So: a Green Party Local is promoting a  fundraising event (if I’m not mistaken) for Cynthia McKinney to allow her to go on another “fact-finding” junket to Libya.

This is disheartening to say the least. Was a time when Greens would have been PROTESTING outside a hall where a speaker was defending a dictator. Seems it’s okay to be a dictator, a thug, and a sadist when s/he opposes US imperialism. Or to suggest that the jaw-dropping words Ms McKinney recently spake were not her own (Cynthia’s long history of anti-semitic remarks and associations, along with other zaniness, should suggest that any crackpot statements are MORE than likely to have come from her own mouth! For example, she is also quite smitten with Mugabe:

But McKinney has no problem at all defending one of the worst contemporary African dictators. Her paragraph about the elections and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change are laugh out loud hilarious and could have easily come from Mugabe-controlled newspapers.

It is ironic that McKinney gave her remarks about Zimbabwe’s laudable democracy on Dec. 5, 2001. According to Human Rights Watch, in Dec. 2001 in Zimbabwe there were 7 politically motivated murders, 22 kidnappings/disappearances, 14 unlawful arrests/detentions and 119 cases of torture carried about by the government or government supporters.”

So, I’m seeing a  lot of noise about controversial statements (they’re even controversial in Palestine–see the Open Letter by Disappointed Palestinians)suggesting that these statements by McKinney may not have been her own–a curious  fallback position, when the statements in question appeared in both Black Agenda Reporter AND on the GPUS web site (previously linked to on the GPUS front page!). Or that we “should hear her out anyway,” though why someone with such a long history genuinely of genuine weirdness deserves the sponsorship of the Pioneer Valley Greens. You can opppose US actions in Libya in good faith without going over the edge. As more credible thinkers suggest:

Drawing from her own experiences as a freedom fighter in Kenya against the Moi dictatorship, Dr Mugo pointed to the fact that one must also recognise the democratic struggles against dictators in Africa. She wanted Cynthia McKinney to explain how a leader could justify being in power for 42 years. Her clarity pointed to the reality that while progressives cannot oppose Mugabe and Gaddafi from the same platform as those of settlers and imperialists, they must nonetheless be opposing dictatorship because they have turned the principles of freedom and liberation against the people… Howie Hawkins, the local activist from the Green Party, queried why Cynthia McKinney did not support the roadmap of the African Union.”)

So, Mugabe and Quaddafi are “heroes” to McKinney. I’m almost afraid to Google “McKinney + Idi Amin.”

Do you think you can work ANY harder at alienating American voters?. You don’t need enemies–you function as your very own worst enemy when what you are doing, basically, is funding Quadaffi’s own propaganda machine–when you run what is essentially a fundraising event so that McKinney can continue to operate as Quaddafi’s mouthpiece. Note that this event is a fundraiser to enable McKinney to return to Libya on another, uh, “fact-finding” mission (last time she went, it was in the company of famed fact-finder Wayne Madsen, who spent last year raving about how he had “incontrovertible proof” that Obama was born n Kenya. Where are ya now, Wayne? He also claimed that teh adminsitration had targetted him for assassination–sorry, Wayne, but teh administration doesn’t know you freaking exist–which is par with McKinney’s revelation about the 5000 bodies on New Orleans that had been plowed over by tanks, shot in the head, painted blue, and dumped in the river.) Last time she stayed in Tripoli–think maybe she’ll venture out in Benghazi this time? Think her mentor and patron the Colonel will let her?)

In any case, among the “facts” Cynthia uncovered on her most recent vacation:

“But, Libyans govern themselves by The Green Book, a form of direct democracy based on the African Constitution concept that the people are the first and final source of all power. Clearly, the U.S. move is counter-Revolution.”

Dunno whether to laugh or cry.

Here’a another:

“Qaddafi provided the African National Congress and Nelson Mandela the wherewithal to defeat apartheid in South Africa. In short, if you want to stop Black people, then one key move is to stop Colonel Qaddafi.”

Oh. Was this before or after he was busy assisting his pal Idi Amin???

I have ZERO idea why ANYONE thinks these aren’t Cynthia’s own words, or why they’re suddenly alledged to possibly-not-be-hers. Nor do I get why you want to give her an opportunity to explain them away. It’s all very well to say “well, everyone deserves a hearing”–if you’re also going t sponsor chats giving Avigdor Lieberman the benefit of the doubt and to explain his abhorrent statements regarding the Palestinian people. Will Dick Cheney also be sponsored by a GRP Local, so that we can all hear his apologia  from his own lips? This kind of selective self-blinding is rank hypocrisy, and akin to those apologists for Joe Stalin who travelled to the USSR and returned with glowing reports about the “workers’ paradise” they found there, or those deluded lefties who accepted Castro’s courtesy and travelled Cuba, closely attended by Castro’s agents–who didn’t take to them to the jails where his political opponents were imprisoned.

By attending this, you are funding a project enabling the Colonel to further encourage his favorite western propagandist to spread this kind of utter crap. It’s akin to Cindy Sheehan’s junkets to visit Hugo Chavez, where she’s feasted and flown about in Hugo’s pivate jet, conducting disgustingly sycophantic “interviews” with the  Colonel only to return home to make fawning Chavez propaganda films (last week, even Noam Chomsky disassociated himself from Hugo in disgust. Cindy, of course, remains smitten; perhaps Noam isn’t as susceptible to the cigar, beret, and camos).

Cynthia concludes her remarks with, “Venezuela President Hugo Chavez has put forward a mediation proposal which I have endorsed. In addition, the Hugo Chavez International Foundation for Peace, Friendship and Solidarity … released a communiqué … [which] concludes: Long live Muammar Al-Qathafi!…”

Now this is downright embarassing. Long Live “Al-Quathafi?” (the romantic spelling does fit in nicely with the robes and shawls and headresses and jewelry which Cynthia–who was born in Atlanta, btw–adorns herself when gadding about about the dictator’s palaces ooohing and ahhing about the wonderful democracy he’s created). Does it occur to the GRP-PVsponsors that any GRP candidate is going to be open to the question, “Do you disavow any connection with this outspoken defender of sadistic dictators who murder US servicepeople? And if so, did you say so publicly when your own Party was promoting her propaganda tour on his behalf?”



I’m curious about the take of individual party members and, especially, leadership: where do you stand? (“Locals can do what they want” is a total cop out). Are other members of the Local in question, the Party, and the Party’s leadership willing to publicly disassociate themselves from this event … or does political correctness and a perverse form of “party unity” prohibit you from doing the same?  

Got guts?