Eco-Socialism: A Strategic Session By Greens, For Greens!

Please join us this September for an important conference on eco-socialism! Confirmed and near-confirmed participants include former Green Party vice-presidential candidate Cheri Honkala, Howie Hawkins (Green Party presidential candidate), Jerome Scott (League of Revolutionaries for a New America), Kali Akuno (Cooperation Jackson), Green Party presidential candidate and elected school board member Dario Hunter, and Suren Moodilar (coordinator of Mass. Global Action, editorial board of Socialism and Democracy).

The conference will be open to all Greens who identify as eco-socialist or who wish to learn about eco-socialism. The conference will also be open to socialist allies of the Green Party.

In 2016, the Green Party of the United States became an explicitly eco-socialist party. It now advocates a system “based on large-scale green public works, municipalization, and workplace and community democracy,” that will “end labor exploitation, environmental exploitation, and racial, gender, and wealth inequality.” Two of the undersigned were critical to editing that language and we all helped to ensure that plank passed by a supermajority at the 2016 GP Convention in Houston, Texas.

This was a good start, but there is more work to be done. The Green Party as a whole needs to deepen its understanding of eco-socialism. It also needs to better connect with the growing movement to build new worker-owned and controlled cooperatives and similar economic institutions that can serve as a foundation for a genuine socialist society. At the same time, this movement could benefit from having its aspirations supported on the electoral field by a political party. Such a party could use public policy and state resources to support the growth of these new economic institutions -- with the ultimate goal of replacing capitalism and creating a democratic worker-controlled economy.

The goal of this conference will be to help educate Greens and movement allies about eco-socialism and the movement for a democratic worker-controlled economy, and to explore ways in which a political party might help advance the movement.

REGISTRATION: We will be asking attendees to help share the cost of putting on this conference by remitting an admission fee of $25, $15 for persons of low income. Please use the Event-Brite ticket link above to register for the conference.

In Solidarity,

David Cobb, Green Party of California

Meleiza Figueroa, Green Party of California

Margaret Kimberley, Green Party of New York

Gloria Mattera, Green Party of New York

Anita Rios, Green Party of Ohio

Rich Whitney, Illinois Green Party