Greens, at the level of national structure (just try to get most locals interested in any of this) are at somewhat of a crossroads. While there was a lot of forward momentum at the national conference in Elkins in August, much of that momentum leaned to the Left. Detroit Summer, 500 Years of Resistance and the Ron Daniels presidential campaign may be worthy projects, but I fear that the national Green body is on a track towards defining itself by those projects and others like them. As I have said before, a strategy of defining the Greens as a coalition of special interests is not only against the key values of the movement, it is also foolish politically.

The Greens as conceived in early works like Charlene Spretnak's book "Green Politics" were a break from the old Left. Slogans like "Neither Left nor Right, but in front" and "Unity through diversity," and the ideas behind them, were refreshing reading to those disenchanted by the failures of both Right and Left to solve our nation's woes.

When the early U.S. Green group modified the German Greens' "pillar" Social Justice to say, instead, "Personal and Social Responsibility", they weren't softening it — making it more palatable — as social justice advocates and anti-New Agers think. Rather, they were making a much stronger statement: that life is not just a matter of getting government to enforce your claims against others — that individuals need to take responsibility for …

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