Flag of the Green Cross Movement
The Green Cross Movement (GMC) is a political movement active in the state of Kings. It was originally founded as the Portland Green Cross Movement in 1962 when the Southern Families in Portland united against the political power of Newhaven. The original Portland movement saw the political actors of Newhaven and their socialist ideals as agents of the Noble City establishment which wanted to keep the state of Kings and its population down. Todays movement has ties with former members of the Portland Green Cross and protests against both the unitarian Lovian state structure and the socialist wealth redistribution programs of the CPL.nm, the strongest party in Kings.
As a result of HAMR's successful charm offensive towards the Southern Families, the GMC lost its monopoly on southerner issues. It is possible that in the future, the GMC will reform to a local liberal party or maybe diminish altogether.
History and link to Portland[]
Portland Green Cross Movement[]
In the fifties, Kings was still a poor state and there was not much work in the city of Newhaven. A lot of people left to either Noble City or Hurbanova to find their luck, but some stayed on the isle in search of an escape from poverty. A series of migrations to the southern parts of the isle resulted in the creation of a community that would become present day Portland. The people who migrated there became known as the Southern Families, or southerners. They farmed the fertile lands in central and southern Kings and the community flourished. At the time that the investments made by the Southern Families started to pay off, politicians with a new mindset get to occupy crucial posts in Newhaven: a series of socialist governors wanted to use the southern wealth to stimulate economic growth by redistribution programs and subsidizing economic activity in the north.
The Southern Families reacted by uniting themselves in the Portland Green Cross Movement in 1962, a loose political network which opposed the wealth redistribution programs that the governors wanted to impose. The Movement saw the entire set of measures not as a means to get King's economy booming but as a dictate coming from the central government of Noble City. The idea lived that the states of Sylvania and Oceana, who's economy had been slacking throughout the sixties and early seventies, wanted to keep Kings down by tricking it into expanding government and reducing market incentives. Of course the lack of socialists in Congress was simply left out of the picture, which made some notable Newhaven politicians believe the Southern Families were being selfish.
The Portland Green Cross Movement sought recognition as a separate 'Southern Kings' state and opposed any regulation coming from outside the commune. The governor of Kings, in cooperation with the Federal Police, broke the resistance with violence and socialist policies were enforced. The Green Cross Movement remained nonetheless active as a committee demanding more autonomy and fighting socialist views. The tensed relation between Portland and Newhaven remained until the eighties, when King's economy was on the rise and the influence of the movement was dropping.
New Green Cross Movement[]
In 2002 the movement was founded anew, though this time as a movement active in all of Kings. The present Green Cross Movement advocates a more confederal state model with great autonomy for the states. This fits in the idea that Kings can only remain wealthy if it doesn't have to look after the other states that did not manage their economies well. Quite obviously, the Green Cross Movement oppose heavily to the CPL.nm which represents both a unitarian and socialist approach and remains the most popular party in Kings.
During the Lovian Civil War, in October 2011, the GMC remained true to its tenets of civil and peaceful actions. At the beginning of the Civil War the GCM was reluctant to the usage of violence and condemned the riots, not unlike the Oceana nationalist movement. GMC members where however divided over how to fill in the local authorities now the grip of Newhaven and Noble City was weakening. A group of radicalized members left the GMC to form a new 'revolutionary' organization: HAMR. During the excesses performed by HAMR-associates in the Civil War, the Green Cross Movement kept distancing itself from the extremist discourse used by Kim Dae-su and others.
However, as a result of HAMR's successful charm offensive towards the Southern Families, the GMC lost its monopoly on southerner issues. It is possible that in the future, the GMC will reform to a local liberal party or maybe diminish altogether.
Today's activism and agenda[]
Since 2002, the re-founded Green Cross Movement is active in whole of Kings and lobbies for more state autonomy and a more liberal economy. The discourse of the Green Cross Movement focusses on economic freedom and a classical liberal approach to economics. A stronger political power on the level of the states is only a means to achieve this. Some deem this to be a contradiction in the views of the movement since moving matters to the state level with the current political devision would only strengthen the grip of the socialist CPL.nm over those issues. Green Cross representatives have responded that they do not oppose redistribution within the state, though most members still find that the radical ideas of the CPL.nm constrain the economy too much. The Green Cross Movement holds some minor posts in Portland where it can bend on its historical family ties. The main agenda of the movement includes:
- A return of power to the states, comparable to the situation before King Dimitri's reign.
- A repositioning of economic and social powers to the state level as well as a reinstatement of the State Police.
- The federal level should be limited to the Constitution, political cooperation and environmental issues.
- The introduction of market mechanism and its related incentives in social security and public education.
- A complete liberalization of public services in the transportation and energy sectors.
- A decentralization and minimization of the political bureaucracy.
The main difference between the GMC and the more radical HAMR Movement is that the GMC does not seek recognition as a separate state. A (con)federal model would suffice to meet the demands of the southerners, says the GMC. Another contrast is the liberal discourse of the GMC opposed to the pastoral and conservative values carried out by HAMR.
Symbolism and organization[]
Symbolism plays a major part in the Green Cross Movement. The historical variant was centered along family-based coalitions and personal authority of central figures was key in its organizational structure. Though today membership is more freely and heavily democratized compared to its predecessor, those elements still have an influence in the core governing organs of the Green Cross Movement. Especially the link to its hometown Portland remains strong. Organizational theorists have compared the structure of the historical movement and its trade of symbolic meanings to those of far-right parties such as the UNS or conservative ones like the CCPL. This causes the movement to be classified on the conservative side of the spectrum in spite of its clearly liberal inspired program.
The most eye-catching symbol of the GCM is the green cross its name refers to. Popular account goes that the Southern Families pinned up little green crosses as protection when they started their journey towards an uncertain future. This belief is still practiced in the GCM imagery and speech, though Lovian historian Burt Schwartz renounced it. Schwartz, who is an authority on Lovian history, published a thesis in which he defends an alternative view: the socialist movement was organizing laborers and handed out red ribbons, something which was responded too by a group of liberals who identified with the opposite color green. Some of the 'green ribbon union' moved to the south and became known as the Southern Families. The ribbon was later on reinterpreted as a cross due to ties between liberalism and conservatism/religion.