Blog #6

"What are your reactions to your GTP reading?  What are your preliminary ideas for leading a class meeting focused on this topic?"

I definitely found the readings interesting, but they are not so much what I expected to read in relation to green democracy.  They did, however, span a gambit of political thought - the more conservative Green Party views to the more radical monkeywrench ideology and somewhere in between with the reading on social and environmental justice.  I am having trouble connecting all of the readings under a common message, but I think that the main message could be giving all people as well as the environment power of representation.  The readings seem to identify that there are specific representations missing in our current political system: the environment is not given enough defense from the depletion of its resources, certain races and classes suffer from more pollution than others, and basic freedoms and peacekeeping are not fairly defended for all nations and peoples.

My preliminary ideas for our class would include doing an interactive debate. It would be neat to divide up the class into legislative bodies for the environment, for the classes and races facing social injustice, for business, for the U.S. government, for Palestine, etc, so that all the stakeholders in these issues could be examined and the class could actively see the conflicts of interests.  I also could bring in a few cases from my business curriculum regarding the "race to the bottom": companies chasing lowest-cost production abroad.  These cases and others highlight the export-oriented business development that the Green Party is against; however, they also highlight the devastation to companies' brands when the public becomes aware of this action and how this strategy is becoming obsolete in business.  As well, export-oriented economies are not always bad if they build industry and social provisions for a nation.  I have a good case with Intel in Costa Rica about this that I would like to share.