Vote Green Michiana!

Our campaign is not an attempt to create just another political party designed to elect politicians to office and consolidate political power. We envision a movement involving ordinary people participating on an everyday basis in the democratic process. Other political parties tend to think, talk, and act in a “top/down” manner that places all of the emphasis (and the power) with elites and away from everyday “common” people. Our vision is of a “bottom/up” movement of participatory, grassroots democracy that empowers people to take an active role in the making the important decisions that impact our everyday lives.

A summary of our platform issues:

• Promoting participatory democracy: all the citizens of our community should be involved in political decision-making. Local voter participation is an embarrassment.
• Promoting a moral economy: the local economy should benefit all of us, not just an elite few. We can use our local democracy to provide services, such as health care, to all of our community and set an example of how we expect business to be conducted
• Social and Ecological Justice: our local laws, from the tax abatement ordinance to the Human Rights ordinance, must ensure justice for ALL of the community not just an elite few.

We believe that we must work now to address the root causes of our social and ecological problems, rather than belatedly dealing with their symptoms as crisis occur.

Grassroots Democracy

Our local municipal government could and should be the most immediate access point for everyday citizens to participate in our democracy. The fact that voter turnout levels are so low for municipal elections (11.6% in this past spring’s primary and only 26% in 2003 general municipal election) illustrates just how disconnected the citizenry is from local government. If less than 30% of registered voters turn out, that means that upwards of 70% of registered voters are opting out of the process!

And how many citizens are un-registered and thus don’t show up in these statistics?

If the political process involves less than a third of our citizens’ participation, how viable, healthy, and real IS our local democracy?

Part of the problem is that the major parties tend to build local political party machines that dominate local politics for generation after generation. The “opposition party” ultimately cedes many races and voters wind up with only one candidate for many offices. Here in South Bend, for example, the Democrats have dominated both the mayor’s office and common council for so long that the Republicans have often neglected to field candidates.

Moreover, many people are aware of the two major parties “gerrymandering” political districts to effectively carve up the electorate and reduce the number of competitive races to as few as possible. Gerrymandering makes our democracy more “efficient” for the two dominant parties but it does not serve the public who, consequently, have fewer and fewer choices.

Unfortunately, Indiana’s laws dictate that third party and independent candidates must gather signatures of registered voters just to have their names placed on the ballot. Indiana’s ballot access laws have been enacted by the two major parties that fear threats to their continued dominance of our democracy and are considered among the most regressive in the nation. The only alternative for third parties and independents to gathering signatures for ballot access is to declare write-in candidacies to give citizens an alternative to the two major parties.

It’s an embarrassment that here in St. Joseph County the county election board failed to bother to count nearly 500 votes cast for registered write-in candidates in the November 2006 general election. This included votes cast for a Democrat, Green, and a Constitution Party candidate. No satisfactory explanation for this failure was ever given by the county election board despite repeated requests by concerned citizens.

As Greens we hold that concentrated political power is inherently opposed to participatory democracy. We propose a gradual reconstruction of the local electoral system with the ultimate goal of decentralizing political decision-making to the level of neighborhood assemblies that operate through direct face-to-face democracy.

As a start, we propose that barriers to entry into the political process be relaxed to allow for more choices and new ideas. We propose that an alternative voting system called Instant Run-Off Voting be instituted to allow local voters to rank their votes according to their preferred candidates. Such a system allows citizens to voter their conscience without fear of splitting the vote or “spoiling” an election.

We also propose implementing technologies that increase citizens’ input in local decision-making. To this end, we support the efforts One Voice: By the People, For the People - a local citizens’ organization dedicated to establishing an electronic referendum mechanism.

Additionally, every effort should be made to make the various meetings associated with local government as accessible as possible to all the citizens of our community. This could include holding meetings on weekends and should include providing childcare so that parents can more easily become involved in our local democracy.

We recognize that it will take time to inspire a truly democratic culture and sensibility. However, we look to the history and continued existence of New England town hall meetings as evidence that direct face-to-face democracy forms not just the origins of American democracy but a viable and necessary alternative to political party machines and a largely de-politicized populace.

Moral Economy

We strongly disagree with the idea that the solution to all of our social and ecological problems is the buzzword “economic development.” We believe that it is imperative that we seek ethical, moral alternatives to the competitive “grow or die” global economy that perpetuates what many people call the “race to the bottom.”

The race to the bottom involves the erosion of good-paying employment, quality healthcare and retirement benefits, job security, environmental protections, and the undermining of community that comes as a result of the instability and continual transition experienced by individual citizens. Instability comes from the constant threat of jobs being outsourced or eliminated and includes the light/small industries that employ so many in our area.

The upshot of this phenomenon is a growing gap between the rich and poor, a hollowing out of the middle class, and an overall decline in community.

Instead of accepting the supposed inevitability of a competitive amoral global economy, we suggest striving towards local self-sufficiency and an ethic of mutual aid and interdependence. The health of our local economy should be measured in terms of how well it provides for all members of our community, not just a tiny minority of elites.

Our community has no shortage of creative, experienced artisans and craftspeople that can help form the basis of an integrated local exchange of goods and services. There is no reason why many of the goods and services that are now only available via national and/or multinational corporate outlets cannot be produced locally. Every effort should be made to reinvigorate the local production of nearly all the goods and services necessary to a high quality of life for our community’s citizens.
We should support local farmers and encourage local groceries, restaurants, and schools to use locally grown foods. Community gardens provide a great opportunity for community building and a re-connection between the citizens of our community and our environment.

We propose that the citizenry of our community form a municipal healthcare consortium. We recognize the moral obligation to ensure that all of our community’s citizens receive affordable medical care. We further recognize the innumerable costs to our community both financial and social when so many in our community forgo medical care until crises occur. We propose the potential of neighborhood-based local clinics that could be staffed by nurse practitioners to address basic healthcare needs. Home visits should be available to those citizens who are immobile.

Ultimately, we believe that institutions like a healthcare consortium or a municipal credit union should be rooted in democratic principles and, therefore, the policies, procedures, and administration should be conducted via public decision-making.

We also support the efforts of the citizens behind the Michiana Community Currency Initiative to promote localism through the establishment of a regional currency. We also support the consideration and possible implementation of barter-exchanges that reinforce direct face-to-face relationships between trading partners that promotes community and cooperation rather than raw individual self-interest and greed.

In short, as Greens we believe our community is best served by democracy informed by moral choices that realize our inherent interdependence rather than by elite economic interests supported by competitive indifference to our neighbors.

Social Justice and Nonviolence

Social justice must be a central concern for our community. Racism, sexism, homophobia, religious or spiritual intolerance, and other forms of discrimination harm the whole community not just individual victims of bigotry. Economic justice should be for all members of our community; there is no justice in poverty and the ever-widening gap between rich and poor.

We support the use of Community Benefit Agreements (CBAs) as a way to ensure that social justice provisions are always included whenever our community negotiates with prospective businesses and other organizations considering locating in our community. In developing CBAs, our community must establish a caucus of our community’s underprivileged as part of the deliberation and decision-making process. In this way these agreements can provide a “seat at the table” for our community’s underprivileged.

We support the establishment of a Citizen’s Review Board to work with local law enforcement to ensure that all of our community’s citizens are always treated lawfully, fully recognizing that the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers conduct themselves in an exemplary manner. By bringing citizens and law enforcement together, we believe that cooperative, community-oriented law enforcement strategies can be most effective. We fully support cooperative relationships between neighborhood organizations and local law enforcement.

We support the passage of a Human Rights Ordinance that would extend legal protections against discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. We find it contradictory that members of our community are encouraged to work, pay taxes, raise families, etc. but have been denied basic legal protections with regard to employment, housing, education, or public accommodations.

As Greens we oppose the use of violence as an option in resolving conflicts. Our society must realize that our capacity to do harm to each other now means that we can now literally destroy ourselves.

We must examine how dependent our local economy has become on what is commonly known as the “military-industrial complex.” Too often good jobs are created by violent conflicts. If we are to overcome the threat of warfare and terrorism, then we must make the principled, ethical, and moral decision not to profit from the production of instruments of violence.

We also recognize that violence comes in many forms besides physical harm being done to a human being. Our community should provide the real opportunity for all of our community members to reach their innate human potential. When people are denied this opportunity and social injustice exists, there is violence. When the environment is harmed, there is violence. Regardless of the form it takes, violence has no place in our society.