Introduction 11.20.04

I found this Blog option at the Progressive Review home page and thought I could collect my google hits in one place.

The title of my blog refers to my having grown tired of state-based green parties and my wondering what exactly a green without borders would be.

My story is simple, I was born in San Francisco, went to school and have worked as a gardener for most of my adult life, with a few interludes; one time as a historical research assisitant and a while in the local Stagehands Union, IATSE. Now I am employed in the grounds department at UC Berkeley.

My Green Party involvement includes;

membership on the GPCA media committee, my work collecting, sorting and cataloguing the California Green Archives which I founded in 1991(cagreens.org/archives/), and this fall, campaigning against proposition 62(Louisiana primary). The Archives is funded and endorsed by the GPCA and the Green Network. I have been an active participant on the national CC discussion list since the founding convention of the USGP in 2000 and was an observer on the national voting list until signing off last year. I've joined the Labor Greens to help "green" the labor movement through my position as media spokesperson for my Union, local 3299, AFSCME. Due to time, financial and physical constraints, and my belief that all good green leaders should take time off, I have avoided meetings for the past few years. I am on the Board of Directors of the non-profit Green Institute, but haven't heard from them lately. Historically, I am a founder of the San Francisco Green CoC, SF and California Green Parties, and was a member of the national CoC's and G/gpusa until the state party movement began to flourish. In the early 90's. I sat on the GPCA Organizing(later Coordinating) Committee, from 1991 until 94, where I established the first media committee and acted as the first northern California spokesperson. In 1992, I was elected and served two-terms on the Alameda County County Council and was the first partisan Green candidate in the Bay Area, standing for the 14th Assembly District in 1994, and again in 1996 and 98.

As an early member the Green Politics Network(now Green Network) working to establish a national party, I was one of the only California Greens supporting the Association of State Green Parties(ASGP) in the wilderness years before California joined in 1998. As a member of the Green Politics Network, I coordinated the New Politics '94 conference in Oakland and was co-coordinator of Third Parties 96 conference in Washington DC and was one of the people who recruited Ralph Nader to the California ballot that year. One of my more notorious acts was to author the letter to the FEC opposing the G/Gpusa's false national committee filing in 1995 that held open the possibility of FEC recognition until the state parties were ready. My college degree is in Ecology and Systematic Biology.

I've done a lot of organizing for my union AFSCME at my place of employment, UC Berkeley.