Green Party Watch

Cecile Lawrence has joined the list of 5 candidates contending for Green Party nominations in New York’s 2 US Senate races this year. The other candidates are Randy Credico, Robert Gumbs, Sander Hicks, and Jeff Peress. Cecile Lawrence has posted an announcement on her website including some biographical info and key points of the platform she plans to run on:

Artist, writer, survivor, I’ve agreed to run for U.S. Senator from New York State as a Green Party candidate in the 2010 election.
I’m originally from Jamaica where I was born and lived until age 21. My education includes a B.A. from the University of the West Indies – Mona campus http://www.mona.uwi.edu/about/
M.A. in English from the University at Albany – http://www.albany.edu/
J.D. in Law from the University at Buffalo – http://www.buffalo.edu/
Ph.D. in Philosophy, Interpretation and Culture from Binghamton University – http://www2.binghamton.edu/

I’ve lived and worked in New York City, NY; Albany, NY; Buffalo, NY; Fort Lauderdale, FLA, and in the Southern Tier of NYS.

As you can see from my posts and photos on this blog I’ve been a social change activist for almost 20 years, focusing on health issues broadly defined.

I’ve testified in Albany and in NYC at the hearings leading up to the New York State Managed Care Bill of Rights.
I’ve demonstrated and lobbied in Albany and in Washington, D.C. on health reform and for National Single Payer.
I’ve also demonstrated in Washington, D.C. more than once to end the war in Iraq and well as participated in anti-war vigils in Binghamton, NY and in Owego, NY.
I’ve bussed with NYCLU to Washington, D.C. to demonstrate and to lobby against the attack on Habeas Corpus and watering down of other constitutional guarantees carried out by the Bush administrations.
I’ve been to Washington, D.C., as a board member of the Southern Tier Independence Center (STIC), to demonstrate at the U.S. Supreme Court during the hearing of the Kevorkian case, side by side with people with disabilities. Not Dead Yet!

Since the spring of 2009 I’ve been actively involved with individuals and groups fighting the impending deployment of the forces of slick-water high volume fracturing for natural gas into the Marcellus Shale AKA fracking for Nat-Gas.
I’ve spoken at hearings of the Susquehanna River Basin Commission in Binghamton, NY and Elmira, NY, at the hearing of the NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation in Broome County, NY on the draft Supplemental Generic Impact Statement to address fracking for Nat-Gas, at the Binghamton hearing on the State’s Energy Plan, and attended a meeting of the Delaware River Basin Commission held in Bethlehem, PA.
Like others my ultimate goal is for a ban on this method of drilling not just in NYS, but nationwide and in any country where a U.S. based oil/gas corporation is engaged in drilling.

PLATFORM -
*End the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – bring home all U.S. military forces in those countries by Dec. 1, 2011.
*Nuclear disarmament, including a ban on all new nuclear and fossil fuel power plants and phase-out of existing nuclear and fossil fuel power plants along with funding for a conversion to non fossil fuel sources of energy.
*Universal single payer health care, including the stand down of all for-profit health insurance companies, with such health care to include those treatment practices of complementary/alternative medicines based on evidence deemed valid by a newly formed panel of worldwide medical practitioners and researchers from a variety of medical modalities
*Appropriately fund research into medical modalities other than that of Western medicine
*A federal law banning the death penalty nationwide
*Reform trading activities on Wall Street to effectively prevent the 2008 financial crisis from re-occurring, including the formation of a National Bank, operated as a federal agency, as well as the nationalization of all banks and financial institutions found to have caused the 2008 financial crisis and which a federal bail-out of a take-over of their toxic investments
*A federal law removing person-hood from corporations OR the calling of a Constitutional Convention with the goal of passing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution stripping person-hood from all corporations.
*A federal law legalizing same sex marriage as a civil contract.
*A ban on foreclosure of owner-occupied housing fulfilling specified economic criteria
*Provide appropriate funds to the states to create initiatives for affordable housing to eliminate homelessness nationwide by January 11, 2012 through examples such as that of http://www.affordablehousingatl.org/ and based on the research set out in

http://www.affordablehousinginstitute.org/

*Reform immigration laws, as proposed by the NYS Labor-Religion Coalition, which includes:
1. the protection of due process
2. a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants
3. protection for all workers, documented and undocumented
4. access to education for all youth
5. unity for all of immigrant families
*A federal law that guarantees a national living wage.
*Ban all methods of drilling for oil and gas, including slick water high volume hydraulic fracturing, on U.S. land nationwide and in all U.S. coastal waters as of January 11, 2011.
*By January 11, 2011, institute a national works program, funded by a tax surcharge on trading activities on Wall Street, to put people then unemployed in respectful work in needed areas
*Ensure that all national parks remain open and appropriately funded and that parkland will never be sold or leased for extraction of minerals, oil or gas
*Decriminalize marijuana, with appropriate regulation for the production and sale of same, along with the release of all those incarcerated for possession of same via an orderly process, not to exceed six months after January 11, 2011.
*Through tax surcharges on the profits of oil and gas corporation, provide grants for retrofitting of construction more than five years old for improved insulation of all exterior surfaces for home-owners at 300% or less of poverty. Also, provide incentives for the development and installation of solar panels on every appropriate roof in the nation, particularly schools and public buildings, as well as residential housing.
*Nationalize all interstate railway tracks and upgrade for high speed rail, with RFPs put out by March 1, 2011, with construction to start no later than June 1, 2011.
*Through tax surcharges on those with incomes of $1 million plus, provide funding for the construction of light rail within the states.
*Cease all subsidies on corn, wheat and soy provided to agricultural corporations with profits of $500,000 or more per year.
*Ban the planting of all Genetically Modified seeds or plants anywhere in the U.S.
*Cancel all subsidies to CAFOs (Concentrated animal feeding operations) along with banning such operations nationwide with an executive order to be signed by February 22, 2011 that all existing CAFOs be dismantled in an orderly process along with clean-up of their pollution.

Tags: Cecile Lawrence, New York

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 11th, 2010 at 9:26 am and is filed under Congressional Campaigns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.