Personal and Collective Empowerment

As Greens, we believe that patterns of dominance must be replaced with a culture of liberation. Dominance and other forms of oppression are barriers to personal and collective empowerment. We combat societal prejudices and inequities based on race, gender, class, age, sexual orientation, and other social divisions. We seek to develop societal ethics that nurture the full potential of each human being. We utilize cooperative decision-making processes. We try to remain sensitive and receptive to continual change as both positive and inevitable.

Ecological Integrity

The cycles of life and the interconnectedness of all things must be acknowledged and respected. This means developing a politics that is based on the assumption that people are part of nature, not on top of it. We must think and act in terms of the viability of ecosystems. We work under the principle that economic justice and ecological integrity are mutually consistent and achievable. Greens are willing to take strong action to protect and restore the earth.

Global Responsibility

We seek to establish friendly relations with other nations in the spirit of mutual respect and assistance. We work to identify and resist forces in our country that hinder the democratic self-determination of other peoples. We respect and encourage indigenous models of development rather than the imposition of Western industrialization. We seek to provide genuine assistance to grassroots groups in the Third World and help them in their efforts towards self-determination, and liberation.

Participatory Democracy in Economic and Political Life

We struggle to create a political economy that allows citizens to control the decisions that affect their lives, and establishes human and ecological work structures, appropriate technologies, and equitable distribution of social resources and jobs for all.

Local and Regional Self-governance

We support efforts of grassroots communities to empower themselves. An equitable distribution of wealth and power among regions must he insured. We seek to promote and nourish regionally-based culture, while guaranteeing the human rights of all ethnic, cultural, and racial minorities.

Nonviolence

Greens promote effective alternatives to the patterns of violence that afflict families and nations.

Respect for Diversity

Greens welcome and honor cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious, political, biological, and spiritual diversity within the context of social and ecological interdependence.

Emotional Awareness and Honesty

We believe that awareness of feeling and unconscious behavior patterns in ourselves and others-and of their social and historical roots-act as a foundation for the creation of a cooperative community, participatory institutions, social harmony with nature, and self-empowerment. We value the integration of intuition with intellect in human consciousness.

Human Rights

We believe that every human being is entitled to quality health care, nutrition, shelter, economic security, relevant education, meaningful and rewarding work, full reproductive rights, child care, and a safe and healthy environment. The opportunity for the fulfillment of creative potential-both individual and societal-can only be realized through a fully democratized society, where everyone has equal political access to decision-making and enjoys complete freedom from political persecution.

Feminism

We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control, with more cooperative ways of interacting which respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.