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Newsletter of the Green Party of Ohio
Vol. II, No. 7 -- March 2, 2002
(This newsletter distributed to 2,838)
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F E A T U R E D I N T
H I S I S S U E
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1)
BECOME A MEMBER OF THE GREEN PARTY OF OHIO
2) CALL FOR CANDIDATES FOR 2002
ELECTIONS
3) STATE PARTY CC ENDORSES FRANK DODEN
4) FREE INGRID BETANCOURT
5) NM GREENS AIM TO BOOST PARTICIPATION
6) FULL GREEN SLATE OF STATE CANDIDATES
IN CALIF.
7) SCIENTISTS SAY CLIMATE CATASTROPHE IMMINENT
8) GREEN PARTY
CANDIDATE IN RI 43RD DISTRICT
9) A GREEN ANALYSIS FROM SCOTT MCLARTY
10)
EPA OFFICIAL WHO QUIT GETS SENATE'S ATTENTION
11) MASSACHUSETTS COURTS STAND
UP FOR VOTERS
12) U.S. PRESENCE IN GEORGIA ABOUT OIL?
13) ALMOST ALL HAVE
BEEN EXPOSED TO FALLOUT
14) A PRAYER FOR AMERICA
15) PIKETON PLANT HAS
LEAKED RADIATION FOR DECADES
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1) BECOME A MEMBER OF THE GREEN PARTY OF OHIO
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Becoming more visible as a political party is one
step toward building a political
party. Your oppor-
tunity to help build the party is here. You can now
join the Green Party of Ohio (GPO) online and help
the GPO be increasingly
visible.
Complete
the membership form at
http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/register.html
to register your membership with the Green Party of
Ohio. Your name, city
and county will be added to
the growing list of party members in Ohio.
Please
encourage others in your local party to add
their names. Be proud! Register
Green!
For a list
of current members, see:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/
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2) CALL FOR CANDIDATES FOR 2002 ELECTIONS
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The Green Party of Ohio is looking for progressives
to run for elected office
in this year's election.
We are seeking candidates for Congress, state and
local offices. If you or someone you know would like
to run or are thinking
of running, please contact
the candidates committee of the Ohio Green Party.
All
across the country hundreds of Green Party candi-
dates will be challenging
the two corporate parties.
This would be a great time for first time candidates
to learn the art of running for office, and a smart,
energetic candidate could
win.
We are also
looking for people to work with these
candidates and for campaign managers
and other campaign
volunteers.
The
Green Party is an activist party working for social
change at the grassroots.
The filing deadline for
Greens running as independents is May 6, 2002.
The
Green Party of Ohio Candidates Committee Contacts:
Logan Martinez loganmartinez@hotmail.com
937-275-7259
David Berenson dbberenson@earthlink.net
216-661-2080
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3) STATE PARTY CC ENDORSES FRANK DODEN
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The Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of
Ohio endorsed Frank Doden
for US Congress from the
7th Congressional District earlier today. The newly
redrawn district includes two major military bases.
The current incumbent
is David Hobson, a Republican
who is the chair of the House Appropriations
sub-
committee on Military Construction.
To
read Frank Doden's "Thoughts on the Green Party’s
Ten Key Values,"
see:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/features/views-doden.html
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4) FREE INGRID BETANCOURT
***************************************************
The Green Party of the United States (International
Committee) supports the
international Green party
campaign to free Íngrid Betancourt, presidential
can-
didate of New Colombia/Green Oxygen Party (Colombia),
who was kidnapped
by the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC) on Saturday, February
23, 2002.
Candlelight
vigils were held yesterday in dozens of
cities around the world. Awareness
of Íngrid's kid-
napping is widespread. Green parties are demonstrating
solidarity and support for Íngrid's release, for the
continuation of
her presidential campaign, and for
peace in Colombia.
European
Greens are sending a special envoy to Bogotá,
and Green leaders from
Perú, the U.S., and Brasil are
considering their own delegations.
However,
the fighting in Colombia continues, U.S.
involvement grows, and the Colombian
government is
resisting any suggestion that it negotiate for Íngrid's
release. In a CNN interview Monday (2/25/02), FARC
deputy commander Fabián
Ramírez indicated that Betan-
court and five other hostages would be
held until 200
imprisoned FARC guerillas are released by the govern-
ment.
FARC is giving the government one year to meet
this demand.
For
more and the latest information, visit the "Free
Ingrid Betancourt"
Web site at:
http://www.providence.edu/polisci/affigne/ingrid.htm
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5) NM GREENS AIM TO BOOST PARTICIPATION
***************************************************
Members of the Bernalillo County Green Party in
Albuquerque NM elected new
officers and brainstormed
ways to boost party participation during the group's
annual convention last Saturday.
David
Bacon, the Green Party gubernatorial candidate
from Santa Fe, said that Kathy
Sanchez, director of
the activist group Tewa Women United, has agreed to
run as his Lieutenant Governor. He also said local
renewable energy, water
issues, universal health care,
the downside of corporate power, campaign finance
re-
form and keeping the money in New Mexico are paramount
issues in the
fall election.
Voter
registration of Green party members in Bernalillo
County has grown 16% to
5,200 during the past six months.
Officials from other parties are now starting
to view
the Green Party as a viable force in the congressional
district.
For
more information, read the entire Daily Lobo
article of 3/1/02 at:
http://www.dailylobo.com/main.cfm?include=detail&storyid=190718
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6) FULL GREEN SLATE OF STATE CANDIDATES IN CALIF.
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"For the first time, the Green Party is running a
full slate of candidates
for California's eight
statewide constitutional offices. While only one,
controller, is contested in the primary, these can-
didates will be on the
ballot in the November general
election, and, for many, will be a viable option
to
the mainstream Democrat/Republican contenders for
these posts. This
is a significant fact in the face
of the extremely tepid response from most
liberal
and progressive voters facing the prospect of voting
for [Gov.
Gray] Davis."
To
read the entire San Francisco Chronicle editorial,
"Don't Forget the
Green Party," of Feb. 26, visit:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/26/ED181009.DTL
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7) SCIENTISTS SAY CLIMATE CATASTROPHE IMMINENT
***************************************************
Jeremy Rifkin, author of The Biotech Century (Gollancz)
and president of the
Foundation on Economic Trends in
Washington DC, writes about "a frightening
report pub-
lished by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) -
the
nation's most august scientific body." The report
says "it is possible
that the global warming trend pro-
jected over the course of the next 100
years could, all
of a sudden and without warning, dramatically accelerate
in just a handful of years - forcing a qualitative new
climatic regime which
could undermine ecosystems and
human settlements throughout the world, leaving
little
or no time for plants, animals and humans to adjust."
"A
year ago the UN intergovernmental panel on climate
change (IPCC) issued a
voluminous report forecasting
that global average surface temperature is likely
to
rise by 1.4 to 5.8 degrees centigrade between now and
2100. If that
projection holds up, we were told, the
change in temperature forecast for
the next 100 years
will be larger than any climate change on earth in more
than 10,000 years. . . . To understand how significant
this rise in temperature
is likely to be, we need to
keep in mind that a 5 degrees centigrade increase
in
temperature between the last ice age and today resulted
in much of
the northern hemisphere of the planet going
from being buried under thousands
of feet of ice to
being ice-free.
"The
UN study predicts that a temperature rise of 1.4-5.8
degrees centigrade over
the course of the coming century
could include the melting of glaciers and
the Arctic polar
cap, sea water rise, increased precipitation and storms
and more violent weather patterns, destabilisation and
loss of habitats, migration
northward of ecosystems, con-
tamination of fresh water by salt water, massive
forest
dieback, accelerated species extinction and increased
droughts.
. . . They also point out that abrupt changes
in climate, whose effects are
long lasting, have occurred
repeatedly in the past 100,000 years. For example,
at the
end of the Younger-Dryas interval about 11,500 years ago,
"global
climate shifted dramatically, in many regions by
about one-third to one-half
the difference between ice age
and modern conditions, with much of the change
occurring
over a few years".
"An
abrupt change in climate, of the kind that occurred
during the Younger-Dryas
interval, could prove catastro-
phic for ecosystems and species around the
world. During
that particular period, for instance, spruce, fir and
paper
birch trees experienced mass extinction in southern
New England in less than
50 years. The extinction of
horses, mastodons, mammoths, and sabre-toothed
tigers
in North America were greater at that time than in any
other extinction
event in millions of years.
To
read yesterday's entire Guardian of London article, see:
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0301-02.htm
To
read the complete IPPC report online, visit:
http://www.ipcc.ch/
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8) GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE IN RI 43RD DISTRICT
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A Stonington, Rhode Island resident and Green Party
member has entered the
race for state representative
from the 43rd District with a campaign she says
will
focus on building communities. "Penny Teal, who became
involved
in politics with the Green Party two years
ago, said the corporate-controlled
Democrats and
Republicans have no desire to effect substantive change,
and even well-meaning ones can only perpetuate a system
that is destroying
the planet and has led to a huge
gap between rich and the poor. . . . Teal,
who received
a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of
California
at Berkeley, lives in Mystic with her hus-
band Mark, her daughter Ryan and
her son Austin, both
of whom are home schooled."
Read
the entire Westerly Sun article of 2/19/02 at:
http://www.thewesterlysun.com/archives/index.inn?loc=detail&doc=/2002/February/19-3073-news3.txt
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9) A GREEN ANALYSIS FROM SCOTT MCLARTY
***************************************************
Scott McLarty, Spokesperson for the DC Statehood Green
Party, presented some
analysis on the discussion list
of the Coordinating Committee of the Green
Party of
the United States on March 1, 2002.
To
read his analysis, visit:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/features/analysis-mclarty.html
***************************************************
10) EPA OFFICIAL WHO QUIT GETS SENATE'S ATTENTION
***************************************************
The resignation of the top rules enforcer at the En-
vironmental Protection
Agency has caught the attention
of Senate Democrats, who plan to use his criticism
of
the White House at a hearing next Thursday. In his
resignation letter,
Eric Schaeffer said the EPA is
"fighting a White House that seems determined
to weaken
the rules we are trying to enforce." The EPA denied the
allegations, saying the Bush administration was committed
to enforcing environmental
laws.
To read this
March 1 MSNBC report, see:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/717430.asp?cp1=1
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11) MASSACHUSETTS COURTS STAND UP FOR VOTERS
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"An Interview With Heather Gerken, Professor of Law
at Harvard"
by Sharon Basco
"The people in power -- the legislators -- are the
ones who are most reluctant to enact any type of
meaningful reform, for obvious
reasons. They've
flourished under the current system and they don't
want
to change it." But in Massachusetts the voters
have said -- and the courts
have ruled -- that it's
time for change.
To
read more, see:
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5192
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12) U.S. PRESENCE IN GEORGIA ABOUT OIL?
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U.S. intervention in the former Soviet republic of
Georgia is not so much
to fight terrorists but to
establish a "firm foothold" in the Caucasus
region
in order to protect its access to the vast oil re-
serves of the
Caucasus and Central Asia, according
to official Russian sources.
Read
the entire World Net Daily article of March 1 at:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=26657
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13) ALMOST ALL HAVE BEEN EXPOSED TO FALLOUT
***************************************************
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have
found that virtually every
person who has lived in
the United States since 1951 has been exposed to
radioactive fallout.
To
read the entire NY Times article of 3/1/02, see:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/01/health/01NUKE.html?todaysheadlines
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14) A PRAYER FOR AMERICA
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An important speech given by U.S. Congressman
Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio)
to the Americans for
Democratic Action at the University of Southern
California
in Los Angeles on Sun., Feb. 17, 2002:
http://www.truthout.com/02.23C.Kucinich.Prayer.htm
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15) PIKETON PLANT HAS LEAKED RADIATION FOR DECADES
***************************************************
A study released yesterday reports that since at
least 1975, radiation has
been leaking from the
Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, where workers
once processed nuclear-power-plant fuel. Marvin
Resnikoff, nuclear physicist
at Radioactive Waste
Management Associates, says his group's study of
federal Energy Department documents supports local
residents' belief that
radioactive compounds have
escaped from the Pike County plant for decades.
To
read Thursday's complete Columbus Dispatch article:
http://libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/documentv1?DBLIST=cd02&DOCNUM=8944&TERMV=199:7:10687:7:31497:7:77715:7:103469:7:7715
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The views expressed in this newsletter are those
of the author or organization
noted and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of the Green Party
of
Ohio.
***************************************************
To join the
Green Party of Ohio, complete the form at http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/register.html.
To see the membership list of the GPO, see
http://www.ohiogreens.org/membership/.
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Miss an issue of our newsletter?
You can now read
past newsletters of the Green Party of Ohio by
visiting
the newsletter archives at:
http://www.ohiogreens.org/newsletters/
***************************************************
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weekly (with some
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activities,
and news of interest to the Green Party
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Copyright
© 2002, Green Party of Ohio.
All rights reserved.
Paid for by the
Green Party of Ohio PAC (OH1066)
Gina Ficociello, Treasurer
1427 Northstar
Rd., Columbus OH 43212
Contributions to the Green Party of Ohio are not
deductible for federal tax purposes. This newsletter
is not authorized by
any candidate or candidate
authorized committee.
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Green Party of Ohio
PO Box 851, Kent OH 44240
Email: secretary@ohiogreens.org
Web: http://www.ohiogreens.org