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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Hi, Alex: Thanks for this. My
sentiments, also. Spencer <br>
<br>
<br>
On 10/4/2012 9:26 AM, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:alexcathy@aol.com">alexcathy@aol.com</a> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:8CF706436222532-D88-3A8B@webmail-m096.sysops.aol.com"
type="cite"><font color="black" face="arial" size="2">Dear
Friends, <br>
<div id="main_content">
<br>
FOR THE RECORD: BRUCE A. DIXON SPEAKS FOR ME
<br>
<br>
Peace and Love,
<br>
<br>
Alex Walker<br>
L.A. Greens <br>
<br>
<strong>
Posted on Black Agenda Report, October 3, 2012
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" target="_blank"
href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-black-man-watching-debates-and-voting-green">Why
This Black Man Is Watching the Debates, and Voting Green</a>
<br>
By Bruce A. Dixon
</strong>
<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
I can't say I'm not mad at anybody. If being ripped off and
lied to, and having murders committed in your name around
the world don't make you mad, there's something wrong with
you, and whatever is wrong with me, it's not that. I'll be
watching tonight's presidential debates, but like most
people, I already know what I'll do on November 6. <br>
<br>
I won't vote Republican, because among other things, the GOP
is the permanent party of white supremacy. Republicans are
also the permanent party of Wall Street, the party of Big
Agriculture, the party of Big Insurance, Big Oil, Big Real
Estate, Big Pharma, of more nukes Republicans are the party
of privatizers, jailers, charter schools and military
contractors. Republicans started the 40 years war on drugs,
and of course they remain the party of Empire and Permanent
War. Republicans hate brown people and threaten to jail and
deport as many as they possibly can. <br>
<br>
Democrats on the other hand, are the permanent party of Wall
Street. Democrats are the party of Big Agriculture, Big
Insurance, Big Oil, Big Real Estate, Big Pharma and more
nukes, more jails and continuing the 40 years war on drugs.
Democrats are the party of more privatizations --- Corey
Booker is trying to privatize the water in Newark New Jersey
for instance. <br>
<br>
Democrats are the party of military contractors and charter
schools as well. When Obama Secretary of Education Arne
Duncan ran the school system in Chicago he gave several high
schools and even a middle school to the US military to run
as their own charter schools. Obama's Race To The Top
program bludgeons school districts around the country into
closing public schools, firing teachers and replacing them
with charters, and is lauded by Democrat big city mayors in
places like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Philadelphia. <br>
<br>
Unlike Republicans, Democrats often say they like brown
people, and they get the lion's share of the Latino vote.
But President Obama's words don't match his actions. Obama
has deported more brown people in 3 years than the last
three Republicans put together. <br>
<br>
On the good side, this Democratic president, and many other
Democrats even support gay marriage and the right to access
birth control and abortions. And although Democratic
congressional leaders, when they controlled the House during
and after Katrina, refused to hold hearings on the disaster
because they were afraid of looking too pro-black, Democrats
are emphatically NOT the party of white supremacy. In fact
all the black elected officials elected with majorities of
actual black votes are Democrats. <br>
<br>
So there are differences. But down here on the ground where
people actually live, those differences don't amount to
much. Both are war parties, parties of the rich, parties
that want to privatize roads, water, public schools (that's
what charters are about --- privatization!) parties that
will continue the war on drugs and policies that feed our
American prison state. <br>
<br>
I grew up believing my vote meant something, that it was my
voice. The people I called my teachers taught me to raise my
voice against unjust wars and economic oppression, the same
way I'd raise it against racism. Exchanging a few white
faces in city halls, legislatures and the White House for
black and brown ones isn't really such a big deal. <br>
<br>
What passes for black political power nowadays isn't such a
big deal to me because poverty rates are as high now as when
a bygone Democratic president declared a war on poverty ---
a project that failed because he spent all the money in a
colonial war that killed millions in Vietnam, and climbing
still higher. Prolonging the careers of black Democrats like
Atlanta's Kasim Reed, Newark's Corey Booker, Philly's Mike
Nutter or even of congressmen John Lewis and Jim Clyburn as
they front for gentrifiers, charter schools, and power
companies that build new nukes in the middle of poor black
towns being poisoned by old ones is just not anything I want
to do with my voice.
<br>
<br>
I can see why all the big preachers want black folks to vote
Democratic. Most of them are part of, or aspiring parts of
the black political class, the black misleadership class
themselves. Many depend on so-called “faith based” funding
to keep their ministries alive. The black church has been
captured, and is a kind of “state religion” of the black
political class, divorced from the lives of the class of
black people who provide over 40% of the nation's prisoners.
<br>
<br>
I'm an old guy now, past sixty but not yet senior enough for
Medicare, and I've been in the movement a long time. Younger
people sometimes ask me what to do. After telling them not
to respect their elders all that much --- we didn't respect
them that much 45 years ago either --- the main thing I tell
them is that movement leaders and participants back in the
day had visions and horizons longer than the next election
cycle or the one after that. They were prepared to fight
whether they had allies in city hall, the legislature or the
courts or not. Unlike today's NAACP and NAN, they developed
agendas without the guidance of corporate funders and their
recommended professionals. <br>
<br>
We've proved we can elect as many Democrats as we want, all
the way up the food chain without changing much here at the
bottom. I know this well. I gave more than 20 years of my
own life to electing better Democrats, helping Democrats run
better campaigns, and registering more Democrat voters. I
met Barack Obama 20 years ago on one of those gigs in
Project VOTE Illinois, where he was state director and I was
one of three field organizers who signed up 130,000 new
voters and flogged them out to the polls that year. We
elected Harold Washington, and a lot of state legislators
and a few Congressional reps. The Democratic party will
still let you work for it, but once in office, big money
calls the shots. It's time to leave that house and build a
new one.
<br>
<br>
It's an uncomfortable truth: the present US political system
is largely people-proof and democracy-proof. The time and
treasure we've sunk into supporting Democrats the last
seventy years is gone. It's a horse we raised and watered
and fed that somebody else has ridden off and it won't be
back.
<br>
<br>
I still believe my voice and my vote mean something. Kwame
Toure used to say the thing to do is find an organization
you're in substantial agreement with and join it, or if it
does not exist, start one and recruit your neighbors.
<br>
<br>
So I've joined the Georgia Green Party, and I'm recruiting
those of my neighbors who still believes that unemployment
and mass incarceration have to be addressed, that illegal
wars and deportations must be stopped, that Wall Street must
be reined in, and that gentrification and privatization have
to be stopped. Most voters who call themselves Democrats, in
fact millions of those voting for President Obama believe
exactly these things already, but are substantially
disinformed about what their elected officials actually DO.
<br>
<br>
I was at a demonstration in support of Chicago teachers
Saturday, and some participants seemed to assume that the
president was on their side, that maybe they could enlist
figures like Rev. Al Sharpton to aid their struggle to
mobilize people against the inroads of school privatizaters.
It fell to me to tell them the bad news --- that Sharpton
took a half million dollar bribe years ago to jump on the
charter school bandwagon, that he toured the country with
Newt Gingrich and Arne Duncan beating the bushes for high
stakes testing and charters, and the administration is
actually the enemy on this one. <br>
<br>
Eventually they and many like them, if they want a party
that stands up for what they believe, will have to become
Greens. It's my job to make sure that happens.
<br>
<br>
So I'll watch the debates, sure. The crooks who run them
won't let Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate on the same
stage with the corporate candidates. So I'll watch Democracy
Now's coverage, in which Jill Stein and another candidate in
real time answer the same questions as they do. My colleague
Glen Ford will be a guest at Occupy The Debates in Baltimore
as well.
<br>
<br>
So yes, I'll watch. And I'll vote. But not for a Republican
and not for a Democrat, not again. I'll vote like my voice
means something. I won't be coerced into voting for a 100%
evil Democrat just because the Republicans are 120% evil.
I'm voting Green this year, and helping build a Green Party,
right here in Georgia where I live.
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<em> Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda
Report, a state committee member of the GA Green Party,
and a partner in a technology firm. He lives and works in
Marietta GA.
</em> <br>
<br>
Read Original Article: <a moz-do-not-send="true"
target="_blank"
href="http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-black-man-watching-debates-and-voting-green">http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-black-man-watching-debates-and-voting-green
</a>
</blockquote>
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</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Spencer Graves, PE, PhD
President and Chief Technology Officer
Structure Inspection and Monitoring, Inc.
751 Emerson Ct.
San José, CA 95126
ph: 408-655-4567
web: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.structuremonitoring.com">www.structuremonitoring.com</a>
</pre>
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