Douglas Rooks asks concerning the Maine Green Independent Party, “Greens Sound Fine, But What Have They Done?” (Tuesday, September 8). I’m glad he asked, since I have noticed for years how few in number are the people who have heard of the Greens — even after 31 years of our being here. But it’s not as if we are not active. We need to do a better job getting our word and actions out there. That’s beginning to happen. A better job by the media from now on will also help.

It will also help when we Greens return to field a candidate for governor in 2018. We plan to be in that race big time. We could not do this in 2010, given the Democratic legislature’s move the previous year (aimed partly at the Green Party) to put the bar much higher than in 2002 and 2006 for a candidate to qualify financially for clean election funding. We did not do this in 2014 partly to avoid undercutting Democratic candidate Michaud’s run for governor against the incumbent LePage, whom we rightly saw as a deep and dire threat to Maine’s well being. We sat that one out in hopes that Michaud would defeat LePage, which he and the Democratic Party failed to do.

Doug Rooks does not allow as evidence our considerable activity at the grass roots and our success in local races across the state. He says that doesn’t count. But action at the grass roots, and from the grass roots on up is one of our most basic key values. All new political parties must develop a strong presence at the grass roots; the successful ones have done that. We’ve been urging that upon ourselves in all parts of the nation and we have many office holders at the local level. We need to do more, much more, here and in every state. Doug misses the boat entirely on that, but since he won’t consider this as evidence, he can pretend that we “do nothing”.

Doug’s article conveys an “attitude.” An edge creeps in.

Not unlike ultra partisan Democrats, he scorns our hard work and blames us for even existing — as if we have no right to exist. We “spoil” it for Democrats, the cardinal sin, even though he laments the inadequacy of the Democrats. He blames us for not joining other “progressives” to rehabilitate that party, ignoring the fact that all efforts to do that for several decades have come to naught.

He sharply criticizes Green Independent Party’s Jonathan Carter. In the 1990s, Carter had the audacity (which Doug might have paused to at least acknowledge) to confront the powerful interests ruining our forests. This is a dramatic instance of doing something. But Carter didn’t do it “right.” So even this does not count.

Green Independent Party’s Pat LaMarche powered her campaign for governor in 2006 with a strong appeal and argument for single payer universal health care insurance. But that doesn’t count either because it’s not, he says, an environmental issue. Presumably Greens are supposed to stick to a very narrow interpretation of “ the environment.” The Greens formed our party, he blithely tells us with a degree of presumption, to be a party “dedicated to the environmental movement.” He ignores the Ten Key Values of the Green Party which ranges broadly beyond the very narrow definition of “the environment” he fashions upon us. Those values include, among others, social justice (universal health care is part of social justice), non-violence, respect for diversity, gender equality, and thinking to the seventh generation.

The unifying value of our party is Ecological Wisdom, not “the environment” narrowly framed. A powerful independent affirmation of this Green Party value is given by Pope Francis’ encyclical “Laudato Si’: On the Care of Our Common Home.” There one can read a deep and brilliant understanding of what’s at stake in Ecological Wisdom. In Chapter 4, Pope Francis calls it Integral Ecology. The economy, poverty, social justice issues generally, culture itself, and of course politics are all related and embedded in the warp and woof of ecology.

Doug is a seasoned and well-read journalist. He does note that the Maine Green Independent Party has been in existence for 31 years. But he fails to consider that almost all third party initiatives in the nation have bit the dust during these same years: a Labor Party, a Women’s Party, Ross Perot’s Reform party, and several others. Only the Green Party is still standing functioning, and growing—in the nation and in Maine. The Libertarian Party is also standing, though not in Maine.

Doug apparently does not know that Green Parties are active and flourishing in most of the states of the United States and in over 100 other countries. Most countries have electoral systems that provide fairness in representing the political sentiments and commitments of all of the people. They do that by systems of proportional representation whereby if a party gets at least five percent of the vote, the number of victorious candidates they are apportioned is equal to the percentage of their vote.

We, by contrast, are saddled with an increasingly outmoded winnertake all system. Though we get substantial percentages of votes for the House, Senate, and Governor, and national offices, as much as 35% of the vote in some cases and well over 5% in most, we get no representation at all. Our sister Green Parties in the world, with fewer percentages of the vote than we get, have representation in parliaments and ministerial cabinet level offices—in positions of elected office to push for Integral Ecology transformation.

I strongly urge Doug to fight for fair electoral system changes— starting with Instant Run-off Voting (IRV). IRV will likely be on the ballot as a referendum in 2016. Supporting that makes more sense than to beat at Greens for not being good and obedient Democrats.

——— John Rensenbrink is a founder of the national Green Party of the United States and the Maine Green Independent Party. He lives in Topsham