[Sosfbay-discuss] Convention Coverage Compilation, McKinney networking and BAR endorsement

Sat Jul 26 11:19:09 PDT 2008

---------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Natlcomaffairs Digest, Vol 57, Issue 79
From:    natlcomaffairs-request at green.gpus.org
Date:    Sun, July 20, 2008 15:33
To:      natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today's Topics:

   1. Networking for McKinney/Clemente (Marnie Glickman)
   2. Columns on the McKinney-Clemente nomination (Black Agenda
      Report; Black Commentator) (Scott McLarty)
   4. compilation of convention coverage (Ann Link)

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:33:12 +0000
From: Ann Link <eastst at hotmail.com>
Subject: [usgp-dx] compilation of convention coverage
To: <natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org>

ABC
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/green-party-tap.html
Green Party Taps McKinney

Atlanta-Journal Constitution
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2008/07/12/mckinney_green_nomination.html
McKinney wins Green Party nomination
http://www.ajc.com/pbccentral/content/metro/dekalb/stories/2008/07/09/mckinney_green_party.html
McKinney expected to get Green Party nomination this week

CBS
http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/07/14/politics/horserace/entry4261275.shtml
McKinney Joins The (Third) Party As Barr, Nader Fight On

Chicago Public Radio (has a nice picture)
http://www.wbez.org/Content.aspx?audioID=26531
McKinney Chosen To Lead Greens
(for complete Chicago Public Radio Coverage go to
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/ and type ?Green Party? in the search
area for a series of articles)

The Chicago Sun-Times
http://www.suntimes.com/news/elections/1048670,CST-NWS-green10web.article
Green Party to hold convention, nominate presidential candidate

Chicago tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-green-party-chicagojul13,0,869646.story
 McKinney to represent Greens on ballot

CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/12/mckinney.green.party/?iref=mpstoryview
McKinney running for president as Green candidate

Democracy Now
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/14/headlines
Green Party Nominates Cynthia McKinney to be President

Fox
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/12/mckinney-wins-green-party-nomination/
McKinney Wins Green Party Nomination

The Herald News
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/heraldnews/news/1050706,4_1_JO11_GREEN_S1.article
Two local candidates going Green (Party)

Indypendent
http://www.indypendent.org/2008/07/10/2004-indy-interview-w-rosa-clemente-likely-green-party-vice-presidential-nominee/
2004 Indy Interview w/ Rosa Clemente, Likely Green Party Vice-Presidential
Nominee

The LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-greenparty11-2008jul11,0,1807623.story
Cynthia McKinney outlines Green Party goals

Michigan Daily (University of Michigan)
http://www.michigandaily.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=72360e73-7dac-499e-b5ea-61dafc202e06
The third chair
(see also accompanying blog http://apps.michigandaily.com/blogs/thepodium/)

Ms. Magazine (Feminist Wire News Briefs)
http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=11140
Cynthia McKinney will be Green Party Presidential Candidate

NBC
http://www.nbc5.com/news/16848228/detail.html
Green Party Holds Convention In Chicago; Party Expected To Nominate
Presidential Candidate

Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/id/146263
McKinney Goes Green; Will a third-party candidate be a ?spoiler??

NPR (story starts halfway through)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92499294
Former Rep. McKinney Heads Green Party Ticket

Pacifica (3-hour broadcast)
http://www.audioport.org/audioport_files/nathan@pacifica.org/7621-20080713-GreenConvention_PacificaSpecial_July13_Hour1.mp3
http://www.audioport.org/audioport_files/nathan@pacifica.org/7621-20080713-GreenConvention_PacificaSpecial_July13_Hour2.mp3
http://www.audioport.org/audioport_files/nathan@pacifica.org/7621-20080713-GreenConvention_PacificaSpecial_July13_Hour3.mp3

The Southern
http://www.thesouthern.com/articles/2008/07/11/breaking_news/doc4877d8ff45448999054888.txt
Don't blame me, I voted Whitney," bumper sticker proclaims

UPI
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/07/12/McKinney_named_Green_Party_candidate/UPI-91001215909285/
McKinney named Green Party candidate

USA Today (headlines)
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/07/looking-ahead-6.html
The U.S. Green Party continues its presidential nominating convention in
Chicago

------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 12:04:35 -0700
From: Marnie Glickman <marnie at greenchange.com>
Subject: [usgp-dx] Networking for McKinney/Clemente
To: natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org

Hi.  Networking for the campaign also is happening on the Green Change
Network:

http://network.greenchange.org/groups/mckinney08

The Green Change Network is not run by a nasty corporation like
Facebook or MySpace.  We are run by people with Green values.  We are
ad-free and designed to help you organize.

If you have never used a networking site, Green Change is a good place
to start.  We will train you.  Just send me an email and we can set up
a time to start.

Peace,
Marnie Glickman
Executive director
Green Change

www.greenchange.org
503.313.7919 w
707.313.7919 f
skype: marnieglickman

Green Change is a community of people with Green values:  justice,
grassroots democracy, sustainability and non-violence.  We work
together to share Green art, politics and culture.

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:05:26 +0000
From: Scott McLarty <scottmclarty at hotmail.com>
Subject: [usgp-dx] Columns on the McKinney-Clemente nomination (Black
	Agenda Report; Black Commentator)
To: <natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org>

McKinney & Clemente: Black, Brown, Green & True (Glen Ford, Black Agenda
Report)

McKinney & Clemente: Black, Brown, Green and True
Presidential Politics 2008 - Green Party

By BAR executive editor Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report, 16 July 2008
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=698&Itemid=1

The Green Party's brand new Cynthia McKinney-Rosa Clemente ticket is off
and running, having captured an overwhelming proportion of delegates at
the national convention, in Chicago. Two Black women, one a Latina, are
challenged to garner five percent of the national vote while transforming
the Greens "into a vehicle for 24-7 movement politics." Former Georgia
congresswoman McKinney vowed, "A vote for the Green Party is a vote for
the movement that will turn this country right-side-up again." Said
Clemente, a Hip Hop political organizer: "I don't see the Green Party as
an alternative. I see it as an imperative."

"The Green Party was against the war when it started, is against the war
now, and is against any military action against Iran that might take place
tomorrow," declared former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney,
accepting the Green Party's presidential nomination, in Chicago, this
weekend. "The Green Party is a peace party. A Green vote is a peace vote."

McKinney's statement is unequivocally true, a verity beyond question, as
is her own deep commitment to social justice, tested and manifested during
her 12-year sojourn in Congress. The 53-year-old activist and educator,
whose last act as a U.S. Representative was to submit Articles of
Impeachment against George Bush, not only speaks "truth to power" (or, as
she puts it, "truth to empower), but demands that truth be the essential
element of all American political discourse.

There is nothing quaint or convenient about The Truth. In a nation ruled
by the raw power of money, the Lords of Capital market their own versions
of truth designed to make wrongs seem right, and criminality appear
normal. The corporate casting couch supplies political actors to mouth
attractive untruths as required by the imperatives of Capital. Some of
these actors are extremely talented, compounding the dangers they present
to society. At every opportunity, they stomp on truth as if it were vermin
- and for each vanquished truth they are paid a bounty in parceled power
and prestige. U.S. presidents are manufactured in this way.

Truth thus becomes a precious commodity in 21st Century America. At the
Green Party podium, Cynthia McKinney reached back to the year 1851, when
Black abolitionist Sojourner Truth asked a white crowd a rhetorical
question for which only one answer was conceivable: "Ain't I a woman?"
Having focused her audience on a simple truth, Sojourner proceeded to
explicate the burning issues of the day: "Well children, where there is so
much racket, there must be something out of kilter."

Truth is compelling, in any epoch. "In 2008, after two stolen Presidential
elections and eight years of George W. Bush, and at least two years of
Democratic Party complicity, the racket is about war crimes, torture,
crimes against the peace; the racket is about crimes against the
Constitution, crimes against the American people, and crimes against the
global community," said Cynthia McKinney, relating well-known but
relentlessly suppressed truths.  "The racket is even about values that we
thought were long settled as reasonable to pursue, like liberty and
justice, and economic opportunity, for all.  Yes, Sojourner, there's a lot
out of kilter now, but these two women, Rosa and me, joined by all the men
and women in this room, are going to do our best to turn this country
right side up again."

The truth alone cannot set you free, but it will at least tell you what
time it is.

"The only way I can even begin to accept this nomination is that I must
understand that I am just a vessel, a representative of the work of an
entire generation, and the Hip-Hop radical activist movement," said
vice-presidential nominee Rosa Clemente, a South Bronx native of Puerto
Rican parentage. The 36-year-old journalist was a key organizer of the
3,000-strong, 2004 Hip Hop Political Convention, in Newark, New Jersey.
The delegates, all of whom paid their own way, drew up a Hip Hop Political
Agenda that remains eminently compatible with the Green Party and "Power
to the People" platforms under which Clemente and McKinney are currently
campaigning. (A second Hip Hop Political Convention took place in Chicago
in the summer of 2006.)

"I stand on the shoulders of a generation of young people of color that
are united, that clearly understand that we are suffering form structural
racism, institutional racism and capitalism," said Clemente. These are
truths that Barack Obama, the corporate Democrat, would rather end 20-year
friendships than accept. Obama allows the celebration of his candidacy to
serve as a vindication of historical and contemporary racist rule. In
fact, his ascension is fully endorsed (and financed) by the overwhelmingly
white Lords of Capitol.

No recess of reality is safe from corporate sanitization. In this election
cycle, conducted amid overlapping, terminal crises of late-stage
capitalism, the heroes are those who challenge the corporate media's
endlessly looped lies - key elements in the structural supports that keep
the evil edifice from crumbling outright. Heroines like McKinney and
Clemente.

"I don't see the Green Party as an alternative," said Clemente. "I see it
as an imperative."

A True Choice

"We are in this to build a movement," McKinney told her jubilant Chicago
crowd. "A vote for the Green Party is a vote for the movement that will
turn this country right-side-up again."

Had she chosen to do so, McKinney could have remained in the Democratic
Party and attempted to recapture her House seat, outside Atlanta, as she
did in 2004 after a two year absence. But the overarching necessity for
Black America - and therefore, for the entire nation - is the rebirth of a
Black-led mass movement for peace and fundamental social change. Without a
movement, the corporate version of reality triumphs by default - not just
through the two-business-party electoral racket, but in all aspects of
life in which human beings must somehow locate themselves in the real
world.

Much more is at stake than the Green Party's goal of garnering five
percent of the presidential vote, which would make the Greens eligible for
federal election funds next time around. Corporate hegemony is the enemy
of the self-determination of peoples and individuals. It seeks to subdue
every relationship except those of corporate ownership and control, and
capriciously alters the terms of even those shrunken arrangements, at
will. The current multiple crises afflicting humanity are all rooted in
the commodification of the Earth's resources - including human beings.
There is no choice but to resist the crushing grip, at every level of
human activity.

In Black America, which is the vital epicenter of any progressive national
politics, the Obama phenomenon - a species of seductive invading organism
that feeds on centuries of pent-up Black aspirations - has already
dangerously disrupted the African American political consensus on peace,
social justice and the validity of the Black historical narrative, itself
(the Obama-Rev. Wright clash). Obama has caused Blacks to suspend the
disbelief (healthy distrust) that has been at least a partial defense
against white snake oil salesmen over the years. National Black politics
has effectively disintegrated, stripped of all issues other than Obama's
own fortunes. It is as if an entire people were reduced to the property of
one, thoroughly dishonest man - in the service of another Man.

Obama's cynicism, his deliberate ambiguity and outright manipulation of
ALL people - but especially African Americans -  debases the morals of his
desperate followers. In a remarkably short period of time they have come
to accept half-lies as clever, and well-crafted untruths as things to be
admired. To justify Obama's behavior, Blacks accept that all "politicians"
say whatever they must in order to win office, and attach no moral onus to
that, even when it is Blacks who are the ones being lied to and defamed.

Obama has sanctioned - sanctified! - opportunism of the most base kind. He
has brought corporate and anti-Black values into the African American
house, in ways that no combination of previous scoundrels could have
dreamed.

The McKinney-Clemente message is one of struggle, not blind hope and
amorphous change. In the presidential candidate's words:

"Today's reality is harsh.  But what's even harder for many to accept and
admit is that our quality of life today is the making of the Democratic
and Republican Parties.  What our country has become through their public
policy is reflective of their values.  We will never get a United States
that is reflective of different values if we continue to do the same
thing.  Those who delivered us into this mess cannot be trusted to get us
out of it. That's why I signed up to do something I've never done before
so I can have something I've never had before:  My country, made in the
likeness of the values of the Green Party."

That party is now headed by two Black women, one a Latina, who consciously
seek to transform it into a vehicle for 24-7 movement politics PLUS
effective electoral activity. That is the historic opportunity. The
Democrats would have you waste your vote on an actor employed by
corporations.

As Rosa Clemente reminded the Greens in Chicago: "We must remember the
words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass: 'I prefer to be true
to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather
than to be false.'"

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at
Glen.Ford at BlackAgendaReport.com

*  *  *  *  *

Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente:
Building a Movement for REAL Change

By LARRY PINKNEY
Editorial Board Member
Black Commentator, July 17, 2008, Issue 286
http://www.blackcommentator.com/286/286_kir_mckinney_clemente_movement_change.html

Something magnificent and truly extraordinary happened at the 2008, Green
Party Presidential Convention a few days ago in Chicago, Illinois. Cynthia
McKinney and Rosa Clemente; two dynamic, highly intelligent, experienced,
and politically committed women of color were chosen by the Green Party of
this nation to be its nominees for President and Vice President
respectively, of the United States of America. Former U.S. Congresswoman
Cynthia McKinney who demonstrated the guts and integrity to leave the
politically opportunist and bankrupt Democratic Party has, for quite some
time now been yet again demonstrating her guts and integrity by
crisscrossing this nation and informing people in every nook and cranny
about the ?Power To The People? Campaign. Now Sister McKinney has been
joined by Puerto Rican people?s grass root activist / journalist / and
intellectual hip hop artist Sister Rosa Clemente in this ever growing
campaign and people?s movement and struggle. Indeed, something
 extraordinary has happened and there is yet more to come.

While CNN, ABC, C-SPAN, etc. did give some limited coverage of and to this
incredibly momentous event; none of the pundits of these so-called ?main
stream news? media outlets dared elucidate to the ?American? people the
enormous present-day and historical significance and opportunities of what
just happened in Chicago. None of these pundits dared explain and
emphasize the revolutionary aspect of what had just happened in Chicago:
That the Green Party and the Reconstruction Movement this past weekend, in
selecting Cynthia McKinney as their primary standard bearer, is a stinging
rejection and rebuke of the Democratic and Republican Parties [i.e. the
Republicrats] with their putrid, hypocritical, corporate / military
apparatus-fueled politics of dishonesty, subterfuge, smoke & mirrors, and
unending wars abroad and increasing economic disparity and social misery
at home. The sleeping dragon, consisting of the rank and file, everyday
woman, man, and child in this nation, has final
 ly begun to awaken once again.

The Empire, including its Democratic and Republican Party surrogates, has
been put on notice by politically conscious Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and
White peoples of this nation of who are sick and tired of being
hoodwinked, manipulated, and politically blood sucked. What happened this
past week end in Chicago is a wake up call to all persons of good will:
Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow!

By supporting the candidacies of Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente we are
supporting a people?s movement ? our movement for real, fundamental,
?systemic? change, not mealy-mouth meaningless / feel good rhetoric. We
are self-actualizing our hopes and dreams, not allowing others to pimp and
manipulate us by playing on those hopes and dreams. We are supporting the
very best in ourselves. We are laying the foundation in 21st Century
?America? for a genuine and ongoing people?s movement that says NO to the
corporate / military / prison apparatus of the U.S. Empire at home and
abroad. We are supporting so much more than only candidates for political
office -  we are supporting our commitment to the building of an
uncompromising, unswerving, people?s movement that is unhindered by this
system?s Democratic and Republican [i.e. Republicratic] Party election
time lines and political machine. We are refusing to collaborate with this
Empire?s system of oppression. Rather, we are working
  to dismantle it and build a fundamentally and systemically different
system that addresses human needs, not human greed. We are emphatically
stating that we will not sit back and allow principled, intelligent,
revolutionary / politically progressive, honest, and for-real women to
be by-passed and ignored any longer by this system in ?America.? By
supporting the Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente ?Power To The People?
Campaign we are making it crystal clear that we will intensify the
struggle the dignity and human rights of all people: women, men, and
children - Black, Brown, Red, White, and Yellow - all peoples.

To be sure, the U.S. Empire?s corrupt and biased news media disinformation
machine can be expected to go into high gear in an effort to discredit and
neutralize the McKinney / Clemente ticket and the ?Power To The People?
Campaign. Indeed, these slimy tactics have already begun. However, such
tactics merely confirm the absolute importance of what we are committed to
and what this movement is all about.

For those who may not have seen and heard Cynthia McKinney?s acceptance
speech on C-SPAN at the Green Party Convention this past July 13, 2008; it
is urged that you turn on your computer?s speakers, view her presentation,
and hear her remarks and those of Rosa Clemente on the internet at
C-SPAN.org under the heading Green Party Presidential Convention (July 13,
2008)
(http://cspan.org/search.aspx?For=Green%20Party%20Presidential%20Convent).

The ?Power To The People? Campaign is the only one to boldly and seriously
address not only the issues of militarism, economic disparity, social and
environmental inequities, single payer health care, government malfeasance
and neglect, corporate greed, equal opportunity and education, racism,
reparations, gender parity, and homelessness, etc; but just as
importantly, this campaign is about building an ongoing movement to
fundamentally address the root causes of these pressing concerns. The twin
demons of the Empire, i.e. the Democratic and Republican Parties
[increasingly known as the Republicrats] and their accomplices, are in
opposition to any real systemic change. Thus, every conceivable means will
be utilized to deter this campaign, its ultimate movement, and objectives.

We must get out into our towns, cities, and municipalities of all kinds
with one fundamental objective: Getting and putting the ?Power To The
People? Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente Green Party ticket on the ballot
in high numbers in every viable state of this nation, while simultaneously
building and nurturing this people?s movement. Let us start voting right
now by organizing to support Cynthia and Rosa in the streets, the back
woods, the schools, on the reservations, in the barrios, ghettos, and
every possible nook and cranny and community of this nation. WE ARE NOT
COLLABORATORS AND WE WILL NOT COLLABORATE WITH THE EMPIRE IN OUR OWN
OPPRESSION OR THAT OF OTHERS. Organize, organize, and organize some more!

We are the people and it is WE ourselves who are the essence of, and
motivation for, real change. Let us call out to our sisters and brothers
in Haiti, in Venezuela, in Bolivia, in Cuba, in Palestine, in Myanmar, in
the Congo and throughout the entire world. Let us send them a message of
comradely greetings and let them know that we are reawakening from slumber
here in the belly of the Empire. We have seen their examples and are
emulating them for the mutual betterment of all our peoples.

We must build coalitions that serve the interests of the people. We must
pry open the systemic, strangling, amoral death grip that the Democrats
and Republican Parties [i.e. the Republicrats] have around our proverbial
necks and minds. We must work together with the Reconstruction Movement
which began around the despicable U.S. Government criminality of both the
Republicans and Democratic Parties re hurricane Katrina (and subsequently
hurricane Rita). Being Green is just the beginning. We must keep in mind
that there are also other progressive peoples out there in parties such as
the Peace & Freedom Party, and we must work together with them to the
mutual advantage of the people?s movement. We must remember that ?no one
of us is as smart or as strong as all of us.? We must remember our sister
and brother political prisoners, liberation fighters, and exiles such as
Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu-Jamal, Reverend Edward Pinkney [no relation],
the San Francisco 8, Assata Shakur and s
 o very, very many more. We must remember why we are waging this struggle.
This is about more than votes. This is about our very survival and that
of Mother Earth - this planet.

This is about saying NO to the Empire and its collaborators, and YES to a
NEW DAY a NEW SOCIETY, a NEW WORLD. This is about struggling to be that
NEW PERSON who self-actualizes and addresses human needs, not human greed,
lies, and hypocrisy.

Viva Cynthia McKinney! Viva Rosa Clememte! Long live ?The Power To The
People? Campaign! Let?s get busy brothers and sisters. ?Each one reach
one?. There is much work to be done!

Onward then?

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran
of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the
Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American
to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the
United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political
Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in
opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on
the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying
No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by
William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn].

------------------------------