The Greens will be included in Germany’s governing coalition for the second time

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/06/germany-coalition-talks-set-to-begin-between-spd-greens-and-fdp.html

The policies of the Green Party of Germany aren’t all that transformational. They don’t say much about decentralization, no less bioregionalism. They do say some things about rejuvenation of local community life. A little bit.

They received 15% and likely will be included in a new governing coalition. It appears that they’re in the process of finally breaking out of the tier of small marginal parties. Such could be a bellwether for the future of the Green politics movement as a whole. Their relative success is the culmination of decades of persistent engagement. It has involved much in the way of tactical compromises and reformist accommodations. In fact, detractors lament their vacillations and concessions; radicals disdain their pragmatism. But it might be that they’re demonstrating how to go about holding in mind a profound ultimate transformation while at the same time effectively relating to the cautious sensibilities of the broad electorate.

I’m inclined toward the latter appraisal of the situation, and I think it argues for the idea that a gradualistic pace of change is appropriate. We just can’t leap “from here to there,” either in the electoral arena or in our movement activities.

Fifty years ago, a ubiquitous item of discussion in media, kitchens, and classrooms was The Greening of America. Written by a previously obscure law professor, Charles Reich, it had been published late in 1970 and then hovered near the top of the bestseller lists during most of 1971. It said: There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past.

Revolutions of the past had rarely worked out well. The American “Revolution” was actually an anti-colonial uprising for national liberation. It was successful. But attempts to radically transform domestic society in a short period of time — like the French and Russian Revolutions, for example — proved discouraging. Typically, after a zealous vanguard attempted to institute sweeping changes, the majority of the populace reacted with resistances and restorations as soon as the revolutionary tide started to wane. Why? Because consciousness, culture, and lifeways can’t be expected to change overnight.

Voters are gradually getting used to the Green Party and the broader idea of “the greening of society.” That’s encouraging.