So-called Working Families Party locks the most progressive candidate out of NYC Mayor debate

Ever since Working Families Party sold the pro-war candidates of Clinton and Spitzer as a vote for peace in 2006, I expect nothing from them.  And have not been disappointed.

from the Village Voice

Last night three candidates for Mayor of New York — Michael Bloomberg, councilmember Tony Avella, and comptroller Bill Thompson — attended the Working Families Party Mayoral Forum at the Hotel Trades Council on West 44th Street. (We should mention that Green Party candidate Reverend Billy wanted to be at the forum, but was excluded; “The Working Families Party have sent a cynical signal,” his office tells us. “New York is not a corporation. New York is a city. A city in a democracy. Let’s debate like it is.”)

Related:

• Jonathan Tasini: Hypocrisy by the Working Families Party
• An Open Letter to Pete Seeger
• David McReynolds responds to Pete Seeger
• David McReynolds: Vote Green Party over Working Families
• David McReynolds responds to Pete Seeger

NYT: New York’s Defective Legislators

Some of the suggestions from the NYT to fix the NY State Legislature:

CLEANER MONEY New York’s campaign finance system is a disgrace. When the Legislature is in session, lawmakers spend every night harvesting campaign funds, often using loopholes as big as a bank. Write “party housekeeping” on the check, and it can have as many zeros as you want. Corporate subsidiaries have a field day. And the lobbyists who write the checks then also write the laws. Public financing should be the goal, but even real, enforceable limits would be a start.

COMPETITIVE ELECTIONS Anybody who wants to challenge a party-sanctioned candidate in New York will find a rigged system. A challenger faces highly paid party lawyers whose “blood sport,” as they call it, is to make that candidate spend too much time and money in court. The idea is to challenge signatures on petitions, name by name. No ZIP code? No middle initial? Then 1,000 signatures turns into 449, one too short to get on the ballot.

Other states make it easier. California allows one state official to approve petitions, with an emphasis on allowing candidates to run, not to be forced to disappear.

Had enough of being abandoned by your party? Come home to the Green Party

Green Party, preparing for 2009 national meeting, ask: Is America ready for a real opposition party now?

• Citing Democrats’ votes for war funding and retreats on health care, Greens call Dems “the new wing of the GOP” and invite Americans to “come home to the Green Party”

• Green Party Annual National meeting: Durham, North Carolina, July 23-26

Green Party leaders, preparing for the party’s 2009 Annual National Meeting, said that America is in desperate need of a real opposition party, as Democrats maintain Republican positions on foreign policy, health care, the environment, and other big issues.

“Democratic leaders made their party a wing of the Republican Party in June,” said Wayne Turner, North Carolina Green Party co-chair (http://www.ncgreenparty.org). “Any progressive positions taken by the Obama administration are getting nullified by Blue Dog Democrats and other Republican allies.  The Democratic leadership and mainstream have adopted values we associate with the GOP, while Republicans are taking ever more extreme positions and want to see President Obama fail at whatever he sets out to accomplish.  That leaves two parties representing corporate lobbies and the Green Party representing the interests and ideals of most Americans.  ‘Across the aisle’ used to mean Democrats and Republicans.  Now both of them are across the aisle from the rest of America.”

“With President Obama expanding the war in Afghanistan and Democrats overwhelmingly voting for war funding, the Democratic Party can no longer pretend to be the antiwar party.  We invite voters who want peace to come home to the Green Party,” said Mr. Turner.

Greens cited widespread popular opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, support for a national health care plan that covers all Americans (http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE55K00220090621), and resentment over the Wall Street bailout as evidence that the Green Party is closer to the political sentiments of a majority of Americans.

Green leaders pointed to several decisions and actions in June that betray the Obama promise of change:

• 256 Democrats in the House voted for the war funding bill, with only 30 Democratic nays.  President Obama is also expanding US troops in Afghanistan, with air attacks inside Pakistani borders, and has maintained the Bush-Cheney ‘preemption’ doctrine in threatening Iran.  (Democratic leaders endorsed both wars from the beginning and continued voting for President Bush’s war funding requests after they took control of Congress in 2006.)

• The Democratic leadership’s health care reform plans not only reject Single-Payer, but will also omit the public health care option because it’s “unfair to insurance companies” — as if insurance industry profits were more urgent the health needs of millions of Americans.

• In capitulation to industry interests, the Waxman-Markey climate bill (”American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009″) would place a weak cap on greenhouse gas emissions (reductions of only 1-4% below 1990 levels by 2020), create a $2 trillion carbon-trading market with dangerously unregulated derivatives and minimal effect on emissions, give away 85% of the carbon permits to corporations over the next decade, offer a $150 billion handout to coal companies, and impose a severely inadequate 15% renewable energy standard by 2020.

• President Obama approved mountaintop removal for coal, which will wreak further environmental devastation on states like West Virginia and Tennessee.  The Obama Administration continues to espouse industry myths about ‘clean coal.’

• Despite President Obama’s announcement of some limited domestic partnership benefits for gay federal employees, the Obama Justice Department has submitted a brief in support of the antigay Defense of Marriage Act, undercutting the President’s claim to support equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans.

To this list, Greens added other Democratic betrayals and retreats: the bailout for Wall Street (the largest transfer of wealth from taxpayers to corporations in history); continued warrantless surveillance of US citizens; refusal to hold Bush officials who approved torture and lied to Congress accountable for their actions (with torture continuing at some sites, according to reports); and uninterrupted military aid for Israel despite massive human rights violations against Palestinians.

“Why won’t President Obama and congessional Democrats fight for a cap on credit card interest rates and restoration of Glass-Steagal regulations to prevent financial industry abuses?  The election of a few Greens to Congress would change the dynamic of American politics.  Democrats and Republicans would have to compete with Green candidates, who accept neither corporate campaign contributions nor the influence of corporate lobbies,” said Jody Grage, treasurer of the Green Party of the United States.

New Green Party voice in NY’s 24th

from NY’s 24th District Green

24th District Green? There will be some who could comment that I’ve always been a Green, and that may be true in some sense, but I’ve never been registered as a member of the Green Party of New York State before. Still, looking back I can see that the Green Party was always the right place for me.

GP Prez cand Cynthia McKinney returns to Gaza

Mairead Corrigan Maguire, 1976 Nobel Peace Prize winner and I will join 34 others taking medical, school, and building supplies to Gaza.  I’d like to thank Nadira Kaili and Erin Connors of Atlantic Television News for donating dollars to help in my purchase of school supplies for Gaza’s children.  And I want to thank Jay Winter Nightwolf for the turquoise good luck ring that he gave me for this journey.

On Tuesday, June 16, President Carter visited Gaza and said that he was almost brought to tears by what he saw.  He said that he felt partly responsible because the American International School, one of many destroyed by the Israelis, had been “deliberately destroyed by bombs from F-16s made in my country.”  Not only that, he added that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were being treated “more like animals than human beings.”

Last time I went–or rather, tried to get to Gaza–my father told me to buy a notebook and write everything down.  This time I’ve got a video camera!!!  Now I’ve got to learn how to use it!!  As often as I can, I will get the video uploaded to our tv channel.

Understanding Empathy as a Tool for Peace 7/1/09

Sue Tibke

On Wednesday, July 1, 2009 at 7pm, the Babylon Green Party Gathering will feature Nonviolent Communication (NVC) practitioners Sue Tibke and Greg Wills speaking about Understanding Empathy as a Tool for Peace. www.BabylonGreens.org The event will be held at Pisces Café, 14A Railroad Avenue, Babylon, NY (631-321-1231)www.piscescafe.net map) Come hungry! For directions to the Babylon Green Gathering, call 631-422-4702 or email ian.wilder@yahoo.com Children are welcome. All gatherings are free of charge, and open to the public.

A social media version of this press release can be found at http://pitch.pe/15312

Suggested readings can be found at http://www.livingjusticepress.org/:

• The Little book of Restorative Discipline for School by Lorraine Stutzman Amstutz and Judy H. Mullet
• Peacemaking Circles by Kay Pranis, Barry Stuart, and Mark Wedge
• Returning to the Teachings by Rupert Ross

Green Party of NYS Decries NY Senate Coup and Calls for Grassroots Resistance

from a GPNYS press release:

The Green Party of New York State (GPNYS) decries the latest power play in the NY State Senate.  The leadership coup on Monday night by the Republican Party and at least two Democrats, one under investigation for fraud and the other for physical assault, is the newest in a serious of undemocratic and disgraceful acts that have earned the State Legislature the title of most undemocratic and “Stalinist” from the Brennan Center for Law and Justice.  The Green Party calls for immediate overhaul of Legislative procedures and electoral reform, including full public financing of campaigns, proportional representation, and allowing bills to come to a floor vote without leadership approval.  The Green Party also calls for the NY State Attorney General and the Albany District Attorney to protect taxpayers by taking action against Floridian Thomas Golisano for potential bribery of two of the coup members, and all of the legislators who have been suspected or convicted of criminal activity.

“The coup leaders: Golisano, Skelos, Espada, and Monserrate claim that this is a step towards democratic reform, yet this is clearly a power play by a few disgruntled Democrats who are under investigation for fraud and physical assault, Republicans angry about their allotted share of pork, and a billionaire who believes he has a right to manipulate state government because of his wealth.  While the former Democratic majority was in no hurry to make any reforms to state legislative practices, this is a coup instigated by Tom Golisano who was so angry that there was any move made to tax the ruling class to cover the budget shortfall that he has claimed a move to Florida, with this as his parting gift,” said Eric Jones, state co-chair of the Green Party.

“Real reform would require basic but fundamental changes to the legislature and
electoral politics that would actually increase grassroots democracy in New York.  The legislature should decrease leadership power by allowing bills to come to a debate and vote without leadership approval – something that is commonplace in most parliaments around the world.  Pork and earmarks should be banned from bills and replaced with a state bank that provides low-interest loans to municipalities.  Public financing of elections and proportional representation would help remove money
from politics and break the stranglehold of the two parties on the legislature.  Finally, government should be decentralized from Albany and power should be invested as much as possible in the citizenry and direct, grassroots assemblies, not Legislators-for-life in Albany,” said David Doonan, mayor of Greenwich.

On June 9th, 4 out of 5 Greens elected

KW: For the past few weeks, the national Green Party web-site featured five Green Party candidates running on June 9th for local office in Maine and Massachusetts. According to the front page update today, four out of five won their races. [Also, I confirmed via a phone number at the Portland Charter Commission web-site that Ben Chipman and Anna Trevorrow were elected.]

Elected were: Anna Treverrow for Portland Charter Commission in Maine; Ben Chipman for Portland Charter Commission in Maine; and Joyce Palmer-Fortune for Wheatley Select Board in Franklin County, Massachusetts.

Re-elected was: Nat Fortune for Wheatley Elementary School Committee in Franklin County, Massachusetts.

Dan Jenkins was a Green candidate from Maine who did not win his race.

Ballot Access News did a detailed story on the Portland Charter Commission race, see here and below:

Nader puts negative spotlight on Democratic leader

In Virginia, next week, there is a Democratic primary for Governor. According to two polls this week, former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe has now lost the lead.

Over the last couple of weeks, Ralph Nader–who has run for President of the US under both the Green Party and independent banner in previous campaigns– has been commenting negatively about former DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe, including in a June 2nd appearance on Democracy Now!

Explaining the Duopoly: Theresa Amato publishes new book

(excerpt from) Ballot Access News
Theresa Amato Launches Publicity Campaign for her Book, “Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny”
May 18th, 2009

Theresa Amato’s book, “Grand Illusion: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny”, will be released in June 2009. To publicize the book, Amato holds a reception and reading at the Union League Club in Chicago, on Thursday, June 4, from 6pm to 8 pm. Then, she appears on a panel at Chicago’s Printers Row Lit Fest on Sunday, June 7, at 3 pm. That panel may perhaps be broadcast on C-SPAN.

Theresa Amato was Ralph Nader’s campaign manager in 2000 and 2004. The book centers on the 2004 campaign, when the Democratic Party made a historically unprecedented attempt to physically prevent voters from voting for Ralph Nader…

Excellent research and opinion about the Electoral College

from Ballot Access News
San Diego Publishes Ten In-Depth Essays on Electoral College
May 17th, 2009

The San Diego Union-Tribune of May 17 has these ten scholarly and interesting essays on the electoral college.

And, whenever we bring up the Electoral College, we always like to bring up our colleague Asa Gordon. Asa is a green who has worked tirelessly to share information and create pro se law suits challenging the Electoral College. Asa’s web-site is: here. Video at the read more.

NAACP asks Supreme Court to revisit voter photo-ID

from Ballot Access News
NAACP Asks U.S. Supreme Court to Revisit Photo-ID at Polls
May 17th, 2009

The NAACP of Georgia is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its case against Georgia’s law, requiring voters at the polls to show government photo-ID in order to vote. The case in the lower courts was called Common Cause/Georgia v Billups, but now it is called NAACP v Billups, no. 08-1231.