OntheWilderSide

Sometimes scholars need to read history and put on their thinking caps. A professor from the University of Rochester has written such absolute rubbish about the Green Party, it is difficult to believe. And, one of the phrases her scholarship inspired sounds like an unlikely curse from another culture.

Bonnie Meguid wrote a whole book with one of the accepted premises being that the Green Party is just a “single issue party”, to be lumped in with anti-immigrant parties and other single issues parties. With this faulty premise, Meguid then tries to examine patterns about what happens when major parties take different strategies towards these allegedly similar parties.

But, has someone told Meguid that the Green Party is not a single-issue party? The Green Party has four pillars, including the value of non-violence. And, in addition, many Green Party members–in America especially–identify more with the non-environmental aspects of the party’s platform and values, including social and economic justice and/or grassroots, participatory democracy.

In describing Meguid’s premise, the article about her work on “PressZoom” notes:

…But while some of these nascent single-issue groups fade away…

That is a line that I have to remember. It sounds like Robin, the Boy Wonder, calling someone a dirty name. Or, like a curse from another culture. Please, may I never belong to a nascent, single-issue group that is destined to fade away.

I believe that the Green Party – the only global, political party – will be one of those lucky “single issue groups” that Meguid does acknowledge have some chance to capture the electorate’s heart and win significant victories at the polls.

P.S. In case you were interested and didn’t know, the curse that I was reminded of, goes like this (I am not sure if it is real or a joke). A curse from some dessert culture: “May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your armpits.”

Filed under: Environment, Green Party Websites, Political Websites Tagged: | Bonnie Meguid, Environment, University of Rochester