As you might have guessed from the name, the Green Party is deeply committed to environmental issues. "Greens are rebuilding the inner cities, fighting nuclear waste dumps, challenging undemocratic governments, creating sustainable altern atives to polluting industries, supporting labor unions, educating communities about environmental and social justice, and a host of other activities."

The Green Party, aka The Greens, began in 1984 when a group of activists, inspired by the German Green Party, formed the Green Committees of Correspondence (GCoCs) network. These loosely affiliated groups embarked on a high level of political activity and began running candidates for office. By 1991, their successes in local elections prompted them to restructure their organization to form a more unified and hence more powerful political party that could be a serious contender in national elections.

The Green Vision
These are the ten interconnected Key Values of Green politics in the United States:

Ecological Wisdom
The Greens recognize that the Earth sustains all life processes. Green ecology moves beond environmentalism by understanding the common roots of the abuse of people. Whatever we do to the web of life, we do to ourselves.

Social Justice
Greens want to replace the worldwide system of poverty and injustice with a world free of all oppression based on class, gender, race, citizenship, age, or sexual orientation.

Grassroots Democracy
The powerless suffer the most from resource depletion and toxic pollution. Greens believe in direct participation by all people in the environmental, political, and economic decisions that affect their lives

Nonviolence
Greens reject violence as a way of settling disputes -- it is shortsighted, morally wrong, and ultimately self-defeating. We are working to create a world where war is obsolete.

Decentralization
Power and responsibility must be restored to local communities within an overall framework of ecologically sound and socially just values and lifestyles.

Community Based Economics
Greens seek a new economics based upon the natural limits of the Earth which meets the basic needs of everyone on the planet, under democratic, localized community control.

Feminism
The Green movement is profoundly inspired by feminist values. The ethics of cooperation and understanding must replace the values of domination and control over others.

Respect for Diversity
Greens honor the biological diversity of the Earth and the cultural, sexual, and spiritual diversity of Earth's people. We aim to reclaim this country's finest ideals: popular democracy, the dignity of the individual, and liberty and justice for all.

Personal and Global Responsibility
Greens demonstrate a commitment to global sustainability and international justice through political solidarity and in personal lifestyles based on self-sufficiency and living lightly.

Future Focus
Like the Iroqois, Greens seek a society where the interests of the seventh generation are considered equal to the interests of the present. We must reclaim the future for ourselves and our children.