During their meeting yesterday, the Emporia State Green Party discussed organization elections, plans for next year and plans for a demonstration that will be held in front of the Memorial Union April 25. The demonstration will be held in opposition to potential fracking in the Flint Hills.
Quail Oil and Gas, LC of Garden City filed an application with the Kansas Corporation Commission for an injection well in Morris County. The organization has handed out flyers to spread awareness.
The ESU Green Party, officially recognized as an RSO this semester, was inspired by the #NODAPL demonstrations that took place last semester, according to Murad Jalilov, vice president of ESU Green Party and senior in political science and English.
“We realized there had to be a left political leaning group on campus,” Jalilov said. “There’s the college republicans, but the college democrats no longer exist, so there had to be a force that would represent the left.”
Despite the uphill battle the party faces, Nick Blessing, ESU Green Party’s president and senior political science major, said it is a fight worth fighting.
“It’s something that really just has to be done,” Blessing said. “The way things are right now, the two major parties, neither one of them represents the regular person.”
Blessing said the Green Party faces two challenges: “To embolden and build a left wing minor political party, and to have progressives entering and gaining party within the Democratic party.”
According to the group’s page, the party is based on “four pillars of peace, ecology, social justice, and democracy.”
The Green Party seeks to promote those values and itself as “an alternative to corporately funded political parties.
The party is composed of grassroots activists, environmentalists, and advocates for social justice, according to the page.
A current goal of the group is to become a recognized party by the State of Kansas, which as of now the only three recognized are the Democratic, Republican, and Libertarian parties, according to Blessing.
“The real purpose of minor parties isn’t to take over, it’s to be a reason for the major parties to do what they should be doing,” Blessing said.
