Memorial on National Mall Sept 24, 2005

GPAX ROCKS!

Ralph Nader and Muscadine Wine

GPAX ROCKS!

Its the Platforms Stupid or Free the Sheep

So this friend of mine who still wears a scarlet D on his voter registration card invites me to a democratic party get together. He said I can check out the next Governor of Florida. I told him it would be a slow hurricane season in Florida before I go to a demtogether, unless there was something in it for me. I told him it was as insulting as if he was inviting me to a lynching or execution.

And I tell him how much I despise what the party stands for, and that it suckers good folks like him into voting for a multinational corporate war machine in disguise as a possibly reformable political party. So we argue a little. And I bring up the platforms. Well like a whole lot of democratic party activists I have worked with, he hadnt read his own parties platform. He didnt know what it was, and I tried to explain. I told him how his party published a manifesto of machismo while the Green Party Platform shines as blue print of all my wildest utopian dreams.

I had to stop talking to him at that point. He was a blinded follower and all the glowing idealism I could muster could not penetrate the goggles he was touting.

But I stewed on it. This is a decent guy from all I can tell. A wife, a couple kids. An Election Reform Activist. And yet a democrat.

So today I sent him an email with a link to the two platforms. I want to share it here to.

I was in Milwaukee at the Green National Convention in 2004, so I got to learn about how a party adopts a platform.

I also live in south Florida, where the dems had their platform meetings. I confess, I used that to my advantage. You see a bunch of friends I know supported Kucinich, and worse (Kerry and Dean). So I encouraged them all to embrace the party they were touting and go to the Dem's Platform shindig. They went. They went with idealism. They went carrying a vision of a peaceful nation headed by Kucinich. They came back with a bitter taste in their mouth. They came back after the dems shot down addressing an end to the war and Iraq. They came back after watching a their party draft a platform writeen in US and Iraqi Blood(and of course Afhanistan, columbia, palestine, etc...)

Many of them are now Greens.

I suspect the most dangerous thing I can do to keep the democratic war party from growing is to expose it for what it is. And they arent really even trying to hard to pretend to be a peoples party any more. "Strong at Home, Respected in the World" is a love song to capitilistic militarization of the world (i.e. fascism). It sounds almost like a WWF tournament. I love the upbeat start of the document featuring planks such as:

• Defeating Terrorism
• Keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of terrorists
• Strengthening our Military
• Strengthening Homeland Security

My personal favorite is Standing Up for the Great Middle Class. Well you bet it is a Great thing to be middle Class. But let me tell you one thing it aint so Great to be poor in this Strong at Home, Respected in the World Country. Because in this country, Dems will leave the poor starving on the side of a highway, just as quick as Republicans. Dems will beat the drums to send your children to war just as quick.

And their sheep will keep putting cute peace stickers on the car, and anticipate the day Hillary Clinton, Former Walmart Board Member, wife of man who passed NAFTA, Senator who is calling for tens of thousands more troops in Iraq, will be the first democratic Party Presidential Nominee.

Until the sheep find the platforms.


Free the sheep share these links everywhere.

FREE THE SHEEP!
Democratic War Party Platform
http://www.democrats.org/pdfs/2004platform.pdf

Green Party Platform
http://www.gp.org/platform/2004/

Maine Greens Rock!

Here's a press release from the cold north, where the Greens are hot!

Portland Green Independent Elected Officials
Ben Meiklejohn, School Board: 756-7684
Stephen Spring, School Board: 450-1435

Press Release
For Immediate Release: November 28, 2005


Green Independent Party School Board Members Set Precedent for the State of Maine


A policy authored by two Green Independent Party members on the Portland School Committee which allows high school students to opt out of unsolicited targeting by military recruiters may become a state law.

Green Independent Party and Portland School Committee Members Stephen Spring and Ben Meiklejohn have been getting national recognition for championing a creative policy that gives Portland high school students and their families the option to opt out of having their private information shared with military recruiters without their permission. Their policy makes students and their families aware of this provision hidden deep within NCLB.

Meiklejohn and Spring’s policy, which was adopted by the Portland School Committee earlier this year, allows students and families the opportunity to opt-out by checking off a box that is now printed on high school emergency cards, which parents have to fill out and sign at the start of the school year. Now a bill has been introduced in the legislature that would make the Portland policy state law.

“Everyone eventually agreed that simply adding a couple lines to the emergency card was the way to go. It turned out to be the easiest and most cost-efficient way to inform and empower students to make important decisions about their personal contact information,” adds Meiklejohn. They seem to have struck upon an elegant solution as cities and towns around the
country are beginning to adopt the policy.

“As members of the Maine Green Independent Party, we hold transparency in government and privacy rights for students and families close to our core,” says school board member, Stephen Spring, who worked with Ben Meiklejohn to co-author the emergency card provision that is now garnering state and national recognition.

On opening day of the school year, Meiklejohn and Spring welcomed students outside Portland High School with huge blown up copies of the emergency card and handed out pencils they had made up with the inscription:” Welcome Back to School Portland High Bulldogs. Opt-Out or Opt-In. It’s YOUR Decision!”

They choose Portland High because it is more frequently targeted by recruiters likely due to the greater number of minority and low income students there.

In the September 27th issue of School Board News, a leading industry publication that is sent to school board members from the littlest towns to the biggest cities across the country, recognized Spring and Meiklejohn for their precedent-setting boardsmanship in creatively dealing with this issue.

A bill based on the Portland Schools policy has been introduced by Rep. David Farrington of Gorham and will be taken up when the legislature convenes in January. Spring is pleased that the policy has made it to the legislature. “I’m honored to see our work being taken up at the state level” said Spring. Early data is showing that students from Deering HS and Portland HS opted out at rates of 52% and 65%, respectively.


http://www.maine.gov/tools/whatsnew/index.php?topic=HouseDems+News&id=9774&v=Article

http://www.nsba.org/site/doc_sbn_issue.asp?TRACKID=&VID=55&CID=682&DID=36815

# # #

Distributed by the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org

GREENS, CALLING FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS,

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Monday, November 28, 2005

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624,
mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805,
starlene@greens.org
Mohammed K. Abed, Wisconsin Green Party, 608-332-9900,
mkabed@wisc.edu
Justine McCabe, International Committee, 860-354-1822,
justinemccabe@earthlink.net


GREENS, CALLING FOR PALESTINIAN RIGHTS, URGE
DIVESTMENT FROM ISRAEL

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Green Party of the United States has endorsed a statement calling for a comprehensive strategy of boycott and divestment that would pressure the government of Israel to guaranteehuman rights for Palestinians.

The resolution, introduced by the Wisconsin Green Party and passed in the Green Party's National Committee, seeks reversal of Israel's current policies. The text is appended below.

"Israel's treatment of Palestinians -- those who are Israeli citizens as well as those in the territories -- is comparable in many ways to South African apartheid, and has resulted in a cycle of violence and lack of security for both Israelis and Palestinians," said Mohammed Abed, a member of the Wisconsin Green Party. "A stable and just resolution of the conflict requires the full realization of the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis."

Greens allege that the 'peace process' will ensure neither peace nor human rights, and have called the Gaza Disengagement Plan a smokescreen to buy time and accumulate political capital for the Sharon government while it pursues a plan to force Palestinians into disconnected reservations on less than half the West Bank.

The Green Party is already on record as supporting the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and to receive compensation for their losses; immediate Israeli withdrawal from all lands acquired since 1967, including the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (see
<http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article329199.ece>);
maintenance of Jerusalem as a shared city open to people of all faiths; suspension of U.S. military and foreign aid to Israel; complete dismantling of the Israeli separation wall; and serious consideration of a single secular, democratic state as the national home of both Israelis and Palestinians. Greens have affirmed the right of self-determination for both Palestinians and Israelis.

"The Green Party is on the side of the many Israeli and Palestinian organizations working together to achieve a just resolution through nonviolent means," said Ruth Weill, co-chair of the Wisconsin Green Party. "As proven in South Africa in the 1980s, divestment and boycott are an effective means to achieve justice for the oppressed."

Greens note that direct U.S. aid to Israel has been conservatively estimated at nearly $105 billion since 1949, which does not include recently proposed assistance such as the $1.2 billion package for developing the Negev and Galilee.

"American taxpayers' money is subsidizing Israel's treatment of its Palestinian citizens and of Palestinians in the occupied territories," said Peter LaVenia, chair of the Albany, NewYork Greens.


RESOLUTION
Adopted by the Green Party of the United States,
November 21, 2005

1. The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) publicly calls for divestment from and boycott of the State of Israel until such time as the full individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people are realized.

To maximize the effect of the Green Party's support for divestment and boycott of Israel:

2. The party calls on all civil society institutions and organizations around the world to implement a comprehensive divestment and boycott program. Further, the party calls on all governments to support this program and to implement state level boycotts.

3. The party urges the Campus Greens network to work in cooperation with other campus organizations to achieve institutional participation in this effort.

4. The GPUS National Committee directs the Green Peace Action Committee (GPAX) to encourage the larger anti-war movement to promote the divestment/boycott effort.

5. The GPUS National Committee directs the International Committee to work with our sister Green parties around the world in implementing an international boycott.


MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193

Green Party International Committee
http://www.gp.org/committees/intl/

Green Party Peace Action Committee
http://www.gp.org/committees/peace/

University of Wisconsin Divest from Israel Campaign
http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/links.htm


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