The Strange Odyssey of Greens in the US.

[This introduction to the section on "Genuine Green Unity?" is based on a presentation by Don Fitz at the Gateway Green Center in St. Louis on January 3, 2001.]

Greens who formed a new party in Germany in the 1970s began with a commitment to the environment, women's s rights, and the anti-nuclear struggle. Disagreements began almost immediately between "fundis" (those wanting to stick to Green principles for fundamental social change) and "realos" (those using realpolitik to do whatever seems necessary to get elected). These different points of view have been reproduced as Greens have spread throughout the world.

In the US, Greens existed from 1984-91 as a bioregional confederation called the Green Committees of Correspondence. By the time the name "Greens/Green Party USA (GPUSA)" was adopted in 1991, the division in the US had become exceptionally hostile. The different experience of Greens in Germany and the US is largely due to their contrasting political climates. A major portion of the international Green movement consists of those who left socialist organizations either because they found them too authoritarian or insufficiently environmental. Most of Europe, including Germany, has often been ruled by a coalition including socialists or social democrats. This has meant that "realos" in European Green Parties have not had any reason to drive out the more socialist "fundis" because both groups realize they are stronger working together.

In the US, however, the McCarthy era continues to shadow the political climate 50 years after the witch hunts. US "realos" see socialistic "fundis" as a liability for potential electoral success. Since the beginning of the US Green movement, "realos" have made a consistent effort to drive out the radicals. "Realo" leaders have been involved in not informing "fundi" Greens of meetings, physically preventing fundis from entering meetings, threatening legal violence (in the form of lawsuits) against fundis, attempting to expel those with whom they disagree, holding rival meetings to split Green groups they do not control, and orchestrating hate campaigns against Greens they target as "lefts."

The conflict within US Greens has been exacerbated by a high degree of naivete. Many people come into the Green Party expecting that everyone will just get along and are surprised to find that Greens have disagreements as strong as those of Democrats, Republicans and Socialists. The confusion of New Age thinking has...