News
Local News
At the Green Party of San Mateo County Council meeting of August 10, 2010, the county council voted to make contributions to the campaigns of
Laura Wells - Governor
Jimi Castillo - Lt. Governor
April Vargas - Board of Supervisors (San Mateo County), run-off in November non-partisan race. We have endorsed her and invite SM Greens to work on her campaign.
Dan Hamburg - Board of Supervisors (Mendocino County), run-off in November non-partisan race
At the Green Party of San Mateo County Council meeting of August 31, 2010, the county council voted to make additional campaign contributions, including:
Ann Menache - Secretary of State
Peter Allen - Attorney General
Bill Balderston - Insurance Commissioner
Gayle McLaughlin - Mayor of Richmond (running for reelection)
and others
State News
Green Party Candidates in California for partisan and non-partisan offices are listed on the Green Party of California Elections Page
Laura recently spoke at an event hosted by the Alameda County Greens and one of the San Mateo Greens posted a YouTube video of her speech.
California Greens are supporting the Prop 19 campaign to Legalize Marijuana. The Green Party of Calfornia will officially vote on endorsing this and other statewide ballot measures by their state meeting in Fullerton on September 11-12.
Even a retired San Jose police chief is supporting this. In an article posted on SFGate on July 25th, he said:
California voters have a chance on this November's ballot to bring common sense to law enforcement by legalizing marijuana for adults. As San Jose's retired chief of police and a cop with 35 years experience on the front lines in the war on marijuana, I'm voting yes.
I've seen the prohibition's terrible impact at close range.
Like an increasing number of law enforcers, I have learned that most bad things about marijuana - especially the violence made inevitable by an obscenely profitable black market - are caused by the prohibition, not by the plant. Legal marijuana is long overdue, but leading up to November, wrongheaded opponents will implore Californians with the same old mistaken arguments to stay the course. Prohibition advocates will promote fear, and they will ignore the vast bulk of law enforcement and medical experience on marijuana. People should not be fooled by cannabis opponents' appeal to prejudices and emotions....<more>
There is a sense that the war on drugs has been a failure, like prohibition. In Mexico, the goverment took a more aggressive stand against drugs, and they got a more aggressive violent reaction from organized crime. A recent article in England's Guardian indicates that Mexico too many decide that it would be better to legalize and tax and get the drug cartels out of the business. It shares that many other Latin American countries have already made that decision.
War on drugs: why the US and Latin America could be ready to end a fruitless 40-year struggle
Mexico's president Felipe Caldéron is the latest Latin leader to call for a debate on drugs legalisation. And in the US, liberals and right-wing libertarians are pressing for an end to prohibition. Forty years after President Nixon launched the 'war on drugs' there is a growing momentum to abandon the fight....<more>
GPCA is currently polling the states on their recommendation on the propositions on the ballot in November. Analysis of the propositions by some state party members is available on line.
| The Spring edition of the "Green Focus" GPCA news magazine is now available for downloading. This issue centers around Green candidates and ballot propositions. |  |
National News
See past events on the GPUS Livestream video channel.
Read the latest press releases on the GPUS website. The most recent are listed here. .
The national newspaper of the Green Party of the United States
Upcoming Events
All are invited and welcome
County Council General Administrative Meeting.
Next meeting is scheduled for Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 7pm
at the home of Gloria Purcell. If you like eating between 7 and 9pm, feel free to bring your own dinner, or join us for a potluck at 6:30. Gloria will provide dessert.
Call 408.218.6114 for more information.
Green Party of California State meeting
September 11-12, 2010 in Orange County
Calendars of events of some other bay area progreassive organizations:
- KPFA Sponsored Events
- Acterra EcoCalendar
- Peninsula Peace and Justice Center Calendar
- Bay Area Indymedia Calendar
- Ecology Center EcoCalendar (Berkeley)
Green Change is an online community of people with Green values: justice, grassroots democracy, sustainability and non-violence.
*A good blog for information about Greens all over the country is
Green Party Watch.
The Four Pillars of the Green Party
Democracy • Ecology • Economic Justice • Nonviolence
The Four Pillars grew out of the two fundamental principles of the German Green Party as formulated by its founders, Petra Kelly, Joseph Beuys and Heinrich Böll.
The two principles are Democracy and Ecology, or Ecology and Democracy. They are equal and the order is not important; what is important is that each imposes limits on the other.
A totalitarian state could be built on an ecological platform. If the primary ecological problem is perceived to be overpopulation, then the state could solve the problem by killing large numbers of people. This is not a Green solution because a totalitarian state is by definition undemocratic.
On the other hand, a society could decide by a democratic decision-making process to plunder the Earth for the benefit of the present generation and let the future take care of itself. This might be democratic, but it is not ecological, and therefore also not Green.
But what if a democratic decision was made to murder large numbers of people for the good of the environment? What if a decision was made to keep large numbers of people in abject poverty because the really poor use less of the Earth's resources? For these reasons the two principles were expanded to the Four Pillars.
Economic Justice was added because without some level of material well-being individuals do not have the time, education, or peace of mind to take part in society, and without such participation no real democracy is possible.
Nonviolence was added as a very broad concept. It is not simply the absence of war. Our commitment to nonviolence doesn't mean only that we should stop killing, maiming, and torturing each other (although that would be a good idea), but also that we should stop the violence that we commit on the world around us, on the biosphere, on all the forms of life on our planet. Atomic weapons are wrong not just because they kill people, but also because of the general mess they create even if never used, from the mining of uranium to the disposal of the waste, and all the steps in between.
—George McGuire, New York, September 2002