Chlorophyll

As I wrote earlier, the Global Young Greens conference is going on right now, in Nairobi, Kenya. How many of you knew that? Having learned it from a source other than this blog, I mean.

I'll bet not many. We take pride as Greens in being the biggest political movement on the planet, but we're not good at actually participating in it. Granted, we in the US are at a disadvantage, growing up in a place where you can drive for three straight days and still be in the same country. But even so, we're still just one country.

I've traveled a lot, and lived overseas multiple times, and I've come to hate American exceptionalism. I don't hate this country (though I do get fed up with it from time to time), I hate our cavalier attitude toward the rest of the world. We aren't so much evil as spoiled.

Greens are far better about this than the random person off the street, but we still have some work ahead of us. So, let me suggest some specifics. It's too late to send anyone, even a single person, from the USGP to Nairobi this year. It is not, however, too late to send someone, or many people, to Nairobi next year.

May 1-4, 2008, Nairobi will host the second Global Greens conference. The time is now to start thinking about possibly going yourself. There are Greens that go to such things from time to time, but they tend to be drawn from a fairly small pool. If you'd like to see that pool widened, don't complain, do something. Read the announcement and start saving your nickels.

Let's not let another one slip by.