Green Party Watch

Hot Indie News reports:

Green Parties in several states are co-sponsoring and hosting a ‘No Nukes Tour’ of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida from Monday, October 3, to Saturday, October 8.The No Nukes Tour, with the slogan “Organize the South!”, will feature Green activist and candidate Howie Hawkins. Mr. Hawkins has been an organizer in movements for peace, justice, labor, the environment, and independent politics and against nuclear power since the late 1960s.

The tour will kick off with a press conference at 10 am at the Raleigh Old State House in North Carolina.

For more information and a schedule of tour events, read the article at Hot Indie News.

Greens Demand Real Reductions in Incarceration Costs
Reject Deal Reforms which Fail to Challenge Racist Impact

After last week praising Governor Deal’s expressed concern for the wasted lives, drained treasury and depleted workforce left in the wake of the nation’s war on drugs, Georgia Green Party leaders today rejected Deal’s specific proposals. “None of this will meaningfully impact the budget, end the state’s social control of non-violent and victimless behaviors, nor undermine the racial caste system created by our current policy,” said Hugh Esco, Secretary of the Georgia Green Party. “The state’s disparate enforcement and prosecution of the drug use of working people while ignoring that of wealthy people costs our communities in ways far beyond those mentioned by the Governor the other day. The impacts are as venal as Jim Crow.”
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Georgia Green Party leadership today are urging that calls of concern be placed to the Georgia Department of Corrections urging negotiations with, not retribution against peaceful strikers in six Georgia prisons.

In a call to action published at the Georgia Green Party and a blog post, at: http://www.georgiagreenparty.org/blogs/bdixon/GA_InmatesStageHistoricOneDayPrisonStrikeToday the Party publishes the demands of striking prisoners and urges a humanitarian response. Inmate grievances range from the criminal neglect they suffer for lack of adequate health care, meals heavy on starches and short of vegetables, over crowded conditions in facilities which fail to protect from the extremes of Georgia’s climate, the barriers created to family visits and phone contact, among other specifics laid out in the press release available on the site.

In an action which is unprecedented on several levels, black, brown and white inmates of Georgia’s notorious state prison system are standing together for an historic one day peaceful strike today, during which they are remaining in their cells, refusing work and other assignments and activities.

“This is a groundbreaking event not only because inmates are standing up for themselves and their own human rights,” said Bruce Dixon, Press Secretary of the Georgia Green Party, “but because prisoners are setting an example by reaching across racial boundaries which, in prisons, have historically been used to pit oppressed communities against each other.”
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From the Georgia Green Party:

David Rovics will grace the stage at a benefit for the Georgia Green Party on Friday evening, November 12th at the Spring4th Center (in the SouthWest corner of Spring and Fourth Streets) at 728 Spring St NW in Midtown Atlanta, across the street from a parking lot, convenient to the interstate and two blocks from the North Avenue MARTA station.

Party supporters who can help with publicity and advanced ticket sales are urged to volunteer by calling 678-298-9463.

Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report has written a blog post on Open Left entitled “Moving the conversation forward – our plan in Georgia”, which describes a plan for building the Georgia Green Party from the ground up. See also the discussion in the comments section.

From Bruce Dixon at Black Agenda Report:

Can a black president be guilty of environmental racism? President Obama’s new proposed nukes are in one of the poorest areas east of the Mississippi. Burke County Georgia is majority black, the home of existing commercial nuclear reactors and directly across the river from the Savannah River nuclear weapons facility. Its river is the 4^th most polluted in the nation, and its residents are suffering a veritable epidemic of unexplained cancers, with no local, federal, public or private funds available to test their air, soil, water or environment for its causes.  But Burke County’s residents are neither silent nor powerless. read more »

WASHINGTON, DC — Green Party leaders and candidates are calling President Obama’s resurrection of nuclear power with a multi-billion-dollar taxpayer-funded subsidy for a Georgia plant his “worst idea yet” and warned about serious public health threats posed by mining, waste transportation, and waste storage. The Green Party disputes the myths that nuclear power is ‘green energy’ or a solution to the advance of climate change.

“The twin nuclear reactors in Burke County, Georgia, would be financed with $5.4 billion in loans from the Federal Financing Bank with money of the US Treasury. According to the GAO, this investment has a 50/50 percent or worse chance of failing. President Obama wants taxpayers to assume 80% of the financial risk to turn the southeast Atlantic states into a big open-pit radioactive barbeque. This investment is a terrible idea — President Obama’s worst yet,” said Lisa Green, Green candidate for California Assembly Candidate, 53rd Assembly District (http://www.votelisagreen.net). read more »

Bruce Dixon of Black Agenda Report has an intriguing article about the future plans of the Georgia Green Party to address the issue of the high rate of incarceration among African-Americans. The article is entitled “Why Democrats and Republicans won’t confront the issue of black mass incarceration, and why the Green Party will”. Some excerpts:

With less than 5% of the world’s population, the US accounts for a quarter of the world’s prisoners. While African Americans are only an eighth the population, we account for almost half the locked down… An astounding three percent of all black Americans are in prisons and jails, the majority for drug charges, although black and white rates of drug use have been virtually identical for decades…

Georgia’s Green Party, BAR has learned, will announce tomorrow that its major focus for the coming two years, including the 2010 election cycle, will be making a political issue out of black mass incarceration. The Green Party of GA intends to do this by running candidates for the state legislature and for district attorney and sheriff, not just in metro Atlanta, but in Augusta, Macon, Columbus, Savannah and elsewhere. read more »

Former Green Party national co-chair Greg Gerritt of Rhode Island, Green Party mayor of the Village of Greenwich, NY and national party web manager David Doonan and Campaign Foundations and Georgia Green Party co-founder Hugh Esco have founded a new business to help Greens running for office win their elections.

This business, a cooperative, will focus on helping Greens with a wide variety of tasks associated with elections. Taking on such varied responsibilities as helping assemble campaign management teams, starting a fundraising program and website design, the cooperative intends to offer these services to Green candidates at as low a cost as possible. They also intend to offer services in ballot access petitioning.

Gerritt sent GPW a more detailed statement of the cooperative’s plans, which can be read by clicking this article’s headline.

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Michigan Green Ken Mathenia is running for Congress in Michigan and the linked article covers his campaign as well as the Libertarian and others in the race.

Over at Ballot Access News we find a report that the Vermont Green Party lost their ballot access suit. I can’t find a link to any official Vermont Green Party website, so I don’t know what that means.

Home Town Source reports that the Minnesota Independence Party is meeting to discuss endorsements, and the article says that Cullen Lee is running with both party’s endorsements for the state House of Representatives.

WizNews reports on Tim Kettler’s campaign for Ohio’s 20th Senate District seat.

The Atlanta Progressive News has an extended article about Cynthia McKinney appearing in that city.

Finally, 56 You Tube videos by RunCynthiaRun can be found at the link above. Check ‘em out!

Over at The Champion Newspapers they are carrying a piece about Cynthia McKinney winning support in her native Georgia at the state Green Party convention back on May 3rd, securing seven of that state’s eight delegates. Kat Swift won the eight delegate.

The Park Slope Greens in NYC are encouraging their membership to attend the city convention and get set to be a delegate to the nominating convention set for July in Chicago.

Stories In The News of Ketchikan, Alaska carries an editorial about third parties, calling us “ever hopeful”.