Putting the Green Party on the Map
Now that Bernie is focused on the Democratic Convention and the party platform, it's time for me to look for alternatives for President. Trump is out. I am not hip to the "survival of the fittest" Libertarian thing and lastly, four more years of neo-liberalism with her smugness is beyond comprehension.
While I didn't need to go through a process of elimination as my opening suggests, it's clear that the Green Party represents my values far better than any other alternative. I have seen Jill Stein in a couple of interviews. She is intelligent and knows how to stay on message. And what's even better than that is the message itself. Healthcare and education as rights, $15 Min wage, No TPP, abolish corporate person hood, environment, social justice...it's all there. This has all been very inspirational for me. To know that the love and hope I invested in Bernie Sanders, can be channeled in another direction for the Presidency. But I have a question, where have the Greens been ?
The Greens are one of the oldest and most successful third parties in the country. Indeed, Jill Stein's page touts the fact that she has received more votes for President than any other woman candidate. But where's the organization ? Where's the list of accomplishments ? Who is running the ships at the state level ? I live in Vermont...very fertile ground for a Green party but they have been made irrelevant by the hard working folks in the VT Progressive Party When I visit the Vermont Green Party page, it is little more than a url for volunteering and donating. Upon visiting Jill2016.com Jill has a total of four events listed, two in my home state of Vermont, one at the DNC and one at the Green Party convention in Houston in August. Really ? That's it ? So if I go to the two events in my home state, I will attend half of her campaigning for the next month ?
As it turns out, I will be attending the event in Burlington VT Friday night. I want to ask Jill how she plans on getting visibility and filling out her schedule to attract voters. I hope to be inspired to work on the ballot initiative here and contribute to the campaign financially (as meager as that sum may be). But why are the Greens looking like this is their first attempt rather than rolling out a well oiled machine ?
Comments
Green Party Comparison To Dems/Repubs
I think this page says it all
http://www.gp.org/120591/the_real_difference
Nothing will change as long as Dems/Repubs hold the people in their vice grips.
Donnie The #ShitHole Douchebag. Fake Friend to the Working Class. Real Asshole.
I think they need money to hire more staff
I have been pushing ballot access myself. But, I get the feeling that money may just as important and that the organization needs more full-time paid staff to organize. Jill has an active twitter account and I just joined a Reddit group that seems pretty organized. They were able to muster the needed signatures in Illinois and Georgia (although some of those were apparently paid petitioners). The last I saw was that 87% of people don't know who Jill Stein is.
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
The views of the people who control the Democratic Party
have values that I reject. It's been that way for decades.
It was a Democrat, Humphrey, who hung the "Acid, Amnesty, and Abortion" tag on McGovern & the Republicans gleefully picked it up and ran with it. (One of the three was the law of the land and amnesty for Viet Nam war resisters came to pass.) HRC was a Carter operative against the progressive wing under the aegis of Harrington's Democratic Socialist organization.
Jesse Jackson formed a vibrant organization, The Rainbow Coalition, which he let wither on the vine.
I think the Greens are where to go and I think the Greens will benefit from the infusion of people and enthusiasm from those who reject the neoliberalism of the current Dems. Apparently neoliberalism is incurable and can only be isolated. I am hoping the Greens can do that after they get a good dose of class consciousness.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
The Green Party is very tentative about money
It corrupts y'know. And then there are the other problems, like why the party won't support the candidates, why the primaries are beauty contests (on the rare occasion when there are competing candidates), why there are gatekeepers, why the GP uses an inconsistent "consensus process" at times, and so on. The Ten Key Values! Principles above power. Now, it would be nice if the Berniecrats cleaned up the hot mess on Aisle 5, but I'm not holding my breath. Y'all going to the national convention in Houston in August?
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
I'm a yankee
and a big boy, so I don't do heat well. That said I would still go to Houston if my job didn't get in the way.
Seems you are pretty familiar with them. Your critique scares me. But I stopped holding out hope for Bernie being the Dem nominee. That party would sooner nominate Biden than allow Bernie to step in.
I first was a Green in '92
Anyway, the situation points to this: we ought to send at least one C99%er to Houston, at least to find out if the Green Party can be worth our time and our trouble, or if it wouldn't just be better to start a new party.
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Things are changing
Donations to Jill Stein Explode Nearly 1000% Since Sanders’ Endorsement of Clinton
The political revolution continues
Just donated $27.
First time ever donating to a non-democrat. Felt pretty damned good, too.
Nothing so powerful...
as an idea whose time has come. The Green Party has been pretty consistent in its message over the years - what's different this time is the number of people in America who are now receptive to it. I don't think people should be unduly discouraged or put off by past failures. It's a cliche, but nonetheless apt to remind ourselves that the mightiest oak tree starts out as a mere acorn. What the Green Party has been up to now does not necessarily foretell what it might someday be.
Just imagine if the energy and enthusiasm elicited by the Sanders campaign, or even a sizeable chunk of it, was redirected towards Jill Stein and the Green Party. Though I don't think Stein has a realistic chance of being elected president, I do think the Greens have a good chance this year of putting themselves on the electoral map. And that itself would be a huge step forward.
inactive account
There are 12+ million people who voted for Sanders
potentially up for grabs.
Polls are showing that young people favor socialism over capitalism even though socialism has been demonized for several generations. A party that is not neoconservative, nor neoliberal, places people before profits and peace before war has a shot at gaining these people as members.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Three part harmony is what Greens need
Here's Paul Wellstone 'splainin that opinion for me @3m53s
Wow Bernie was my perfect candidate drinking the Progressive kool-aid, I thought he had all three. Rats!
Whatever flaws the Green Party may have
it's clear to me that voting Green is the only real alternative for progressives this cycle.
Voting for Clinton does nothing towards changing the trajectory of the Democratic Party; it only signals "don't change a thing!"
They will only begin to pay attention to our concerns if they see they are losing our votes. And there is virtually no risk of electing Trump as a consequence. Clinton will pull votes from Republicans. She's a more natural fit for those voters anyway with her corporate friendly domestic policy and her neocon foreign policy.
Even the smallest person can change the course of the future
That's been clear to me for decades now.
May we at some point move on to curing what ails the Green Party?
The ruling classes need an extra party to make the rest of us feel as if we participate in democracy. That's what the Democrats are for. They make the US more durable than the Soviet Union was.
Seems to me...
It would be easier to work with the Green Party than repair the corrupt corporate controlled Demorats
However, I'm glad some progressives have the stomach to stay with the Dems because an inside and outside game is what seems to push the program. At least that is what worked 100 years ago in the progressive era.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Right on mouselander. Greens set up nicely by Bern's Revolution
I've been thinking the same.
The fundamental progressive ideas Bernie masterfully hammered home, i.e. free college tuition, healthcare for all, $15 hr min wage, getting money out of politics, the business model of Wall St is fraud, combined to create a snapshot most Americans had never heard from a presidential candidate - and they were very receptive, enthusiastically filling big stadiums for it.
It was the Occupy message writ large in the Democratic Party primaries, and it painted the consummate insider establishment candidate as completely out of touch. For the first time perhaps people across the country were having national conversations about how beholden politicians are to Wall St money and starting to understand why there's such dysfunction in DC. Also, the big key, which is "if I have to pay taxes why then shouldn't it go toward free healthcare and college tuition, etc, instead of tax breaks to corporations/Wall St and a bloated military budget?" Revolutionary, for a country that's perpetually duped into asking the wrong questions i.e. (the RW "Don't rise my taxes" mantra which has infected the entire populace).
All of that awakening and support engendered by Bernie's laser-focused messaging can be re-focused onto the only candidate that lines up with his views, and has a long record of being that.
The hurdle is and remains reminding people they have another choice than the corporate duopoly candidates, whose faces they'll see plastered everywhere they look for months on end (in this case this could be yet another factor that helps the Greens, with the extraordinarily high disapproval numbers for both). Question is, are the Greens going to be able to harness this energy into getting on the ballot in all or most states?
At my favorite local falafel shop I overheard a guy I know and another speaking Arabic and something about "Dearborn" and asked about if it was Dearborn, MI. They said the community there is mostly Lebanese, which I didn't know. I said it was also the place that went 70% for Bernie. I told them that if Bernie doesn't make it I'm voting for Jill Stein in the Green Party, and reminded them they didn't have to vote for just those two vile candidates. One guy's eyes lit up and he looked up Jill Stein, and of course there she was, running for President.
It seems to me a perfect storm of events for a third party, specifically the Greens, to get some real traction, put a hole in the duopoly ship by giving people a good resistance vote against the fraud that's been exposed by Bernie.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
That certainly seems to be happening...
more traction for the Green party. The next two weeks will be telling too. I suspect after the convention to see an even larger migration to the Green Party.
As always the corporate media is the barrier to reaching regular folk. We saw it with Bernie - younger folks using the internet for information provided the bulk of support. I would bet that will be the case with the Green party, however I think we could get the support up to 15% which would get the Greens into the debates...and could generate even more support. I guess I'm suggesting the goal this cycle is to make the Green party more viable and visible.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Well said!
Something I heard Jill Stein say in an interview recently really resonated with me: By voting our fears, we've ended up getting everything we were afraid of. What's clear to so many people now is that lesser evil voting doesn't work, that consistently voting for the supposed lesser evil in fact produces progressively greater evil over time. Basically, we the 99% cannot realistically hope that the system will represent our interests if we persist in awarding our votes to politicians who not only do not have our best interests at heart, but are in fact energetically working to subvert those interests.
The vaunted two-party system is in reality just a variation of the old Good Cop / Bad Cop scam - as any gullible suspect eventually learns to his or her sorrow, Good Cop and Bad Cop are in fact the same cop. Here's a novel idea - instead of awarding our votes to candidates dedicated to screwing us over at every turn, perhaps we should instead start voting for candidates who demonstrate some credible willingness to fight for us. The results could hardly suck worse than the demonstrated results of consistently supporting Scumbag #2 in order to prevent the ascension of Scumbag #1.
#VoteYourHopesNotYourFears
inactive account
Dearborn, MI
I had a delightful experience with a call for Bernie to Dearborn. A woman did not understand about primary elections; did not think she could vote. After assurances, she wanted to know about who was running. "We don't like the man who works in real estate. Does your Bernie Sanders work in real estate?" It took me a moment to realize she meant Trump. I talked a bit about Bernie, then she said she would look at his website and share it with everyone she knew, if it looked as good as I made him sound.
This was such a treasure when so many calls were hang-ups, or even, in open primary states, curses.
Cool phonebanking anecdote. Bernie did great with Muslims.
I found a lot of support for him when I was out and about canvassing NYC and in the Muslim community. The first two campaign signs I was able to get up were in Middle Eastern places. I even canvassed a total black community in Queens and there was about half and half support, slightly more for Bernie (especially among the younger folks) and was even invited into the home of a young black female who was living with her parents.
If I dwell on the fraudulent election results here my blood will start to boil again. There's no fucking way he lost by 16 points, not even close.
The rallies were massive everywhere, the energy for him (kids stopping in the street to say "we like Bernie," just like it was for Obama), signs and bumperstickers all over the place (and still!). There was absolutely no energy nor visible presence for the Queen anywhere. The NY Primary was serious voter suppression, fraud and an ugly example of who counts the votes wins. Mainstream idiots, party zombies and corporate lapdogs can all laugh and smirk about the long history of this, i.e. Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed, but when it's happening right in front of their face they don't have the temerity to call it out or at least question it enough to stop the results from being broadcast. Sad thing is it will all come out years from now, as it always does. That's what burns me. It's all there in the history books; if only we cared to read such a subject then maybe we could be better prepared to deal with it during our own epoch rather than shrug it off.
No doubt the vicious inner Clinton cabal saw the numbers and the outpouring for Bernie and believed it could capsize them in NY and pulled every trick, favor, arm-twisting, threats and intimidation ("let 'em figure it out later, after the mold's been cast and Bernie loses, that's all we care about. We must dispirit this enthusiasm before it overwhelms us"). Just like RW media and Murdoch's classic modus operandi: run with a lie on the front page headline, repeat it over and over, get the desired effect, and don't worry about the consequences. if you have to issue a retraction/correction do it a few days later when no one cares and have it buried where no one reads it. "As long as we win."
The bastards stole it from him. I'm sure he knows that too.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
The Green Party is on the map in NY
Thanks to the efforts of Howie Hawkins and the Working Families Party.
The Working Families Party screwed themselves in the last Gubernatorial election by putting Andrew Cuomo on their ballot line instead of Zephyr Teachout. Howie Hawkins got enough votes for the Greens to be the number 4 ballot line until 2018. So Jill Stein will be the third candidate listed (if the Conservative Party puts Drumpf on their line).
" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "
Green or Peace and Freedom?
Can someone summarize their differences? Is Peace and Freedom strictly a socialist party where Green simply wants to rein in capitalism and more in the Democratic Socialism mold of Bernie? Green does seem to have the advantage in name and numbers but Peace and Freedom is also a party option in CA.
I'll be re-registering Green party
but voting for Trump.
Why?
Because before the Green Party can ascend, the Democratic Party must be completely destroyed and its stinking corpse dragged out of the way.
Trump must be allowed to drive a stake through the heart of the neoliberal carcass before true Progressives can advance with any party.
Four really crappie years of Trump is the only way to save America. Like a drug addict, America has to hit rock fucking bottom before the people see.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
I hear ya
...but I thought after 8 years of W, the GOP would be destroyed. I'm not strategically voting any more but rather voting for what I want.
I would respectfully ask that you reconsider a vote for Trump
Voting green accomplishes almost the same thing. It amounts to a half vote for Trump since it doesn't go to the Demo-rats, while still giving the Green Party the support it needs for ballot access in the next election. I understand the desire to drive a stake through the heart of the neoliberal carcass, and I think a vote for Jill does that. I'm afraid otherwise your vote for Trump will just be lost among the people who agree with him as Republicans, and won't be counted as a progressive vote. Not trying to tell you how to vote, just sayin'
I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. - e.e.cummings
Have duly reconsidered my vote for Trump
In light of his choice of Pence for VP. Definitely a deal breaker.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.