte.” You and the Vatican are evidently seeking to ban women from serving on the altar.

Women in Brazil, Ireland, Spain, El Salvador, in fact, women all over the world, are still fighting against a multitude of burdens and disadvantages in almost all social spheres. We have had enough of being oppressed by the all-male cliques in the ruling parties, in the trade unions, and the centres of industry, and that goes for the churches too.

We cannot be indifferent to what will happen to future generations, and we certainly cannot stand by and wonder whether our children will perish in a nuclear holocaust. How can those who seem so concerned to protect unborn life treat the life that already exists in an irresponsible way?

Pope John Paul II, you have often spoken about the insanity of the arms race and the dangers of a nuclear conflict. And you know that for every tank built, smallpox epidemics could be kept under control for ten years. We could build 45,000 modest homes for every nuclear-powered submarine. And yet people are talking about our planet as a “nuclear burnt offering.”

In all your speeches, addresses and sermons all over the world, you speak of the necessity for peace, and of the many dangers that arise from greed for profit. But there is one danger you never mention: the danger associated with the so-called peaceful use of nuclear energy. Why do you only mention the bomb and leave out the reactor? Can you separate one from the other? Have you forgotten that peaceful use is actually a waste product of military nuclear research, a waste product which can easily be used to develop a world-wide nuclear state, a Big Brother state? It is a waste product that will make the Third World dependent again, which can destroy centuries of tradition and culture for entire peoples (e.g. the Australian aborigines, the Indians, the Janomani in Venezuela and Brazil, the Irish in uranium-rich areas), and which secures membership of the atom bomb club! All attempts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons have failed. Eleven countries, including Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Pakistan, Iraq and Libya have nuclear programmes, the aims of which are obscure. But with the aid of their reactors they can manufacture a nuclear bomb any time they choose — always assuming they do not possess one already.

But, Pope John Paul II, what did you say to the Brazilian government in this connection during your visit to Brazil? Did you issue a warning? We have heard nothing, Holy Father. Was your warning so soft and gentle that we missed it entirely, or did you hold your peace on this fundamental issue? Or is it no concern of the church when reactors can produce bombs, that mean Hiroshima a million times over?

It is particularly repugnant that the Vatican, the Holy See, is itself embroiled in nuclear trading!

I was at file International Atomic Energy Organisation in Vienna in October and learned that the Vatican has put its (your?) signature to the agreement on nuclear transport concluded by fifty-eight countries. This agreement is designed to safeguard the transport of nuclear material between states and also therefore to protect it from direct action by opponents of nuclear power stations.

The policies of the people behind the entire nuclear spiral are based on a contempt for mankind. It has already started where the Australian aborigines and the indigenous populations of South and North America live, and this policy will end in bloodless catastrophes like the one in Harrisburg. The Vatican is caught up in this spiral. Why, I ask you, why?

We women in the trans-national ecological green movement are taking responsibility upon ourselves. We engage in civil disobedience against a nuclear arms state, we demonstrate in a non-violent way with and for our children. Some women in the Greens are refusing to bear children because they can no longer take the responsibility of bringing a child into this world. We are well aware that the proliferation of nuclear and chemical industries in our society will lead to severe, long-term health and genetic damage.

Pope John Paul II, perhaps you should have been in Stuttgart on 2 July 1980 when more than fifty pregnant women with their babies and toddlers entered the Stuttgart Parliament to demand the immediate shut-down of nuclear power stations. Perhaps it would have done you good if you had taken part in the “Christians against nuclear energy and nuclear arms” seminar in Osnabrück in July 1980. The seminar took as its starting point the belief that “many Christians have become aware that nowadays their faith and their responsibility for life can only mean one thing: opposition to both military and ‘peaceful’ use of nuclear technology.”

In Brazil you attacked social injustice and poor social conditions, and you warned against violence and class warfare. But even you were at a loss to know how the lot of the poor could be improved. Was your visit anything more than a fleeting shadow on the red carpets of the basilicas and across the poor districts where you met hopelessly oppressed people? Or was your visit just an effective self-promotion campaign. And were your speeches not all too ambiguous? Despite your repeated admonitions about social injustices you failed to take a public stand on the conflict between an authoritarian state and a church which is increasingly open in its support for the demands of the poor.

Jesus Christ, whose representative on earth you are, always took the part of the oppressed and the weak. The oppressed must come first in a church which claims to follow Jesus. Money and property should not be a privilege for the few. The New Testament teaches us that a man who shares his power and money with the poor is only giving back what belongs to the poor by right. Many of us follow with close interest the new liberation theology of bishops such as Dom Helder Camara.

I have a very dear friend, a priest, who buried my sister in Würzburg in 1970 following her death from cancer. He is now living in Honduras and has turned to liberation theology. He writes and tells me of his experiences there. His letters are a clear indictment of capitalism because, like many priests in Latin America, he knows this system offers no escape for the poor. So one must think about an alternative system, one where distribution is not just seen as a problem for technocrats. The community must decide who should bear the cost for a human society. Capitalism does not satisfy even the elementary needs of the broad mass of people in Latin America, whilst it increases the wealth of the few. That is why we are looking for a new third way, a liberation theology, a comprehensive set of ecological solutions and alternatives.

Another sin by omission is the Catholic church’s evasion of the subject of non-violence. Non-violence, after all, is a central tenant of the early Christian texts. We must heed Cyprian’s words: “When a murder takes place in the private sphere, it is regarded as a crime. But when it takes place with the authority of the state, it is called heroism.” And Clement of Alexandria says, “If a man is looking for peace, he should not use a sword, nor other weapons.” Perhaps you could learn from St John Chrysostom who said, “It is truly greater and better to change our enemies’ intentions by transforming their hearts, than to kill them.”

The starting point of my letter to you was that women here are insisting upon their place in the church, if they are not to leave it entirely.

You, Pope John Paul II will be meeting the bishops who call us women murderers and equate us with Nazi criminals for our defence of abortion rights.

But the best protection against unwanted, and therefore endangered, life is its prevention. And the same priests who profess to protect life condemn measures to prevent unwanted pregnancy. The theologian, Dorothee Sölle, has said in Choosing Life, “Publicizing (contraceptives) not just tolerating their use, would mean an unreserved acceptance of human sexuality which does not find its meaning in procreation. The churches still take an animal view of sexuality. And the continuing ban on contraceptives is an extension of this animal view.”

The annulment of a Catholic marriage, as in the case of Jackie Kennedy’s rich sister, is really a question of class and status. Wealthy women can afford it. So statutes on abortion have become a question of class and status too; rich women can always “buy” their grounds for termination.

May I quote you some important UN statistics? “Whereas in the Federal Republic of Germany there is one termination for every five births, in Austria, Japan and the Soviet Union there were more terminations than births.” In staunch Catholic countries such as Uruguay, Portugal and Italy, in particular, where until recently legislation was very strict, there was one abortion, “mostly illegal,” for every birth. The Catholic church cannot just look at the increase in legal terminations and pretend that the only alternatives are legal terminations or none at all. The UN statistics prove conclusively that in countries where legislation has been relaxed and then tightened up again, there has been no reduction in the total number of abortions. In fact, the proportion of illegal abortions has significantly increased in these countries.

Women all over the world must first fight for decent human conditions before they bring more children into the world. We have had enough of living with environmental pollution, with the violence that is a feature of our everyday lives, and of living in a world that is hostile to women and children. I implore you Pope John Paul II, to understand that it is a question of women’s dignity as human beings and of women’s perspectives on life.

We will go on fighting together in an effort to arrive at an image of ‘humankind’ that is not purely the product of men. We are rediscovering a feminine spirituality, and the women mystics who, as so often happens, have been pushed into the background, hidden away and suppressed. We cannot wait any longer…And that is why we support every move to liberate the church and the Holy Scriptures from their sexism.What is the real mission of the Church? Who gave it this mission? We women in the Greens reject the words of Paul the Apostle who identified man as “the head of the woman” (first letter to the Corinthians, Ch. II, v.3) because the man is the “image and glory of God,” but woman is the “glory of the man” (I Corinthians, Ch. I I , v.7) Paul the Apostle has provided the theological instrument with which woman has been subordinated to man within the Church.

When Christ was alive, there was no Christian Church. Jesus gave His mission to Christians, not to the Church. Christianity in its early stages became a religion of the oppressed because of His mission. (“Love is the fulfillment, all laws are contained in this.”) Christianity was radical then. Christians lived in communes and sought to abolish private ownership, but this radical Christianity was destroyed. “Radical” means “going back to the roots,” and the radical elements of Christ’s message still remains a danger to those in power. What was a religion of the oppressed, the Church has made into a system that oppresses them further.

Fighting For Hope Part 4 (cont’d)Peace Is Possible: The Poison Gas Stores

[Part 4 (cont’d) of Fighting For Hope by Petra Kelly]

THE POISON GAS STORES

Speech to the Pirmasens Rally, 29 August 1981

“Carthage waged three wars; it was still powerful after the first, it was still habitable after the second, it was no more to be found after file third” Bertolt Brecht

l have come here today to support your non-violent struggle in Fischbach against Europe’s largest nerve-gas store. Chemical weapons are just as dangerous as nuclear weapons, in peacetime or war. The 2,000 tons of nerve gas stored here are enough to wipe out the whole of mankind. The local communities in the areas surrounding the poison gas depots were not even informed of the dangers facing them. Even in miniscule amounts the poison causes premature ageing, leukaemia, and severe deformities in children. If one barrel were to explode, there would be enough gas to kill 300,000 people.

Storing poison gas in West Germany contravenes international law. The government loses all credibility when it makes official statements condemning chemical means of mass destruction while allowing nerve gas to be stored in its own country. One of the moves for building the neutron bomb — the preservation of factories, warehouses and docks while destroying most living organisms — has reached the peak of perfection in the use of chemical weaponry.

Fighting For Hope Part 4 (cont’d)Peace Is Possible: Philadelphia Speech

[Part 4 (cont’d) of Fighting For Hope by Petra Kelly]

PHILADELPHIA SPEECH

Dear Sisters and Brothers of the American and German peace Movements in the City of Brother- and Sisterhood,
Philadelphia — we must “disobey”

I bring you many greetings and wishes of solidarity from the German Peace Movement and from the 25,000 strong German Green Party. We are here because it is here where we truly find the roots of the Quaker and Mennonite immigrants who came to America 300 years ago in order to escape from war and from persecution. Mr. Carstens, our President with a dark past, will perhaps speak of the German immigrants who travelled to Germantown in 1683 — but will he speak of the reasons for their corning here? I believe not, for Vice-President Bush, when corning to Krefeld this summer, also ignored the true concerns of these German refugees.

Fighting For Hope Part 2: The Greens and Parliament

[Admins note: This may be the single most significant piece of writing from Petra in explaining what the purpose and mission of the Green party is. Although it was written specifically about the Greens’ relationship with the German Parliament, it’s just as relevant now in relation to the role of the Green party in US politics, especially as events continue to unfold around the 2016 elections.]

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[Part 2 of “Fighting for Hope” by Petra Kelly]

The Greens and Parliament

WE CAN NO LONGER RELY ON THE ESTABLISHED parties, nor can we go on working solely through extra ­parliamentary channels. There is a need for a new force, both in parliament and outside it. One element of this new force is represented by the anti-party party, the Greens. It has become increasingly important to vote for what one believes to be right on the basis of content, rather than wasting one’s vote on lesser evils. The debates conducted in the established parties about the Greens are a shocking revelation of their inability to address themselves to new questions of survival. We demand a radical rethink of all the fundamental issues facing society on the part of the established parties, and this must be a condition of any talks with the Greens.

Fighting For Hope Part 1: The System Is Bankrupt

[Part 1 of “Fighting For Hope” by Petra Kelly: The System Is Bankrupt]

“Eco-peace means standing up for life, and it includes resisting any threat to life… The only people who have really understood what revolution means are those who consider non-violent revolution possible.”
— Philip Berrigan

WE ARE LIVING AT A TIME WHEN AUTHORITARIAN ruling elites are devoting more and more attention to their own prospects and less and less to the future of mankind. We have no option but to take a plunge into greater democracy. This does not mean relieving the established parties, parliament and the law courts of their responsibilities, nor forcing them out of office. Information reaches society via the political parties; and the reverse process is important too: the parties and the trade unions also act as sounding-boards for ideas which first arise within society. But the formation of political opinion within the parliamentary system is undoubtedly a process that needs extending further. It needs to be revitalized by a non-violent and creative ecology and peace movement and an uncompromising anti-party party —the Greens. In a period of crisis, a conveyor-belt system between society and the remote, established parties, is required. Otherwise the real problems are evaded in the endless games of power tactics, until eventually, they become quite unmanageable.

If There Is To Be a Future, It Will Be Green

 [Chapter Nine of  “Thinking Green!” By Petra Kelly]

“Many years from now, people will hear about the 1990s. A fragile era where a hydra of tensions and conflicts threatened the survival of the planet——terrorists menaced the innocent, racial and religious wars overtook great countries, and children became armed militia. . . . [But] the time was also marked by an uprising of the human spirit—people knew they could be trusted with Peace. “—Carl Rogers[1]

The macabre scenario of Desert Storm proved many of the warnings and predictions we Greens have been expressing for so many years. In the almost prophetic peace manifesto published just after the Green Party was founded, we highlighted the devastating consequences of a consumer lifestyle and manufacturing methods that are based on the steady flow of natural resources recklessly squandered, leading to the violent appropriation of foreign raw materials. In this light, the Gulf War was a harbinger of future conflicts that will arise in the global struggle for increasingly scarce natural resources.

Nonviolent Social Defense

[Chapter Five of Thinking Green! By Petra Kelly]

“People try nonviolence for a week, and when it ‘doesn’t work,’ they go back to violence which hasn’t worked for centuries.” – Theodore Roszak

Young people are our future. It is they who can become peacemakers in their lives and develop a nonviolent future. We must encourage them to study peace and to challenge the military-industrial complex that continues to push us into wars and ever-expanding military budgets. The study of peace analyzes the cause of war, violence, and systematic oppression, and explores the processes by which conflict and change can be managed in order to maximize justice and minimize violence. Peace studies encompass the fields of economics, politics, history, political science, physics, ethics, philosophy, and religion at the local as well as global levels, showing how much culture, ideology, and technology relate to conflict and change.

War, peace, and justice are the most critical issues we face today, and they must receive the highest priority. It is important that students debate peace issues and design research projects on how to conclude arms control treaties, how to initiate steps toward unilateral disarmament, and how to protect human rights wherever they are violated. We will not find an instant solution to the nearly half-century of nuclear buildup, so we must make a sustained effort to undertake peace research, action research, and analysis.

Peace studies should also touch the spirituality of politics, talking about the problems of poverty, oppression, and the nature of war, and offering alternatives to war, militarism, and deterrence. Peace studies programs can help develop, through action and research, practical methods for the nonviolent resolution of conflicts, including civilian-based defense and social defense. It should also discuss Third World development, ecological planning, human rights, social movements, and grassroots movements. A peace studies programs should convey the development of the civil rights and antiwar movements and evaluate the powerful effects of these movements. Students who become involved in looking for nonviolent solutions to military conflicts are on the way to becoming true peacemakers. We need many students to become peacemakers if we want to have hope for the future.

The Mega-Insanity of the Arms Race

[Chapter Four of Thinking Green! By Petra Kelly]

“The whole world is a Hiroshima which the bomb has not yet hit. The decision lies with all of us whether humanity must die together or whether it can live together” – R. Moritaki

These are troubled times. Even as the world is realigning itself following the end of the cold war, arsenals all around the world, nuclear and so-called conventional, continue to grow and become more and more sophisticated. The arms race is the most immediate threat to our health, safety, and sanity.

The immense sums spent on manufacturing and storing weapons are nothing less than embezzlement by the leaders of the big nations and their wealthy backers. The discrepancy between the extravagant overproduction of armaments and the unsatisfied needs of those in developing countries and those marginalized by our affluent societies represent criminal aggression against the victims. Even when no one uses these new weapons, their very cost is killing us. And the philosophy of deterrence, still the norm of international relations, is a form of collective hysteria and blackmail.

The 1946 Nuremberg trials ushered in a new era in international law permitting the prosecution of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The sentences handed down attempted to make the responsible political and military leaders of Germany accountable in law and to make them atone for their misdeeds. Statesmen and generals could no longer assume that their actions would simply be tolerated. Statesmen must be dedicated to preserving peace and upholding human rights and human dignity.

But the ideal of a legal order in which aggressors are accountable under international law has not been realized. Since World War II, hundreds of wars have been unleashed before our eyes and many obscene crimes committed against humanity. The passion aroused at the 1946 proceedings subsided by the early 1950s, and discussions among legal experts came to an end.

Now, the twentieth century is drawing to a close, and warfare has taken on a new character. The victims of our weapons are no longer visible to the perpetrators, and the pangs of death are no longer audible. You just press a button, open the bomb-doors, and release a bomb. Killing has become completely impersonal. Auschwitz and Hiroshima – the terrors of the twentieth century – show to what extremes human beings dare to go.

Thinking Green!

[Chapter Three of  Thinking Green! by Petra Kelly]

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead 

When we founded the West German Green party, we used the term “antiparty party” to describe our approach to politics based on a new understanding of power, a “counter-power” that is natural and common to all, to be shared by all, and used by all for all. This is the power of transformation, rooted in the discovery of our own strength and ability to be active participants in society. This kind of power stands in stark contrast to the power of domination, terror, and oppression, and is the best remedy for powerlessness.

Using power to dominate humans and nature has brought us to an impasse and can never take us beyond it. We must learn to think and act from our hearts, to recognize the interconnectedness of all living creatures, and to respect the value of each thread in the vast web of life. This is a spiritual perspective, and it is the foundation of all Green politics. It entails the radical, nonviolent transformation of the structures of society and of our way of thinking, so that domination is no longer the primary modus operandi. At the root of all Green political action is nonviolence, starting with how we live our lives, taking small, unilateral steps toward peace in everything we do. Green politics requires us to be both tender and subversive. Affirming tenderness as a political value is already subversive. In Green politics, we practice tenderness in relations with others; in caring for ideas, art, language, and culture; and in cherishing and protecting the Earth.

To think green is to build solidarity with those working for social justice and human rights everywhere, not bound by ideologies. The problems that threaten life on Earth were produced collectively, they affect us collectively, and we must act collectively to change them. The benefits of the current political and economic systems are reserved for the privileged; therefore, any meaningful movement for social justice must focus on systemic change, on transforming both the oppressive state and economic structures that concentrate wealth and power in the hands of the few. The Green methodology is not to work from the top down, but to begin at the grassroots, empowering ourselves to direct our own destinies through the cultivation of civil space and democratic social forms.

 First and foremost, Green politics is grassroots politics. Politics from the top is almost always corrupt and compromised. To bring about change from below is to challenge the moral authority of those who make decisions on our behalf. Through grassroots organization, education, and empowerment, we work to reverse the state-orientation of politics and instead open up a civil space in which we are active subjects, not passive objects of those in power. Substantive change in politics at the top will come only when there is enough pressure from below. The essence of Green politics is to live our values. We in the West German Green Party hurt ourselves over and over again by failing to maintain tenderness with each other as we gained power. We need to rededicate ourselves to our values, respect each other, be tolerant of differences, and stop trying to coerce and control one another.

Nonviolence, ecology, social justice, and feminism are the key principles of Green politics, and they are inseparably linked. We know, for example, that the wasteful patterns of production and consumption in the industrial North deplete and ravage the environment and furnish the motive and means for the violent appropriation of materials from the weaker nations in the South and for the wasteful process of militarization throughout the world. In both capitalist and state socialist countries, human beings are reduced to economic entities, with little or no regard for the human or ecological costs. Politics from the top, the pattern of hierarchical domination, is the characteristic of patriarchy. It is not a coincidence that power rests in the hands of men, benefits accrue first and foremost to men, and the women are exploited at all levels of society.

The Green approach to politics is a kind of celebration. We recognize that each of us is part of the world’s problems, and we are also part of the solution. The dangers and the potentials for healing are not just outside us. We begin to work exactly where we are. There is no need to wait until conditions become ideal. We can simplify our lives and live in ways that affirm ecological and humane values. Better conditions will come because we have begun.

We have found so many ways to think each other to death – neutron warheads, nuclear reactors, Star Wars defense system, and many other methods of mass destruction. We are killing each other with our euphemisms and abstractions. In warfare, we accept the deaths of thousands and millions of people we call our “enemy.” When we dehumanize people, devalue nature, and exalt narrowly defined self-interests, destruction is sure to follow. The healing of our planet requires a new way of thinking about politics and about life. At the heart of this is the understanding that all things are intimately interconnected in the complex web of life. It can therefore be said that the primary goal of Green politics is an inner revolution. Joanna Macy calls this “the greening of the self.”[1]

Politics needs spirituality. The profound political changes we need in order to heal our planet will not come about through fragmented problem solving or intellectual analyses that overlook the deepest yearnings and intuitions of the heart. Some of my fellow greens have maintained their dogmatic leftist perspectives and remain suspicious of spirituality, confusing it with organized religion. I share many of their criticisms of religious institutions, but I firmly disagree with their dismissing spiritual concerns and wisdom. The long work of bringing harmony to the Earth requires a holistic vision based on mature values and deep intuitions.

Today’s politics are based on the mechanistic worldview that prefers assertion to integration, analysis over synthesis, rational knowledge over intuitive wisdom, competition over cooperation, and expansionism over conservation. A few new ideas are not enough. We need an entirely new way of thinking. As we begin to cultivate a rich inner life and experience our connection with all life, we realize how little of what society tells us we need is actually important for our well-being. We must reduce consumption and not cooperate with any practices that harm the natural world or other humans. This is not sacrifice. It is the way to sustain ourselves.

Green politics must address the spiritual vacuum of industrial society, the alienation that is pervasive in a society where people have grown isolated from nature and from themselves. We in the Greens must also address our own alienation. Our social structures shape this alienation, and they themselves are shaped by it. It is a vicious cycle, and our work of healing must address the whole process. We have forgotten our historical rootedness in an integrated way of life. We must learn from those cultures that have maintained their traditions of wisdom and harmony with nature – Australian Aborigines, American Indians, and others. Tragically, many of these societies are threatened by the same forces that threaten the environment. We must join them in their struggles to preserve their values and traditions.

One such endangered society, Tibet, has been ruthlessly exploited and its people violently oppressed. The exiled leader of the Tibetan people, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, is, for me, a living example of how spiritual wisdom can influence politics:

Peace starts within each of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us. When our community is in a state of peace, it can share that peace with neighboring communities…what is important is that we each make a sincere effort to take seriously our responsibility for each other and for the natural environment.[2]

We have little reason to place our hope in governments or established political parties, for their primary interest is always in extending their own power. But we can find hope in strength and imagination of people working at the grassroots to create positive change. We Greens work within the political system solely for the benefit and empowerment of those at the grassroots. Our efforts within the halls of government are not to replace work at the grassroots. Our commitments are, first and foremost, to those who elected us. We must work with them, nonviolently, for life-affirming solutions to the problems of our day.

Green politics is based on direct democracy – our effort is to redefine and reorganize power so that it flows from the bottom up. We seek to decentralize power and maximize the freedom and self-determination of individuals, communities and societies. This means moving power out of the hands of centralized bureaucracies – above all, the military-industrial complex – and empowering people on the local level. It also means reaching across national borders and ideologies to build alliances with others also working for peace and ecology. It means moving government power away from the state towards smaller and smaller units of organization. In economics, grassroots democracy means a production system that maximizes workers’ self-management and minimizes corporate or governmental control. It means units of production scaled to a comprehensible human dimension that are locally responsive and globally responsible. The day may come when Greens find a truly democratic and ecological partner among the established parties, but until then, we must work in government as an anti-party party, an experiment in radical parliamentary opposition unwilling to compromise fundamental values for the sake of expediency.

Thinking green – to think with the heart – is the solution to many if not all our political dead-ends. To continue increasing production, consumption, and the depletion of our natural resources will only lead us further down the path of self-suffering. Albert Einstein said that with the splitting of the atom everything changed except the way people think. A new way of thinking must come soon, or the damage will be irreparable. Means and ends cannot be separated. “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.”[3]

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[1] Joanna Macy, World as Lover, World as Self (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1991), p.183

[2] The Dalai Lama, “The Nobel Peace Prize Lecture,” in A Policy of Kindness (Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1990), p.19

[3] A. J. Muste, The Essays of A. J. Muste, edited by Nat Hentoff (NewYork: Simon and Schuster, 1970)