Written summery of the 12/1/2020 General Assembly

The Green Party of Alaska (GPAK) forwarded two motions for its members to vote on in its weekly assembly meeting on Zoom. The first motion was for the party to sign The Leap Manifesto, a document written in 2015 in Toronto. The Manifesto calls for “respecting the inherent rights and title of the original caretakers of this land. Indigenous communities have been at the forefront of protecting rivers, coasts, forests and lands from out-of-control industrial activity.” This statement fits the party’s drive to face the problems that pelages rural and Alaska natives. We believe joining an effort like this would set a great example for the rest of The Green Party. The motion was passed unanimously.

Other things called for in this manifesto fit very well with what The GPAK promotes, with them wanting UBI while Alaska already has a form of that with our annual PFDs. And of course the need to restructure our economies and food production.

It’s easy to fall in the trap of simply talking about politics at the national level but it seems as this pandemic people are waking up to the fact that the politicians in office at the state and local level can affect your life more than the people in Washington DC. Most voters don’t understand or know what The Green Party is and feel we only show up to the table every 4 years to run a presidential candidate rather than building ourselves up by taking control at the local and state level. While this is somewhat unfair as there are Greens running for those seats, the fact is we’ve been losing ground in these efforts instead of gaining. We are going to start a renewed effort to influence policy at the local level as well as running for these seats.

We see that to become more effective in influencing government policy we must build alliances and that’s why a second motion was introduced calling for a conditional convention or The Global Greens, the international network of Green political parties that currently has 91 members from all over The World. People ask what it means to be a Green and over the years we’ve been watering down the number one message that we are stewards of The Earth and must make things better for those who will inherit it. Something must be done to get us back on track. This motion was also passed unanimously.

What was also talked about was how Alaskan politics could be more responsive towards to needs of Alaskan natives. There were talks of an Indigenous Peoples Caucus for The Green Party and with some investigation shows no official one has been recognized but there are efforts to create one. We look forward to becoming involved in these efforts and seeing what we could do to help make them come to fruition.