Chlorophyll

So you're a Green. Are you a leftist? Well... what does that mean?

Many Greens identify with the ideals of the left, and are bitterly opposed to the right, but are reluctant to cast their lot with the likes of Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, and Erich Honecker.

How to resolve this paradox?

There's a way. Check out the Political Compass, brought to you by some lovely folks across the pond in England.

When you first get there, you'll see a number of links, including an opportunity to take the test and see where you fit on the grid. You should take the test. No, really. Take the test. Then look at the analysis. Then look around the rest of the site - it's enlightening.

What you'll find is that most people are spread in loose but discernable line from the bottom left to the top right. There are very few people in the top left (hard-line Communists) or bottom right (hard-line right-wing libertarians). You'll also see some truly bizarre things - for example, Tony Blair, who is one of the Vice-Presidents of the Socialist International, is to the right of Ariel Sharon. Margaret Thatcher is considerably to the right of Hitler. Saddam Hussein is far left of center. David Cobb and Ralph Nader are virtually indistinguishable.

It's probably no accident that the bottom left is green (any more than the top left is red). I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that pretty much every Green in the world will fit somewhere in the green quadrant. What does this mean, assuming it's true?

It means that Greens do not identify with the traditional hard Left. We are not the heirs of Lenin, or Che Guevara, or Mao. We are the heirs of Ghandi, of Romero, of Mandela, of Dr. King (notwithstanding that these are all males of color - and of faith). This is our Marx and Lennon.

But let's look at it just a bit longer. If the line I describe is the true political spectrum, then the anchor - the extreme - of our quadrant is not state socialism at all. It's libertarian socialism.

"Well," you might say, "that's a contradiction in terms. Libertarianism is the opposite of socialism." A quick trip down Google lane will let you in on a little secret - libertarian socialism is the secret identity of a much more well-known political term: anarchism.

This, then, is who we Greens are. We are those who trust neither Big Business nor Big Brother. We trust each other, in spite of extensive experience. Power corrupts, and money is nothing but a way to keep score in the game of power. What heals corruption is the community... which is to say, each other. The Ten Key Values all speak to this: every person deserves a say in creating and sustaining a world that sustains and re-creates us.