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Newsletter of the Green Party of Ohio
Vol. IV, No. 4, Feb. 22, 2004
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Subject Line: Universal Genocide & You – 2/22/04
Contents
1. State Party News – CC Meeting Summary, Delegates & Alternates
Sought, Ohio Results on National Convention Website
2. National Party News – New Presidential Candidate – Jonathan
Farley
3. Special News Items of Interest – by Grant Lawrence
4. Opinion: Newsletter Editorial – Universal Genocide
1. State Green Party News
A. Coordinating Committee Meeting Summary
The Green Party of Ohio Coordinating Committee held a meeting on February
14. Topics discussed included:
- A review of impressions, learning and follow-up actions from January’s
State Convention.
- Discussion regarding the accreditation of our delegation to the National
Convention in June.
- Agreement that we would review a proposal regarding how to get the
Green Presidential candidate on the ballot in Ohio in November.
- The status of Ohio candidates seeking to get on the ballot this year
(Logan Martinez, Chris Glassburn and Rick Otten are working hard to get
on the ballot) and a possible legal challenge regarding State rules on
Congressional candidates.
B. Delegates & Alternates for National Convention Still Sought
At the State Convention in January we selected 18 people to fill the
23 seats Ohio will have at the Convention. We agreed to seek 5 more women
and people of color to balance out our delegation.
C. Green Party of Ohio Makes History
The National Convention website (www.gp.org/convention/process.html)
has our Presidential Primary results for the Presidential race listed.
We are the first Green Party in 2004 to declare delegates committed to
specific candidates.
2. National Party News
A. Selected Items from “GREENSWEEK” - http://www.gp.org/greensweek/index.html
Green Party of the United States: http://www.gp.org
NATIONAL: Dr. Jonathan Farley has announced his candidacy for the Green
presidential nomination. On Monday, February 16, Dr. Farley participated
in a Green presidential candidates' debate sponsored by the University
of Minnesota College Greens, the Green Party of Minnesota, and the 5th
Congressional District Greens at the University of Minnesota.
CALIFORNIA: Click on the link at <www.gp.org>; to listen to the
January 29 debate in Sacramento between Green presidential candidate Peter
Camejo and author and journalist Norman Solomon. The topic of the debate
was 'Should Greens Run for President in 2004?'
MAINE: Members of the Maine Green Independent Party will gather throughout
the state to caucus, with at least 70 caucuses planned to begin the process
of choosing the Green 2004 presidential nominee. The caucus meetings will
continue up until the deadline of March 19. More: www.mainegreens.org
MASSACHUSETTS: Here's a link to video footage of the January 29 Green
Presidential Candidates Forum at the Harvard Institute of Politics: iopforum.harvard.edu:8080/ramgen/fr012904greenparty.rm
NATIONAL: Essential information about the Green Party's 2004 National
Nominating Convention, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin from June 23 to 28, 2004,
and presidential candidates:
- Convention information: www.gp.org/convention/process.html
- Registration https://secure.gpus.org/convention/
- Presidential candidates, nomination process
www.gp.org/convention/process.html
NATIONAL: Greens had sharp criticisms for Bush's budget proposal, especially
the increase for defense ($401.3 billion for FY2004) and reckless cuts
in funding for the social safety net. Greens called for a different set
of budget priorities: a progressive tax system, with relief for working
people and a guarantee that the wealthy and corporations pay their share
(overturning Bush's tax breaks for rich people); a military budget at
a level that meets the need to defend US borders (i.e., without aggressive
ventures like the invasion of Iraq); investment in environment, human
services, and public education; maintenance of publicly owned Social Security;
a single-payer national health system; an end to corporate loopholes,
publicly financed executive bonuses and other handouts, swindles such
as Enron, offshore accounts, and war profiteering by firms like Halliburton.
More: www.gp.org/press/pr_01_30_04.html
NATIONAL: 65 Green candidates in 16 states have declared their candidacies
as of February 1, 2004. In the last presidential year (2000), 289 Green
candidates ran (135 municipal/county; 154 state and federal ), winning
48 races. In the last even-numbered year (2002), 559 Greens ran (259 municipal/county;
300 state and federal ), winning 79 races. More: www.greens.org/elections
www.feinstein.org/greenparty/electionhistory.html
NATIONAL: According to Ballot Access News' new party membership figures,
the Green Party grew by 8.7% between October 2002 and January 2004. Democrats,
Republicans, and the independent category lost membership, as did the
Reform and Natural Law Parties. Green, Libertarian, and Constitution gained.
At our current pace, Green should pass Constitution in the next year or
two to be the largest third party in number of registrants. More: www.ballot-access.org
3. News Items of Interest
by Grant Lawrence - grantlaw@buckeye-express.com
The Maximum Deception Ticket
Senator John Kerry has made more money from Lobbyists then any other
Senator over the last 15 years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64727-2004Jan30.html
Kerry voted for:
-Welfare Reform
-Voted for the Patriot Act
-Voted for the Iraq War Resolution
-Voted for Fast Track in 97/98, 2001, 2002. Supports NAFTA
-Did not vote on millionaire tax.
Kerry scores 10 (out of 100 possible) points on the Progressive score
card. Lower than Senator Joseph Lieberman
http://dsco1.tripod.com/issues.htm
Peace is Terror
Anti-War protestors are being targeted by the FBI's terrorist task force.
A federal judge has ordered Drake University in Iowa to turn over records
about Peace activists who attended an anti-war protest at the university.
Also, subpoenas to appear before a grand jury have been served on 4 anti-war
protestors who attended the protest.
http://www.theiowachannel.com/news/2829091/detail.html
We define terrorism as tactics used against us, but deny that it applies
to our own actions taken to purposely and unmistakably instill terror.
Our denial is compounded daily when the U.S. government promotes and the
media reports news from a “War on Terrorism.” Our “War
of Terrorism” deserves its due.
Mike Ferner reporting from Iraq
http://antiwar.com/orig/ferner.php?articleid=1980
Civil War Brought to You by Halliburton
A veteran UN envoy returning from Iraq warns that the country may be
slipping into civil war.
What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive (I think
I got that right).
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&e=4&u=/ap/iraq_civil_war
"Weak and insecure people hardly ever say 'sorry..... It is large-hearted
and courageous people who are not diminished by saying, 'I made a mistake.
- President Bush and Prime Minister Blair would recover considerable credibility
and respect if they were able to say, Yes, we made a mistake."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1538&e=4&u=/afp/britain_iraq_safrica
The US trade deficit hit a record $489bn in 2003, with a quarter of the
shortfall coming in trade with China, official figures show. The deficit
was 17.1% larger than the previous record gap recorded in 2002.
http://www.rense.com/general49/flle.htm
The Gulag Indefinitely
Senior Defense Department officials said that they were planning to keep
a large portion of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, there for many
years, perhaps indefinitely.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/13/politics/13GITM.html?ex=1077253200&en=0eacbd52f52eab15&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
4. Opinion
Universal Genocide and You
Editorial – by Paul Dumouchelle, Editor, Green Party of Ohio Newsletter
Fact: Inuit women’s breastmilk contains enough PCBs* to qualify
as toxic waste.
* PCBs are a carcinogenic synthetic chemical, now banned, but once used
widely and which persists indefinitely in the environment and inside you,
too.
That the Inuit, a native people living in the Arctic, have suffered this
fate simply illustrates a key fact – every single person alive today
is full of unnatural materials. Thus an Inuit mother must decide whether
or not to feed its baby toxic waste from her breast – an inhuman
choice. Similarly, we as Ohioans must turn away from eating the fish from
our lakes and streams to avoid mercury poisoning – another inhuman
choice.
Every person alive today has a body filled with PCBs and many other synthetic
chemicals. PCBs are known to have observable psycho-social effects in
laboratory animals.** Is the generally recognized increase in stress and
“anger” in society part of this mass poisoning?
We are all victims of the universal genocide industrial society unleashed
and which continues today. Human Beings should be declared extinct. We
are now something else – maybe the right name is Post-Industrial
Humans. We are now chemically different from our ancestors of a few generations
ago. To pretend otherwise is to deny reality.
If we are to save ourselves – to prevent the chronic low-level
damage of today from turning into acute destruction – we must use
the power of the state to control and, where possible, reverse the technologies
at the heart of the universal genocide that destroyed Human Beings.
If you faced a force conducting a more-traditional genocide (e.g. Nazi
death camps, Serb ethnic cleansers, the US Military in the “free-fire
zones” of our Vietnam War) what would be your response? Would you
choose a “lesser evil” that allowed the genocide to continue
but maybe at a slower pace or with a kinder, gentler face? Or would you
stand your ground and with a full-throated roar declare your opposition
to ALL genocide AND FOLLOW UP WITH ACTION!
If you are a Green, you have chosen the latter approach.
** See Theo Colborn’s book, “Our Stolen Future”
Publication Details
The Green Party of Ohio Newsletter is published by the Green Party of
Ohio. www.ohiogreens.org The Mission of the Newsletter is to aggressively
promote citizen involvement in making real the Green dream for Ohio and
America as stated in the GPOH Platform, the USGP Platform and those parties’
formal policy positions.
The Mission of the Green Party of Ohio is to focus the political power
of the people to:
1. preserve and restore viable ecosystems,
2. establish social justice and equity,
3. foster participatory democracy,
4. promote and practice nonviolence as a means of conflict resolution,
and
5. ensure the rights of a community-based economic system for all people.
Letters to the editor are accepted but please keep them brief and the
Editor reserves the right to publish or not publish any such letter and
edit them to fit the newsletter format. The Green Party of Ohio Newsletter
does not represent official GPOH policy unless specifically stated. The
Green Party of Ohio Newsletter operates under the guidance of the State
Coordinating Committee Media Committee, which can be contacted through
the State Party Website. Paid for by the Green Party of Ohio Political
Action Fund (OH1066) PO Box 754 New Albany, OH 43054
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