Saturday, September 29, 2007

St Louis Greens force audit of city books

Using a system that required gathering signatures from voters, the St. Louis Greens were able to force the state government to audit the city's books. The St Louis greens have a particular program they want looked at, and the state has made it clear that they will do whatever sort of audit they darn well want to do.

I think this is a feather in our caps, and especially for those Greens in St Louis! Read more about their effort here.
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Arkansas Greens file for ballot status

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette covers the story here.

Arkansas News covers it here.

Fox 16 picks up here.

Pine Bluff Commercial covers the story here.

Action News 5 covers the story here.

WTHV runs the story here.

Congrats to the Arkansas greens for great press coverage.
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Reading candidate has a plan!

But, it's not a Green from Reading PA, but from Reading England. The plan is for him and his girlfriend to live for a year and generate less than one roll-out trash can filled with debris. The rest will be recycled, never bought in the first place, re-used or composted.

A newspaper is covering the effort, including allowing him to do a monthly column for the year. How much good could you do with such a campaign?

Learn more by visiting their website.
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Greens to meet in Boulder CO Oct. 3rd

The details are at the Metro Denver Greens website.
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Sunday, September 23, 2007

Greens help clean up Lake Tahoe

The article is here.
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MI Greens and other 3rd parties seek coverage

Details are available here.
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Oklahoma Greens file ballot access petition

The details are at the OK Greens blog.
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Activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader to speak at DePauw

The Republic covers it here, and WTHR covers it here.

The Herald Bulletin covered the story as well.
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Green Party supports strike by U of M workers

Details are here.
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Greens address Jena Six

In case you have not followed the story closely (and I have not), the Jena Six are six young black men in Jena, LA. They are accused of beating a classmate severely. Of course, there is more to the story.

As I understand it, a school assembly was held at the school, and a student asked if he could sit under a particular tree on the campus. He was told that he could.

Thereafter, several black students did sit under that tree, since cut down, and some other students hung nooses from it after school.

Over the next few days words were exchanged between students of both skin tones, and at least one white student was accused of wrong doing. The consequences were apparently not much.

This seems to me to be the critical issue. No one, no matter how offended by someone else's actions, is entitled to beat another. In this particular case, apparently, it was a six-on-one case, and while the student did receive what looks like a serious whupping, he will suffer no long term consequences. Not so the students who are accused of doing the beating. These are the Jena Six.

Now personally, I have not paid enough attention to say one way or another, but the national Green Party does not seem to be in the same boat. Apparently feeling that they have enough facts to do so, the national Green Party has called for dropping all charges against the Jena Six.
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IL Greens offer "Fresh start" congressional candidate

His full story can be found over at The Wilder Side.
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Green take on high stakes testing

Imagine for a moment that you are back in high school.

Now imagine that to get the diploma you had worked towards for twelve long years was not going to be yours unless you pass a single test. This is called "high stakes testing" and it is the cause of much agonizing and a lot of Tums purchases.

Back when my wife and I were students at the University of Georgia back in the late 70s we heard Ralph Nader as he spoke to the student body. even back then he was speaking out against these sorts of tests. Lauren Gilchrist writes about the situation faced by students today, and no surprise, things are as screwed up as when I was in a classroom. The article is about high stakes testing in Canada, but the same sort of facts are at play in the US, including the Green Party's opposition to this system, which takes the student, parent and teacher out of the formula, and substitutes their wisdom with the opinions and ideas of a far-off corporation and their henchmen (academics) who help them craft these tests from hell.
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Water, water everywhere

In the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", the poet writes about how water surrounds his craft, but none can be drunk as it is saltwater, and unfit for drinking.

Today we face a similar, but less immediate, problem. From California to here in South Carolina, water is becoming more of a scarce resource.

Being a Green does not make the "laws of economics" go away. If the supply of water drops, the price will rise. This is what I call a "natural law", that is, like gravity, the law of supply and demand does not respond to legislation.

So...if we accept the idea that water is becoming more scarce, and if we accept the concept that the result is a hike in prices for water, what are we to do to assure that water is affordable?

The answer is in the law. Supply is the response to the increase in demand unless we are willing to accept a higher price.

The question is, how can we increase the supply without doing damage to the environment, and how can we do this at a cost that is affordable to society.

Wes has written about this issue at CA Greening, and over at Green Commons.

Here in Fort Mill, SC, we are told to water our yards only twice a week, leave our cars unwashed, and leave filling our swimming pools for after the water crunch. None of these apply to me much, because I have no pool, don't water my yard (except the bushes and trees) and don't wash my car. even so, this is a sign that we face difficulties down the road.

The Green Party can play a vital role in drawing the American people's attention to this problem. If we can find solutions we will be seen as both capable of the "vision thing" and also capable of leading society in the face of serious difficulties.

This is not a game. This is real. The political life we Greens have chosen does not allow us to push out heads into the sand and pretend. Since we know how screwed up the situation is, we must deal with it.
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Karma 432 writes about peak oil

The comment can be found by clicking here.
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Thursday, September 13, 2007

Tuscon Green makes the ballot

By winning enough write-in votes in an election, Green Party member Beryl Baker got on November's ballot for Tucson City Council.
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Republican tossed out on his ear

Green and Democrat face each other in November after beating out incumbent Republican in "top two primary".
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This one my daughter sent me



It's a video of Washington DC cops breaking up a press conference on horseback, This overwhelming force was brought down on the head of one Adam Kokesh of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Here's a report at Connon Dreams by Agence France Presse.
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Ever get a lkink and can't remember where it came from?



This is one of those.

This is a video of a police man with a rock at a demonstration. A labor action. The union leaders step in and stop the police from breaking the law with said rock. Er...WTF?
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Third Party Watch

covers the McKinney announcement here. I find the comment from the Constitution Party supporter to his party members to be careful about Alan Keyes, as he might "abandon" the CP the way McKinney "abandoned" the Green Party.

Ballot Access News covers the announcement as well.

I feel terrible that we have not gotten ourselves well enough organized to bring a candidate like McKinney what she needs to attract her to the campaign. I feel particularly terrible because she, as a Georgian, could potentially have gives substantail time to the growth of the party here, which we badly need.

It's hard to think of a non-black political candidate who can understand the need for a focus on growth in the south. This area is under constant attack from nuclear and anti-environmental forces at the corporate and governmental level. Being an economically depressed area suffering at the hands of out-of-state polluters and a still dominant plantation mentality and wealth structure which all too often goes back generations, the south is ripe for the sort of populist message that a McKinney campaign could have brought.

It's not that Nader couldn't do the same thing, it's that he won't. He'll express that message, but will only hit a southern state once or twice during the campaign. Wrongly or rightly, I had hoped we would benefit from more frequent and well coordinated presidential campaign appearances.

In fact, I had hoped that Elaine Brown would seek the nomination as well, leaving us potentially with two Georgia women seeking our state party votes at the convention, and thereby coming to the state a few times. Now it seems that such is not to be.

Which is in some ways a real tragedy. Because we are not well enough organized to give them what they need to make a run, we lose out on the growth they could have brought us. Let's not try to fool ourselves into believing that a run by an unknown and unqualified Green candidate will do absolutely anything to grow the Green Party. Indeed, instead of growing the party, another no-name campaign by an unqualified candidate will only secure our position in the minds of the voters as "those guys who run for offices and never win."

It's not that we must run a campaign that results in our nominee as president, but that the campaign be behind someone dedicated to the growth and maturation of the Green Party. The non-voter must be persuaded that being a Green voter is better, and worth the time investment. The person who is abused by the system must find safe-haven in our midst, and self-determination in her future. I would like to think that we are well enough advanced to show someone like McKinney that we will follow her lead in growing the Green Party. I would like to think that someone like her would be able to see a core of sane and solid citizens in the Green Party who can work with her to craft the powerful force for change we all know we need.

But I think that part of the problem is that we have so many folks who want their way rather than wanting Green success and Green growth. Being able to post long missives against this or that Green, as I have myself done, seems more important to some than being able to celebrate Green victories where they happen.

Mike Feinstein wrote a long missive to the national Green Party, and no, I don't have a copy, in which he says that the California Green Party must address the problem of inability to cross the electoral threshold in partisan races. It's not the inability to win a congressional seat that has him concerned, but our inability to win county council, state legislative, judicial and other seats which are partisan. I'm not sure which seats are partisan, but those listed often are.

These sorts of questions, how do we get Greens elected as Greens, are much more important that who we run for President. I just want to be able to run a presidential campaign which is a credit to the Green Party and does not leave us weaker than we are now.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Cynthia McKinney will not run for President

From the website, All Things Cynthia McKinney

To: Steering Committee of the Green Party of the United States

Fm: Cynthia McKinney, Georgia

Date: September 10th, 2007

As I'm sure you know, I have been approached by many within the Green Party over the preceeding year who have asked that I consider seeking the nomination of the Green Party of the United States as its candidate for President of the United States. In 2003 I was similiarly approached about my potential interest in the 2004 race.

I have seriously weighed the options, travelled extensively holding first private, then more public events with Greens over the preceding year, exploring such a possibility with Greens in at least a dozen state parties, meeting with the chair of your Presidential Campaign Support Committee, with the members of your Steering Committee and speaking at, and entertaining questions from the Party's Annual Meeting in Reading Pennsylvania this past July. Since the Reading meeting, I have also begun to help Green candidates raise money for their campaigns.

For months I have answered questions about my intentions for this race in 2008 by saying that while I am not yet in, neither am I out of this race.

After careful consideration about the political conditions facing our nation, the level of development within the Party, my own readiness to take on such a daunting task and my own long postponed personal priorities, I write to inform the Party that I must at this time withdraw my name from consideration for the Party's 2008 Presidential Nominating contest.

I remain committed to our collective work of transforming our nation and to mobilizing peace loving Americans, justice seeking activists and others disfranchised by the powers which currently control our nation toward that end.

Sincerely yours,
Cynthia McKinney
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Monday, September 10, 2007

Can I get a little justice?

What if you went to a party and got carted off by the police? What if thereafter you were told to go to court, but were also told that there was no paper trail because the arresting officer had not filed the paperwork? What if the newspapers didn't cover the situation?

Then you would be Harrisburg PA Green Diane White!

Read about the apparent shenanigans over at The Wilder Side.
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Sunday, September 09, 2007

get yer movies here

The Wilders have set up a group of Green movies to watch, so pop some corn and sit and watch!
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Denver CO Greens hold productive meeting

Akk the details can be found by clicking this link.
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FL Greens get covered

They are from Hernando County. Their story is here.
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Saturday, September 08, 2007

MN Greens call tax funded sports venue a bad idea

Of course, their language is better than mine.

The article is here.
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Rockford (IL) Register Star advises Greens

It's not every day that a part of the Corporate Media endorses a Green, but the Rockford Register Star did just that, and the Green they endorsed, Rich Whitney, was running for Governor. Not only that, he won over 25% of the vote in the Register's reading area, so it may have helped.

Well now the paper has some advice for we Greens. You can read what they have to say by stepping this way.
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Green candidate asks for your vote

He's running hard for Mayor of Tuscon, AZ. Read all about him right here.
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Benefits of avoiding national stories

I'm still trying to wean myself from national Green Party concerns. Frankly, my readership here and elsewhere is not large enough to have any national impact, and most folks don't seem too much concerned about losing my voice on such topics. :-)

The benefits of doing so, however, are apparent to me even when I'm not looking specifically for a national story. As an example, Joshua Franks reads the Green Party's obituary, with loads of replies from Greens and others. He then goes on to cast aspersions on one group of Greens while supporting another. That column is here

The thing that Franks, those responding to him, and I have not addressed is this: The national Green Party and it's Presidential ticket are of less importance than a new chapter, a locally elected City Council person, or pretty much anything local.

It's not so much that I don't care as that I feel ineffective doing anything national.

Perhaps we Greens should begin with these two concepts:

Elect as many Greens as possible running for local offices.

Elect as many Greens as possible to partisan offices.

Only once we have elected a decent number of good Greens to state legislature can we expect to be able to elect more than the very occasional Green member of Congress. Only once dozens of city and county council people are elected in an area will the rank-and-file voter be able to see us as electable. Only once we have served, and served well, at the local level will we be able to have a level playing field with dems and repubs at the state or national level.

So, the option for so many of us seems to be, get something done at the local level, or spin your wheels on national stuff.
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Berkley Greens question one of their own

I am no lawyer. (Thank you Jesus) I am not from California. I am, however, a Green.

I have always maintained that we are a political party made up of people, and as such we were subject to the same missteps and boo-boos as any other group of human beings.

Well, there may be such a boo-boo a-happening. According to a piece at the Daily Planet members of the local Green Party are calling for an investigation into a Green member of the Rent Control board. There seems to be some question about where he actually lives, and Berkley Greens want to be sure he has crossed every T and dotted every I.

Good move if you ask me. Get it right the first time, eh?
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VA Greens to put affordable housing on the ballot

In an article at The Connection Newspapers there are two Green perspectives put forward. The VA Greens had gathered enough signatures to get the issue before the voters, but the County Council staff, apparently, didn't do every detail in time, and as such, the issue will not go to voters for 15 months.
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Chicago Convention gets major television coverage in the Windy City

Here's an article from KSBY

Here's another article, this time from KESQ

This one is from CBS2

Leaving television behind for a bit, this article is from Truemors.

Newspapers are also covering the event, as in this article at the daily South Town. Much the same info cabn be found at theis sister paper, the Chicago Sun-Times

Quad Cities Online covered the story, as did, finally, The Chicagoist.

Oh yeah...Marathon Pundit put a special spin, as only a blogger can, on the announcement that we will meet in Chicago in 2008.

Read all about it folks!
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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

IL Green writes to the people

and, in his letter he encourages his fellow citizens to join the Green Party.
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Minneapolis media take loss of Green convention in stride

Read about it here.
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WI Greens protest against the war

The article is this way.
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New Haven CT Greens host McKinney

The article is right this way.
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Will Green candidate drop out?

If the incumbent is so bad that three others run against his re-election, should they put aside differences and support a one-on-one race in hopes of kicking the incumbent out? That's the question addressed in this article.
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Mesa Greens show "Iraq for Sale"

Details here.
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Ted Glick fasts

Find out why by clicking here.
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Republican, Democratic, Independence, Working Families and Conservative

Yep...all these parties felt comfortable nominating the same candidate for office.

Fortunately, there is a a Green in the race too.
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Los Angeles Greens take on Impeachment

Send Bush and Cheney to JAIL!

Read about the effort by clicking here.
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Chicago Media covers Green convention story

One article is here.

Another is over here.
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Wrap me in a sheet and put me in a hole

Of course, this is not the only green burial option. Some would want an "air burial" where, as I understand it, the body is placed atop a structure high enough that ground dwellers, like coyotes and wolves, can't reach the body, leaving the remains "available" to air borne scavengers.

Others want their remains sent to the "Body Farm" in TN where corpses are observed as they disappear to help forensic scientists learn how this process works. Some want their remains scattered to the winds either as ask, or like my wife, want to be placed in the hands of search and rescue teams for use in training cadaver dogs.

None of this means that you shouldn't do your burial as you wish. You should. But, alternatives to "mainstream burial" are out there, and you can read about an alternative approach right here.
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Reading PA keep showing the way

Even after the difficulties of hosting a national convention of Greens, the Berks County Greens keep on kicking electoral ass! Teresa Valentin is running for office.

Go Greens!
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IL Green on the air!

The details of the radio show are hiding right this way.
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McKinney interviewed

The interview is over here.
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McKinney also says Blacks must consider voting Green

Well, actually she says that Blacks must consider not voting straight-Democrat, in an effort to make their vote one which politicians must work for instead of take for granted. details are here.
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Cynthia McKinney helps raise green for Greens

While she is working hard to pay off her own debt from her last Congressional race, Cynthia McKinney has also been giving her time to help Greens get some green too. I'm really liking this woman, and sure hope she does seek our nomination. Anyone who is willing to raise money for others while she is suffering financially herself is a good woman in my book.

The details of her efforts are over here.
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CO Greens:"The Dam Truth About Glade Reservoir,"

The Colorado Greens are holding an event to educate the public in their area about plans to dam up the Poudre River. Details are over here.
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Protest? Vote? Lobby?

of course, what we Greens can't do is buy what we want policy-wise. Democrats and republicans, armed with huge corporate coffers, can buy what they want, whether it's a cup of coffee or the Supreme Court of the United States.

So, what do we less well off Americans to do? Over at Green Commons Alex Walker has re-printed a piece from Jeff Gibbs which discusses the subject, and commoner posted a link to an article at Grist which also discusses the question: where can we be most effective?

It's a good question.
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Smaller OK political parties cooperate

Since we are all subject to the whims of the various state legislatures, in some states the smaller parties are cooperating on issues where they are all impacted, like ballot access and public financing. To read more, visit this website.
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Metro Denver Greens cover Chicago convention

The details are at right over here.
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DC Statehood Green Party joins push for MLK memorial in DC

The full story is over at The Wilder Side
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Third Estate Sunday Review

Just gave it a glance, but it looks like fun to me. Check it out here.
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Green "Digg"

As many of you know, Digg.com uses a system of reader recommendations to bring certain articles to the attention of it's visitors.

Now there is a new version for we Greens. It's owned by the same folks who own TreeHugger.com, and is called Hugg.com. I signed up to participate, and thought you might wanna join in too.
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