: I recall a while back you put a link in the Anything Else room regarding various strands of thought in the US greens- I was just wondering if I could ask where you stand on the debate between particpatory democracy and plebicitory democracy (and if you, or anyone else) could breifly explain the primaries system for me (sounds bizarre, IMNSHO), and quite how write in Candidates work...: Cheers.
SDF: In the US, one can compete for a political party's nomination by putting one's name on the ballot for a primary election, held some time before the final election, when the winners of the primary races for each party are pitted against each other. In the primary election, there may be seven Democrats, five Republicans, and one Green competing for a seat, and in the final election, there will be one Democrat, one Republican, and one Green. Write-in candidates are candidates one can write in, when they fail to have their names put on the official ballots for some technical reason. Write-ins are rarely granted any degree of electoral credibility.
: (p.s. how do US greens square the European tendancy against leadership- i.e. the british Party has no 'leader' merely a number of 'principle speakers', with the US constitution, namely the Presidency...?)
SDF: Electing a President really goes against the Green principle of decentralization, grassroots democracy, and community-based economics -- all a Green President would do is try to keep the Big Boys preoccupied while power devolves to a more local level. This presumes, of course, that the Green Party will have not sold out, and that the US will have become reorganized politically to create a Green majority. I don't expect any of that to happen anytime short of 2010 or so, when hopefully the hubris of the current Age of Cheap Oil will have been replaced with something more sober.
No, of course the Green Party has no leaders. Or is it that we're all leaders?
