[North-NV-Greens] Fwd: [usgp-dx] A Green Message to Mike, on the Ohio recount & the 2004 election certification

Wed Jan 5 23:24:00 PST 2005

>
>An open letter to Michael Moore, from Scott
>McLarty, Media Coordinator for the Green Party of
>the United States
>
>Wednesday, January 5, 2005
>
>
>Hi Mike
>
>Please don't forget -- it was the Green Party,
>with some help from Libertarians, who launched
>the recount efforts in Ohio and New Mexico, filed
>the court papers, and raised the money for the
>legal fees and ground expenses like monitoring
>the recount process.
>
>It wasn't the Democrats, Rep. Conyers, or Rev.
>Jackson, even though we're thankful they joined
>us and brought some clout and publicity.
>
>It's safe to say that without Green national
>candidates David Cobb and Pat LaMarche and their
>campaign team, there would be no recount or
>challenge to George W. Bush's engineered victory
>in 2004.
>
>Mike, I'm worried about something else that's
>just as important.
>
>It's very likely that, despite the recounts and
>possible challenges from Democrats in Congress
>when the certification of the 2004 election takes
>place on January 6, Mr. Bush will still be our
>president for the next for years.  What then?
>
>If Democrats behave as they did four years ago,
>they'll sit on their hands and complain about
>what should have been (without the whines about
>Nader spoilage, fortunately).
>
>That's not enough.  Regardless of the recount
>outcome and congressional certification, we need
>to get some urgent reforms enacted: paper ballots
>to verify every vote cast on a computer voting
>machine; equitable distribution of voting
>equipment; public scrutiny and accountability to
>prevent the obstruction of legitimate votes;
>removal of biased partisan officials from
>supervision of vote counts (beginning with Ohio
>Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who
>chaired the Bush/Cheney campaign in Ohio); clean
>election laws.
>
>We need to apply Section 2 of the 14th Amendment,
>according to which a state may be penalized when
>it obstructs the votes of a class of its citizens
><http://www.gp.org/press/pr_10_18_04.html>.
>
>If we get these reforms passed, it'll be a huge
>victory for Greens and other progressives, for
>African Americans and young people and others
>who've been targeted for voter obstruction, and
>for all people who care about democracy and fair
>elections, regardless of political stripe.
>
>These reforms are achievable, but it'll take
>work.  The Green Party is already pushing for
>them, along with Instant Runoff Voting,
>Proportional Representation, public financing of
>campaigns, removal of the two-party-owned
>corporate-funded Commission on Presidential
>Debates from control over the debates, greater
>access to our publicly-owned airwaves for
>political candidates and forums, and repeal of
>ballot access laws designed by Democrats and
>Republicans to hinder third party and independent
>candidates.  (I'll let you in on a little Green
>Party secret: electoral reform -- not the
>election of John Kerry, whom the Green Party
>didn't support -- has been our primary motivation
>for the recount all along.)
>
>It'll also take a lot of publicity, in the face
>of apathy from the corporate media.  Even now,
>they're missing a sensational story in Ohio.
>Columnists in many of the leading papers are more
>interested in dimestore red-state blue-state
>analysis than in evidence of election (and
>recount) fraud.  Anne Applebaum, columnist for
>The Washington Post, opined on November 17, 2004
>that paper confirmation of votes cast on machines
>was unnecessary, since ATMs now make transaction
>print-outs optional
><http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55691-2004Nov16.html>.
>  If Ms. Applebaum's bank isn't sending her
>monthly statements on paper, she should find
>herself a new bank.
>
>Mike, what can we do to turn it around?  What can
>we do to keep a candle burning under every
>Democrat's and every self-described progressive's
>ass, until we get fair elections and accurate
>vote counts?
>
>Regardless of what the Democrats (progressive or
>otherwise) decide to do next, the Green Party
>will continue to demand real democracy.  We've
>shown that the Green Party is indispensible in
>the era of Bush-Cheney-Rove 21st century American
>empire.  We're proving that, as in the past,
>third parties are the engine of change in
>America, in the tradition of abolitionism,
>women's suffrage, the movement for eight-hour
>work days and other labor rights, civil rights,
>balanced budgets, etc., etc.
>
>Help us, Mike!
>
>Scott McLarty
>Media Coordinator, Green Party of the United
>States
>202-518-5624, mclarty at greens.org
>http://www.gp.org
>http://www.votecobb.org
>
>PS What's scarier than four more years of Bush?
>Forty more years of Bush vs. Kerry.  Another
>generation of political debate limited to
>Republican vs. Democrat (or, even worse,
>bipartisan consensus).  Another century of
>progressive Democrats holding their noses as they
>campaign and vote for their party's corporate
>nominee.
>
>The Greens are the party of peace, of
>single-payer national health insurance, of repeal
>of the Taft-Hartley Act, of decisive steps to
>bring down CO2 emissions.  With the ascent of
>anti-abortion Democratic leaders Tim Roemer and
>Sen. Harry Reid, the Greens are now the party of
>reproductive rights, too.
>
>The future of ecological, progressive-populist
>politics is Green, or it isn't at all!
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Paul Etxeberri

"Forests precede civilizations and deserts follow"   ---Chateaubriand