Green Party Watch

There are several opportunities to come out and support and party with some Green Party candidates in the midwest this weekend:

• Brenda Konkel, Madison Wisconsin Common Council:
  Don’t forget to stop by the Brink Lounge (701 E. Washington Ave) tonight (Friday 3/20) from 5-7pm! Curt Brink is hosting a fundraiser for Brenda so come by to have a drink, pizza and snacks. AND, most fun of all, we’ll be taping short video endorsements by YOU, Brenda’s friends & supporters!
• Matt Reichel, Illinois 5th CD House of Representatives (Chicago): The next opportunity to meet with other progressives and support Matt for Congress is on Sunday, March 22, at 2 P.M.  Conrad Weisert has been kind enough to host a coffee fundraiser at on 4620 N. Austin Avenue, Chicago, 60630.  It is located on the corner of Austin & Eastwood across from St. Robert Bellarmine Church.  Come down to Conrad’s on March 22nd to meet with Matt and his staff, discuss politics with fellow progressives, and lend your support to the only progressive candidate currently running for office on a federal level!
• Pete Karas, running for Mayor of Racine, Wisconsin: Party With Pete! Saturday March 21, 5 – 7:30 p.m. at Park Six in Racine (Corner of Park and 6th). Live music by special guest, Jim Schwall, (guitar and mandolin) co-leader of the Siegel-Schwall Band, “one of the best acts in America”, – Billboard Magazine.  Great food, cash bar, and the Wisconsin Green Party is in town so come hang with the Greens!

Also there is a House Party at Pete Karas’ place tonight, 821 Blaine Ave, Racine.  I’ll be there (a little late), other Wisconsin Greens will be there, Pete will be there, George Martin might be there, and you should be there!  The Friday night house party is a tradition before the Saturday Spring Membership Meeting (Wisconsin Green Party).

If Local Economies is your cup of tea, the afternoon session of the Wisconsin Green Party Spring Gathering on Saturday will include a Local Economies Forum with John Peck (Family Farm Defenders) speaking on “Relocalizing a Community’s Economy-from land trusts and local currencies for farmer markets and worker collectives”, as well as Green Elected Greg David on The Natural Step to Green Economies and Michael Slattery on local level energy planning, and Amy Mondloch of the Grassroots Leadership College will lead a discussion with the public in attendance.

The Wisconsin Green Party Spring Gathering and Membership Meeting will be at Blueberries Restaurant (522 6th St, Racine) beginning at 8:30 a.m., Local Economies Forum begins at 1 p.m., followed the Party with Pete next door.

In Oshkosh, former Wisconsin Green Party co-chair Bob Poeschl is campaigning hard for a seat on the Oshkosh Common Council. Six candidates are running for three seats in this at-large campaign and the top three vote getters will win on April 7. Bob came in third place out of 7 in the February primary so he is now working to take advantage of that in these final weeks:

As you might know I took a solid 3rd place in the February 17th primary. Though this is a great showing, it still does not leave me in an easy position to win this April. April elections are filled with special interests and endorsements like the Oshkosh Chamber of Commerce, The Realtors Association and the Oshkosh Northwestern. Also this election has a very heated school referendum on the ballot, which adds greatly to the mix of things. So this leads me to express my need to raise *$500 in 5 days* … I would like to add newspaper (500) and radio advertising because it allows my message to be out in the public through different means.

I am running a very grassroots campaign, knocking on doors, networking at community events and service organizations and have been dropping literature in neighborhoods every weekend (with some help) since the primary…there are several ways that you can support my campaign for Oshkosh Common Council. *First, Spread the Word! Second, Help out on lit drops that take place every Saturday and Sunday until the election! Third, Donate to the campaign!

You can support the Poeschl Campaign by sending donations to:

Poeschl for Common Council
912 Bay Shore Drive
Oshkosh, WI 54901

Bob Poeschl isn’t the only Green on the ballot in Oshkosh – incumbent Council member Tony Palmeri is running for re-election. In the February primary Tony came in first place, but as Bob noted above there are constantly changing dynamics and a contentious school referendum on the ballot and it is hard to predict how people will vote. Two years ago as a challenger Palmeri finished second in a field of six. Palmeri has made a lot more friends and a lot more enemies since being elected to the Common Council, and he is considered the front runner on April 7.

April local elections in Wisconsin are non-partisan.

Tony Palmeri’s Website
Bob Poeschl’s Website
Wisconsin Green Party

John Rensenbrink, author of “Against All Odds : The Green Transformation of American Politics“, is the latest addition to the Green Party’s First 100 Days series, and takes a more comprehensive approach to what America might see in the first 100 days of a Green Party Government.

It paints a very appealing set of actions and policies that are very hard to disagree with. The entire essay is posted below. What are your thoughts? Is there anything that you would add or remove?

Policies for The First 100 Days of a Green Party Administration in Washington by John Rensenbrink

The Green Party’s President-Elect is about to take office in Washington, D.C. She will be joined by Green Party majorities in both Houses of Congress.

Domestic Policy

Initiate a one-trillion dollar community-based grant-in-aid program from the national government to local communities. These funds will be channeled though collaborative arrangements between state and local governments. They will require maximum feasible participation in governance by all parts of each local community receiving these grants. Also required is a 5% matching grant from each participating local community.

The purposes of the grants are for sustainable community development and community empowerment. The grants include funds for renewable energy, conservation, work-force housing, small business development coupled with apprenticeship programs to hire the unskilled, open space, extra support for teachers and for ecologically informed education, college scholarships, food and water security, public works, public transportation, regional cooperative projects, support for neighborhood policing programs, and support for the arts. This replaces the 750 Billion dollar “bailout from the top” scheme initiated in late 2008 called the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).
read more »

Today is Cynthia McKinney’s birthday, she is 54 today.

Happy Birthday!

Water is the focus of Proposal 380. This concept was first delivered to the EcoAction committee email list on June 3rd. The full text of this and the final proposal are below the fold.

The proposal is action oriented and focused on ways that Green candidates and Green Party chapters can develop expertise in a crucial area with few non-government or non-corporate experts to compete against. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will take the fundamentally different approaches to water issues Greens will.

Mato Ska will discuss this proposal again this Sunday at 3 PM East Coast time on GPW Radio. Voting on the proposal runs from now to the 22nd. Currently there are 27 “yes” votes and one “abstain” from 16 states. No caucuses have voted as yet. 34 states or caucuses must vote to meet the .66 quorum requirement.

This story at the Independent says

Water scarcity ‘now bigger threat than financial crisis’

The Bronx Greens are carrying a front page story

Buried Secrets: Is Natural Gas Drilling Endangering U.S. Water Supplies?

by Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica.org.

read more »

The Green National Committee has finished voting on Proposal 379, which elects members of the Green Party’s Senate Campaign Committee, and Proposal 378, which elects members of the Green House Campaign Committee. The Green Party is the only non-corporate political party with Federal Election Commission recognized Senate and House Campaign Committees.

The results of the voting is unclear. In the case of the Senate Committee, 70 votes were cast by 32 states. No write-in votes were cast, and 7 candidates sought 7 seats. In the case of the House Committee, 70 votes were cast by 33 states . One write-in vote was cast, and three candidates sought nine seats. According to an email from Phil Huckelberry, floor manager for both proposals, the write-in vote would be counted, and assuming the write-in candidate agrees to serve, s/he would be considered elected. The rules under which the House Campaign Committee was created would seem to indicate that the Green National Committee must now undertake a new election to fill the rest of the seats on the House Committee.

To muddy the waters even further, since neither the House Campaign Committee nor the Senate Campaign Committee elections secured votes from 34 or more of the eligible states and caucuses, neither proposal can be said to have passed. The quorum requirement for both these proposals is .66 participation in voting, or 34 of 50. None of the party’s caucuses cast a vote on either proposals, and absentee votes are accounted for.

Mark Pocan, one of the most progressive members of the Wisconsin State Assembly, has endorsed Brenda Konkel (Green Party) in her race for re-election to the Madison Common Council (video below). Pocan has been a ‘Green friendly’ legislator in Wisconsin, even seeking Green Party input into a clean elections bill he was working on last year.

The endorsement is big for Konkel as Pocan lives in her district and is very well liked in progressive circles (i.e. everywhere) in Madison.

If you are in Madison between now and April 7 consider stopping by one of these great campaign events for the Brenda Konkel campaign:

* Friday, March 20th: Come to the Brink Lounge (701 E. Washington) from 5-7pm for a fundraiser and also to tape your own video endorsement message of Brenda! (Don’t you want to be just like Mark Pocan?!)
* Sunday, March 22nd: Camelot Apartments House Party 1-3pm at the Camelot Clubhouse, hosted by Betty Banks & Cynthia Graham.
* Saturday, March 28th, 4-6pm: Party at at Bill Whitford’s house, 1047 Sherman Ave featuring the world premiere performance of an ORIGINAL song written for Brenda by Madison’s own singer/songwriter extraordinaire Peter Leidy.
*Sunday, March 29th, 1:30-3:30 House Party at Joe Lusson’s house, 627 E. Gorham.

Also please consider dropping Brenda a few dollars for her campaign. She is running against a candidate with some establishment backing and money and Brenda is relying solely on the contributions of individuals to help her get re-elected.

From the Green Party:

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders challenged the Obama Administration to reverse the failed policies and reject the agenda of the Bush Administration, citing as examples the war on drugs; torture, illegal surveillance, and other Bush-Cheney abuses of power; and cuts in Social Security.

“The Clinton Administration accomplished what the Republicans had tried to enact but failed — welfare ‘reform’, NAFTA and other antidemocratic international trade authorities, deregulation of credit markets and telecommunications giants. Will Barack Obama deliver what George W. Bush promised?” asked Budd Dickinson, co-chair of the Green Party of the United States.

Greens said that the Democratic Party’s retreats, betrayals, and capitulations on so many major issues proved the failure of the two-party status quo and the need for the Green Party’s emergence.

WAR ON DRUGS The bipartisan war on drugs has proven disastrous on two fronts, said Greens. Domestically, it has resulted in the incarceration of record numbers of Americans, especially young African Americans, Latinos, and poor people on nonviolent drug charges, with one in 31 Americans now in prison or on parole. South of the border, US drug prohibition has led to the breakdown of civil order, with powerful drug cartels, corrupt law enforcement, and a spike in killings most recently in Mexico, and similar long-term effects in Colombia and other Latin American countries where drug production serves a US market.
read more »

Two more videos are out for the Pete Karas campaign for Mayor of Racine. Pete is running in a special election on April 7 against 12 other candidates. The top two will face off May 5.

This second video is from an interview with Insider News, Racine’s black owned newspaper:

Pete Karas Website – give now if you can.

In a webcast at Green Party Watch Radio, California Green Mato Skadiscussed Proposal 380, which says

Protecting water is a priority for the Green Party at the national, state and local levels

During the discussion, Mato Ska explained the reasons behind Proposal 380, how he and the rest of the EcoAction Committee see it benefiting state and local Green Party chapters and candidates, and gives real life examples of how this proposal will both separate the Green Party from the corporate parties and connect our own friends who may not normally think of one another as allies. Family farmers who need water for crops and city dwellers who want a reliable source of safe clean drinking water both have a shared interest in water conservation, re-use and recycling.

More under the fold as I find the time to write it up, but don’t wait, listen to the show now! read more »

This isn’t a new song (I think it came out during the Presidential campaign last fall) but a post at AxisofLogic today posted this video with the text of the “Open Letter” and I felt moved to re-post it here. Great song, great message. I like the rip on Eminem’s Letter. Words below the fold.

“You know what I’m saying? So I’m sittin’ here seeing people like Rosa Clemente; like Cynthia McKinney you know what I’m sayin? Seeing people that’s really talkin about change. Sometimes I just feel confused about all these things. It go like this, look…”

read more »

As of March 11, 2009 the Green Party has 98 candidates so far for office in 2009. Most of these candidates are running in local elections in Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Compared to past “off years” Green Party candidate recruitment is significantly higher.

According to Brent McMillan, Executive Director of GPUS, by March 11, 2007 the Green Party had 44 candidates, and by March 14, 2005, the Green Party had 35 candidates.

By the end of those years, 2005 saw 200 total Green Party candidates, and 2007 saw 147 Green Party candidates. “Off years”, the odd years between congressional election years, typically have far fewer candidates than even years.

You can search the GPUS Candidate Database here.

In an article at the San Francisco Chronicle, Green Party City Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi is quoted saying

“He shot to rock-star status with the green jobs movement,” said San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, a Green Party member who has known (Van) Jones for years.

Jones has been tapped by the Obama administration to advise them on green jobs, enterprise and innovation.

Green Party state legislator Richard Carroll has been in the news. WREG reports

One of the bills would require anyone who has been certified to appear on the ballot to be allowed to participate in election debates that take place at a site that receives public funds.

The other measure, which failed by one vote, would have made it easier for third-party candidates to be included on the ballot.

H/T to Morgan Brykein at Independent Political Report.

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In the first of a series of articles at AtlerNet, writer Joseph Romm says that the global economy is a global ponzi scheme. The article, Why the Global Economy Is a Ponzi Scheme and We Are All Bernie Madoffs argues that the current generation and those of the recent past have used up so much of the planet’s resources read more »