Green Party Watch

Rosa Clemente, 2008 Green candidate for Vice President, announces ‘Path of Most Resistance’ speaking tour

WASHINGTON, DC — Rosa Clemente, the Green Party’s 2008 candidate for Vice President of the United States, has announced a national speaking tour with a focus on Hip Hop conferences, symposiums, town hall meetings, and many other public events, as well as Black History Month, Women’s History Month, and Latino Heritage Month.

Know Thy Self Productions LLC is organizing the tour, which is titled ‘The Path of Most Resistance Tour 2009.’ Ms. Clemente can be reached at clementerosa@gmail.com and at 347-489-9738.

“The tour will be a chance to continue speaking about the important themes we raised in the McKinney-Clemente campaign,” said Ms. Clemente. “While while many in this country, particularly the Hip-Hop generation, have high hopes for the Obama Administration, now is not the time to be silent. The first few months are critical — we must make our voices heard, if we want to see a real change in the direction of the United States.”
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On The Wilder Side:

Dear Colleagues, Supporters and Media Allies:

A sincere thank you for all your support during mine and Cynthia McKinney’s historic campaign this past year. I am booking now for Black History month, Women’s History month, Latino heritage month, Hip Hop Conferences, Symposiums, and Town Hall meetings.

Sincerely,

Rosa A. Clemente

http://myspace.com/rosaclemente

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Rosa Clemente has written an article for the Green Institute on the Hip Hop Movement, Barack Obama, and the movement she she wants to fight for.

I’m looking forward to more articles like this!

Why President Elect Barack Obama is not the first Hip Hop President

By Rosa A. Clemente
The Green Institute

http://www.greeninstitute.net/clemente_obama

“Each generation out of relative obscurity, must discover its mission, fulfill it, or betray it.” Frantz Fanon

It has been 45 days since the Hip Hop generation helped usher in the first Black male President of the United States of America. Since that historic night, many within Hip Hop culture, like writer Greg Kot of the Boston Globe, entrepreneur Russell Simmons, artists Common, Jay-Z and P. Diddy, have declared President-Elect Obama the first Hip Hop president. In my humble opinion they are wrong, dead wrong. It does not matter how many Hip Hop pundits, non-profit organizations, and recognizable figures within the culture declare it. Much like an MC or B-Girl battle, I’m ready to challenge that declaration.

As a long time community organizer and Hip Hop activist and journalist, I have always followed a rule: never allow someone to become your priority while you become his or her option. For President Elect Barack Obama and the entire Democrat Party leadership in this country, the Hip Hop generation has never been a priority, we have always been an option and that option is used mostly to get out the vote during elections. Efforts like Vote or Die, Generation Vote, Rock the Vote, Respect my Vote, do not empower a generation – they are catchy slogans emblazoned on pretty white tees that offer empty rhetoric. At the end of the day, those G.O.T.V. efforts become guaranteed votes for the Democratic Party and often fail to educate their followers about candidates that run outside of the two-party system….

Read the rest of the article here at the Green Institute

Two weeks ago a friend called me up to tell me that she had just voted early for Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente and she was so overjoyed she had to call someone and tell them (and she knew I would answer my phone).

Last week my mother-in-law in Iowa, who is not very political and has likely voted Republican most of her life, called us with some “big news”, she was excited. She called to say that she “Voted Green Party for the first time ever, and it felt great!”

Early voting in my city has involved two hour waits, but this morning I had no wait at the polls (I guess everyone voted early) and got my ballot in minutes. Yes, there was a sense of exaltation to cast my vote for Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente. No doubts, no second thoughts, no throwing my vote away. Voting your values just feels good.

Candidates go to election parties of course!

Rosa Clemente, VP Candidate on the Green Party Ticket, will be watching election results in New York City at the SB3 Bar in the East Village (33 Ave. B @ 3rd St.) along with DJ K Salaam, DJ Sergio Vega, UMI, S.O.U.L. Purpose, J Love, Rebel Diaz, N.Y. Oil, Hakim, and Khalil Al Mustafa.

Cynthia McKinney, Green Party candidate for President, is rumored to be spending election night at the Campaign HQ of Cindy Sheehan in San Francisco (1260 Mission St.)

In an article at OpEdNews, Amee Chew makes a compelling case for the Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente vote:

The Green Party Presidential ticket of Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente brings something special and unprecedented to U.S. politics. Not only are they the first all women-of-color ticket for President and Vice President. These women take racial justice seriously, and have made strides to put gender at the center of a progressive agenda. For these two, it’s more than skin deep.

They’re the Presidential ticket that talks about amnesty for undocumented workers, that opposes guest worker programs as riddled with abuses, because they believe a just immigration reform means addressing the trade and economic policies fueling poverty and migration. They’re the ticket that demands reparations in the form of federal investment in low-income families and communities of color, to end racial disparities in health, housing, education, and incarceration. They call for the right of return for Katrina survivors; an end to prisons for profit, to the War on Drugs. And they speak of reproductive justice – not just the right to abortion, but actual healthcare access; of freedom from coerced or uninformed medication and sterilization.

Very well said, and the article continues to emphasize the “movement building” aspect to the Power to the People campaign and the Green Party.

Unfortunately, she also brings up the dreaded “safe states strategy” that tormented the Green Party for years, but I’ll pretend that those 6 sentences were interjected to appeal to Obama supporters driven by fear.

The rest of the article itemizes the blackout of the McKinney / Clemente message by not only the main stream media but by the traditional “progressive” organizations such as NOW, AntiWar.com, and Comedy Central’s Indecision2008 (although I wouldn’t consider that “progressive” per se…)

The article is worth a read.

Cynthia McKinney is campaigning in Seattle today, but will be heading to Texas later this week. Cynthia McKinney and running mate Rosa Clemente will be meeting up in Texas to tour areas ravaged by Hurricane Ike, and speak to people about their Power to the People campaign for President.

Cynthia McKinney, former Congresswoman who lead the investigation into the federal government response to Hurricane Katrina, will be in Galveston for a Press Conference on Thursday, October 30th. A follow-up Press Release will give specifics.

Beginning 10 days after Hurricane Katrina ravaged parts of the south, Rosa Clemente provided on the ground reporting as an independent journalist to independent radio stations and mainstream media outlets all over the world. Friday, October 31st she will travel to Galveston.

On October 30th and 31st, voters in Texas will hear what these women have to say about current issues impacting our local communities and those that continue to be put on the back burner during every election season – class struggle, the prison industrial complex, media justice, gentrification, a just immigration policy, police brutality, war crimes and impeachment proceedings being levied on those responsible in high office, and addressing the Palestinian perspective in the Middle East.

Rounding out their Tejas Tour, Rosa Clemente speaks in San Anto Oct 30th at Ruta Maya Cafe and at HallowGreen in Houston, Oct 31 at the Houston Institute for Culture. Cynthia McKinney will be speaking at the S.H.A.P.E. Center in Houston, October 30th, be interviewed Oct. 31st on on KHVN-AM Radio (97.0) from 12-1PM, and participate in a free, public Candidate Forum in Plano, Oct 31, at the MAS Youth Center.
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Green Party Vice Presidential nominee Rosa Clemente has confirmed her appearance on Green Party Watch Radio today from 3 to 3:30 PM. To listen live, or later if that is more convenient, simply click here.

Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente will be campaigning non-stop between now and the election…and after.

According to the campaign, Cynthia McKinney will be stopping in four states. Rosa Clemente will be in four states as well.

Check the campaign website for later details, but tentatively Cynthia McKinney’s schedule looks like:

• October 22-25 – Los Angeles, but also including NPR’s Talk of the Nation today from 1-3 EST, and Saturday’s Weekend Edition Oct 25 at 8 a.m. EST.
• October 26-27 – Seattle, WA – see this for details
• October 28-30 – Illinois (no details yet)
• October 31-Nov. 1 – Texas (with Rosa Clemente, Galveston and San Antonio were mentioned)
• Nov. 2-4 – Los Angeles

Rosa Clemente’s schedule:

• This week – North Carolina, interviews
• Oct. 29 – Bucknell University, Pennsylvania
• Oct. 31-Nov. 1 – Texas (with Cynthia McKinney)
• Nov. 3-6 – New York City (tentative)

Following the election, the candidates may be challenging election fraud if necessary.  Voting irregularities are already being reported.

Van Jones
Getting started at about the same time we did here at GPW, Pinko Magazine has an interesting article about a program at Radio Nation with Laura Flanders. The program includes Van Jones of Green for All, and our own Rosa Clemente. You can listen to the program here

Green Party Vice Presidential nominee Rosa Clemente will be my guest on Green Party Watch Radio.

Clemente has been speaking across the nation on behalf of the Green Party and the McKinney/Clemente ticket. A Hip Hop journalist and activist, Clemente has brought a focus on new constituencies and fresh ideas to the Green Party.

From the Joplin Independent

The Progressive Party of Missouri announced that they have filed the required paperwork with the Missouri Secretary of State’s office to allow Green Party presidential nominee Cynthia McKinney to be a certified write-in candidate in the November 4th general election. McKinney, a former six-term congresswoman from Georgia was nominated to be at the top of the Green Party’s historic all woman presidential ticket at their July nominating convention in Chicago. Rosa Clemente, a hip-hop activist journalist from New York was chosen to be the Green Party’s nominee for vice-president.

Midge Potts, state co-chair of the Progressive Party of Missouri, said, “I am proud to be able to write-in Cynthia McKinney for president on my ballot this year. Missourians are demanding real change in the American political system, and Congresswoman McKinney’s Power to the People movement is appealing to many.” Potts is herself running as a write-in candidate for US representative against House Republican Whip Roy Blunt in Missouri’s 7th Congressional District.

McKinney has earned a reputation for seeking honest answers from Bush administration officials. While serving in the US House of Representatives, she vigorously questioned former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in regard to the $2.3 trillion missing in the Pentagon’s budget. McKinney also filed articles of impeachment against George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice.

As president, McKinney claims she would responsibly end the US military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, work to create a Department of Peace, and implement a not-for-profit single-payer health care system.

In an earlier post I asked for ideas, big ideas, to move the Green Party and the McKinney/Clemente ticket forward in the last few weeks of campaigning. In reply, Joe Truss stepped up and offered this:

here’s an idea.

create a series of short PSAs for the Green Party, that are positive, accessible, proactive, well framed and informative. provide responses for all the skeptics, challengers, and naysayers.

our hip hop group is working in collaboration with Green Members in Northern California, and the National Party to create the content and then film these PSA clips.

we are looking for help with the responses, help with refining them to create scripts, and a diverse group of people to be on camera presenting our responses.

please contact me, joe truss, member of some of all parts (run, historical moment), to get involved. we need help. not many days left, but we have a final knock out punch.

contact me for more info

If you have not watched their video, you must. It quite literally brings tears to my eyes.

And this is the most important part of Joe’s message, in my opinion:positive, accessible, proactive, well framed and informative

OK folks…there ya go. Get in touch. Life is not a dress rehearsal, and politics is a full contact sport. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente have committed themselves to us. Can we expect less from ourselves?

The Green Party does not have a state chapter in Kentucky, but the McKinney/Clemente ticket is doing what they can to have their supporter’s votes count. As a write-in candidate, the campaign still needs to list the electors who would cast the votes if our ticket wins that state’s votes.

If you live in Kentucky and are willing to sign up as a McKinney/Clemente elector, please write: secretary at gp.org. or post a reply here.

The Green Party of New York State website, says that Green Party Vice Presidential nominee Rosa Clemente is headed their way this Friday, October 10th at 6:30pm at New York University in Manhattan.

100 Washington Square East, Silver Building, Room 207.

In other Rosa Clemente news, she was interviewed by Election411.org, a website of Pacifica Radio station KPFA.

She is also interviewed on Free Speech Radio News.