The Green Party Platform

The following “politics” platform was submitted to the National Green Gathering in August of 1992 by the Syracuse/Onondaga County Greens. The platform presented here has been edited. Unedited copies of the platform are available through the Alternative Orange.

1. The Crisis of Democracy

Concentrations of wealth with decisive political influence, massive bureaucracies impervious to individuals and communities, virtually no remaining public sphere for political discussion by ordinary citizens, centralized and stupefying mass media—today’s political culture and structure is anti- democratic in very fundamental ways.

First, the U.S. state and its subjurisdictions are structured around an elitist concept of representation. The people have no enforceable means of expressing their desires and controlling their representatives between elections. We don’t govern ourselves. Instead, elected elites govern us.

Second, the power of these elected representative elites is severely circumscribed by the extra-parliamentary powers of unelected elites:

• the private power of unelected corporate elites who effectively veto public policy proposals that would advance the public interest against the private interests of the wealthy owning classes by threats of capital flight and exorbitant conditions for financing public debt;

• the growing power of the federal over the state and local levels which is resulting in federal pre-emption of state and local measures to protect people’s living standards and the environment;

• the unelected state and corporate press, media, foundations, and entertainment industry which propagate around-the-clock the establishment’s rationale for the status quo and drowns out dissenting views on public affairs;

• the unelected military, intelligence, and police agencies which attack — at home and abroad — grassroots democratic movements and activists who challenge the concentration of wealth under capitalism and the concentration of power under statism.

2. New Political Institutions of Confederal Grassroots Democracy

The Greens are committed to grassroots democracy, to decentralized, confederal, participatory forms of self-government. Direct participatory democracy is the foundation for genuine self- government at larger scales of association.

The Greens therefore call for a radical reconstruction of our political institutions to replace the centralized U.S. nation-state with bioregional confederations of self-governing communities. This will mean dismantling the U.S. nation-state, honoring the land and treaty claims of indigenous Native American Indian nations, and reconstituting intercommunal relations on the basis of community self-determination and free and equal confederation from below.

Confederal grassroots democracy will be based on the following principles:

Direct Democracy in Citizen Assemblies: Citizen assemblies, general meetings of the whole community, in every neighborhood, town, and village, will be the source of and final authority over public policy for all levels of confederal coordination by means of their rights to mandate and recall their delegates to larger scales of self-government. Citizen assemblies will address regional, national, and international as well as local issues. These local face-to-face assemblies will bring the people directly into the political process and give people the power over the decisions that affect their lives.

Confederal Coordination: The citizen assemblies will confederate at the local, regional, and national levels in order to develop and coordinate common polices to deal with common problems. The lower levels will control the higher levels of association, reversing the present pre-emptive powers of the centralized state hierarchy.

Mandated and Proportional Representation with the Right of Immediate Recall: Delegates from citizen assemblies to coordinating councils and representatives from party slates elected by systems of proportional representation will be instructed, at every level of confederation, by the assemblies they represent on how they want to deal with any issue. The delegates and representatives may be given imperative mandates (binding instructions) that commit them to a framework of policies within which they must act and they can be recalled and their decisions revoked at any time for failing to carry out the mandates they are given. Delegates and representatives will be selected by election and/or sortition (random selection by lot as for jury duty). The assembly delegates would carry mandates from deliberative assemblies open to all citizens at the base of society.

Compulsory Rotation of All Public Officials with Delegated Powers: All public officials with delegated powers will be rotated frequently to preclude a professionalization of politics. Instead of professional politicians who govern us and are largely on their own once elected, the people will have the final say on policy and govern themselves. Every citizen will have his or her opportunity to participate in turn in the coordination and administration of public affairs.

Legislative Authority over Administrative Branch: The legislative branch will be the people organized in their citizen assemblies and their confederal coordinating councils. The executive branch will be limited to implementing policy formulated by the legislative branch, that is, by the people. Means to insure executive accountability to the legislative branch will include (in addition to a wider use of elections and sortitions), frequent rotation of officials, open access to proceedings and records for administrative branch activities via computer as well as direct inspection, and the rights of the citizen assemblies to give imperative mandates, recall their officials, and revoke their decisions.

Accountability Boards for Administrative Departments: The accountability of executive branch officials should be reinforced by the creation of accountability boards, elected or selected by lot (as for jury duty), for each important administrative branch, from local to national.

Independence of Judiciary Branch: The courts’ independence from the executive branch will be strengthened by popular election instead of executive appointment of judges, by protecting the jury system of selection of random citizens by lot, and by informing jurors of their right to judge the law itself, according to their conscience, as well as the facts of a case.

Economic Democracy: Political democracy is undermined when concentrated corporate capital can effectively veto democratic public decisions by threatening to disinvest. Genuine political democracy therefore goes hand-in-hand with economic democracy based on decentralized public and cooperative forms of ownership and control of productive assets.

Access to the Means to Life: Democracy is undermined when some communities are impoverished while others are affluent. The material and moral basis of unity for confederation at every level must include guarantees of minimum floors for public services and human needs which establish enforceable legal claims by poorer communities upon an adequate share of revenues pooled and resources held at larger confederal jurisdictions.

3. Scales and Levels of Confederation

As general guidelines for the scales and levels of confederation, we offer the following for discussion:

Neighborhood Assemblies of 500 to 1000: This is the scale of face-to-face interaction that best combines a variety of personal contacts with the ability to know and form a personal estimation of everyone in the neighborhood. Assemblies of this size (300 to 600 adults), meeting perhaps monthly, are best suited to direct democracy and the fostering of a participatory political culture. Neighborhoods of this size can support and their assemblies oversee the administration of elementary schools, child care centers, retail outlets for basic home supplies, solar based energy sources, community gardens, community handicraft and machine-tool workshops, community laundries, and much more, all within close walking distance.

Community Assemblies and Councils of 5,000 to 10,000: Most economies of scale are reached at this size. For example, assuming today’s technology, division of labor, and level of workforce participation, a community of 10,000 with 2,000 manufacturing workers would be able to staff three plants of current average size in each of the thirteen basic manufacturing categories — enough to supply the community with most of its manufacturing needs with considerable variety. Add multi-purpose machines, miniaturization, and cybernation, and the possibilities for a high degree of economic self-reliance become obvious. At this scale, the community still remains comprehensible, community control of the economy feasible, and such measures as distribution according to need and the regular rotation of people through a full range of types of work and public administrative responsibilities can be easily introduced. Communities of 5,000 to 10,000 would combine community assemblies, meeting perhaps quarterly to decide on basic policy, with community councils consisting of mandated, recallable, and rotating delegates from the neighborhood assemblies to oversee the day-to-day coordination and administration of community policies.

Urban and Rural Districts of 50,000 to 100,000: Small cities of 50,000 today have just about all the service and production facilities of any size city. Above 100,000, the complexities of providing urban services begin to create diseconomies of scale. Therefore it is in the 50,000 to 100,000 range that we propose another level of confederation, which will vary from urban districts in today’s large metropolitan areas, to small cities, to rural districts. This is the size at which almost all the remaining social needs such as universities, hospital centers, and cultural institutions find their economies of scale. But face-to-face citizen assemblies are not feasible at this scale. Instead, confederal councils would be the legislative body and consist in part of mandated, recallable, and rotating delegates from the neighborhood assemblies (one from each assembly would yield a council of 50 to 100 delegates, depending on the size of the neighborhood assemblies and the urban/rural district) and in part on party candidates elected by proportional representation. These delegates and representatives would negotiate and formulate basic policies to be discussed and voted on by the neighborhood assemblies. The votes would be summed across the district to determine district policy by majority rule. These districts would also form the electoral district for elections to the continental congress.

Special Confederations: Because the present geographical distribution of the population does not conform to these guidelines, there will need to be confederal associations at other scales to deal with particular situations. For example, the New York and Los Angeles metropolitan areas will need corresponding confederations to deal with the particular logistical problems of coordinating the infrastructure of these urban belts.

Regional and National Confederations: Since almost all of the economies of scale and public decisions necessary for social self-management can be achieved by the time we reach the 50,000 to 100,000 scale, larger levels of confederation can be oriented mainly around bioregional and cultural affinities and the few remaining but important economic resources that must be shared at these scales. Regional, national, and international economic ties based on the distribution of such things as geographically concentrated mineral deposits, climate dependent crops, and production facilities that are most efficient when concentrated in one area will unite communities confederally on the basis of common material needs as well as values. At the regional and national scales, councils of mandated, recallable, and rotating delegates and party representatives elected by proportional representation would coordinate policy at those levels. The regional councils would consist of a mix of delegates elected by community assemblies and representatives elected by proportional representation of party slates. The continental congress would consist of representatives elected from the urban/rural districts and representatives elected by proportional representation of party slates. The members elected by proportional representation of party slates would insure a direct voice for minority views in councils at these levels. Policy at the regional and national level would still be subject to approval in the last analysis by the neighborhood and community assemblies through their right to recall their representatives and revoke their decisions.

Global Confederation: Ultimately we wish to see the competitive nation-state system replaced by a cooperative system of decentralized bioregions of self-governing communities. A global council of bioregional delegates (a council of approximately 5000 assuming one delegate for bioregions averaging 5 million, plus more for proportional representation of party slates) could coordinate global cooperation based on policies formulated and approved at the grassroots by the confederal principles we have sketched.

The point of these general guidelines is to illustrate the possibilities, not set out a blueprint. The actual detailed arrangements will have to worked out in practice by the peoples participating.

4. Political Strategy: Green Municipalism

The only power that ordinary people have that can counter the extra-parliamentary powers of the establishment is an extra-parliamentary movement of the majority of people ready and willing to take direct action to carry through a program of change when the ruling elites try to subvert the democratic will through their own extra-parliamentary actions. The only means we have to create a participatory political culture is to build a grassroots movement that creates a local, immediate institutional framework through which millions of people can participate in shaping social policy.

The Greens are committed to creating a new politics that is practical for ordinary people. We propose to focus on that arena where we can begin immediately to exercise some democratic power, namely, our own local communities. We are oriented toward a strategy of Green Municipalism which proposes that citizens take control of their communities and, by that means, eventually society as a whole. Green Municipalism is oriented toward the progressive development of a grassroots counterpower in opposition to the centralized state and corporations. While not completely achievable under the existing system, raising these demands will raise the vision of the alternative. The strategy is to build a grassroots counterpower, a parallel system of self-administration that is in opposition to the centralized state and corporate powers, in the following roughly successive phases:

Green Local Chapters: Organizing local Green political organizations that combine study, action, and mutual aid.

Direct Action: Building issue oriented campaigns and democratic counter-institutions such as community assemblies, cooperatives, and educational and cultural projects.

Independent Politics: Standing independent Green candidates, primarily for local office.

Municipal Democratization: Campaigning inside and outside the electoral arena to secure home rule from state constitutions and to change municipal and county charters so as to institutionalize a structure of municipal democracy based on neighborhood and community assemblies and mandated, recallable, and rotating municipal and county officials.

Municipal Confederation: Linking democratic municipalities and counties confederally for mutual support and joint programs to bring more and more political and economic power into community controlled institutions.

Parallel Legislatures of Assembly Delegates: Forming shadow city councils, county boards, state legislatures, and eventually a new “continental congress” consisting of mandated and recallable delegates of the neighborhood and community assemblies that can track the “official” legislative agenda, add its own agenda, vote the wishes of the citizen assemblies on these agendas, and thus act as a moral force upon the “official” legislatures and prefigure the eventual replacement of statism by confederalism.

Dual Power: Working through the municipal confederations to develop a parallel system of self-administration, a dual power in society that can initially resist and…

Confederal Grassroots Democracy: …ultimately replace the centralized power of the state and corporations with grassroots political and economic democracy.

5. Democratic Decentralism

The Greens are organized internally around the principle of democratic decentralism. This means:

1) protection of the right of minorities to abstain from the implementation of majority decisions with which they disagree and to publicly dissent from them;

2) protection of the right of majorities on any question to see that their decisions are the official organizational position;

3) protection of the right of majorities to see that their decisions are actually implemented by requiring that Greens placed in responsible positions such as candidates, office holders, spokespeople, and staff are obligated to carry through organizational policies even though they may personally disagree with them (or obligated to resign from the position of responsibility if carrying them through would violate their conscience).

Democratic decentralism differs fundamentally from both the democratic centralism in the old left Leninist parties and the total lack of democratic accountability in the Social Democratic and capitalist parties.

Under democratic centralism, every member must carry out majority decisions whether they agree with them or not. This policy sacrifices public transparency of internal debates and hence public trust to compulsory unity in action. Expression of dissent, so essential for democratic deliberation, is discouraged by the requirement of compulsory unity in action.

Under the lack of democratic accountability in the Social Democratic and capitalist parties, no one — not candidates, spokespeople, nor even staff — is obligated to follow party platforms or other organizational policies established by majority vote of the membership. This sacrifices rank-and-file democracy to the careerism of the professional politicians who sell out party positions in order to appeal to new voting constituencies and to trade political favors in the legislatures and administrations of government.

Under the Greens’ democratic decentralism, internal debate is publicly transparent, dissent is encouraged, and unity in action is voluntary. Significant minority dissent is a signal to the majority that further development of positions is needed to broaden unity in action. By the same token, majority decisions actually effect organizational policy and behavior.

6. Election Law Reform

The established capitalist parties in the U.S. do not offer principled political alternatives. They are shifting coalitions of political careerists held together only by the prospect of victory, spoils, and patronage.

We need election law and related reforms that will remove the economic and institutional barriers to full and equal participation by all citizens and viewpoints in the electoral and legislative processes. These reforms must enable principled parties to emerge which can create coherent platforms, nominate candidates accountable to their platforms, and have the power to reach the public with their platforms. These reforms should allow more parties to emerge to offer the public a wider range of viewpoints. A few election law and related reforms include:

Increase the Size of Legislative Bodies: Increase the size of legislative bodies to insure more effective accountability to citizen assemblies.

Universal Voter Registration: Register all citizens by mail, at motor vehicle and other public agencies, and at polling places on election day.

Immigrant Voting Rights: Extend voting rights to immigrants

Initiatives and Referenda: Establish binding initiatives and referenda at the municipal, county, state, and federal levels. Make illegal the payment of petition gatherers, support overall spending limits for initiatives and referenda, and guarantee media access for both sides of initiatives and referenda.

None of the Above: Institute a binding “None of the Above” (NOTA) option on all ballots. Should NOTA receive a majority of votes, a new election would be called.

Fair Ballot Access for Independent and Alternative Party Candidates: Reduce signature requirements for independent and alternative party candidates to a fair level.

Fair Ballot Maintenance for Alternative Parties: Lower ballot maintenance requirements for alternative parties to a fair level.

Eliminate Private Money from All Election Campaigns: Establish public funding of election campaigns at all levels sufficient to inform the citizenry of the alternative programs offered in the election. All other campaign funding would be illegal.

Free and Equal Access to Press and Media for all Candidates and Parties: Require television and radio stations, as a condition of their leasing of the public airwaves, to make free and equal time available for all candidates and parties. Public election funding would pay for newspaper space.

Public Funding of Parties: Parties should receive public funding retroactively after elections for the purpose of funding day-to-day political work, with the funding divided according the percentage vote received in the last election.

Eliminate the Presidency, Governorships, and Mayoralities and Make the Executive Branch Subordinate to the Legislative Branch: Return the powers usurped by these chief executive offices to the people in their citizen assemblies and their duly elected representatives in the legislative assemblies.

7. Civil Liberties

Fully Informed Juries: Require that the courts inform juries of their right to judge the law as well as defendants — their right to find defendants innocent even if review of the evidence strictly in terms of the law would indicate a guilty verdict. Juries should be able to exercise this right when they believe that justice would be better serve by a not guilty verdict because no harm was actually caused, or because they believe the law itself to be unjust, or because a guilty verdict would otherwise violate their sense of right and wrong. The right of citizen jurors to judge the law will protect our individual liberties and freedom from political repression and capricious intrusion into our lives by government.

Expand First Amendment Rights: Eliminate restrictions on the capacity of ordinary citizens to freely associate, communicate, and peaceably assemble for redress of grievances.

8. Immediate Action Program

To begin restructuring our political institutions, here are some of the programmatic measures Greens will raise in public campaigns inside and outside the electoral arena:

Citizen Assemblies: Organize neighborhood and community assemblies that will begin to address public affairs whether or not the assemblies legally recognized by municipal charters and state law. Call for charter changes to sanction and institutionalize citizen assemblies as the basic policy-making bodies in our cities and counties.

Mandate and Recall of Public Officials: Change city and county charters to subject all public officials to imperative mandates from and immediate recall by the citizen assemblies.

Rotation and Limited Terms for Public Officials: Change city and county charters to make all public officials subject to compulsory rotation after a limited term of office. Oppose the lengthening of existing terms of office between elections and propose more frequent elections (e.g., every two years instead of every four years) where appropriate.

Open Proceedings: All citizens should have access to all public business, records, computerized information, and meetings.

Environmental Home Rule: Demand that the state and national governments pass environmental home rule laws establishing the absolute right of local communities to bar disposal or transshipment of hazardous materials and to reject the location of hazardous industrial projects in their communities.

Municipal Home Rule: Demand that state constitutions be amended to allow municipalities and counties to revise their charters without requiring the approval of the state government.

Community Control of Schools, Police, Zoning, and other Public Services: Establish or extend community control of municipal services through the election of citizen commissions to exercise or oversee these public functions.

Parallel Legislatures of Assembly Delegates: Democratized communities should form their own mandated and recallable councils as a parallel legislature to those of the state — a local council of community assembly delegates parallel to the city council or county legislature, a regional “third house” of community assembly delegates parallel to the state representative and senatorial houses, and ultimately a “continental congress” of community assembly delegates parallel to the U.S. Congress. These shadow councils of mandated and recallable community delegates would track the legislative agendas of the official legislatures, add their own agendas, vote their own decisions on these questions, act as a moral force upon the existing legislatures, and prefigure the ultimate goal of replacing the state with confederal grassroots democracy.

Municipal Confederations: Confederate municipalities and counties that have democratized internally in order to address common problems, share resources, and constitute a dual power in society that can initially resist and ultimately replace nation-states and global corporations.

The Syracuse/Onondaga County Greens meet every Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. at the Southwest Community Center. For more information call 426-8639.