Being Green in the Inland Empire.

When I first joined the Green Party, I was confused by the fact that everything seemed to center on Los Angeles and San Francisco. In other words, the current population centers.

I argued that Greens should be focusing energy on those areas where there was congruence of forces that we could exploit.

• a growing shifting population where movement had cut people off from old political allegiances.
• a real need for Green solutions to local environmental and social justice concerns.
• a real need for Green alternatives to the corporate growth myth that seems to be all we hear.

That all seems to play out in the Central Valley and Inland Empire sections of California, in Riverside, Fresno, Modesto, Stockton. I was told that this was wasting our energy, energy that could best be spent in building on the based that we had in the big cities.

In retrospect, I should have spoken up louder and longer. The party is not growing and many opportunities have been lost. But, then I find evidence that we are making progress. We have gotten into the local media in just those areas that I had called out for action. While the linked reference is from last year, it shows that we can make inroads where there is a real need.

We need a change in the political map of America: Red State, Blue State, Green State.