After November 7.

• Author: Fitz, Don
• Position: Green Party planning - Brief Article

In 1994, the Gateway Green Alliance participated in a monumental struggle to stop a medical waste incinerator from being built in the City of St. Louis. Residents were outraged when they found that laws in the County of St. Louis would have prevented its construction there, but lax regulations in the City would allow it to slip through. Its location was a clear example of environmental racism and classism.

We won. A coalition of low income groups, the Greens and individuals made enough noise to block construction.

Afterwards, several people who had opposed the incinerator agreed to meet to draft legislation to bring laws in the City up to the standards of the County. The night of the meeting, I waited for the dozens of people who participated in the effort to show up. No one came. Once the flash of the immediate crisis was over, the work of preventing the same thing from happening again lacked the glitter to attract interest.

The Nader 2000 campaign has excited the left and brought tens of thousands of new people into contact with the Greens. But what will happen on November 8, the day after the election? That's the day the work of building a Green movement begins anew. Will Green groups be able to hold onto their contacts and build a broad movement around proposals for environmental and social justice legislation?

Various sections of this issue of Synthesis/Regeneration are far more integrated than they may appear at first glance...