Hillary endorses war, British Lord warns of Failing Democracy

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Two months ago, New Yorkers jammed Senator Hillary Clinton's phone line,
 
asking her to vote for a sane foreign policy rather than the screwball
 
Republicans policies that brought us September 11. Two months after
 
filling out a form on her web site, Hillary sent me an e-mail... Hillary
 
not only voted for the war, but she spoke on the Senate floor, calling
 
for other Democrats to support the war resolution. Click on the story
 
and then click on "reply" to share what you think.
 

 
Don't miss "Democracy Dies Without Opposition", written by, of all
 
people, a British Lord concerned that democratic institutions are no
 
longer working.
 

 
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Hillary Clinton endorses Bush War
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021118055518820.html
 

 
State Budget Axes to Fall After Elections
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021118055153205.html
 

 
Buy Nothing This Year!
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021118053311879.html
 

 
Run, Ralph, Run!
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021115062623324.html
 

 
NYSEG: New Wind Energy
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021115061531170.html
 

 
The Missing Candidates
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2002111506032324.html
 

 
IC Students Rally Against War
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021114054623219.html
 

 
Democracy Dies Without Opposition
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2002111405202453.html
 

 
Poll Proves that Media Manufactures Consent
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021113060925884.html
 

 
Rev. Jesse Jackson endorses Green Candidate
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021113060249590.html
 

 
Ithaca Social Forum, Nov 22-23
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021113055657972.html
 

 
Forest Activists Crash Timber Baron Conference
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2002111206204484.html
 

 
The Labor Party Should Join The Greens
 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021112061512227.html
 

 
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Hillary Clinton endorses Bush War
 

 
About two month ago, New Yorkers jammed Hillary Clinton's phone and fax
 
lines to oppose an invasion of Iraq. People who left messages on her web
 
site got a generic message that didn't even mention the war. Just the
 
other day, the elections well over, Wall Street's favorite Senator sent
 
me an e-mail explaining why she supported the war. As it turned out,
 
Hillary Clinton spoke on the Senate floor on October 10 in support of
 
the war resolution. Please click on "reply" to tell us what you think...
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021118055518820.html
 

 
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State Budget Axes to Fall After Elections
 

 
by Deirdre Griswold
 

 
The budget crisis in Maine is so severe that tax forms may not get
 
printed and delivered in time for next year's filing. State legislators
 
can't agree on what the tax laws should say in time for the printer's
 
deadline.
 

 
The governor of Massachusetts wants to cut an additional $300 million
 
from the state budget, which will eat into schools and Medicaid.
 

 
Virginia needs to borrow $1 billion to repair its crumbling schools and
 
parks.
 

 
Minnesota's budget deficit is now over $3 billion. The state is
 
contemplating painful cuts in education, health and human services.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021118055153205.html
 

 
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Buy Nothing This Year!
 

 
By Michael I. Niman
 

 
Americans who follow global news stories know things are looking pretty
 
bleak. During my lifetime, living conditions in the so-called developing
 
world have radically declined. Landlessness, and the resulting plagues
 
of poverty and hunger, is on the rise. Deforestation is turning rain
 
forests into deserts. Poorer nations, drafted as bit players in the
 
global economy, are pockmarked with sweatshops - their air and water
 
awash in toxic wastes. This is all the result of an orgy of consumption
 
that's been sweeping the world's wealthy nations for over three decades.
 

 
The math is simple. In order for one group of people to consume far more
 
goods than they could produce, some other group has to be consuming
 
fewer goods than they produce. A field trip to your local "dollar store"
 
easily drives this point home. During a recent visit, I purchased a
 
small somewhat heavy plastic pig with an electronic heart and soul that
 
produces a sickly oink when it detects nearby motion. It cost me one
 
American dollar. It was produced in a Chinese factory by workers, who,
 
in all likelihood, earn about 15 cents or less per hour.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021118053311879.html
 

 
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Run, Ralph, Run!
 

 
Ronnie Dugger's proposal ("Ralph, Don't Run," The Nation Nov. 14, 2002)
 
for populists and progressives to enter the Democratic Party is as old
 
as the Populist/Democratic fusion campaign for William Jennings Bryan
 
that killed 19th century populism. Now he wants the Greens to commit
 
suicide by making the same mistake.
 

 
The overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress voted for Bush's tax
 
cuts, his military build-up, his assaults on civil liberties, and his
 
regulatory and tax favors to corporate interests. But now, according to
 
Dugger, we should rely on these same Democrats to provide the
 
resistance!
 

 
Cynthia McKinney, a Democratic Congresswoman who did resist, is what the
 
Democrats do to their progressives these days. When the right (including
 
the Georgia’s Democratic Senator Zell Miller and the Democratic
 
Leadership Council) targeted her for defeat, she was abandoned by the
 
state and national Democrats, from Andrew Young and Maynard Jackson to
 
Terry McAulliffe and Bill Clinton.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021115062623324.html
 

 
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NYSEG: New Wind Energy
 

 
NYSEG is offering New Wind Energy, a product of Community Energy, to
 
those customers who want to help our environment. As a NYSEG customer,
 
you can buy "blocks" of wind power. Each block is equal to 100
 
kilowatt-hours (kwh) and costs $2.50 for residential customers. There is
 
a two-block minimum purchase. This cost will be in addition to your
 
regular electricity bill. New Wind Energy allows you to support the
 
development of clean, renewable wind-generated electricity. Sign up or
 
call 1-800-35-NYSEG (1-800-356-9734).
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021115061531170.html
 

 
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The Missing Candidates
 

 
A few weeks ago America was inundated with coverage of the Iraqi
 
so-called elections. Everybody rushed off to vote for the one candidate
 
– Saddam. Surprise, he won. The stories were somewhat tongue-in-cheek,
 
and they laughed it up on CNN how they don’t have any democracy in Iraq
 
– and how much better off we are, by contrast. Too bad, when I go to the
 
polls Tuesday, the Virginia ballot will look pretty-much the same.
 

 
Surely I jest? This is American democracy in action: instead of
 
complaining I should be out registering people to vote. If I want an
 
alternative to my representatives, I should not only vote against them,
 
but I should collect others to do the same!
 

 
Possibly. Trouble is both the major races on the ballot in my
 
congressional district are virtually unopposed.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2002111506032324.html
 

 
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IC Students Rally Against War
 

 
by Lucas Shapiro
 

 
Students at Ithaca College joined together in the campus pub for a
 
spirited peace rally on November 12th. The event, organized principally
 
by Students for a Justice Peace, was scheduled to talk place at Free
 
Speech Rock in the campus quad, but do to rain, the rally was brought
 
indoors. Despite the last minute location change, a large crowd of up to
 
200 students gathered to hear 11 student and faculty speakers and
 
performers.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021114054623219.html
 

 
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Democracy Dies Without Opposition
 

 
America's mid-term elections provide the latest example of an expanding
 
phenomenon: democratic governments that face no effective challenge by
 
an opposition. More precisely, a growing number of democratically
 
elected political leaders aren't forced to confront alternative leaders
 
representing the disaffected.
 

 
The phenomenon is by no means confined to what once was the political
 
right. Britain is currently experiencing what can almost be called the
 
self-destruction of the opposition Conservative Party. For the third
 
time in seven years, the Tories are devouring their own leader, without
 
any viable alternative leader in sight.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2002111405202453.html
 

 
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Poll Proves that Media Manufactures Consent
 

 
In 1997, one of America’s first major public opinion polling
 
organizations, Gallup, did a “poll on polls.” Not surprisingly,
 
respondents said polls are accurate in measuring public opinion.
 

 
Last month, Retro Poll, a newly-formed California-based grassroots
 
polling organization, did a different sort of “poll on polls,” asking a
 
slightly different question: Does the public opinion reported in the
 
major media polls reflect the true beliefs of those polled?
 

 
Using the same random sample data and methodology as established polling
 
outfits like Gallup, Retro Poll’s results indicated that Americans’ true
 
beliefs are not reflected in major opinion polls. What polls do
 
accurately illustrate, the pollsters say, is the degree to which
 
Americans accept major media misinformation and disinformation as fact.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021113060925884.html
 

 
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Rev. Jesse Jackson endorses Green Candidate
 

 
Washington, D.C. The Green Party of the United States announced today
 
that the Rev. Jesse Jackson has endorsed AnnDrea Benson, Green Party
 
candidate for the 5th Congressional district in Pennsylvania. The
 
district is in the northwestern part of the state and includes the city
 
of Erie. Benson is challenging Republican incumbent Phil English; no
 
Democrat is competing in the race.
 

 
"The Rev. Jackson's endorsement today of my candidacy is a thrilling
 
event for me personally, and marks a new era for the Green Party by
 
recognizing that our candidates are of a caliber to receive the support
 
of somebody with his history of achievement," said Benson, a former
 
Democratic Party staffer from Minnesota. "As a member of Congress, I
 
pledge to uphold the values that Rev. Jackson stands for with my fight
 
for peace, justice, health care and education for citizens of the 5th
 
district."
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021113060249590.html
 

 
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Ithaca Social Forum, Nov 22-23
 

 
Another World is Possible!
 

 
November 22 - 23
 

 
Inspired by the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil and the call
 
to hold similar events in local and regional communities, the Ithaca
 
Social Forum will be held on November 22nd and 23rd.
 

 
We are lucky to have Michael Albert, a pillar of social activism, with
 
us throughout the two days. Michael Albert is editor of Z Magazine and
 
ZNet. He is the author of the recent book, Trajectory of Change:
 
Activist Strategies for Social Transformation (South End, 2002).
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021113055657972.html
 

 
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Forest Activists Crash Timber Baron Conference
 

 
Forest Activists Crash Timber Baron Conference
 
Friday, November 8, was the opening day of the 110th annual conference
 
of the North American Wholesale Lumber Association (NAWLA) in Dallas,
 
Texas. Member companies of NAWLA log old-growth forests in the United
 
States and around the world, despite popular disapproval of such
 
practices, and have been called "North America's real ecoterrorists" for
 
doing so. The conference was joyfully disrupted by forest activists from
 
Texas and Cascadia, who hung a banner from the seventh story of the
 
hotel's atrium, and then crashed a fancy luncheon with "a twelve-piece
 
revolutionary marching band", where they threw sawdust in the air and
 
leafletted. Outside the hotel, bridges, boxes and billboards were
 
plastered with poster-sized wheatpastes declaring, "NAWLA = Blood
 
Timber". One forest defender said, "There is no reason to believe the
 
action this round is over yet." Stay tuned.
 
[ Dallas / North Texas IMC | Timber Execs Stunned by Cocktail Disruption
 
| A Message to Timber Barons ]
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/2002111206204484.html
 

 
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The Labor Party Should Join The Greens
 

 
by Brian King Steward, UFCW Local 1001
 

 
It's easy to see from Dan McCarthy's article in the September 2002 issue
 
that the Labor Party is smaller than it was. I was present at both the
 
Cleveland and Pittsburgh conventions in 1996 and 1998, and the 1,400 and
 
1,200 delegates present at those meetings was pretty impressive. I was a
 
little sad, but not surprised, to read of the shrunken (500) turnout at
 
the convention in Washington, D.C.
 

 
What should labor activists make of the apparent failure of the Labor
 
Party to catch on? Better yet, is there anything to be done about it?
 

 
I think it would be fair to summarize LP founder Tony Mazzocchi's
 
intention for organizing the LP as his desire to see the labor movement
 
represented politically by a party it controls. Tony believed the labor
 
movement, like rank and file workers, deserves a voice of its own.
 

 
http://www.tcgreens.org/gl/articles/20021112061512227.html