Chlorophyll

If you haven't been there, as I haven't, this is the next closest thing.

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org

For Immediate Release:
Thursday, January 25, 2007

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator,mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, starlene@gp.org

Green Party leaders respond to President Bush's State of the Union address and to the Democratic Party's rebuttal

Nan Garrett, co-chair of the Georgia Green Party,
co-chair of the National Women's Caucus of the
Green Party: "President Bush opened his State of
the Union address with a plea for bipartisanship.
Bipartisan blind faith in the White House's
dishonest justifications for invading Iraq
resulted in more than 3,000 U.S. troop deaths,
hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians,
and worldwide anger against the U.S.
Bipartisanship too often means a conspiracy
between two corporate political parties against
the partisan interests of the American people,
and it's one of the best arguments for multiparty
democracy. Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), in his
Democratic rebuttal to Mr. Bush, was right when
he recalled the Robber Baron Era -- but he failed
to note that both Democrats and Republicans have
placed themselves on the side of the robber
barons, stealing from the middle class and poor
people for the benefit of corporate interests.
The Green Party now represents majority opinion
on the Iraq war and on health coverage, according
to polls."

That's hand-waving, and frankly, lies. It can't hold a candle to this:

Gonzales continued, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that."

If anyone doubts this administration is sliding towards fascism -- by the clinical, textbook definition -- I hope this wakes them up.

The national party is in difficult financial straights. From leadership to political, press and office staff, to the websites, lists, press releases, campaign advice, administrative efforts and simple foundational work done in Washington DC, all of we Greens benefit from the work that is done at the national level. It may be true that we suffer from it too at times, but unless there is another viable alternative out there, we are set to use the Green Party as our tool to make change.

With that in mind, if you are willing and able to make a donation to the national party, wouldn't it make sense to have some of your donation matched by someone else? If it does, now is the time to give.

It's true. It has to be, I read it on Fox News. A number of big businesses and corporate interest groups like the national Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers want the federal government to regulate their carbon emissions.

Why would they do such a counter-intuitive thing? I can think of a couple of reasons.

(Cross-posted from my other blog and partly inspired a recent blog post on Green Commons)

Kevin Carson links to a great article in the magazine Dollars and Sense called Other Economies are Possible! It discusses at length the slow but steady growth of small, local businesses that play by their own rules, not those of classical economics.

I call this a counter-economy, because while a counter-culture is fun, what it will really take to change the world is a counter-economy. That's where the rubber really hits the road. In the article, it's referred to as a "solidarity economy," but the name isn't what's important.

Today, Hillary Clinton announced she was (forming a committee to investigate the possibility of) running for President.

Let me say, here at the dawn of 2007, that I think this is a catastrophic idea.

Here in Wisconsin, we held a strategy meeting today. With the help of some mighty fine facilitation, we were able to identify a number of short and medium-term goals, and worked out some realistic ways to meet them. It will come as no surprise to most of you that the two things we talked about most were bringing in new members and drumming up a bit more money. We don't expect to make as much as the corporate-sponsored parties, because... we're not corporate-sponsored. In fact, if we had 0.1% of their money, it would represent a considerable improvement over our current situation.

Still,

[cross posted on Babblemur!]

This is hilarious - some fool blogger is still blaming the Green Party and Ralph Nader for not only George Bush 2000, but also:

Without the Greens we would not have George W. Bush as our President. 3000 soldiers would still be alive. No child left behind, which leaves many children behind and the dangerous environmental policies would never have been enacted. Had the Green party not been successful we would have actually signed the Kyoto accord on greenhouse gasses under President Al Gore.

In the first substantive change to the design of this site in most of a year, I've added Ron Hardy's site, Babblemur, to the list of sites whose feed I pipe in. We'll see how long it takes him to notice. It's now 8:00 PM on January 18th. I'll know he's noticed, not when he tells me so, but when he fixes the link on his site that points here.

Ron, who is one of our state party co-chairs, shares the site with "Akaoni" and "Rexusnexus," and, truth be told, I don't have the faintest idea who they are. But, between the three of them, they do a nice job blending local, state, and national issues of interest to Greens. But don't take my word for it. Check it out, immediately to the right. And tell Ron to fix that link. And the other blogs who don't point to chlorophyll.us, too!