Those three words are in my mind every day. We are living in times of powerful movements.

The persons in one movement are corporations, and those who profit mightily from them. Through a twisted path, corporations got themselves categorized legally as persons. This year the Supreme Court (which we might rename the Abysmal Court) opined that these “persons” had a right to free speech, and that money spent on elections equaled free speech. The vast majority of living, breathing persons in the U.S. curled their lips and said, “I disagree!”

The persons in our movement are living breathing people. This people’s movement has a wide variety of focuses. Not everyone in the movement agrees with everyone else, but the different parts of the movement are unified by the will toward living and breathing! Toward more fairness, toward more health, toward a sense of more fulfillment in life, toward a better future for ourselves and the next generations.

And the movements are taking to the streets (and to the tweets!). If anyone knows of any big shift in power in the history of the world where people did not gather and take to the streets, please email me to let me know.

This constructive people’s movement is building, and it is what is needed to counteract the destructive corporate movement. Corporations are good for making profits (for some folks) and that’s why they were created: so that groups of people could have an enterprise and have limited liability. While corporations are good at making profit, they’ve been bad at increasing fairness, health, fulfillment, and a better future for ourselves and our kids. People’s movements are good at those things, and this people’s movement is building power to take back our state and country.

When I consider the Green Party’s role in this movement, I see three important contributions: values, no corporate funding, and a ballot line. To be specific:

Values: the Green Party is an international political party with values that are explicitly stated and based in Grassroots Democracy, Social Justice, Ecological Wisdom, and Nonviolence.

No corporate funding: this affords Green Party candidates and elected officials the good fortune of being to keep our “people values” intact since we do not accept corporate campaign contributions and don’t have to behave like the Titanic Parties. At the end of the day, the Titanic Parties cannot alienate their corporate sponsors.

Ballot line: Even with the passage of the devious party-pooper Prop 14, the Greens still have a ballot line. Sooner or later – and in these times the sooner the better – this people’s movement will build into a force that will take political power. We will have a people’s ballot line, and we will retain our positive values as we build a better world.

Thanks for reading, and for being a part of the movement.

Laura