At their national convention today, Green Party delegates nominated physician Jill Stein as their presidential candidate.
Stein won 193.5 delegates, compared with 72 for comedian Roseanne Barr, who did not attend.
Stein will face Republican Mitt Romney for the second time. In 2002, Stein ran against Romney for Governor of Massachusetts.
Well – I spent 12 hours out gathering signatures in Virginia today.
As I headed home late tonight, it was inspiring to listen to Dr. Stein’s address to the Green Party convention.
Dr. Jill Stein did a great job.
It is is an exciting year for the Independent Green Party, and all Greens.
Stein 2012 = Nader 2000 — esp. in FLORIDA ???
How many $$$ TRILLIONS will the Green folks get from the Elephant PACs to —
guess what — DIVIDE and CONQUER — esp. in the 2008 marginal Electoral College States.
See 1860, See 1992.
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
#2,I actually don’t mind if GOP PACs support Greens. So what if they do? Great! If you support the Greens, or any party other than the GOP or the Dems you have to be in a mindset that you’re willing to forego immediate electoral victory in deferece to an expression of ideology. You have to be willing to engage in what many people engaged in politics see as a transgressive act. You have to be of the opinion that transformative movements often have their genesis at times and in places and in ways that are overlooked and discounted by contemporary observes.
I’d like to see Democrats funding the Goode and Johnson campaigns and the Republicans funding the Stein and Johnson campaigns.
Politics is a line of inches. There are many ways for third party candidates to gather media attention.
I suggest that all 3 major alternative party candidates focus on trying to win the small states, go after the same GOP or safe Dem states and compete there and also try to run up the score in the major states.
#3, Yeah, what you said! Detailed and sincerre political reform is what one cannot get from a major party candidate. Never any regrets. As one of the 97,488 votes for the Green Party in FL, 2000 I often think about the thousands of votes stolen from the effort by the Dems. When a voter votes away from the major parties you can be quite sure the reasons are compelling. Like Dr Stein mentioned, we don’t have a real functioning democracy.
It is time for people to vote for their values instead of their fears. Vote Green if your a Lefty and Libertarian if your a Righty.
I think that would be vote Constitutional if your are a “Righty”. Libertarians are both right and left depending on the issue. Or… they are neither right nor left depending on the issue. Take your pick!
Like the Libertarian Party, the Green Party used the illegit Robert Rules of Order 2/3rds super-majority to approve an item from the floor.
I don’t know all the details, but this item was regarding the electoral college with a vote of approx. 64% to 36%, with the 36% prevailing. The winning item was supported by Fairvote.org which tells me that the item was no good since Fairvote supports IRV.
I did attend the Green Party Black Caucus meeting, and I wrote a small sentence in the following special bulletin:
http://usparliament.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=561&sid=2b38a62181412c3b586077a008ae78fc
Hope you like it!
Best,
–James Ogle [Free Parliamentary]
Volunteer Vote Counter
Join the Frees,
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(with consecutively alternating genders thereafter)
Why do you THINK they called it Google?
Hey Richard, have you seen this? It’s a list of ballot access figures in some states for the Green Party. http://www.gp.org/2012/ballot-access.html
PERHAPS SHE WILL DRAIN VOTES OFF OBAMA
, DOES ANYONE THINK ROSEANN WILL STILL RUN?
@10… no. Too many deadlines have passed and many more will pass within the next month. She couldn’t get on the ballot in enough states to make any difference at all.
Go We Go!
For the brain dead — The EVIL SCOTUS and the brain dead moron media has made each Prez since 1932 into a god, monarch, emperor, dictator, etc.
— due to the EVIL minority rule gerrymanders in the U.S.A. House of Reps and the especially the U.S.A. Senate — lots of below average State — i.e. the more puppet Congresses the better as far as the MORON media is concerned.
Thus – the EVIL daily news of what EACH incumbent U.S.A. Prez is doing to control the universe
— along with his/her armies of media morons watching all news on Mother Earth 24/7
– ready always to make nonstop instant flippant junior high school comments about everything happening in the U.S.A. or any foreign regime or on the High Seas.
—
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V. — to END the nonstop E-V-I-L since 1832 especially in the minority rule gerrymander Electoral College.
i.e. Most/all E.C. Prezs (since 1960) go instantly CRAZY and claim to own the Earth as his/her toy.
In Saturday’s proceedings, the Green Party imposed the illegitimate requirement of a 2/3rds super-majority to reject an amendment from the floor. The justification for imposing the super-majority requirement was that the amendment had already been passed by the national committee, but such a committee normally has the power only to propose, not to pass, amendments. It is the membership that approves and passes amendments, not a committee.
A good parallel is the process by which legislation or amendments are created and passed by the U.S. Congress or state legislatures. There a committee proposes a bill which is “passed out of committee” to the full body for a vote. The bill can only be passed into law by the majority vote of the members. A super-majority is not required.
I don’t know all the details of the Green Party’s procedure on Saturday, but the amendment in question, which supported IRV, was rejected by the membership by a vote of approximately 64% to 36%. Yet, because of the super-majority requirement, the 36% prevailed. The minority position won in part because it was supported by Fairvote.org. It is no coincidence that Fairvote publicly supports IRV.
@10
Honorable Prime Minister/Queen Roseanne Barr [Green Tea] has indicated that she will be running for POTUS as a write-in candidate.
To coordinate with her campaign, please contact FEC Minister Barbara Dalton [Independent] at barbara270@gmail.com or http://www.facebook.com/DRAFTYHEART
Best,
–James Ogle [Free Parliamentary]
Volunteer Vote Counter
http://www.usparliament.org
Join the Frees,
Opposite gender #1!
(With consecutively alternating genders thereafter)
Correction: barbara270@msn.com
@14: A two-thirds vote is required for any vote which restricts the rights of the members. This is why a two-thirds vote is required to end debate. If the amendment in question restricted anyone’s rights, then a two-thirds vote to approve the change would have been justified. Otherwise, somebody should have rose to a parliamentary inquiry and appealed the decision of the chair. I can’t believe no one in that 64% knew Robert’s Rules.
@4: My belief is that the minor parties should concentrate on those states where an obtainable showing gives the party some more rights (such as being on the ballot automatically). They should also work together and divvy out the obtainable states so that they don’t cancel each other out. For example, a party that gets 2% in one state may have more rights than one that doesn’t, but a concentrated effort by multiple parties in that state may result in none of them getting that 2%. One possiblility would be to let the Libertarians be the main alternate party west of the Mississippi, the Constitution south of the Ohio, and the Green Party the remainder [plus Hawaii]. I don’t know if that divides up the obtainable states fairly, however.
#9, thanks for that useful link to the Green Party web page on petitioning.
@17 Robert’s Rules of Order’s stipulation of a 2/3rds super-majority is simply a way for the status quo party bosses to control the majority (50% plus one) and the wordings of such challenges are simply construed to make a shallow appearance of a democratic vote.
It’s the party bosses of the Libertarian, Green, American Independent and all other elected entities who use this bogus trick to control the majority that need to be exposed.
Two-thirds requirements are not democratic and the use of such tactics should not be condoned by any lover of democracy and lovers of majority rule (50% plus one).
The use of such threshold simply underlines the ignorance of the perpetuators and this flaw is totally unacceptable to advocates of true democracy.
To those who support such a trick; you have been grossly misled and if you think that the 65% whom are on the losing end of such tactics will accept this then I think you’d best face our numbers and surrender. 😉
I am Chair of the DC Statehood Green Party Electoral College Task Force and will fill in some of the details on the item “regarding the electoral college ” referenced in the comment in this blog by “Peaceful Revolution”. The item relates to an amendment to section f. of the Green Party Platform regarding the Electoral College. The amendment would retain the first sentence (“Abolish the Electoral College and provide for the direct national election of the president by Instant Runoff Voting”) and strike the second sentence, specifically: “As a step in that direction, support National Popular Vote Legislation which would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia), which would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).”
The amendment sought to keep the present platform that calls for proportional apportionment of presidential electors based on the popular vote split until the Green desire for the abolishment of the Electoral College is met. That is, the Greens’ existing position on the Electoral College in the platform was an improvement over the adopted position to support National Popular Vote (NPV) Legislation. The proportional allocation of presidential electors is progressive and encourages and empowers votes for a third party candidate that may win presidential electors. The NPV is regressive and provides no incentives to vote for Third Parties, provides no opportunity for Third Party electors and thus is a proxy to preserve a two party duopoly.
64% of voting delegates to the Green party Convention voted yes for the amendment to keep the proportional apportionment platform, while only 36% voted to adopt the NPV platform approved by the National Committee. However, the amendment failed to meet a supper majority threshold. Thus NPV survived and stands in the Greenparty platform.
Unfortunately, more than a super majority of the delegates who voted are unaware that: 1) The NPV relies on a neo-confederate interpretation of the Constitution that was overturned by the second section of the fourteenth amendment. NPV violates this constitutional provision, and 2) NPV’s “legitimacy” is grounded in a Redemption era precedent that reestablished white supremacy in the former confederate states and overturned the Reconstruction amendments that secured the vote for former slaves. (McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U. S. 1, 35 (1892), an infamous Supreme Court precedent, by the way, that was cited by the Department of Justice lawyers in Gordon v. Cheney/Biden (C.A. No.08-1294) to dismiss my civil action, and which I defeated in pleadings before the US Court. Thus, the delegates to the GP convention have unwittingly added to the United States Green Party platform a position on the Electoral College that is grounded in neo-confederacy and white supremacy, based on a precedent a Green has already defeated in federal court.
The support of NPV in the Green party platform is unwittingly racist and stupid, but let me be clear so as to ease my white Greens’ anxiety over any belated realization of what they have done. I must honestly confess in shame that this debacle pales in comparison to the even dumber proposal that the Black Caucus of the Democratic Party proposed as an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States grounded in acceptance of Bush v. Gore reliance on the discredited precedent in McPherson v. Blacker (1892). To the credit of the Democratic Black Caucus, after I presented the historical context of the Green Parties “proportional apportionment” platform to a congressional aide to a Black Caucus member of the Judiciary, and after former political director of the Green Party Brent McMillan, (GREENS PUSH FOR REAL REFORMS AT CARTER-BAKER HEARINGS, JUNE 30. Press Release June 27, 2005) confronted caucus representatives at a hearing on electoral reform, the Black Caucus of the Democratic Party realized their error and corrected their proposed Constitutional amendment. I am hopeful that after Greens have been presented with this information and historical context the Party will prove as willing to adjust its error and revert back to its more progressive “proportional apportionment” platform. However, I and the Green Black caucus are well aware that this may not be sufficient, because there is a problem of racism in the Green Party.
So, toward the end of providing enlightenment on this matter, I am preparing an article for “Green Pages” that will lay out the neo-confederate, racist, two-party duopoly foundation of NPV legislation. I will include exciting narratives of how the Democratic Black caucus proposal to amend the Constitutional to protect voting rights unwittingly supported white supremacy, and the process by which the Green Party has amended their platform based on a white supremacist foundation. How’s that for a teaser! Coming soon in Green Pages:
ON THE GREEN PARTY’S RACIST PLATFORM SOLUTION FOR THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE CONUNDRUM
by Asa Gordon, Exe.Dir. DIG, Chair DCSGP-ECTF, Sec.Gen. S&DUSCT.
In my July 16 posting I mistakenly referred to a Green Party platform amendment concerning the “IRV.” I meant to refer to the “NPV (National Popular Vote).”
What percentage of the U.S.A. population looks at the platform machinations of ANY party — Donkeys, Elephants, third parties ???
0.001 percent or less ???
Some of such percent are university polisci students trying to impress their profs ???
#20 I’m trying to understand here. The National Popular Vote plan relies upon a “neo-confederate interpretation” of the US constitution that is not itself constitutional and should not be supported because of those assertions.
There is much debate, about very fundemental things, and what might be or not be constitutional. Always has been. Bad constitutional law exists, and that’s bad. Racism exists, that’s worse.
If NPV were ultimately adopted how does racism get to thrive? Seriously a full lenghth explanation is needed here because I’d fight it if there was more of it, exponential or mathematic.
The NPV plan is a direct, clever and unique assault on the worst annoyance of the Electoral College, losing the popular vote but winning the presidentcy.
I loathe the Electoral College, it’s the origin of two partyism, I think. NPV is using the idea of compacts made between states to make a compact between enough states to cut a deal on allocating electoral votes, which as it happens the constitution quite specifically gives to state(s) to do.
The electoral college would still exist (darn) still give grief to smaller parties (darn) but at least not make possible the candidate geter fewer popular votes president.
Almost as important there would be a new power to alter the constitution with respect to those things states are unambiguously in charge of anyway. Maybe a new compact aggrement can be voted on that might make further desireable changes. But importantly we would have laid a glove on the Electoral College, a real rush of empowerment there.
Now your favorite idea of states deciding to proportionatly allocate there electoral votes constitutes 51 battles where idealism must defeat real influence, good luck with that. Though I’ll support it whereever it comes up because if we can get 51 states to do that the Electoral College will show its ugliest side and fail to get majorities, sending election into us house and senate (vp)that would be awful if not great news reading. If some kind of incentive mechanism can be invented to adopt proportional in the states plan (electoral nightmares included) then what probably exists anyhow is the will to amend the constitution to ditch the whole thing.
Really, the only logic that is going to enable this union to ditch the EC is the notion that all minorities, political minorities need bonafide representation, not mere nominal representation. There must be an explicit rejection of the two party system on the grounds of systematic inferiority of it.
Until we can find a way to at least lay a finger on the Electoral College, we’re screwed. It can only happen if the tyranny of inferior representation that the two very similar viabilty-hogging parties offer is called out. That means everyone identifying as a minority and declaring majorities mere procedural accomplishments by minority coalitions.
Racism is horrible, Statehood for DC!
These comments are all pretty much underlining all the harm that the “well-intentioned do-gooders” who have been working to implement IRV (instant runoff voting) have done continually on a steady pace for the past seventeen years.
IRV perpetuates a two-party system, attracts single-winner district power-grabbing egotists who are not team players and simply keeps people of third parties and independents out of elective office with 50% plus one vote threshold a far greater amount of time than 33.33% plus one vote thresholds, the level of a two-member district under RCV (ranked choice voting).
Simply by going to multi-winner districts of two of more we can create an atmosphere of teamwork and nurture an opportunity to work across racial, gender and partisan lines. Single-winner districts (IRV) don’t do that, only districts of two or more (The Sainte-Lague parliament seat distribution system) can do create the positive unity and teamwork we seek.
We’ve all seen in 2012, who the power-grabbers have been as they raised their ugly heads.
Everyone else, are you tired of chasing your tails by perpetuating IRV and single-winner districts which create divisions and a circle-the-wagons psychology? Wouldn’t you rather UNITE all the cowboys and Indians and find items of 100% consensus through ranked choice consensus voting?
Try unity sometime!
The 8th USA Parliament Election of 2012 is trying to elect 1000 names on a national level, electing each name with 1/1001ths (.999%) plus one vote, with a guaranteed satisfaction level of 99.9% plus 1000 votes through August 5th, 2012.
The next cycle for such a national committee (the USA Parliament is a non-profit voter registration drive organization), is in 2016.
Click here to vote through August 6th, 2012:
http://usparliament.org/votehere.php
All people are welcomed and many levels/regions/planks are available for your name and participation, the more the better. Nothing more is asked of you, but when you do more, all the better!
Thanks for considering!
Best,
–James Ogle [Free Parliamentary], Secretary
Volunteer Vote Counter
Join the Frees,
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(With consecutively alternating genders thereafter)
I just got off the phone with the 3rd person I’ve talked to at FairVote.org about my offer to count the marked eballots and paper ballots of the 8th USA Parliament Election of 2012 who has rebuffed my offer to do the vote count at their office located a few miles from where I live.
I am still unsure as to why a demonstration of such a vote count which uses the Sainte-Lague parliament seat distribution system, ranked choice voting (RCV), the single-transferrable vote (STV), Hagenbach-Bischoff method, is of no interest to them. This really does seem odd to me.
Best,
–James Ogle [Free Parliamentary]
Elected Secretary (One of Two)
http://www.usparliament.org
“Why do you THINK they called it Google?”