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Tag(s): 2008 Elections; Activist; Change; Congress; Cynthia Mckinney; Democracy; Democratic; FISA; Green; Green Party; (more...) Impeachment; Independent; Libertarian; Media; Nader-Ralph; Two-party System (less...)
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July 14, 2008 at 09:35:47

Growing the Green Party is an Imperative: A Referendum on the Democratic Party in 2008

by Kevin Gosztola Page 1 of 2 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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For most, the thought of a Green Party president being inaugurated in 2009 is not plausible even if it would do wonders for blacks and women in this country. The thought is not preposterous to the Green Party, which I watched vote and decide to support Cynthia McKinney as the party's presidential nominee for the 2008 election last Saturday, July 12th, 2008.

The voting process along with the voting on the party's platform prior to the presidential vote was a robust example of what democracy should look like. Frenetic energy coupled with shouting and chanting, a hustle and bustle here and there---All of this created a cacophony of political hubbub that was euphoric to anyone sick and tired with Democrats and Republicans (especially Democrats and Republicans in Congress).

Prior to the convention, a presidential forum with the four finalists for the Green Party presidential nomination was held and was a shining example of what the Democratic presidential debates should be. The four fed off of each other in their answers as if they were friends who really didn't care who got the nomination so long as it was one of the four participating in the debate.

The four finalists included Jesse Johnson, Cynthia McKinney, Kent Mesplay, and Kat Swift. Jesse Johnson ran one of the most impressive third party gubernatorial campaigns in West Virginia in 2004 and spearheaded the rise of the Mountain Party in West Virginia (now a Green Party affiliate) by tirelessly advocating for the end of mountaintop removal for coal production in the Appalachian region. Cynthia McKinney served in Congress for 12 years and was the first member of the House to introduce articles of impeachment for Bush. Kent Mesplay is a highly qualified environmental expert---an air quality inspector who works during the week as an air quality inspector and who, up until the nomination, ran for president on the weekends. Kat Swift is a former co-chair of the Green Party in Texas and a spokesperson for the Green’s National Women’s Caucus. She is an expert on women’s issues.

The issues discussed in the forum showed why the Green Party is essential to American politics. The talk during the forum focused on energy policy that would provide jobs and support wind and solar, the impending water crisis, transforming the military industrial complex into something that is less focused on security and more focused on sustainability, putting an end to mountaintop removal for coal, ending the U.S.'s perpetuation of a conflict between Israel and Palestine, etc.

The easiness and empathetic nature of the convention was the norm from beginning to end. There were no qualms over Cynthia McKinney’s decision to ask Rosa Clemente to be her vice president even though it had only been 10 days since requested she be her vice president. The speeches and interviews in press conferences were less about the Democrats and Republicans the party owes its rise to and more about creating a movement to grow the Green Party—the imperative of growing the Green Party as an opposition party to the interests in Washington and the elected leaders entrenched in those interests.

The only noticeable frustration seen was a frustration with the amount of media coverage.

During press conferences, it was pointed out that while this was a presidential convention only 20 people from news organizations were here covering the nomination of the Green Party candidate for president. (This all despite the fact that the Green Party will be on at least 35 state ballots in this presidential election.)

The mainstream media does not want to cover the Green Party because it infects the narrative or storyline they are creating between Obama and McCain plus the Green Party is antithetical to the very corporations that own the broadcast news companies in this country.

Thankfully, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution ran a surprisingly “objective” article on Cynthia McKinney winning the nomination. The AJC has a history with McKinney of antagonism that includes running a political cartoon with her hair frizzed out while she holds up a convenience store with a gun.

But C-SPAN, whose name was featured on all the complimentary bags carried by Green Party delegates and members at the convention, did not come through (at this point). While they filmed much more, they only plan to air about fifteen minutes of the convention---McKinney’s acceptance speech. These fifteen minutes would be part of a half hour that would be followed by Bob Barr’s acceptance speech, the Libertarian candidate for president. (Note: C-SPAN covered the Libertarian convention from gavel to gavel.)

The progressive media, sadly, has dropped the ball. If the progressive media is truly the progressive news media, in-depth coverage is most definitely owed to one of the two presidential candidates running with a progressive platform for revolutionizing this country. The progressive media must be there to fight news segments like the one FOX News aired with John Gibson demeaning the McKinney-Clemente Green Party ticket.

Go to BuzzFlash.net, AlterNet.org, The Nation, Daily Kos, Truthout, InTheseTimes, The Progressive, and even OpEdNews---You will find very limited coverage on the future of Cynthia McKinney’s campaign and the role of the Green Party in the 2008 election from local to state to federal elections.

The failure exemplifies the reality that these so-called progressive news entities have writers, publishers, and editors more interested in content that mediates between those unhappy with Obama and those excited to support him.

The progressive media currently prefers to put band-aids on growing wounds within the Democratic Party and progressive base while planting ideas that any other choice will “spoil” Obama's election, creating fear in the minds of readers about “the real McCain”, and offering little to no vision for the future of progressive politics believing it should get out of the way of Obama and just let him get elected.

The decision to become lapdogs for Obama and the Democratic Party like the mainstream media became lapdogs for the Bush Administration is disheartening. Frustrating.

A few writers for these progressive news sites like John Nichols keep their integrity and work to maintain the integrity of the progressive news media they are writing and publishing for. For most, few forget that they have a duty to cover the advancement and developments in progressive politics that are related to progressive issues and instead become sucked in to posting pieces that almost fully accept the narrative being created by the corporate media.

(*In my attempt to address progressive politics and progressive issues, I was banned from DemocraticUnderground.com a couple weeks ago. DU maintains the idea that Democrats or progressives can express discontent but at the end of the day, should not reject the nominee for president that forsakes so many hard-working dedicated progressive activists in America.)

This critique is not a smear nor a blast directed at the alternative and independent news media but a challenge to be the media this nation requires now. The news media should be covering all developments related to the Nader’s Issues that are off the table for Democrats and Republicans and the Ten Key Values of the Green Party. This should be done not for the advancement of those candidacies but for the future of this country that the current Democratic and Republican presidential nominees seem to be inconsiderate of preferring to offer shortsighted answers to long-existing and rather complex problems.

The Green Party is the antithesis to the Democratic and Republican corporate brands of hope and change in this election.

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Kevin Gosztola goes to Columbia College in Chicago where he is studying film. He hopes to become a documentary filmmaker. He is currently working as a production assistant on a documentary called "Seriously Green" which traces the development of the Green Party throughout the 2008 election. He has a passion for journalism and writes articles or press releases in his spare time. Kevin Gosztola is also a student activist who believes in questioning the way America's systems work(its electoral system, its military-industrial complex, its foreign policy of American exceptionalism, its media which has become the Fourth Branch of government,etc.)
His ambitions have him currently organizing and raising money for a Chicago Conference for Media Reform in April or May of 2009. It will be organized by college students to promote youth involvement in media reform and justice. Those interested in attending or helping with the organization of the program should contact him.

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5 comments

Martin Zehr is an American political writer in the San Francisco area. He spent 8 years working as a volunteer water planner for the Middle Rio Grande region. http://www.waterassembly.org
His article on the Kirkuk Referendum has been printed by the Kurdish Regional Government, http://www.moera-krg.org/articles/detail.asp?smap=01030000&lngnr=12&anr=12121&rnr=140 Another article was reprinted in its entirety by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) http://www.puk.org/web/htm/news/nws/news0...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Martin ZehrMartin Zehr is an American political writer in the San Francisco area. He spent 8 years working as a volunteer water planner for the Middle Rio Grande region. http://www.waterassembly.org
His article on the Kirkuk Referendum has been printed by the Kurdish Regional Government, http://www.moera-krg.org/articles/detail.asp?smap=01030000&lngnr=12&anr=12121&rnr=140 Another article was reprinted in its entirety by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) http://www.puk.org/web/htm/news/nws/news0...

to see more of bio, click on member name

Power to the People Campaign by McKinney/Clemente

Having just returned from Chicago and the Nomination Convention of the Green Party of the United States, I have witnessed the enthusiasm of Greens from across the nation for their nominees for President and Vice-President. Seizing the initiative to confront the "Hope" campaign, Representative McKinney has presented not just an alternative but an "imperative", as the VP candidate Rosa Clemente described it. Now is not the time to surrender a new dynamic agenda in favor of empty promises and undefined policies. The Green Party through its nomination has reached out to new constituencies and presented itself as a distinct political force in the US that will continue to wage a toe-to-toe battle with the attacks on planetary survival.

The message of Power to the People is to unify all those peoples subjected to attacks on civil liberties and ecological devastation. It represents a hand extended to the younger hip-hop generation who have arrived on the political stage with the nomination of Rosa Clemente. Compromises that sacrifice the needs of the people while billions of government money are pumped into multi-national corporations are not acceptable.

Elections are held to decide our future as a people. Voting for those who do not represent our needs and concerns has only enabled the draconian actions of the Bush Administration and paralyzed opposition. We are standing up on our own and organizing for Power to the People.

VOTE GREEN! VOTE MCKINNEY/CLEMENTE!

by Martin Zehr (38 articles, 2 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 77 comments) on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:19:38 PM

Environmental activist/writer/organizer since the mid 1960s; later hired by Dave Brower as regional representative (NY metro area) of Friends of the Earth, where I worked over ten years on nuclear power, energy and coastal issues, as well as helping save the Long Island pine barrens and nearby habitats. Later I had short stints at National Audubon's American Birds magazine and as director of Food & Water Inc. opposing food irradiation. In the 1990s I was a natural resources specialist in the NY...

to see more of bio, click on member name
Lorna SalzmanEnvironmental activist/writer/organizer since the mid 1960s; later hired by Dave Brower as regional representative (NY metro area) of Friends of the Earth, where I worked over ten years on nuclear power, energy and coastal issues, as well as helping save the Long Island pine barrens and nearby habitats. Later I had short stints at National Audubon's American Birds magazine and as director of Food & Water Inc. opposing food irradiation. In the 1990s I was a natural resources specialist in the NY...

to see more of bio, click on member name

McKinney nomination by US Green Party

Why are greens critically objective about Dems and Repubs but blindly accepting of Cynthia McKinney? McKinney is Queen of Conspiracy Theorists, associates with rabid anti-semites like Louis Farrakan, and has little to show but in=-your-face bad attitude as her accomplishments. Her clutch at the USGP nomination is her last gasp in politics after voters and the Georgia Dems rejected her. We need more than a hip-hop presidency. We need greens who are mature, credible and legitimate....qualities that McKinney completely lacks. She will make the party a laughingstock if it isn't already. The fact that the party squashed Nader demonstrates their lack of political smarts and integrity. Their last candidate, David Cobb, lost them 11 state party ballot lines and got them a grand 15,000 votes nationwide. In 2000, Nader got nearly 3 million votes, nearly all of whom were not even greens. Like the Dems and Repubs, the greens are riveted to their oligarchic entrenched leaders, something that was on display in the 2004 convention (where I sought the presidential nomination). Voting and nomination rules were changed without notice or authorization and delegates of other candidates, including me, were strongarmed until they agreed to support Cobb. It was a corrupt moment for a corrupt party, which has shown little interest in the environment and global warming, despite its name, and the nomination of McKinney will insure that it continues in this suicidal well-deserved lunge into oblivion.

by Lorna Salzman (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 3 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 8:15:10 AM

I'm a 29 year old male.
TyI'm a 29 year old male.

Cynthia McKinney

Cynthia McKinney is an honest person who tells the truth. She's not a "conspiracy theorist". McKinney wasn't rejected by the voters of Georgia. She was ousted in a fraudulent election. McKinney has an outstanding voting record. Your claim that she isn't credible is a joke. You're the one who isn't credible. McKinney speaks truth to power, something you seem to oppose.

by Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 821 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 8:47:31 AM

I'm a 29 year old male.
TyI'm a 29 year old male.

Political parties

Another great political party is Socialist Party USA.

http://www.socialistparty-usa.org

by Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 821 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 8:58:40 AM

Hater of Nazis above all. Hobbies include activism, military model building, military history, exciting and vital conversation with retired crooks. Retired
John HanksHater of Nazis above all. Hobbies include activism, military model building, military history, exciting and vital conversation with retired crooks. Retired

Another divided political effort.

You don't have to believe in any political solution to stand up to a bunch of filthy crooks. Put a sign in the back window of your car. Fill it with a black hatred.

by John Hanks (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 1196 comments) on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 7:49:01 PM