WE DO NOT CONSENT

This is a rowdy Greek Orthodox monk at an anti-austerity protest… follow the good father… lift up your voice… the Church is NOT the lickspittle of the rightwing… as much as the konvertsy may want that…

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This government is premised upon the concept of “consent of the governed”.

We Do Not Consent

The Green Party didn’t wilt before the DNC, Hillary Clinton, or the corporate media. The Green Party won’t wilt before a Trump presidency, either. We call for sustained and organized resistance to president-elect Donald Trump and the rise of right-wing extremism in the USA. We won’t bow down or fall in line to the corporate leadership of the Democratic or Republican parties, with their endless wars for oil, disastrous trade deals, and support for Wall Street that crashed the economy and devastated the lives of millions.

We Do Not Consent

We’ll stand for people, peace, and planet, OVER profits. You supported us, and we’re grateful. Over 1.2 million voted for the Stein/Baraka presidential ticket. Because of you, we won many state victories… not the least of which was the passage of ranked-choice voting in Maine and Benton County, Oregon as well as marijuana legalization in six states and calls to abolish corporate constitutional rights in CA and WA. You even helped us keep ballot lines for 2018 in CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, HI, LA, ME, MD, MI, MS, MO, NM, NY, OR, PA, SC, VT, WV, and WI. You stood for us and with us. We stood with you. Now…

We must ALL STAND TOGETHER

Now is NOT the time to lose heart…now is the time to take action. Now is the time to seek out your local Green Party, to join forces, to lend a hand. We must educate, agitate, and organise. Historic change movements always begin with the actions of a few. As Margaret Mead said:

Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.

To build the party we want, to change this nation, and shift the political conversation forever, we must build social movements in the streets AND an electoral arm at the ballot box. The Green Party aspires to be that electoral arm… the voice of our movements. We’re prepared to be an instrument for power to the people. We represent the new politics of integrity that must rise up and replace this rotten two-party system.

We’re The Ones We’ve Been Waiting For

We will continue to build this movement long after the election. How? We’re opening campaign schools to help ordinary people learn how to run as Greens in local races and win. We’re supporting state and local candidates as well, with more infrastructure and more volunteers. We call for a peaceful, non-violent revolution by those who were shut out of this terrible election by the leadership of both corporate political parties. We do NOT consent to Donald Trump and rightwing rule. We do NOT consent to the Establishment and to corporate rule. We do NOT consent to Empire. Be a part of our movement and be a part of history.

We have much work to do. Let’s do it. Together.

Gloria Mattera

Stein/Baraka 2016 Campaign Chairman

(no URL available… email)

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We’ll Continue to Resist the “Empire”

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We’re all still in shock and disbelief from Tuesday night’s election returns. The Stein/Baraka campaign stands in solidarity with you in your grief. We stand with you in your mourning… and we’ll stand AGAINST the rise of right-wing extremism in our nation. Yesterday, Dr Jill had this to say:

We don’t consent to empire. We don’t consent to racism. We don’t consent to austerity. We don’t consent to the prison industrial complex or a security state. We don’t consent to a generation locked in debt. We don’t consent to destruction of our climate, our environment, or the basic premise of racial justice. We call for peaceful, nonviolent revolution by the ordinary people.

Vice Presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka said:

We stand in solidarity with the communities that have suffered from harassment, voter suppression, and now the trauma of a Donald Trump victory and what it represents. The only answer to rightwing extremism is to build alternative power; a principled and strong movement that expresses and agitates for the needs of the American people.

David Cobb, Stein/Baraka campaign manager said:

Don’t mourn… ORGANISE. We don’t consent to Donald Trump and rightwing rule, and we don’t consent to the establishment of corporate rule that got us here. Principled liberals and principled conservatives were shut out of this terrible election. The Green Party is prepared to be an instrument for popular power, and a new politics of integrity that must rise up and replace this rotten two-party system.

According to polls in the New York Times, this election “repulsed” fully 80 percent of American voters… with good reason. Not only did the powers-that-be sabotage Bernie Sanders, but thanks to Wikileaks, we know that they actively worked with corporate media to elevate Donald Trump as a “Pied Piper Candidate” to encourage the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. “Despicable” seems to be too generous a word for these actions.

As the Green Party, we’re the political arm of this continuing peaceful revolutionary social movement. Our democracy demands we fight on in defence of our values. Fighting for what’s right is always worth it… there is much more work to do. 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. We call immediately for direct actions against the passage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the lame duck session, for which we expect Donald Trump to come out in full support. We already have plans in place to mobilise against it! We’re also co-organising for “Occupy the Inauguration” demonstrations on 20/21 January (the anniversary of Citizens United). 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 and we are with you on this team. We will continue to carry on. More than one million people stood up for what they knew was right and voted for the Green Party. That’s three times more votes than Jill garnered in her 2012 run. Our movement is growing… this is the beginning, not the end. We won’t mourn forever… we’ll organise. There’s much to be done…

IT’S IN OUR HANDS

10 November 2016

Gloria Mattera

Stein/Baraka 2016 Campaign Chairman

(no URL available… email)

Dumbass Democrats

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Congratulations, You Played Yourself!

OK, this rant is from my working-class heart, but it’s due time for a rant. Well, who the hell are the Democrats going to blame now? The degree to which you scapegoat the Green Party or the white working-class is precisely the degree to which you are proving you will never learn a damn thing and are completely unable to lead this country. If it wasn’t such a farce, I’d say it is King Lear redux. Let’s look at some really basic, I mean high school level politics. Not fair, the average 16-year-old is far wiser than the big shots of the DNC.

Establishment Candidate in an Anti-Established Year

It isn’t just that the Democrats didn’t take the pulse of the electorate. They didn’t even try. Simple stuff really. It’s an anti-establishment year. So, the DNC stays with the predetermined candidate that best represents the corrupt establishment itself. Duh. The Democrats were oblivious to the deep discontent among the American people because that simply doesn’t figure into their clever and cunning calculations. Why should it? Fear, lesser of two evils, scapegoating, palace politics… all these things worked in the past, didn’t they? So, all the discontent and unhappiness from years of economic distress fed right into the only other choice. We have the “great two party system” don’t we? Both Democrats and Republicans insist there isn’t an alternative. The Democrats fail, the Republican succeed. Damn the binary, we so need a multi-party system. The Democrats run a candidate who spent eight years in the White House, crowed about her experience, even when the experience included the fact that Bill Clinton was IMPEACHED and widely viewed as a bum. Yeah, the Democrats embrace a family dynasty that includes one of the two presidents in all of American history impeached by the House of Representatives. Good choice! This has to be one of the most amazing proofs that the Democratic Party echo chamber is truly deafening.

Burning Down Democracy

Then, in another move… that has to rank as one of the most moronic and dishonest tactics in American politics… the DNC conspires with the corporate media to cheat Bernie Sanders, the rightful nominee. Then, in a brilliant tactic, the DNC elevates Trump as the easy one to beat. Both demobilise voters, especially younger voters, by giving them proof positive that their vote doesn’t count. Only a machine so insulated and out of touch with the country it proposes to lead could make such an elementary error. It was an error impossible to make if Democrats held the interest of the country higher than control over the machine. However, they don’t.

Show Me the Message

Up until the bitter end, the Clinton campaign was so distracted by underhanded manipulation and palace politics that it failed to have a concise convincing message. I’m not Donald Trump, she cried out. I’m a woman… well, I’m a human with a female anatomy anyway. Token to feminism, but hatchet man to the women in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Honduras, the garment workers in Haiti, the women thrown off welfare, and millions of working women struggling to get by. People aren’t stupid and these unmentionable casualties were greater than the “deplorables” we were instructed to despise. While you’re at it, remember that condescension toward the working class is always a winning appeal, well until now. Obama, joker that he is, had the sense to promise hope and change. At least, lie like a politician, OK? Clinton in one of her most passionate statements on domestic policy promised us that universal healthcare would “never ever” happen. I mean, did they pay someone to think that up?

Rely on Fear… Then, Scare the Shit Out of Everyone

We already have seven wars under Obama, but that just wasn’t enough for Hillary. Clinton’s lust for war and love of the military-industrial complex was so great she spoke openly of nuclear war. During the last debate, we learned we are four minutes from oblivion. Now, that was smart! To the American Legion she said, “One of the first things I will do as president, is to call for a new nuclear posture review”. Unnecessary warmongering. Clinton knew damn well that Obama had already ordered a trillion dollar upgrade of the nuclear arsenal including the production of dangerous tactical nukes, weapons small enough that they could actually use them. So, if you’re going to rely on fear to manipulate the voters try not to be the scarier one. In 1968, Nixon actually ran as a “peace candidate” to the “left” of Humphrey, whose response to the war in Vietnam was “more of the same”. Nixon won, you dumbasses.

Welcome to the Machine

Machine politics don’t work anymore. There are jobs at stake and god knows “I was just doing my job”, but having spent over 15 years as union staff, I can attest to the swaggering arrogance of so many of the “best and brightest” machine operatives, particularly those in legislative and electoral work. Power is just so intoxicating. I prefer beer. I can see them now, nodding in agreement, smug, certain, and unanimous. If the labour movement and other social movement groups that “got in early” behind Clinton… as their predictable advisors always advise… instead poured every possible resource into Bernie Sanders, or god help us, Jill Stein, we wouldn’t be in this position… but no. The machine demands that its cogs sacrifice their own political judgements and morality to the Leader, or in this, the season of fascism, might we say “Führer.” If the big, so badass unions, AFT, NEA, SEIU, AFSME, don’t clean house and fire their sharp and savvy political advisors, who they pay plenty, then, we can only expect they have learnt nothing and are as unfit to lead the American working class as the Democrats are unfit to lead the country.

Dominion is Mind Rot

In the larger frame, [faux] policy choices and machine politics are just the tactic and strategy of power. The failure of the Democrats is the price of dominion, and, dominion is mind rot. It isn’t simply that the Clintons have wielded power far too long. Far too long surrounded by sycophants, job seekers, and donors. “Yes, Madam Secretary”. “No, Madam Secretary”. “Hillary” is marketing for suckers. Blindness is the consequence of immense power and that is why, in a democracy, power is supposed to be insecure, not dynastic. Checks and balances. Separation of powers. This is one of the many reasons empires fall and perhaps the only silver lining to Trump’s victory. The American empire grows feeble. Let’s push it under.

The Measure of Mendacity

The scapegoating will be a good measure of just how decadent the Democrats are. The Democrats learnt the wrong lesson in 2000. What lesson will they learn now? Oh, and the scapegoating and fearmongering the Democrats are so fond of have made people less likely to resist the system. Who wants to be blamed and shamed for months and years of activism? Nice job, dumbasses. The other, equally dangerous measure of mendacity will be the degree to which the Democrats capitulate to Trump. Judging by Obama’s addiction to serial compromise with the uncompromising Republicans, the Democrats may well move yet again to the right; ever closer to Trump. Remember that the rise of the Clinton machine and the “third way” Democrats in the 1990s was an accommodation to the “Reagan Revolution”.

What Are We Waiting For?

So, if the Democrats are hopeless dumbasses and the Republicans hopeless on all accounts, where is the leadership to come from? It isn’t too hard to see, really. Since the last revolution of the mid-twentieth century, it’s been “we the people” embodied in the social movements. We have the morality, political values, strategy, and courage to lead the country. Start with the “mother of all movements”, the civil rights movement. Read Martin Luther King’s, Where Do We Go From Here? Read it now and then live it. Then, take a close look at the new civil rights movement. Right now… as the political parties parade their intellectual and moral bankruptcy… school’s in session. The people at Standing Rock are demonstrating the kind of deep wisdom… a wisdom with global appeal… that we can use to create a future worth living for. Pay close attention. If we work hard, we can organise a political party that’s the electoral wing of the social moments. Right now, there’s only one candidate for the job… the Green Party.

The only thing worse than a dumbass is a chickenshit. Let’s get it on!

10 November 2016

Richard Moser

Be Freedom

https://befreedom.co/2016/11/10/dumbass-democrats/

Dr Jill on the Late Election

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This bitter election has left the overwhelming majority of Americans feeling disgusted. Polls show that a fear of the other candidate, not support for their candidate, motivated a large majority of voters. This is another symptom of a democracy on life-support. Many are rightly outraged about the DNC’s sabotage of Bernie Sanders, who by all indications would’ve trounced Donald Trump.

We must also recognise the leading role played by corporate media in turning this election into a toxic reality show. The media elevated Trump at the bidding of the Democratic National Committee… and to boost their own advertising profits. They also marginalised Bernie Sanders, and massively silenced our campaign and Gary Johnson’s in a year when Americans were screaming for more choices. They legitimised corporate-controlled debates that locked out political competition. One study found that our campaign received 3 seconds of coverage on corporate media for every 1,700 minutes for Trump and every 1,000+ minutes for Clinton. We urgently need to support independent media whose only agenda is informing the public of the truth.

In spite of all the barriers to our participation, we earned over one million votes for peaceful revolution, more than doubling our vote count in 2012. Very real suffering in our country drives the anti-establishment revolt we’re witnessing. High real unemployment, falling real wages, lack of affordable healthcare and education devastate our communities, while both establishment parties push corporate trade deals, wars for oil, and Wall Street bailouts to enrich the élite. The anger at economic inequality is easily manipulated to divide the people against each other. We must revive American democracy, if we are to stop our descent into authoritarianism.

One of the most hopeful developments is that Maine became the first state to pass ranked choice voting, which also won in Benton County OR. Ranked choice voting could end fear-driven voting and reverse the race to the bottom that our elections have become. Greens also worked hard to pass state-wide initiatives calling for a constitutional amendment to abolish corporate constitutional rights and the concept that money equals speech in Washington and California. We must build coalitions for democracy reforms including the replacing the Electoral College with a national popular vote, ending corporate constitutional rights, public election financing, and free public airtime for candidates to counter the corporate media’s failure to inform the public.

The Green Party also continued its long record of electing grassroots candidates to local office, with Greens winning 10 elections in California, 5 in Michigan, and 3 in Minnesota. I congratulate all our local candidates and volunteers… you’re the heart and soul of our party. It’s clearer than ever that America desperately needs a principled alternative to the predatory political establishment. I hope you’ll continue as an invaluable member of our team, working with myself, Ajamu, and all of our campaign… as we continue the work of building a party for people, planet, and peace over profit. We must work as if our lives depend on it… because they do.

This campaign isn’t ending. To start with, we’ll support actions against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, as part of a series of protests in Washington DC from 12-17 November. We’ll build Occupy Inauguration protests in January. Throughout the coming year, we’ll organise campaign schools and training for new candidates. We’ll also organise campaigns to enact Ranked Choice Voting in the presidential race, and for a People’s Presidential Debate Commission… to replace the repressive bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates… for the election starting in 2020.

So stay tuned. Take care of yourself and your loved ones. Don’t mourn… organise and keep fighting for the greater good. Together, we’ll create an America and a world that works for all of us. The power to create that world isn’t just in our hopes. It isn’t just in our dreams. It’s in our hands.

Jill Stein

9 November 2016

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