Greens who visited our class:  Morton Alexander, Bonnie Mager
Note their pathways to activism, the issues that seem to motivate them to be political activists

Alexander
Member of the Greens’ State Board, and the Spokane Human Rights Commission
 Began as a labor activist, organizing apple packers (mostly Mexican migrants)
 Now concerned with low-income issues, organizing low income workers, families
 e.g. pushing for living wage requirement for city contractors
Also pushing for Instant Run-off Voting in WA (what our book calls single transferable vote as used in Australia and I called “preference voting”)

Mager
 Active in environmental, neighborhood and Christian organizations
Note her “conversion” to being a Green stemmed from meeting a German Green at a spiritural retreat at the Neuman Center
Now works for/represents the WA Environmental Council
 
Core Values of the Greens:
Ecological Wisdom
Social Justice
Grassroots Democracy
Nonviolence
Decentralization
Community Based Economics
Respect for Diversity
Personal and Global Responsibility
Future Focus (7 Generations concept)
Gender Equality and Cooperation

What did you learn about the Greens from their visit?  Are they what you thought they were?  Did anything surprise you about their politics, issues, agendas?
 

NSM politics in W Europe
Bigger, more obvious that in US??
I think so (no numbers) but it seems so

Why would this be the case??

Well, what conditions seem to be conducive to NSMs forming?
Shift to post-materialist society (Is this more pronounced in Europe?  Perhaps – economic restructuring more of dislocation, more real to people, e.g. higher unemployment, inflation)
European political cultures, values??
European political institutions???

What about events, trends, policies that would generate specific kinds of movements??
e.g., what did the reading say spawned the emergence of environmental movements in Europe?  Nuclear energy, nuclear bombs (NATO/Cold War) in 1970s; more recently, 1986 – Chernobyl

anti-Globalism movement – events spawning??
Perhaps, end of Cold War signaled absolute American hegemony, neo-liberal hegemony [note that one important wing of the anti-globalization movement is explicitly anti-American or at least resentful, critical of American economic hegemony]

Several rather high profile trade disputes between US and Europe (EU)

EU/European Integration – as a factor – changing people’s sense of identification with national interests, inherently internationalist/global;

Anarachists
Who are they? What are they?