_____________________________________
We’re the answer to stopping climate change. We’re the answer to massive unemployment with a Green New Deal providing 20 million good jobs to replace and repair our crumbling infrastructure. We’re the answer for liberating hundreds of thousands of students trapped in insurmountable debt and the answer for people who desperately need health care, but can’t afford it under our current system. The Green Party is the answer to so many problems plaguing our nation and our world. That’s likely the reason our party membership is growing like wildfire. Our victories are growing, too… including victories in this past election. There were over 1.2 million votes for the Stein/Baraka Green Party ticket nationwide. Washington State passed Initiative 735, and California passed Proposition 59, calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish the illegitimate court-created concepts of “corporate constitutional rights” and “money equals political speech”. We’re proud of that record. We also elected Greens at the local level! We elected 3 in Minnesota, 5 in Michigan, and 10 to 13 in California, and one in Florida. However, our victories haven’t been isolated to just this election. They’ve been happening all along.
When Jill announced her run for President early in 2015, announcing so early gave us enough lead-time to fight ballot access battles and build a winning campaign team as well! Speaking of ballot access, this year, the national electorate was able to vote for Jill and Ajamu in 48 states (45 plus 3 write-ins). No other Green Party candidate in history… including Ralph Nader in 1996 and 2000… was on that many ballots! It was unprecedented. Our campaign also qualified for federal matching funds in March of 2016, which was another victory… because thousands of supporters all over the nation pitched in to make it a reality. Until 8 August, federal funds matched every dollar for our campaign 1:1. This meant hundreds of thousands in desperately needed campaign funds. On 1 August, it overjoyed our campaign when Jill asked Ajamu Baraka to be her Vice-Presidential running mate. As an internationally recognised human rights activist, organiser, and geopolitical analyst, Ajamu was a huge asset to our campaign.
After the Green Party convention in Houston, our “press” absolutely swamped us. Some of that coverage was historic. Highlights included our CNN Town Hall… the first time Jill and Ajamu were on primetime… as well as the first debate livestream when we made history and inserted Jill’s answers during the debate in between the non-answers of the establishment candidates. We reached over 26 million people – the biggest audience for an alternative party candidate since Ross Perot was in the debates in 1992! Then, there was also the history-making PBS forum/debate with Gary Johnson… it was the first third-party forum on a major broadcast channel… ever.
Overall, the Green Party has many victories! We plan to continue this great momentum. Green Party activists are hitting the ground running by organising and calling for actions against harmful policies, as well as for much-needed reforms to the political system. Nothing has changed for us. Nothing has changed about our leftist party-building directives. We were going to have to fight either way, and resist “empire” no matter what. We thank you for being the engine of this revolution. Our movement is growing… this is the beginning, not the end. Greens are organising! Will you continue onward and upward with us? There’s much to be thankful for and much more to do…
It’s in our hands.
16 November 2016
Gloria Mattera
Stein/Baraka 2016 Campaign Chairman
(no URL available… email)
17 November 2016. Vox Pop on the “Orthodox” Rightwing
Tags: Christian, Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, globalisation, Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, political commentary, politics, Religion, Religion and Spirituality, Russian Orthodox Church
____________________________________
A friend sent me this. I need add nothing, save, “Hear, hear!”
BMD
******
My grandfather didn’t support racists and fascists before and during World War II. He fought them… he shot them. He followed the lead of his father who was active during the Battle of George Square. Despite his populist rhetoric, the fact is that Trump is indicative of the bosses, their screws, and their un-Christian way of dealing or doing business. Trump deprived his workers or contractors due wages/compensation… a sin according to the Law that so many fundies and Convertadox from those traditions love to, selectively of course, laud. Ayn Rand and the whole of what now is the GOP espouse Greed, an ideology anathema to the Gospel. I’ll not call them Republicans out of respect for the great many true Republicans who opposed such nonsense as they espouse, but rather supported helping the poor, regardless of race or creed. Equally evil is trying to hide behind one’s cassock to deflect criticism of one’s Antichristian anti-Orthodox views. Fact is, the whole history of the Church, its traditions (both big and little T) and Scripture oppose the fascist tomfoolery espoused by the likes of Whiteford, Peck, Hughes, Trenham, and a host of others. You don’t preach the Gospel by supporting Mammon. Period. You do it by recognising that God created every human being in His image and likeness, and admitting that gross inequities in any economic system are an affront to that. St Basil the Great gave his views on that subject in On Social Justice. St Chrysostom taught likewise in his series of sermons called On Wealth and Poverty. Sadly, I think most of the aforementioned clergy, along with too many quislings, ignore them in favour of Ayn Rand, her followers, and their patently Antichristian views. I’ll add in closing that I agree with a few of Hagee’s statements… God’s judgement is looming, but it’s less to do with abortion or gay marriage as opposed to our wilful ignorance of the fact the USA worships wealth and the acquisition of it. Here are a few scriptural citations that show precisely God’s opinion of Mammon and its workings.
Deuteronomy 24.14-15
Thou shall not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates: at his day thou shall give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and sets his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the Lord, and it be sin unto thee.
Leviticus 19.13
Thou shall not defraud thy neighbour, neither rob him: the wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night until the morning.
Leviticus 25.50
And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him unto the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him.
******
Note well that the Mother Church condemns neoliberalism (“conservatism”), neocolonialism, and the inequities of the so-called Free Market. Also, note that most of the loudmouth rightwing konvertsy spit on that teaching of the Church… “Cafeteria Christianity”, wot (isn’t it delicious when you can turn a bigot’s words against them)? HH pals around with Comrade Fidel… Trenham and Whiteford pal around with godless Republican greedsters. One of these things is NOT like the other…
BMD