Platform Statement

(Last updated in 2002)

We The People...The vision contained in these three words is as revolutionary today as it was more than two centuries ago. Our predecessors helped forge a new form of government and indeed a new society based on the principles of self-government, liberty and human rights.

Historic struggles have been undertaken by various segments of American society in an effort to make this vision become a reality. However, we the people must now gather together once more, with the conditions that surround us as our justification, to fight a new oppressor that threatens the very soul of democracy. The divine right of kings has been replaced by the divine right of CEO's. All aspects of our daily lives--our work, our health, our pension funds, our public lands, our public airwaves, our justice system, our environment, our government--have been systematically taken over by a greedy few who have imposed a law of life which Thomas Jefferson called "the general prey of the rich on the poor."

The vision of democracy we have all been taught exists in our nation is quickly fading away. The people, demoralized and frustrated, are split by race, religion, or competition for an ever shrinking slice of the economic pie. Too often, citizens are enclosed within single issue organizations or efforts--making it all the easier for those at the top to divide and conquer those on the bottom. Corporations suffer from no such divisions. They join together on issues from international trade to pollution to fight citizens' efforts to pass good public interest legislation. Corporate lobbyists now dominate the Congress and our state legislators and they urge the passage of legislation that robs us of our freedoms, our environment, decent jobs and a clean, safe community. We gather together under the banner of the Green Party of Connecticut and the Green Party of the United States to begin the grassroots effort to take back our government from those who have corrupted it. We are regular American citizens who feel the same way as many Americans: that we have lost control over our government, our future and the future of our children. A choice between Republicans and Democrats is really no choice at all.

Downsizing, environmental degradation, poverty, union-busting, costly and inadequate health care, discrimination, the growing divide between rich and poor, and our crumbling educational system, just to name a few, are not irreversible facts of life. We can head in a new direction, we must head in a new direction, or the promise of American democracy will ultimately fail.

The Green Party of Connecticut believes the time to start this process is now.

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