[Sosfbay-discuss] Fwd: Meet Dr. Jared Ball, Green presidential candidate

[Drew Johnson]

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: [G-C-F] Meet Dr. Jared Ball, Green presidential candidate, in LA
Dec. 17-20
From:    "Linda Piera-Avila" <lindap_a at verizon.net>
Date:    Mon, November 26, 2007 14:28
To:      cal-forum at cagreens.org
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Dr. Jared Ball, one of our Green Party presidential
candidates, {visiting the Bay Area Dec 14-16th},
coming from Washington D.C.  Dr. Jared Ball is a
professor of African American and Media Studies at the
University of Maryland at College Park and Frostburg
State University. Every Monday Jared Ball hosts "Jazz
and Justice," a radio show on Washingon DC's Pacifica
station WPFW 89.3 FM.

Dr. Ball would very much like to meet with
Green locals in the {Bay Area}.  Folks
are encouraged to contact his manager,
Head-Roc, to set something up while he's here.
Head-Roc's email is noys25 at head-roc.com
His phone number is 301 891 3095.

SNIP

Thanks to the Humboldt Greens and Bay Area Greens
who have extended their hospitality to him.

Other candidates appearing on the CA Green Party
Presidential primary ballot:
http://cagreens.org/elections/index.shtml#_prescand
_____________________________________________________________

Statement of Candidacy for the Green Party Nomination
for President

Greetings,

My name is Jared Ball and I am currently running for
the Green Party’s presidential nomination. I have
accepted an invitation to do this for several reasons.
First among them are the horrendous and entirely
unacceptable conditions of a majority of the people of
this nation and world. To best address those
conditions a new party is needed, a new style of
politics is needed and we are developing just that
kind of campaign. While looking to bring something new
we are also looking to do so on the basis of some old
and forgotten (or suppressed) politics. First among
them are those of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. whose
genuine goals have long been forcibly hidden beneath
the frozen and isolated description of a dream. But
2008 being the 40th anniversary of his assassination
demands that we run such a campaign on the basis of
King’s truly revolutionary positions of calling for
radical political organization around an end to
systems which reproduce white supremacy, militarism
and gross inequalities in wealth and access to
society’s benefits. That campaign is here.


I have long been disillusioned with electoral politics
and since 1992 only voted for members of the Green
Party or those whose unaffiliated status necessitated
that I write them onto the ballot. I joined the DC
Statehood/Green Party several years ago specifically
because it was the only electoral political party
overtly, as clear by name, in favor of statehood for
those colonized in the nation’s capitol and a broader
platform which speaks to the continuing needs of a
majority of the nation and world. I am not running to
further bolster the mythology of the vote as panacea.
I am not running for simple symbolism. I am running
because the true majority of women, the poor, Black,
Latino and Indigenous people need organization, need a
place to cohere and the Green Party is the structure
with the expressed platform that can provide just that
kind of liberated space and I am the candidate that
can properly articulate such a need. The party’s
freedom from corporate dominance, its commitment to
social justice and redistribution of society’s wealth
and service and its call for diversity are far more
substantive that those false claims of such made with
varying degree by other parties. It is time to build a
genuine populist party, one built on the proper
politics of those who, like Kwame Ture once made
clear, are no longer willing to accept the lesser of
evil because, “we will not vote for evil, period.”

To that end we are developing a campaign which seeks
to break convention by centering attention and focus
on culture, those most oppressed and those who have
long since given up on the vote and are looking for a
new politics and new organizations. We are working
with “the mayor of DC hip-hop” Head-Roc and others to
provide a hip-hop and progressive artist tour which
will reach out to the Indigenous, Black, Latino and
poor communities who will help us develop new bases of
support for the Green Party. This style of campaign
will be brash and powerful representing the
necessarily unorthodox politics we need and which are
represented best by the Green Party. We are not
targeting Democrats, Republicans or others to “steal”
votes. We are not engaged in an effort to upset one or
another major party candidacy as we do not see either
as being able to legitimately represent the needs of
the true majority and, therefore, see no reason to
assist in the sabotage or ascendance of one or the
other. And while we are not expecting to “win” the
presidency we are expecting to help build a party to
build community, society and a new world.

We are looking to build the original and genuine
Rainbow Coalition of Fred Hampton, a coalition that
breaks racial barriers and fosters unity along real
material needs as opposed to the empty rhetoric of
hate and division. Success in this case will be
additional membership for the Green Party from the
tens of millions of eligible but dormant voters.
Success will be in demonstrating the difference of the
party through the radical difference in our
presentation and campaign approach. Voting or not
voting are actions which by themselves, while equally
political, are also equally insufficient for change.
Real change can only come from organization on the
basis of a truly radical platform such as offered by
the Green Party. This is why I am running.

For more information, visit voxunion.com where video
of my initial statement of candidacy can be found
along with future campaign updates and methods of
contact. Thank you for your time and support. Your
party and politics are here. As Fred Hampton said, to
you I say peace, if you are willing to fight for it.

Jared A. Ball