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Spread the word!

The major media outlets have been working overtime to silence the one gubernatorial candidate who refuses to take money from corporate lobbyists and from corporate executives who hire lobbyists. Green-Rainbow Party candidate Jill Stein has launched an impressive grassroots attack on politics-as-usual, and has recently surged from 3% in the polls to 8% despite an overall media whiteout. Major newspapers are excluding her from coverage, and the first broadcast gubernatorial debate held by WRKO-AM’s “Tom and Todd” show is trying to keep her off the roster.

We can change that.

Continue reading Tomorrow (June 10) is Democracy Day for Massachusetts!
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{ Cross-posted at Blue Mass Group }

This great article in the Boston Globe by Frank Phillips exposes the blatant hypocrisy of Governor Patrick’s “self-styled political identity as a reformer”. Kudos to Phillips for summing it up beautifully in that one biting phrase.

Curran, whose client list has included such blue-chip technology companies as IBM and Cisco Systems, has arranged gatherings at Patrick’s Milton home, where Democratic heavy hitters and corporate executives – for $5,000 a piece – get to shmooze with the governor. He has set up events at trendy Boston restaurants, where executives discussed public policy issues affecting their industries. And he is listed as a cosponsor of fund-raisers for Patrick in Atlanta and Washington.

Indeed, those who have worked with him say that Curran, a hard-charging, 39-year-old lobbyist who makes more than $300,000 each year in client fees, has played a pivotal role in putting Patrick’s finance operation into high gear after several years of relative neglect by the governor, who has said he has a strong distaste for asking for money.

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At a Finance Committee meeting in late March, Curran, whose position with the campaign is unpaid, was singled out as Patrick’s top fund-raiser of 2010 – twice as much as the second-best fund-raiser, according to a person present at the meeting, who asked for anonymity to discuss a private event.

Conveniently, they have the perfect distraction from the obvious conclusion that this lobbyist dough has any influence whatsoever on Patrick’s governing… the ethics reforms he championed into state law:

“Governor Patrick proposed and helped pass some of the strictest ethics and lobbying laws in the country, and these laws help to draw a bright line between the necessary raising of money for campaigns and the important work Governor Patrick does every day on behalf of the people of the Commonwealth,” [campaign manager Sydney Asbury] said.

Continue reading Gov. Patrick’s hypocrisy exposes “ethics reforms” as meaningless
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When I blogged about the Suffolk Poll results, I was focused on the negative numbers. Yes, the 8% was astounding (representing a greater than 50% surge from one poll to the next). But the un-likability of the 3 suits blessed by the corporate media was what caught my attention. That's Jill's opening for sure.  

But the more I thought about it, the more I focused on Jill's likability as borne out in the numbers. To this point, my optimism for Stein's chances has been based on her demonstrated ability to speak up for everyday people in a clearheaded, passionate, and visionary manner. Her debate appearances in 2002 — well, the 2 they allowed her into — were powerfully persuasive. She'd make a point, you'd think "why didn't I ever think of that?!", and then you'd go and tell your friends. She was speaking truth to power, but not in some theoretical vacuum. There was real power in each word she used, the power to transform. But that's all subjective.  

Now in May 2010, a full 5 months+ before election day, I'm looking at this latest poll result.. and realizing what it really means…  BEFORE we even get to see her make a case for herself as the best candidate for We, The People.  

Continue reading Jill Stein polling at majority-type levels
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The latest Suffolk University poll on the MA gubernatorial contest shows GRP candidate Jill Stein at 8%, a five point surge despite the media largely shutting her out. The winner of one or both (depending on how you look at it) of the 2002 gubernatorial debates the establishment press allowed her into, this is a very significant indication that Jill is positioned to break the governor’s race wide open.

Tim Cahill’s plummeting numbers show that the Republican Governors Association ad campaign has destroyed his support. Their pick, Charlie Baker, will have a very hard time getting out from under his ownership of two of the most rage-inducing plights facing ordinary Massachusetts voters — skyrocketing healthcare costs at the hands of greedy private insurance companies and the short-sighted debt restructuring of Big Dig finances. Meanwhile Governor Patrick’s unfavorable ratings are higher than his favorable ratings (46% to 45%), by 52% to 36%, MA voters think the state is heading in the wrong direction, and by 55% to 33%, they don’t think he deserves reelection and would like to give someone else a chance.

All bets are off, folks. The voters are screaming for a revolt, and they don’t like the choices they’ve been given. Stein’s 7% favorable, 7% unfavorable, and 60% never-heard-of numbers show that as she gains more exposure, her poll numbers will surge even higher.

She’s the right candidate with the right message at the right moment.

Read on for the Stein campaign’s press release!

Continue reading Jill Stein surges in latest suffolk poll, senses breakthrough
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Well it’s 21 days into May, and Green Mass Group has been delinquent in getting out a push for our second featured cause for our We, The Media campaign/series. But it’s better late than never, and it’s even better that May’s push is well-timed to support an absolutely critical independent media institution during their membership drive.

Free Speech TV is one of those rare institutions that provides a strong sense of hope that progressives and thoughtful people of all stripes might some day find a way to get their stories out into every corner of the country and beyond:

Continue reading We, The Media II: Free Speech TV!
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US Greens congratulate Caroline Lucas, the UK’s first Green Party member of Parliament, on her election victory

Colombian Green presidential candidate Antanas Mockus holds a strong lead in polls, may become the first Green Party head of a national government

GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES

http://www.gp.org

WASHINGTON, DC — The Green Party of the United States congratulates Caroline Lucas and British Greens on Ms. Lucas’ election to the House of Commons on May 6. Ms. Lucas, the first Green member of Parliament, will represent Brighton Pavilion.

“The election of the first Green to the British House of Commons is cause for celebration among Greens in the US and for everyone who wants to see a new direction in politics and an end to the stranglehold of the pro-war pro-corporate old parties,” said Cynthia McKinney, the Green Party’s 2008 nominee for President of the United States and former member of the US House of Representatives from Georgia. “If Greens can win a seat in the UK, we can win one or more seats in Congress here in America.”

Continue reading Congratulations to Caroline Lucas; Fingers crossed for Antanas Mockus
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Despicable stances of our elected leaders, in crisis after crisis and policy after policy, is becoming nauseatingly dependable. The voters who elect people like Deval Patrick, a corporate lawyer for Texaco who relentlessly fought the people of Ecuador who were struggling for justice and relief (see the trailer for Crude, a documentary about this legal battle, below), play a role in making these abuses an accepted part of our system. Likewise, voters who got lost in the hype of Barack Obama’s heavily funded grassroots campaign chose to ignore the corporate agenda he was mobilizing them for, and failed to hold their favored candidate to any sort of truly progressive standards. Both corporate parties have demonstrated nothing but the desire to put corporate profits ahead of the public interest, yet delusions of something otherwise continue to dominate the day.

The latest travesty, in a long, steady stream of them, is the little-reported fact that Obama’s administration granted 27 exemptions from environmental review to oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico — the very same categorical exclusions from environmental review granted to BP’s disastrous Deepwater Horizon project. Once again, McClatchy newspapers find themselves at the vanguard of real journalism, with the mainstream media ignoring the story:

Since Spill, Feds Have Given 27 Waivers to Oil Companies in Gulf

Published on Saturday, May 8, 2010 by McClatchy Newspapers

by Marisa Taylor

Continue reading Obama admin. grants 27 waivers to Gulf oil companies… AFTER BP EXPLOSION!
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This exciting array of candidates means the GRP will be taking it to the next level this year. 2010 is the year of the Green-Rainbow Party!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 27, 2010

CONTACT: Daryl Sprague, 617-459-0784

GREEN-RAINBOW CANDIDATES TO CHALLENGE INCUMBENTS IN 2010: FIELD REPORTS SAY VOTERS ARE READY FOR CHANGE

Voters are in the mood for change, according to the Green-Rainbow Party candidates nominated at the weekend meeting of the Party’s State Committee in Northampton. Nominated were: health and environmental advocate Jill Stein for Governor, Holyoke veterans’ activist Rick Purcell for Lieutenant Governor, Nat Fortune, a physicist at Smith College, for State Auditor. Scott Laugenour was nominated as a candidate for state representative in the 4th Berkshire District. The Party also endorsed independent candidate Peter White who is running for Congress in the 10th Congressional District (being vacated by Rep. William Delahunt).

Continue reading GRP Nominates Slate of Candidates; Challenge to Incumbents is On
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An Open Letter to the FireDogLake Community

{Cross posted at FireDogLake}

Dear friends at FDL,

I come to you with open arms, an open mind, and an open heart. I read your analysis and commentary and reporting and informed discussions, and I am grateful for all of it. It is heads and tails more open-minded and thoughtful than other similar progressive blogs, even those on your blogroll. FDL gives me hope. But then I take a look at your blog family, and your affiliation with the Blue America / Act Blue fundraising PAC, and my heart sinks. Ultimately I yearn to know the answer… how open-minded is the FDL community?

I write this as a Green activist, an active member of the Green-Rainbow Party — the Massachusetts affiliate of the Green Party of the U.S. I like to think that my allegiance to the Green Party is not rigid, or dogmatic, or permanent, or tunnel-based – the types of things that made Ralph Nader promise his father on his deathbed (as the story goes) that he wouldn’t ever join a political party. I myself am brimming with criticism of the Green Party. But it’s constructive criticism, because I think we desperately need to make the Green Party viable in the United States and around the world. Any global ecology-based movement will do, so long as it does not shy away from the difficult, frightening, and often-nauseating terrain of modern-day politics.  

Continue reading Open the Floodgates to Inspired, Participatory Democracy
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