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The American Green Party - and the various states' Green Parties - are unique among American political parties in that they reject any corporate or institutional funding. Their sole support comes from donations from individuals.

This practice, while seemingly ill-advised, derives directly from the Green Party's guiding principles. Unlike most other political entities, the "Greens" base their actions, and their political platform, squarely upon a set of basic, guiding principles. They are wholeheartedly 'principle-centered' rather than 'issue-centered'. Every position they take, every action they make, conforms to these. Since they believe that government should be 'by the people and for the people', and since they also maintain that the existing power and campaign finance structures consist essentially of the trading of money and influence by the wealthy for favors and policy considerations, then it would follow that this practice skews or attenuates the true voice of the electorate. This is a natural consequence of following this system; therefore, the solution is to eliminate money from this 'equation'. In lieu of some future, more equitable campaign finance policy, this is the only course to follow that adheres to their principles.

Two interesting results follow from this practice. First, while Greens are effectively severely hamstringing themselves in the current political environment of multi-million dollar campaigning, they are also establishing their commitment, solidarity and ethos in a way that the other parties cannot hope to do. They are 'unassailable'. Second, by basing their platform, and their very existence, upon solid, unchanging principles, they are building, slowly, a structure which will stand firm and erect, looking to long-term solutions and stability, setting themselves apart as unaffected by whims and expediencies.

I personally expect their progress to build very slowly...but to stand the test of time. In a large and complex society, fashions get attention, but principles endure.

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