[Sosfbay-discuss] Lorna Salzman on Chris Hedges

[Mark Lause]

One more is all I have time for right now....  Saying that things improved
after 2006 doesn't make what I said about the impact of 2004 outdated.  The
impact of 2004 was what it was regardless of what happened afterwards.  And,
if vote totals measured the state of the party rather than voter discontent,
we'd have been in great shape in 2001.  But we weren't.

A lot of these state organizations consist of local groups that don't
actually meet or do anything.  2004 left my entire state with only one or
two local groups functioning.  Despite the fact that this situation really
hadn't improved in 2006, we did run some good state campaigns.  Yet, those
tens of thousands of votes did not leave us an organization with appreciably
more people.  It never made us better at involving and integrating new
people into the party.

These are the things that measure the strength of the party.

Whoever is nominated--and whoever's doing the nominating--MUST focus on
building an alternative to the corporate two-parties.  Historically, not a
single third party tried to play footsies with the Democrats without ending
up amputees bleeding to death.....  Every would-be power-broker thinks that
this rule won't apply to them, but it will.

WHY we run...and HOW we run...is much more important to me than WHO we run,
though we can clearly pick someone who's not going to give us what we need.

I'm just a rank-and-filer and I have no illusions that I will have real
voice in who the party nominates in 2008, and I am open to supporting any
candidate in 2008.

But I joined the Green Party because I have faced the simple reality that
the two corporate parties exist to wage war on our interests and our values
and to garner public support for doing these things.  And, when all's said
and done, I will NOT support a meaningless going-through-the-motions
fig-leaf of a campaign aimed at giving backhanded support to the Democrats.


ML