John --

The Green Party: Leading the way on social progress

“Marijuana should be legalized, though its legal use should be restricted to adults.”

That’s what the very first platform of the Illinois Green Party declared – in March 2000. As Illinoisans get ready to celebrate the legalization of recreational cannabis in Illinois in 2020, it bears recalling that Greens were pushing for this 20 years ago. Marijuana legalization was a mainstay of Rich Whitney’s 2006 Green Party campaign for governor, and the calls for legalization, decriminalization of drug offenses generally, and other sweeping criminal justice reforms have been central to many Green campaigns ever since then.

It took the corporate political parties nearly 20 more years of pressure and persuasion to finally come around to that common-sense position (and the bill signed into law still had its shortcomings). They were too beholden to the covert racism of the “war on drugs” and the influence of the prison-industrial complex to end prohibition of cannabis. They finally came around only when the crushing costs of maintaining the system of mass incarceration helped push them into it.

That same first platform of the ILGP also called for “universal entitlement for all residents to comprehensive health care benefits including preventive, curative, rehabilitative and long-term care,” through “single-payer health insurance, publicly administered and funded, delivered by a non-profit system.” Today, of course, the demand for “improved Medicare for all” is supported by a strong majority of the American people and is grudgingly making headway even within the Democratic Party (albeit painstakingly slow and with innumerable efforts to water it down) against the powerful health insurance lobby and its allies. Once again, the Green Party was way ahead of the curve.

We also called for the passage of living wage laws – a forerunner of today’s “fight for 15.”

There hasn’t been very much social progress in the U.S. in recent years – there has been a lot more regress – but where progress has occurred, the Green Party has been on the cutting edge. Consider marriage equality. In 2004, Jason West, the Green Party mayor of New Paltz, New York, performed the first “out” gay and lesbian marriages, despite being charged with a criminal offense for doing so. He stated at the time: “Just wait 10 or 20 years and this will be normal.”

We have been in the forefront of the struggle for ballot integrity and fairer voting systems like ranked choice voting – now slowly but surely coming into use at the state and local level.

We have long been among the loudest voices sounding the alarm on the climate crisis, and the broader environmental crisis (now recognized as a mass extinction event) from our very inception. Though some try to downplay it, the concept of the Green New Deal came from the Green Party. In December 2005, in accepting the Greens nomination for governor, Rich Whitney declared: “I will fight for a ‘New Deal’ for sustainable energy development in Illinois.” The comprehensive federal Green New Deal proposal of the Green Party also greatly predates <[link removed]> the watered down version now promoted by some Democrats. And we are still the only party that recognizes the central importance of putting an end to U.S. militarism and war if we are to win the struggle for a healthy eco-system.

We could cite a number of other examples of how we understood, long ago, the direction society had to go in order to create a better future for humankind and all life on the planet.

So why does the Green Party consistently lead the way on social progress? First, the Green Party is based on values and principles – our Ten Key Values <[link removed]>. Most Democratic and Republican candidates are political prostitutes for the plutocracy, trying to appeal to voters with sloganeering, bombast and appeals to emotion.

Second, the Green Party and its candidates categorically reject corporate campaign funding and financial support, direct and indirect. We run to serve the good of the people, the working class and the underserved, not corporate profiteers. We are not for sale and cannot be bought. We are serious about building a government of, by, and for the people, not government to the highest bidder.

Third, the Green Party is a movement-based party. We are involved in the day-to-day struggles of the peace, environmental, labor, human rights and social justice movements, the movements for single-payer health care, eco-socialism and a solidarity economy, education and tax reform in Illinois, the growing movement for monetary reform – and much more. We aspire to represent these movements on the electoral field, so our platform is informed by these movements.

The failings of our social system and government today are not due to a lack of solutions. For the most part, we know what the solutions are, because these movements have already done the work of figuring out how to solve the problems they are struggling against. What is lacking is not solutions but the political will to implement them.

That is why it is so vitally important to support the one political party that uncompromisingly stands up for those movements, the one party that stands firmly for genuine social progress. If the people leave politics to the powerful few, the powerful few will continue to dominate.

2020 will be an important year for the Illinois Green Party. At the top of the ticket, we face the monumental task of getting our presidential and VP candidate on the ballot, in a state with one of the most oppressive ballot access laws in the country. At the local level, we have some outstanding candidates running for The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District <[link removed]> in Cook County, and we expect to run a number of competitive campaigns for county office in Southern Illinois and elsewhere.

We can make some breakthroughs in 2020 – but we need your help to do it. A political party is only as strong as its members make it, by what they do or fail to do. Here are some things you can do to make 2020 a banner year for the Green Party:

- Become a duespaying member of the Illinois Green Party <[link removed]>. Becoming a duespaying member is a requirement for participating in our decision-making. For “us” to succeed, you need to be an active part of “us.” We are not asking a lot – standard dues are just $60 a year, and only $12 a year for persons of low-income – but we do ask you to make this modest contribution to help our efforts to build a better future for all Illinoisans.
- Support our statewide petition drive for ballot access. We’ve done it before, but it is always a huge uphill climb to collect at least 50,000 signatures from registered voters. We will have more details forthcoming as we get closer to the March 24, 2020 start date. Your volunteering to collect at least a few signatures is critical to our success. Meanwhile, you can help us get a head start by donating to our ballot access fund <[link removed]>, to help us supplement our volunteer efforts with paid petitioners.
- Get involved! Think about running for local office or volunteering for a campaign. Help promote and participate in Green Party events. Contact us, either through your nearest chapter <[link removed]>, or by contacting [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>.

Here’s to building a stronger Green Party, and winning some more races, in 2020!



Ongoing/Reminders:

- Please sign and share this petition <[link removed]> calling upon Governor Pritzker “to use his authority as governor of Illinois to impose an immediate ban on the granting of all new drilling permits for oil and natural gas that use any and all forms of hydraulic fracturing.”
- Please support the Embassy Protectors Defense Committee <[link removed]>.
- DuPage Greens January Meeting, Wed. Jan. 8th, 7-8:30pm, DuPage Greens Office, 213 S. Wheaton Ave, Wheaton, IL, Main Floor Conference Room, Facebook Event <[link removed]>. The proposed agenda will be emailed to members prior to the meeting. Note that our meetings are always held at 7 pm on the second Wednesday of the month. If you cannot make it, please send us a message to request an update.



Illinois Green Party Outreach
[link removed]



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