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McKinney has kind of a political tourette syndrome, you know, she just can’t stop herself from saying the truth no matter how much trouble it gets her in. - Greg Palast

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WORK IN PROGRESS!! I just wanted to get it posted before tomorrow. Adding stuff to it gradually.

I’m voting Green. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente. The past 2 elections I voted Democrat despite not being enthused with the candidates. They do not represent my views but I was swayed by the argument that the elections were “too important” to lose. Finding myself grappling with the same mindset this year left me frustrated. How many more elections would it be - how many more before I can safely choose to vote for someone who I can be proud of and excited to endorse??

I’m sick of this idea that I need to put aside my beliefs to elect the “viable” candidate. I’m sick of settling. I want to help build a new movement. I want to stand up and be counted, vote AGAINST the two party system we have now, all while actually voting for a candidate that closely represents my views.

If the Greens get 5% of the vote they qualify for federal funding. My vote is not wasted.

McKinney responded to The Sanctuary’s questionnaire on immigration in a manner that I had hoped to see from Barack Obama when I cast my vote for him in the Democratic primary. Trade was the issue I had voted on primarily and I had hoped that he would be different. No one ever talks about the underlying reasons for the massive immigration that the United States is experiencing. Then everyone wants to throw immigrants out when it was our trade policies that caused them to come here in the first place.

Reading this was a turning point from being nervous about whether I was making the right choice to being excited and feeling good about my voting decision. It’s an amazing feeling. I’ve NEVER felt this way about voting before.

1. Could you please articulate what you think are the most pressing issues for the U.S. immigrant community, at home AND abroad, and how you would hope to address those issues as President?

One of the most pressing issues for immigrants is the effect of corporate globalization. The so-called “free trade” agreements, NAFTA, CAFTA, Fast Track, the Caribbean FTA, the U.S.-Peru FTA etc., have undermined labor and environmental rights and caused the loss of living-wage jobs both here and abroad. Massive agricultural imports into developing countries have displaced an estimated two million farmers, as subsidized grains from the United States take over their local and regional markets. With few new jobs in manufacturing or other sectors, many of these former farmers now work in fields and low-wage jobs across the U.S. As a legislator I authored the No Tax Breaks for Runaway Plants bill in Congress; the TRUTH Act, requiring disclosure of the whereabouts of subsidiaries of U.S. corporations operating overseas; and the Corporate Responsibility Act, to force U.S. corporations operating overseas to abide by U.S. environmental and labor standards. As president, I would continue the fight against corporate globalization and require corporations to be held publicly accountable and socially responsible.

Global warming is another pressing issue. As islands disappear and indigenous. ways of life are threatened, entire populations are displaced. Food production and water supplies are at risk. The United States can no longer justify denial by blaming weather fluctuations or claiming the science is unclear. We need air, land, water, climate, production and consumption policies that reflect the real limits within which we all must live. It is impossible to discuss the issue of so-called “illegal immigration” without addressing the reasons millions of people are forced to flee their countries to come to the United States No human being is an “illegal alien.” What is illegal is the way U.S. economic policies treat workers in this country and throughout the world. I support immigration policies that promote fairness, nondiscrimination, and family re-unification, not preferential quotas based on race, class and ideology.

2. Do you support comprehensive immigration reform?

Yes. Immigration reform should be based on human rights, compassion, and fairness.

McKinney’s full response to The Sanctuary questionnaire.

The documentary American Blackout brings to light the disenfranchisement of black voters in Florida, Cynthia McKinney’s participation in uncovering what happened and her own troubles because she had the nerve to seek justice. VITAL to see.

McKinney grills Rumsfeld about a number of things INCLUDING - The fact that the United States repeatedly gives contracts to Dyncorp, a corporation that is known to TRAFFIC women, as well as 2.3 trillion dollars that went “missing” from the Pentagon.

ALSO - Rosa Clemente - here is a group of videos that have been gathered of Rosa Clemente speaking.

I’m excited to see that Latoya at Racialicious wrote a great post about the Green Party today - and has quoted and linked to this interview of Clemente by Adele Nieves.:

Many people are hungry for a third party (or more) in our elections, but are fearful of voting for one because they are convinced their vote won’t count, or will help the Republican Party. While disillusioned with the Democratic Party, they vote the lesser of two evils. What will it take to persuade voters to support a strong third party?

First, I don’t consider it progressive if you blindly accept the Democratic Party. I’m personally not trying to persuade anybody. If you want to be a Republican or a Democrat, that’s fine. I’m trying to get at the 49% who don’t vote; the millions of African American and Latino young people who are not registered to vote. I’m trying to get to the young people who aren’t caught up in the Obama hype. I’m trying to persuade working-class white people who are not caught up in the Republican hype, and have disengaged from the system. So I’m not trying to persuade somebody to vote differently.

As far as the “lesser of two evils,” I think that says it right there. I don’t understand why we have to have an evil, period. Both parties are corporate parties. In every policy that one puts forth, one might be less devastating, but eventually it will hurt you. That’s what we’ve seen with Democrats and Republicans. I don’t think my generation can afford the lesser of any evil at this point.

Part of your platform focuses on the prison-industrial complex. Can you explain what that means - many people don’t understand that term - and describe its economic and social impact? How you propose changing the current system?

It’s based off President Eisenhower’s use of the term “military industrial complex.” It is the idea of corporations and the state - particularly corporations - controlling how prisons are run and operated. It also includes any aspect of policing. The phrase was coined in the early 1990s when organizers like myself began seeing the connection between private corporations owning and operating prisons and the goods and services produced by prison labor in these prisons. Then Bill Clinton passed the Juvenile Justice Crime Bill, which made young people eligible to be sentenced as adults, expanded mandatory minimum drug laws, allowed 16 year-olds to be on death row, and got rid of the right of the writ of habeas corpus for many people in prison to be able to challenge their sentences. This has created a system where at any given time over 3 in 10 African American men and 1 out of every 8 Latino men are either in prison, on probation, or on parole. In this past year, we surpassed 2 million Americans incarcerated. 1 out of 100 Americans are either in prison, on parole, or on probation. I’ve been intimately involved in that struggle - fighting against the death penalty, stopping mandatory minimum sentencing, and not imprisoning people for non-violent felonies, particularly drug charges.

This is related to NAFTA and CAFTA - it’s all interconnected. Once the borders were opened up for “free trade,” when manufacturing industries started leaving in greater numbers during the 1980s and 1990s and corporations started shipping jobs overseas, communities became blighted. There were no jobs. So, as a Senator from New York said, if we build the prisons, they will come. Particularly in upstate New York and parts of rural Ohio, prisons provide some of the biggest job opportunities for communities where people lost manufacturing jobs with good benefits and good wages. Now they are working on incarcerating other human beings. Economically, that impacts the communities from which the incarcerated young men and women come from. For example, many in prison come from urban areas, and the Census doesn’t count them where they actually live, but instead counts them where they are incarcerated. That helps those rural communities where prisons are built get more money and funding.

brownfemipower - Last day before the election - On supporting Barack Obama but voting for McKinney.

Why I’ll be proud to vote Green

The Green Party Platform

Their ten key values (Click here for an expanded version.):

• Grassroots democracy
• Social justice
• Ecological sustainability
• Peace and non-violence
• Decentralization
• Community-based economics
• Gender equity
• Respect for diversity
• Responsibility
• Future focus

Their stance on social justice which acknowledges the existence of patriarchy:

Since the beginning of what we call civilization, when men’s dominance over women was firmly established until the present day, our history has been marred with oppression of and brutality to women. The Green Party deplores this system of male domination, known as patriarchy, in all its forms, both subtle and overt - from oppression, inequality, and discrimination to domestic violence, rape, trafficking and forced slavery. The change the world is crying for cannot occur unless women’s voices are heard. Democracy cannot work without equality for women that provides equal participation and representation. It took an extraordinary and ongoing fight over 72 years for Women to win the right to vote. However, the Equal Rights Amendment has still not been ratified.

We believe that equality should be a given, and that all Greens must work toward that end. We are committed to increasing participation of women in politics, government and leadership so they can change laws, make decisions, and create policy solutions that affect and will improve women’s lives, and we are building our party so that Greens can be elected to office to do this. In July 2002 the Women’s Caucus of the Green Party of the United States was founded to carry out the Party’s commitment to women.

Acknowledges continued racial discrimination (And also environmental racism in their Environmental Justice section!!!) and that this country was built on a foundation of genocide:

The development of the United States has been marked by conflict over questions of race. Our nation was formed only after Native Americans were displaced. The institution of slavery had as its underpinnings the belief in white supremacy, which we as Greens condemn. In slavery’s aftermath, people of color have borne the brunt of violence and discrimination. The Green Party unequivocally condemns these evils which continue to be a social problem of paramount significance.

That the war on terror has been used to rollback rights:

The so-called war on terrorism must not become an assault on the civil liberties that are enshrined in our Constitution. The price of freedom is not the loss of liberty. Constitutionally protected rights - fought for by American patriots - are rights the Green Party patriotically holds in the highest regard. Greens demand that the Justice Department cease and desist its wholesale rollback of constitutional protections and its daily dismantling of legal safeguards.

The use of Homeland Defense monies to spy on citizens exercising First Amendment rights is particularly onerous, as are “sneak and peek” provisions of the U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act that allows surveillance of libraries, readers, the Internet, and computer users. Basic rights ensuring individual privacy are under attack. The U.S. government’s use of high tech tools, including intrusive monitoring, data mining and analysis to identify and disrupt citizen activists, should be seen as an attack on fundamental rights of an engaged, active citizenry.

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