Green on Green

Love this! Thanks for posting:) I hope people really pay attention to what Cindy Sheehan says about voting based on the issues, what's important to you, and the candidates voting records on those isssues, instead of just voting for someone based solely on their party affiliation. Too many people approach elections like they're voting for prom king and just pick who they think is most likely to win instead of who they actually want to win. The whole point and purpose of voting is to pick the person that best represents you and your values. If your voting for any other reason, then Kat Swift is right, you might as well stay home because whoever wins isn't going to be a representative of you anyway.

Great to here these voices that are totally mute in the mainstream press. I also enjoyed how it was edited in the beginning with each candidate put into focus with a brief description and audio comment - really creative and appealing to watch and listen to.

i agree with your interviewee Kat Swift, educated people should vote instead of having white males over 60 be their voice. it was a great to hear another party's take on the election.

First a huge thank you for this sleek and hip work of art and a "sure fire" media tool, you just did it!

It would be my honor to service as vice president for anyone of the brave, honest and forward Americans who are seeking to be the flagbear for the GP 2008!

Helping to paint the white, Green!

Love, peace, soul and yeah VOTING GREEN in 2008

SKCM Curry
Canidate, VP Green Party 2008

How is anyone supposed to take this party seriously when Ralph Nader, who has shunned the Greens for Independent status, still gets votes from a significant portion of it's members?

Thank you for this video. It so important in our political system to give people the opportunity to step away from their black and white, republican or democrat, views. This video was sharp and to the point.
I only wish it was longer!

keep up the good work

This is a fantastic video. I posted it to www.IndependentPoliticalReport.com this morning, and I have high hopes that we can get enough buzz for the video to actually get it on TV. Anyone know how to do that? Drop me a note at GreggJocoy29715@yahoo.com if you can help get this on air!

Anyone seeking to represent more than 10,000 people will be corrupted by the quest for power, and even more corrupted by an actual victory.

So the wasted vote is any vote in a large election for a listed candidate. The most ethical vote is a write-in, because that is an act of SABOTAGE -- which is exactly what large-scale, pseudo-democracy deserves.

The obsession of the Green Party with large-scale, centralized electoral politics reveals the inner ideological ROT of an organization that has become a watermelon for opportunists -- green on the outside and red on the inside. Just listen to the regurgitation of state socialism and identity politics -- as if that has accomplished anything in the past 30 years.

Listening to this bunch in the video, one would never know that the Green Party supposedly "values" decentralization (not presidential politics), personal responsibility (not blaming genders and races), community-based economics (not a state healthcare bureaucracy), or feminism (not equal opportunity for masculine aggression and competition). That's why the Green Party is dead.

I write these things as a former candidate and organizer within the Green Party.

knappster

In many states ballot access is maintained by reaching a certain number of votes for a certain office. In some states that office is President. If we refused to run a presidential nominee we would leave those states out in the cold needlessly.

While you and a few others have left the GP to join up with the Libertarians or the "Boston Tea Party", that does not mean that we are dead. Our future does not depend on you alone.

Gregg, your response suggests that you view effective politics through the lens of electoralism. I don't share your perspective, and I think the facts support my view much more than yours.

The claim that states without electoral ballot access are "out in the cold" is based on two false assumptions -- that a ballot line is necessary (or even appropriate) for an organization that "values" grassroots democracy, and that electoralism itself is the only worthy political pursuit. Local candidates who collect signatures are made stronger and more representative by the effort. I know; I've done it. In contrast, a ballot line is tailor-made for the opportunists who now inhabit the Green Party.

Petra Kelly of the German Green Party famously stated that her party had "one hand in the legislature and two feet firmly planted in the movements." She was referring to the three-part model adopted by her party -- one of education, activism, and elections. In contrast, the GPUS (great acronym) is a one-legged stool that fell over several years ago.

Electoralism makes even less sense in the U.S. than it does in European parliamentary systems with proportional representation. Seizing the reins of electoral power has accomplished virtually nothing for the American Left in the past 40 years.

But Greens are deluded enough to think that they can change that with better marketing and renewed group identity devotion.

http://www.knappster.org/#greenparty
http://www.knappster.org/opt

kappster,

I sorta wish you would let me speak for myself rather than putting words in my mouth for me.

Like many Greens in the United States, I believe that elections are but one way we can get what we want, a greener society. It is certainly not the only thing Greens do. Greens in New York City have helped set up cooperatives based on Green Party membership which serve the broader community as well. This we have learned from our brothers and sisters who come to the Green Party via the Black Panther Party for Self Defense. Witness the founding of Common Grounds in New Orleans and the work they are doing, with Green Malik Rahim helping steer the effort there.

Perhaps you did not know that Greens run local media, like a community newspaper in Ferndale, MI, or radio broadcasts in New York, California and even here in South Carolina. Perhaps you have not seen the movie showings Green Party chapters across the nation have done with movies like Sicko and The Story of stuff. Perhaps you did not know that the national and some state Green Parties have set up and are using a "speakers bureau" to get Green Party activists in front of small groups os folks who have never heard a Green message.

Now you do.

I am sorry that the Green Party of today doesn't match your needs, but it does meet the organizing and philosophical needs of millions of Americans across the nation who vote for Greens not only in presidential races, but even more so in Secretary of State races and Attorney General races and County Council races and yes, even getting elected to a sprinkling of state legislative seats.

If you are easy enough to work with, you should find a local Green Party chapter that would be happy to support the sorts of things you think the Green Party should be doing, but if you think it is your role to tell other Greens where we are wrong and why we are not as green as you are or think we should be, I don't imagine you'll find really fertile soil for your position anywhere except perhaps some online community of like minded folks.

http://www.greenpartywatch.com

Gregg, it's good to see you acknowledge that there are many effective political methods other than trying to win elections. Three days ago, you wrote that in states where Greens refuse to maintain ballot access, "we would leave those states out in the cold" -- as if large-scale elections were the sine qua non of effective political participation ... and as if there were such a thing as large-scale democracy.

I'm glad to see you change your tune ... somewhat.

Unfortunately, the small-scale activity you list is the exception rather than the rule within the Green Party. The dominant paradigm among Greens is NOT about decentralized self-reliance and community building. It is about seizing the reins of large-scale political power.

The Green Party is quite hypocritical with regard to the half of its values that embrace a small-scale, communitarian vision. In stark contrast to its philosophical roots, the Green Party of today has embraced modern industrialism. The sunflower has been replaced by the watermelon.

As I mentioned previously, the Green label is primarily for opportunists. The citizens with whom I associate in my political work uniformly recognize the Green label as a warning for hypocrisy and deceit. Party representatives are generally MORE likely to sell out and MORE likely to trade on their "green" image by ...

voting for industrial feedlots ...
http://www.knappster.org/cafo.html

voting to bulldoze wildlife habitat ...
http://tinyurl.com/6s5sxh

peddling fantasies for the highway lobby ...
http://tinyurl.com/34radk

or just taking wads of cash outright ...
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2006/08/344239.shtml

The bottom line is that the "Green" label has been dragged through so much mud that it cannot be cleaned. The small-scale vision that once thrived among "greens" certainly lives on, but not within the party that bears the name.

It's a classic example of the prisoner's dilemma.

Yeah ... I remember Zimmermann. He told his Green Party comrades, "Our mission is to seize the reins of power, and all the rest is fluff."

that was a damn good pod

but Kat looked like a major pot head.

its nice to hear from the "little guy" and its sad not a lot of people take the time to hear them out. they are more into either democrat or republican candidates