Page 12 RAIN July/August 1984 '■i. ' ‘v.- Weaving Green Threads: Holistic Politics intheU.S. by Fritjof Capra and Charlene Spretnak When I returned to the U.S. from West Germain/ in juh/ 1979, after living with a famili/ in Wolfsburg for a i/ear, I beeame frustrated with the lack ofpolitical dialogue over our most fundamental piroblems: first-strike nuclear weapons, nuclear wastes, massive oil imports, unaecountabiliti/ in girvernment, and especially citizen indifference to the whole mess. What opened my eyes was witnessing the German Green party publicly convey a picture of a society that knows the economy of nature is linked to the economi/ of humans, for better or worse. I've remained frustrated until now. For the first time, a true portrayal of the now world-wide Green movement has been published in the U.S. Green Politics is important because it dispels the inaccurate information about the Greens that the U.S. media has conveyed. It gives a fascinating account of the party's formation in West Germany. It describes the Green movement's growth throughout Western Europe and into Canada, japan, and Australia. Most impiortanth/, it teaches and inspires us disillusioned, calloused activists how to minimize problems in uniting all the movements for a better society and world. The West German Greens have shown that politics need not be an unethical, shallow arena, but a way to build new hope on this continent. The technology for apipropriate goiiernance has been dacloping for decades. With a rich reserve of organizations, individuals, books, and newsletters that propose multiple solutions, the spirit inherent in the Green movement can catch fire here as well. We'd appreciate your thoughts on the excerjit below.—KN Excerpted by fiermission ofE. P. Dutton from Green Politics: The Global Promise, by Fritjof Capra and Charlene Spretnak, 1984, 244 pp., $11.95 from: E. P. Dutton, 2 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016. Many of the same forces that created Green politics in Europe are on the rise in North America. In fact, the evolution of the Green Party in West Germany included a number of direct connections with political events in the United States. We were often told that three of the basic principles of Green politics—ecology, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence—were inspired in large part by citizens' movements in America, especially the civil rights and environmental movements. Many Greens have been influenced by the ecological wisdom of the Native Americans, and they cite the examples of Thoreau and Martin Luther King in their nonviolent resistance to military escalation. The core symbol of the Greens itself, the sunflower, is not native to Germany but to North America. The Greens certainly drew on other antecedents as well, but their impressive achievement was grown from partially American seeds. The German Greens have preceded their American counterparts in transforming holistic theory into political practice, and we can learn a great deal from their successes and errors. Just as we believe a network to be an insufficient political form for Green ideas, we believe that moving into electoral politics prematurely would be an error. Considering the political system and traditions in this country, a bipartisan caucus is probably the shrewdest choice, although Green candidates could run at the local level as Independents. However, whether or not a caucus or party evolves later, the soundest starting point is a well-organized grassroots, national Green movement that develops a coherent view and compre-' hensive programs to present to lawmakers'and the public. The structure should respect local and regional autonomy within a framework of shared values and should have only the minimal amount of national coordination necessary to present the movement as a potent element in American politics. . . . [At this point, the authors suggest five organizational levels—local, bioregional, state, macroregional, and national. They then discuss the growth of the bioregional movement. The authors' concept of macroregions stems from Joel Garreau's Nine Nations of North America (Avon, 1982) and Carl Sauer's Man in Nature (originally published in 1939; recently reissued by Turtle Island Foundation in Berkeley, California).] If a Green movement is to become a political reality in this country, it will have to overcome several initial problems, both internal and external. The first is the issue of who may become a member. Green politics attracts people who have been searching for a way to' transform new-paradigm understandings into political practice, people who were previously somewhat apolitical but now realize that single-issue citizens' movements are inadequate by themselves, and political people who were dissatisfied with their old party or movement and now embrace Green ideals. Unfortunately, in nearly every country where a Green movement has been established, it has also attracted opportunistic persons from unsuccessful political groups on the right and the left who enter the new movement with hidden agendas and dishonest tactics. Identifying and banning them are difficult for two reasons: Individuals from anv political background may sincerely change their thinking and
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