SACRAMENTO, CA —As protesters in Istanbul flooded the streets in opposition to a plan to destroy a beloved city park and erect a shopping mall in its place, a protest that evolved into a call for political representation and freedom from an authoritarian, pro-business regime; scholars and activists at the annual Left Forum, held in New York in early June, called not just for social change, but for ecological and economic transformation, the theme of this year’s conference.
Part of the world wide movement against the deepening financial and corporate domination of all public institutions, the richly diverse offerings of the Left Forum featured panels and workshops by the Green Shadow Cabinet. Though not well known to Americans, shadow cabinets, or alternative government structures, are established in many parliamentary systems by parties that are not in power in order to formulate, and advocate for, policies in opposition to the governing regime.
The Green Shadow Cabinet has brought together almost one hundred progressive policy experts equipped to explain and publicize new policies and alternative strategies to deal with the environmental and economic crises we face as a country—a far reaching, environmentally sound and socially progressive Green New Deal which will benefit people facing dispossession and loss under the current system.
As explained by the Green Shadow Cabinet representatives on the panel, including Jill Stein, Cheri Honkola, David Cobb, Kalilah Collins, and others, the Shadow Cabinet has stepped forward to play a role, moving from “fight back” to a strategic plan for political empowerment. As one speaker commented, “The point is that we are moving from a ‘harms based’ movement—like the campaign against hunger, for example—and even from a ‘rights based’ movement—like the call for housing—to a struggle for democracy itself, which is something deeper and all embracing. This is a fundamental shift in our thinking. A larger conversation. We need to turn to the folks who are living this stuff, those dealing with poverty or experiencing the loss of a future, and break with the two party system.”
The first project of the Green Shadow Cabinet is to expose and raise opposition to the current secret negotiations by the U.S. for the “Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP),” an agreement involving Canada and many Pacific nations in Asia and Latin America. While it is called a trade pact, the TPP is actually a means to consolidate corporate control and create new rights and privileges for foreign investors in a broad array of policy areas.
In challenging the TPP, the Green Shadow Cabinet combines visionary clarity with expertise applied to the practical context of policy making.
As we organize locally to create new visions in all areas of activism—joining together to form deep, broad, militant movements—we will find in the Green Shadow Cabinet an important means for developing independence from the two party system and generating our own forms of political organization and electoral expression.
Green shadow cabinet at the Left Forum
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Cathleen Williams is an organizer, poet, and journalist for street newspapers. She lives in Sacramento, California, and is active in the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign and the League of Revolutionaries for a new America.
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