[Iowa-dx] Capitalist warmongers win in New Hampshire

[dr_pac-man@mchsi.com]

McCain/Clinton have won for the corporate parties in New Hampshire.  Empire
sleeps easier tonight with it's foot on the neck of humanity.


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "Hart, Holly J" <holly-hart@uiowa.edu>
To:      "iowa-dx@gp-us.org" <iowa-dx@gp-us.org>
Cc:      "iagp-johnsoncounty@yahoogroups.com" 
<iagp-johnsoncounty@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [Iowa-dx] FW: Press: Greens connect ecology with democracy
Date:    Wed, 9 Jan 2008 03:42:02 +0000

> 
> 
> 
> http://ncronline.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2008a/011108/011108zc.htm
> 
> Earth & Spirit
> This week's stories | Home Page
> Issue Date:  January 11, 2008
> 
> Greens connect ecology with democracy
> 
> By RICH HEFFERN
> 
> At their annual national gathering of the U.S. Green Party last summer
> in Reading, Pa., party leader John Rensenbrink gave a speech in which he
> outlined how the Greens were positioning themselves for the 2008
> election and beyond.
> 
> “We are going to vie for real political power in the United States in
> order to achieve important goals for our neighborhoods, the country and
> the planet. We are no longer entering the political arena just to force
> the ‘real’ candidates to discuss substantive issues. We are not a club,
> not a nongovernmental organization but a real political party that will
> contest for power in these United States.”
> 
> A more strenuous Green Party strategy will include a marketing campaign,
> achievable political goals and serious fundraising. “The Republican
> party is imploding. The Democratic party has lost its way,” Mr.
> Rensenbrink concluded. “It’s up to a third party now to inspire the
> hearts and minds of millions of Americans.”
> 
> U.S. Greens have been working out alternative ways of doing politics for
> 25 years while committed to values and goals like gender balance,
> sustainable land use, nonviolence, community-based economics,
> grass-roots democracy and more. They have been busy fleshing out and
> realizing these values in the world and in the realm of politics. They
> have consistently opposed the invasion of Iraq, advocated for campaign
> finance reform and for a single-payer health insurance plan.
> 
> There are presently 227 Green party members holding state and local
> level political office around the country, 55 in California alone.
> They’ve had their struggles and infighting but now seem to be emerging
> as a force for change in America, capturing in particular the interest
> and passion of the young. Campus Green parties have sprouted like weeds
> in an organic garden. A Green Party candidate is expected to run for
> president this year.
> 
> The Green party platform is expressed in terms of 10 key values. These
> in turn are usually phrased in questions not definitive statements.
> 
> Under “ecological wisdom”: How can we live within the ecological and
> resource limits of the planet? How can we build a better relationship
> between cities and the countryside?
> 
> Under “community-based economics”: How can we redesign our work
> structures to encourage employee ownership and workplace democracy? How
> can we move beyond the narrow “job ethic” to new definitions of “work,”
> “jobs” and “income” that reflect the changing economy? How can we
> restrict the concentrated power of corporations without discouraging
> superior efficiency or technological innovation?
> 
> What other U.S. political party concerns itself with such a rich,
> values-laden agenda?
> 
> Environmental writer James Kunstler, speaking at the Land Institute in
> Salina, Kan., last September, said: “So many Americans believe the only
> thing wrong with America is George W. Bush, and that if only we could
> wiggle out of ‘his’ war and his presidency, every day would be Christmas.”
> 
> In reality, there’s a lot more wrong with how we live and how we think
> about how we live than the mere presence of George Bush in the White House.
> 
> Our dependence on foreign oil, for example, is not the real problem.
> It’s the living arrangements and consumerism that depend on that oil,
> and in that we’re all implicated. This failure to make connections
> between how we all live and resulting public and foreign policies goes
> down to the grass roots.
> 
> Mr. Rensenbrink presented an example of the strategizing that has been
> going on. A longstanding Green party goal is to find ways “to tame giant
> corporations in the interest of small businesses,” that last phrase
> added in order to avoid the protest mentality that identifies Greens as
> over against something else and to stress a positive commitment to
> community-based economics.
> 
> “We need to get on with the life-fulfilling project of citizenship and
> public life,” said Green writer Patrick Mazza, who spoke of the need to
> “transform politics and America itself.”
> 
> Short-term goals include winning ballot status for the Green party in
> all states. In 2008, the Greens want to add at least 25 states to the 19
> states where they are recognized as a political party and win a minimum
> of 5 percent of the vote, which would qualify the party to receive
> public funding in the 2012 election, while also focusing energy,
> resources and enthusiasm on a reasonable number of winnable House seats
> and two Senate seats in 2008. Another goal is to have 1,000 Green party
> members holding elective office nationwide by 2010.
> 
> Greens present an alternative vision for America that projects hope.
> They are the most notable example of grass-roots environmental electoral
> politics in our nation’s history, yet they are largely ignored or viewed
> solely as presidential election “spoilers.”
> 
> Ecology, which can be defined as intelligent caring for the whole,
> “represents a tremendous breakthrough for viewing res publica [public
> affairs] as a natural sphere,” said Mr. Mazza. The direct connection
> between the traditions of democracy and ecological consciousness is a
> force that can lend Green parties dramatic force and energy for a
> transformation of politics.
> 
> Rich Heffern is an NCR staff writer. His e-mail address is
> rheffern@ncronline.org.
> 
> 
> THIS ARTICLE INCLUDES A PICTURE OF JULIA WILLEBRAND
> 
> with this caption
> 
> Julia Willebrand, Green Party candidate for New York State comptroller,
> speaking on the Upper West Side in New York City Oct. 27, 2006.
> 
> 
> 
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