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Voting for the “Green Team” on November 2
Tired of the “serial press conferences” that the corporate media calls “Major Party” debates? The Green Party is doubling in size and organization with each election cycle. We ask you to join us in the electoral arm of the growing movement for peace, racial and economic justice, environmental protection, and real democracy.
How can you help? Volunteer with Green campaigns, register and vote Green, and donate some Green to our campaigns!
Cobb/LaMarche for President/Vice President
The Cobb/LaMarche campaign is committed to building a strong and vibrant Green Party, to offer voters an ongoing alternative to the two-party system. David Cobb and Patricia LaMarche support the hundreds of greens running for local office. They consistently advocate instant runoff voting (IRV) as the best solution to the “spoiler” problem.
David’s mid-August visit to the Central Valley generated an impressive amount of media attention. Search <cagreens.org/news> for: David Cobb Fresno
Cobb/LaMarche are in favor of:
• Universal, single-payer health care
• A living wage for all workers
• Energy independence—slowing global warming, creating jobs
• An end to the racist War on Drugs
• The repeal of the Patriot Act
David had a successful law practice until early 2000, when Ralph Nader asked him to manage the Green Party effort in Texas. He coordinated the ballot access drive in Texas that collected more than 76,000 signatures in 75 days. He served as the general counsel for the Green Party of the United States until declaring his candidacy and was the Green Party of Texas (GPTX) candidate for Attorney General in 2002.
In 1996 Patricia was the first and only female host at the venerated heritage talk radio station, WGAN. She soon became known for her liberal views and was approached to run for governor of the state of Maine in 1998 on the Green Independent Party ticket. Despite a grassroots campaign, the death of her mother midway through, and raising her two children as a single mother, LaMarche led a successful campaign that generated seven percent of the vote from a budget of just $20,000. She became the first woman in the history of the state of Maine to gain ballot access for a political party due to her campaign.
Cobb/LaMarche 2004: <http://www.votecobb.org> (Donations Needed!), (559) 233–5907 (Mark)
Larry Mullen for Congress, District 19
Meet Larry Mullen—a veteran, a welder by trade and an educator by profession, and a 34-year teachers union member. He’s running as the Green Party candidate for the House of Representatives in the 19th Congressional District. You will be represented fairly and equitably. Your interests as Americans will not be compromised by global corporations. He’s not for sale!
Incumbent George Radanovich broke his word on term limits.
He gave up his constitutional power to declare war. He sent American jobs to foreign countries by fast-tracking NAFTA and supporting the outsourcing. He is for the WTO. His contempt for public input was exposed by his vindictive and punitive treatment of the Yosemite Plan. Larry loves his country too much to allow these actions to go unchallenged.
In contrast, as your ‘Citizen Legislator’ Larry supports:
• Creating jobs, not exporting them.
• Fair trade—not “free” trade.
• Protecting our sacred freedoms in the Bill of Rights.
• Foreign policy not driven by oil.
• Bringing home the troops soon with honor. He will work for peace.
• Eliminate government waste. Audit the books!
• Single payer healthcare reform.
In your heart, you know what’s right for the American people. Together, we can create an economy where everyone shares in the prosperity of America. Where our freedoms are preserved and elections are fair. Where the environment is
protected. That’s the America we deserve! Larry appreciates the generous financial and volunteer support his campaign has inspired and now asks for your vote on November 2.
Mullen for Congress: <http://www.4Mullen.org> (559) 222–VOTE
John Crockford for Assembly, District 29
John Crockford, a frequent contributor to the Community
Alliance, has been a tireless advocate for increasing education
funding, universal health care, a woman’s right to choose, reforming “Three Strikes,” and ending the War on Drugs by supporting medical marijuana. He supports the ability of all persons residing in the State of California to get a driver’s license, regardless of their immigration status.
John has been a resident of Clovis for 17 years, arriving from Texas with his family in November of 1986. He currently owns his own Web design and development business and operates several Web sites, including a commercial endeavor promoting “Old Town Clovis.”
John Crockford for Assembly: <john.crockford.org>
We are planning serious “get out the vote” activities leading right up to election day, making sure we get Greens to the polls to vote for Green candidates, better access to health care, and protecting our precious open space. We can use your help!
To get involved: (559) 233–5907 (Mark), <http://fresnogreens.org>
Mark Stout is the San Joaquin Valley Coordinator for the Cobb/LaMarche 2004 campaign, cofounder of the Fresno County Green Party, and works as a computer networking/sustainable energy consultant. He joins the Green Party of California in urging a Yes Vote on Prop 66, fix 3 Strikes: <http://voteyeson66.org>
Cobb/LaMarche for President/Vice President
The Cobb/LaMarche campaign is committed to building a strong and vibrant Green Party, to offer voters an ongoing alternative to the two-party system. David Cobb and Patricia LaMarche support the hundreds of greens running for local office. They consistently advocate instant runoff voting (IRV) as the best solution to the “spoiler” problem.
David’s mid-August visit to the Central Valley generated an impressive amount of media attention. Search <cagreens.org/news> for: David Cobb Fresno
Cobb/LaMarche are in favor of:
• Universal, single-payer health care
• A living wage for all workers
• Energy independence—slowing global warming, creating jobs
• An end to the racist War on Drugs
• The repeal of the Patriot Act
David had a successful law practice until early 2000, when Ralph Nader asked him to manage the Green Party effort in Texas. He coordinated the ballot access drive in Texas that collected more than 76,000 signatures in 75 days. He served as the general counsel for the Green Party of the United States until declaring his candidacy and was the Green Party of Texas (GPTX) candidate for Attorney General in 2002.
In 1996 Patricia was the first and only female host at the venerated heritage talk radio station, WGAN. She soon became known for her liberal views and was approached to run for governor of the state of Maine in 1998 on the Green Independent Party ticket. Despite a grassroots campaign, the death of her mother midway through, and raising her two children as a single mother, LaMarche led a successful campaign that generated seven percent of the vote from a budget of just $20,000. She became the first woman in the history of the state of Maine to gain ballot access for a political party due to her campaign.
Cobb/LaMarche 2004: <http://www.votecobb.org> (Donations Needed!), (559) 233–5907 (Mark)
Larry Mullen for Congress, District 19
Meet Larry Mullen—a veteran, a welder by trade and an educator by profession, and a 34-year teachers union member. He’s running as the Green Party candidate for the House of Representatives in the 19th Congressional District. You will be represented fairly and equitably. Your interests as Americans will not be compromised by global corporations. He’s not for sale!
Incumbent George Radanovich broke his word on term limits.
He gave up his constitutional power to declare war. He sent American jobs to foreign countries by fast-tracking NAFTA and supporting the outsourcing. He is for the WTO. His contempt for public input was exposed by his vindictive and punitive treatment of the Yosemite Plan. Larry loves his country too much to allow these actions to go unchallenged.
In contrast, as your ‘Citizen Legislator’ Larry supports:
• Creating jobs, not exporting them.
• Fair trade—not “free” trade.
• Protecting our sacred freedoms in the Bill of Rights.
• Foreign policy not driven by oil.
• Bringing home the troops soon with honor. He will work for peace.
• Eliminate government waste. Audit the books!
• Single payer healthcare reform.
In your heart, you know what’s right for the American people. Together, we can create an economy where everyone shares in the prosperity of America. Where our freedoms are preserved and elections are fair. Where the environment is
protected. That’s the America we deserve! Larry appreciates the generous financial and volunteer support his campaign has inspired and now asks for your vote on November 2.
Mullen for Congress: <http://www.4Mullen.org> (559) 222–VOTE
John Crockford for Assembly, District 29
John Crockford, a frequent contributor to the Community
Alliance, has been a tireless advocate for increasing education
funding, universal health care, a woman’s right to choose, reforming “Three Strikes,” and ending the War on Drugs by supporting medical marijuana. He supports the ability of all persons residing in the State of California to get a driver’s license, regardless of their immigration status.
John has been a resident of Clovis for 17 years, arriving from Texas with his family in November of 1986. He currently owns his own Web design and development business and operates several Web sites, including a commercial endeavor promoting “Old Town Clovis.”
John Crockford for Assembly: <john.crockford.org>
We are planning serious “get out the vote” activities leading right up to election day, making sure we get Greens to the polls to vote for Green candidates, better access to health care, and protecting our precious open space. We can use your help!
To get involved: (559) 233–5907 (Mark), <http://fresnogreens.org>
Mark Stout is the San Joaquin Valley Coordinator for the Cobb/LaMarche 2004 campaign, cofounder of the Fresno County Green Party, and works as a computer networking/sustainable energy consultant. He joins the Green Party of California in urging a Yes Vote on Prop 66, fix 3 Strikes: <http://voteyeson66.org>
For more information:
http://www.fresnoalliance.com/home/magazin...
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Earlier this year I swore that I would relinquish my Green Party membership because "The Green Team" that prevailed at nominating David Cobb as the Green Party's presidential candidate (without also endorsing Ralph Nader's run) was a travesty of ethics-- and a travesty of democracy. Later, I decided to retain my membership because I now hope that my write-in vote for Ralph Nader will help send a message to the Party and independent observers that the party's autocratic leadership needs to reform. I hope that the Green Party will respect and protect the principle of One Person One Vote. If it does not I will keep my pledge and leave.
The reason the Green Party grew at all is thanks primarily to the successes of Ralph Nader, California's own Peter Camejo, and San Francisco's own Matt Gonzalez. David Cobb's visibility in the mainstream has been token at best-- bestowed upon his campaign by a corporate media eager to appear open to "all views".
This year, David Cobb and his "Green Team" revealed themselves as turncoats to the high principles that the Green Party once symbolized for the majority of Green Party rank and file members here in California, and nationwide. They rationalized their treachery and/or naivete by claiming that Nader was not himself a Green Party member, even though they knew full well that Nader (from a principle I myself have grown to appreciate) has never formally belonged to any party.
The Cobb/LaMarche/Green Team platform actually distinguished itself from the Nader/Camejo/Majority Rank and File platform principally by its rejection of the arguments proposed in the Avocado Education Project's "Avocado Declaration". The main argument of the Avocado Declaration is that the Democrat and Republican parties complement and assist each other, somewhat in a form similar to the well understood "Good Cop"-"Bad Cop" strategy that law enforcement uses to get results from uncooperative persons.
The Avocado Declaration argues that both major parties represent the same self-interested (and greedy) wealthiest 1% and 1000 most powerful corporations. The Republicans, like the bad cop, do so unabashedly. The Democrats, like the good cop, do so with sweet talk and promises that need not be kept.
Both ruling Parties are primarily interested in protecting a status quo that (even against its long term better interest) whittles workers' wages down and keeps the majority of voters silent. In the last thirty years almost all American workers have seen their real income stagnate in a growing economy while the incomes of CEOs have ballooned to unconscionable levels. The assault against the US Constitution has accelerated: with only cosmetic differences, both the Democrats and Republicans are virtually unopposed to the illegal War in Iraq, the Patriot Acts, and the unrestricted spread of Corporate global "free trade" which is immune from the principles of democracy at home and which impoverishes, enslaves, and destroys men, women, and children abroad.
The Cobb ticket-- installed, not elected, by the "Green Team" at the Green Party National Convention earlier this year in Milwaukee-- rejects the Avocado Declaration and is a de facto supporter of John Kerry against Bush. The Green Team is an accomplice of the Status Quo.
Even though its reasons for not opposing Kerry in what it identifies as critical "swing states" may be sound, it in fact denies representation to the majority of Greens who earlier in the year (over 80%!) expressed in the primaries that we wished the Party not obstruct Nader's run by allowing him a ballot line. The majority of rank-and-file Green Party members, like myself, believe that our votes are representative of our belief that real political change will only evolve if we vote, like the abolitionists in the past, from principle and not fear. We believe, as Nader does when he quotes Frederick Douglass: "Power concedes nothing without a demand!"
The Cobb minority, like many well-intentioned Democrats who abhor Bush and his politics of unreality, have been cowed into supporting Kerry, the lesser of two evils. Kerry, like Bush, espouses a worldview that is based on the illusion that efficiency and profits are more valuable than people. Those who make no demands-- and consequentially-- even should Kerry win (and he may well lose because he was nominated by the Democratic Party as its least contentious, and least demanding representative)-- those who have been cowed into supporting Kerry are unlikely to get anything in return.
A logic that says that principle is too much a burden when consequential differences exist between candidates (Kerry and Bush) may well be sound: but it is the same logic that would argue that Mussolini is preferable to Hitler. If there is ever to be a break from the prison of a political system that cages us in this logic it will only happen when the majority of us look around, and recognize, "Hey! We are the majority!" We will not accept a Mussolini or a Hitler! We cannot be fooled into thinking that we have no other choices!
The Democratic and Republican parties both work to keep the majority of us from recognizing that we are a majority, and do everything in their power (including the subversion third parties) to keep the majority from voting for its best interests.
I hope the Green Party will reform because I understand now how the Status Quo encouraged its rupture. If it does not, I hope that all thinking and feeling people will recognize the need to carry on in in the struggle against modern illusions and the idolization of wealth and power to the detriment of all human beings.
For reference:
How to Steal an Election: The Green Version, 2004:
http://www.sf-frontlines.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=772
How the Green Party, the supposed banner of peace, justice and environmentalism, settled on a plan of inaction that supported the perpetuation of the war and the corporate contamination of the American political system:
http://www.sf-frontlines.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=776
What went wrong? GP National Convention, A Statistical Analysis:
http://www.greensfornader.net/
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair07022004.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/chretien08102004.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/frank09092004.html
http://www.counterpunch.org/frank10042004.html
The Avocado Declaration:
http://www.avocadoeducationproject.org/avocado.shtml
If you are a Californian, you need not fear writing in Nader's name as your presidential choice on November 2nd. This state already "belongs" to Kerry. By writing in Nader's name, you will send a message that your vote belongs to you-- and cannot be bought through intimidation or guile.
http://www.writeinnader.org/
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