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Green Party seeking official recognition
ESTHER CAMPI

THE SUN HERALD

Green Party principles

Key tenets of the Green Party:
* Ecological common sense: The party recognizes that the Earth sustains human life. Whatever people do to the Earth, they do to themselves.
* Social justice: The party works for a world in which all people can realize their full potential, regardless of race, gender, social class, citizenship or sexual orientation.
* Grass-roots democracy: All citizens should participate directly in the environmental, political and economic decisions that shape their lives.
* Nonviolence: The party rejects violence as a way of settling conflicts. Violence is self-perpetuating, morally wrong and self-defeating, wherever and whenever it happens.
* Decentralization: Power and responsibility must be restored to local communities. Environmentalism, democracy and social justice must become the founding values of towns, neighborhoods and homes.
* Community economics: The party follows the path of sustainable growth, working toward a democratically governed, decentralized, environmentally sound economy which fulfills the basic needs of everyone.
* Feminism: Profoundly influenced by feminism, the Greens seek to replace the values of domination and control with an ethics of cooperation and understanding.
* Respect for diversity: Greens honor the biological diversity of Earth and the cultural, sexual, and spiritual diversity of Earth's people.
* Personal and global responsibility: Greens recognize that individual choices have global consequences. Likewise, Greens work communally, for global social justice and against pollution.
* Future focus: Like the Iroquois, Greens seek a society where the interests of the seventh generation are considered equal to the interests of the present. They seek to reclaim the future for themselves and their children. As noted public figure Kermit the Frog used to say, it's not easy being Green.

But that isn't stopping a local group dubbed Gulf Coast for Nader from taking to beaches, fairs and even the World Wide Web to drum up support for Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader.

And it hasn't dampened their enthusiasm to begin the long process of officially registering the Green Party in Mississippi.

Two weeks ago activists made a 10-mile march from Long Beach to Edgewater Mall. Saturday they canvassed the Jackson County Fair. Today the group was planning an evening vigil outside the Alamo Plaza Motel in Gulfport to protest development on a site that hosts protected trees.

And for those who don't want to leave home to get involved, Gulf Coast for Nader launched a Web site last week at www.geocities.com/gc4nader.

The group's leader, Will Watson, an English professor at the University of Southern Mississippi's Gulf Coast campus, said the months-old Gulf Coast for Nader organization is small - they number about a dozen - but determined to grow.

After all, Watson said, the Green Party has a message tailor-made for the Coast.

This is the most environmentally sensitive and economically explosive area in the state, Watson said. And that is potentially a dangerous combination for the habitat in which we live.

The group plans to tap into existing Coast organizations, such as wetlands preservation groups, nature conservationists and homeowners associations, for political support.

There are a lot of single-issue, quality-of-life groups on the Coast, he said. And those groups came into being because of the fact that our quality of life, and especially the environmental quality, is under siege by explosive development.

Vanessa Bliss, who heads up the statewide Nader campaign, said the Green Party movement is spreading in Mississippi. In December, she said, a group of Nader supporters formed in Oxford, and more have popped up on the Gulf Coast and in Hattiesburg, Jackson, Cleveland, DeSoto County, Starkville and Tupelo.

Now, Bliss said, the number of Nader volunteers in Mississippi numbers at least 235.

Social justice issues popular
In addition to environmental issues that could attract Coast voters, Bliss said the party's tenets of social and economic justice are likely to attract voters from across the state, particularly people who have never voted and former Democrats who may believe, as she does, that the party has lately abandoned those causes.

I don't think a lot of the poor people in this state necessarily can find a home in the Democratic Party, Bliss said. We got welfare reform with Clinton and Gore, which I think did a lot to hurt poor people.

Bliss said the Green Party's national goal for Nov. 7 is to capture 5 percent of the vote, the magic number necessary to launch the party to legitimacy and make it eligible for federal funding in the next presidential race in 2004.

A need to be recognized
But Bliss said she has more immediate goals in Mississippi. After Election Day, she and other Nader volunteers will begin the process of getting the Green Party officially recognized by Mississippi Secretary of State Eric Clark.

David Blount, a spokesman in Clark's office, said there are six registered parties in Mississippi: Democrats, Republicans, the Reform Party, Libertarians, the Natural Law Party and the Constitution Party.

In order to become a registered party, Blount said, a group must establish an executive committee with officers and members in each of the state's five congressional districts, among other requirements. Once established, a party can then submit nominees for state offices under the party mantle.

Until the party is formally recognized, though, candidates may still run as independents, Blount said. But they are required to produce supporters' signatures, the process Nader used this year to get his name on the ballot in Mississippi.

We have a quite open process in terms of establishing a party and qualifying for the ballot as an independent, Blount said. Some other states are extremely restrictive.

For Watson and Gulf Coast for Nader, that's good news. Watson said he already has in mind some promising Green Party candidates. Most are disgruntled Democrats, some with considerable political experience in Mississippi, he said, though he wouldn't offer names.

For now, though, Watson has a practical message for unhappy Democrats on Election Day: If you're somebody who wants to vote for Ralph Nader but thinks that a vote for Nader will hurt (Al) Gore, you're wrong, he said. A vote for Nader in Mississippi is a vote for Nader because Bush is going to win the state regardless.

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