Draft GPUS Platform Amendment Non-Violence Chapter Introduction

2010 PLATFORM

CHAPTER NAME: NON-VIOLENCE

SECTION NAME: INTRODUCTION

Greens aim to promote peace and disarmament throughout the United States and the world. We support gun control and abolition of the death penalty. We strive to foster democracy and human rights. We want to shift resources spent on armaments and war into more humane and productive uses, such as alleviating poverty, environmental conservation, and improving public health and education. ** We do not support a world-view that relies on accommodation of tyranny or repressive regimes.**

• We trust that non-violence provides a road to peace. We understand the right of self-defense, yet believe we must move beyond behavior that perpetuates violence. We oppose structural and direct violence of all kinds; assaults against individuals, families, nations and cultures, the environment and biosphere. *

The security of peoples worldwide is threatened by a dreadful array of violent impulses, including nationalism, greed, imperialism, ethnic and religious hatreds, nuclear weapons proliferation, terrorism, competition for raw materials and organized crime. Lasting peace can only be achieved through justice, strengthening human rights, resolving environmental crises, and alleviating shortages of food and water.

Soaring oil prices and the dwindling oil reserves are a rising cause of war and global destabilization. We think that shifting away from fossil fuels and nuclear power is the best path to peace, as well as environmental conservation. We condemn any use of armed forces to gain control over raw materials.

Greens call for nuclear disarmament worldwide. We also reject the revival of nuclear power in part because there is no wall between peaceful and military use of nuclear energy. We support the expansion of nuclear-free zones, and a complete ban on chemical and biological weapons.

Greens are appalled at the acceleration in worldwide arms exports. We believe that arms production and international arms export must be severely curtailed. We support a global code of conduct that forbids the sale of arms to crisis regions. We want to ban the production and use of cluster bombs and depleted uranium ammunitions, along with land mines and white phosphorus munitions. We oppose the use of outer space by the military, and reject the militarization of space in the name of defense.

Across the world, peoples and nations must learn to overcome political conflict without resorting to violence. Greens strongly believe in conflict prevention, negotiation, reconciliation and civilian crisis intervention. We want to increase the involvement of women in civil crisis prevention, civil conflict management, and post-conflict resolution. We encourage the development of non-violent culture, peaceful management of conflicts or disagreements, and challenging nationalistic, racist, militaristic and violent policies and behaviors.

• Essential in any broad definition of security, whether defined in national, international or global terms, is that we must find ways to secure and preserve our common earth which sustains all life. We must look to domestic and international regulation to protect the global ecology, utilizing the United Nations and related agencies and regional associations to advance our mutual interests. *

(There was no text for this introduction in the 2004 platform.)