{news} Fw: [usgp-dx] Green candidate McKinney vs. the 2-party system (Matt Cardinale, Atlanta Prog. News/IPS)

[Tim McKee]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Scott McLarty"
To: natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org
Subject: [usgp-dx] Green candidate McKinney vs. the 2-party system (Matt
Cardinale, Atlanta Prog. News/IPS)
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 04:38:55 +0000



[First & second of two articles; the second is an interview]

Outspoken War Critic Poised for Green Party Run

By Matthew Cardinale
Atlanta Progressive News / Inter Press Service
April 23, 2008
http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0321.html
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42081
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/23/8468/


ATLANTA - With media attention focused almost exclusively on the
dramatic contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, millions
of U.S. voters probably have no inkling that there is a ballot
option beyond the Democratic and Republican Parties.

“There needs to be room for a lot of policy threads in American
discourse. But the corporate media is not informing the people,”
Cynthia McKinney, the front-runner for the Green Party presidential
nomination, told IPS during a rare 90-minute interview.

Founded in 2001 as the successor of the Association of State Green
Parties, the party’s platform revolves around environmentalism,
non-violence, social justice and grassroots organising. It has
slightly more than 300,000 registered voters nationwide, and a
standing ballot line in 20 states plus Washington, DC. In other
states, the party must circulate petitions to get its candidates on
the ballot.

McKinney, a former congressional representative from Georgia,
abandoned the Democratic Party last year in disgust at its failure
to end the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and is now poised for a
presidential run on the Green Party ticket.

She has won Green Party primaries in Arkansas, Illinois, and
Washington, DC. Ralph Nader, who gave the party national stature as
its candidate in 2000, won in California and Massachusetts, prior
to announcing he is running as an Independent instead.

McKinney also won the Green state caucuses in Wisconsin and Rhode
Island, and has a total of 71 delegates. Trailing candidates
include Kent Mesplay (10 delegates), Howie Hawkins (8), Jesse
Johnson (2) and Kat Swift (2).

The likelihood of McKinney winning the nomination at the party’s
national convention in Chicago this summer is “very high”, Richard
Winger, editor of Ballot Access News, told IPS, although he added
that the Green Party will have a “one in a million” chance of
winning the presidency this November.

“This country, even though it claims to be such a model, is one of
the least democratic countries because election laws, campaign
finance laws, and laws around debates openly discriminate against
all parties except two parties [Republican and Democrat],” Winger
said.

“In other countries, there is one set of [ballot access] laws,”
instead of 51 sets governing the 50 states and the capital, he
said. “This is the only country that exempts the two biggest
parties from having to qualify.”

Scott McLarty, the national Green Party spokesperson, told IPS, “We
would like to see our presidential ticket get five percent of the
vote.”

Despite the fact that winning is pretty much out of the question,
many party activists are excited by the prospect of McKinney’s
campaign inspiring a “Black-Brown-Green Coalition”.

“Of course you’ve got the situation that the Green Party is
basically a party of whites. So they are extremely aware of that
fact, except in Massachusetts and DC where they merged with the
Rainbow Party. You have a little more people of colour in those two
states,” McKinney, who is African American, told IPS.

“There is a real need of the values of the Green Party to be known
among all people of the country, not just a few,” she said.

The Green Party admits this problem. “That’s true except in certain
locations. In DC, the Green Party membership is mostly black. Among
leaders, there’s a lot of diversity,” said McLarty.

“Over the past couple decades, there has been a belief that the
environmental movement is a white phenomenon and the Green Party
has been associated with the environment even though we cover other
things like health care and the war,” he told IPS.

“On top of that, a lot of black voters have felt a very strong
loyalty to the Democratic Party. When people feel strong loyalty to
one party, they are less likely to support start-up parties,”
McLarty said.

“It’s always been true of minor parties in U.S. You’d think African
Americans would have been angry enough to leave the two major
parties. Tradition goes back 100 years ago that African Americans
are not interested in other parties,” Winger said.

McKinney, McLarty, and Winger each have different ideas of how the
Green Party should approach its political development.

“I asked for candidate recruitment because the purpose of a
political party is to win office. They have successfully recruited
more than 500 candidates,” McKinney said.

However, the fact that the Green Party is not on the ballot in
McKinney’s home state “looks weak”, Winger pointed out. Georgians
will need to collect over 40,000 signatures by July to get McKinney
on the ballot, Winger said, and they’ve only collected about 3,000.

“Some people have been out of the political system for a very long
time,” McKinney noted. “They made a choice to not be involved in
the political process. After a series of disappointments, people
made a rational choice. Unfortunately, the U.S. participation rates
are well below that of other countries.”

In recent years, Green parties have been racking up electoral
successes around the world, particularly in Europe.

“The Green Party participated in the coalition that led in Germany
and in Ireland and in the Kenyan Parliament,” McKinney said. “The
Green Party is international.”

“We have a winner-take-all system in the U.S. that pushes
conformity,” she added. “Regressive ballot access laws in Georgia
[and other states] prevent candidates from getting on the ballot.”

“The Green Party is a political entity that deserves to be built,” she
said.


* * * * *


Interview Pt 2: McKinney Takes on 2-Party System

By Matthew Cardinale
Atlanta Progressive News / Inter Press Service
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42099
http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/news/0322.html


ATLANTA, Apr 23 (IPS) - "Politics in the U.S. is at a crisis
level," Green Party presidential hopeful Cynthia McKinney told IPS
during a rare sit-down interview. "Disillusionment, lack of
participation, and establishment of false choice -- what is one to
do? For me, I can't give up hope. I said yes when the Green Party
said 'okay, now you want to do it?'."

McKinney served as a Democratic Georgia State legislator from 1988
to 1992, and as a U.S. congressperson from Georgia from 1993 to
2003 and again from 2005 to 2007. Now she is the frontrunner for
the U.S. Green Party nomination, although the candidate has yet to
be formally decided.

"There are important issues, national in scope, that need to be
addressed," McKinney said. "Unfortunately, they're not being
addressed now. These issues include a livable wage, single payer
health care, and of course the wars. And the rollback of our civil
liberties and the infrastructure needs of our country."

Always outspoken, she lost her seat in 2003, after commenting on
KPFA radio: "We know there were numerous warnings of the events to
come on Sep. 11... Those engaged in unusual stock trades
immediately before Sep. 11 knew enough to make millions of dollars
from United and American airlines, certain insurance and brokerage
firms' stocks. What did the [George W. Bush] administration know,
and when did it know it about the events of Sep. 11?"

Corporate media outlets only played the last part of her lengthy
quote and called her loony, a nut, and a conspiracy theorist, among
other things.

After gaining back her seat in 2005, McKinney was targeted again
after another much-publicised incident in 2006 in which she
physically protected herself after being assaulted by a Washington,
DC police officer who did not recognise her as a Congresswoman when
she was entering the Capitol building. Democratic leaders
dissociated themselves from McKinney and would not support her
after the incident, in which she was never charged despite a full
investigation.

Since then, McKinney has remained active in politics at home and
abroad, participating in the Hurricane Katrina Tribunal about the
effects of the storm that devastated the Gulf Coast states in 2005,
and the official neglect that followed in the aftermath.

"That was a particularly moving moment because we had people from
all over the world descend on New Orleans to hear from survivors,"
McKinney said.

"The situation with Hurricane Katrina is something no one's talking
about. When the Democrats [upon winning back a majority in Congress
in 2006] came up with the 100-Hour Agenda, nowhere in that agenda
were the Katrina survivors," she noted.

"Instead of a livable wage, she [Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi]
put an increase in the minimum wage. If the minimum wage had kept
up with the stratospheric height of CEO remuneration, the minimum
wage would be 22 dollars an hour," McKinney said.

The federal minimum wage is now 5.85 dollars, up in 2007 from 5.15
dollars, which it had been at for the 10 previous years.

"It is not sufficient given the income inequality that exists in
our country and the erosion of value of workers' wages," McKinney
said.

McKinney announced her resignation from the Democratic Party on
Mar. 17, 2007, at an anti-war rally in front of the Pentagon.

"As an American of conscience, I hereby declare my independence
from every bomb dropped, every threat leveled, every civil
liberties rollback, every child killed, every veteran maimed, every
man tortured. And I sadly declare my independence from the leaders
who let it happen," McKinney said, according to a video of the
event obtained by IPS.

One of the U.S. House votes in 2007 to authorise funding for the
U.S. occupation of Iraq passed by only one vote, McKinney said
during the interview. "Had I been there, it would have failed," she
noted, seeing as how her Democratic replacement in Congress, Rep.
Hank Johnson, voted to continue funding the war.

"The war party, which has two wings, Democratic and Republican...
The Democratic wing counted their votes. They got rid of a sure
'no' vote and ensured war funding," McKinney said.

Today, in addition to campaigning for president in more than 20
states, McKinney is completing a PhD in African American Studies at
the University of California, Berkeley. Her dissertation topic is
on the role of assassination as a political tool of the state.

"I know as a result [of my candidacy] a lot of people are looking.
Hopefully, they will give the Green Party a look. In order to have
choice, you have to vote that choice. If you haven't voted in the
past, maybe this is the time to vote," she said.

"We have to pay attention to these issues... because while no one
is talking about it in this presidential campaign, the rest of the
world is consolidating to oppose greed. You have to look at the
power of the vote of people in Latin America, in Haiti, Mexico,
Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, and sometimes
Brazil," McKinney said.

"Through the power of the vote they change their circumstances. If
they can do it in Nicaragua, you know we can do it here," she said.

*This is the second of two articles about the U.S. Green Party and
the 2008 elections.


About the author:

Matthew Cardinale is the News Editor for The Atlanta Progressive
News and may be reached at matthew at atlantaprogressivenews.com.




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Tim McKee, Manchester CT, Home-860-643-2282
Cell-860-778-1304
Tim McKee, is a National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT.
BLOG- http://thebiggreenpicture.blogspot.com 



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