Update: June edition of We, The Media has been posted.

Update: May edition of We, The Media has been posted.

Green Mass Group is proud and humbled to have entered the emerging  arena of people-powered media. We have big designs on a grassroots, decentralized, and democratized truth-telling apparatus working in synergy and solidarity with other institutions of the same nature. We see a variety of important institutions in existence that need to be supported and nourished, and we dream of a slew of other institutions that do not yet exist. We hope to play a small part in organizing the voices of the people of the Commonwealth and beyond into a beautiful and powerful chorus that reflects and articulates our deepest desires so that they may become reality.

Email from Jill Stein, 4/2/10:

Dear friends and supporters,

Please join me in welcoming Rick Purcell as my Lieutenant Governor running mate! As my lieutenant governor, Rick will mobilize grassroots support across the state for our campaign for a healthy, secure green future. He’ll also galvanize opposition to the corrupt status quo at the root of the many crises we currently face. We’ll be joining Rick in his hometown of Holyoke this Saturday for an official announcement. See below for biographical information on Rick. Saturday’s event will also mark the kickoff of our signature gathering campaign. For those who have been anxious to get involved, now is the time! See below for details on the lieutenant Governor/signature drive kickoff event, including ways to get involved in signature collection if you can’t come on Saturday.

In other news, our campaign is eligible to receive public financing from the state this year. As you may know, public financing loosens the grip of wealthy special interests on our political system, and makes it possible for people powered campaigns like ours to compete statewide without being hijacked by deep-pocketed special interests. As a longtime advocate of public financing for political campaigns, it’s an honor to be asking you to help us qualify for matching funds. If our campaign raises the minimum required to qualify ($125,000), the state will match that amount and everything we raise over it DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR!! So if we can raise $250,000, we will be able to mount a half million dollar campaign! And Massachusetts politics will never be the same. Please be as generous as you can, and give today so that we can take advantage of yet another amazing opportunity.

Upwards,

Jill

Cross-posted at GreenChange.org, part of the Green Change Blog Action Day

From internal feuds and co-optation of the Tea Party movement to copycat “movements” like the Coffee Party, or Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s silly yearning for a “Tea Party of the radical center“, it is clear that the tax day teabags have made their mark on the United States.

Taking a good look at the pictures from the April 15, 2009 Tea “coming out” Party, I can’t help but think that many of the grievances are valid and even accurate criticisms of the US federal government today (e.g. “Stop Spending $$$ Our Grandkids’ Future” or “Obama’s Hockey Stick” showing exponentially rising federal debt). Of course, the pictures also make it clear that jumping into bed with the Tea Partiers could make for a nasty relationship. “Taxes Kill Freedom”, “Taxation Is Just Piracy With Paperwork”, “Taxes Destroy Ambition”, and lots of mistaking corporatist Obama as a socialist.

So what exactly is this political moment? And what is the role of the Greens?  

VOWS TO CONTINUE THE FIGHT AS CRISIS ACCELERATES.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 23 March, 2010

Contact: Daryl Sprague, 617-459-0784

LEXINGTON, Massachusetts – Jill Stein, Green-Rainbow Party candidate for governor, described the health care bill passed by Congress Sunday as lobbyists’ legislation which offers few benefits at staggering cost. She warned Massachusetts residents to brace for skyrocketing prices and an accelerating health care meltdown, and vowed to renew her push for “real solutions.”

Here are her remarks, made in a speech to supporters during a teleconference Tuesday morning:

“The health reform passed on Sunday is not the solution the American people have been looking for, but rather a triumph of business-as-usual. It will bankrupt individuals and local governments by forcing them to buy the expensive policies in a health-care system designed to exploit instead of to serve. Starting today, we begin the real battle to move beyond this costly non-solution and replace it with the health care system America needs.

I can only dream of the day when Radiohead’s Thom Yorke comes to Massachusetts for a Jill Stein / Green-Rainbow Party benefit concert, and breaks out three new songs for the occasion. I have a fond memory of Yorke during the 2000 presidential elections, holding up a “Let Ralph Debate” sign on the stage of Saturday Night Live at the end of the show when the whole cast mingles.

Well, part way to my dream, Yorke played a benefit concert last month for UK Green Party candidate Tony Juniper, Cambridge (be sure to also check out UK Green candidate Caroline Lucas who apparently has a better shot — in Brighton — at winning a seat in Parliament)

Check out Yorke’s stunning “The Daily Mail” and two more below the jump. If you want some background read this.

Maine shows us the way, though with Clean Elections they’re playing with a different beast. I dare a single Massachusetts State Legislator who allowed Clean Elections to be destroyed without even going on the record to defend that move on Green Mass Group. I double dare you!

Maine Green Independent Party will run 18 candidates for state legislature in 2010

Posted March 18th, 2010 by Dave Schwab at Green Party Watch

AUGUSTA- On Monday, March 15th, the Green Independent Party of Maine turned in signatures to qualify 18 legislative candidates throughout the state, the second highest total in 12 years of holding official ballot status.

“We made legislative recruitment a top priority this year. With sweeping changes in electoral reform that came out of Augusta last year, we no longer need the governor’s race to keep party status. We turned our resources toward legislative seats, where we have better opportunity for success,” said Anna Trevorrow, Chair of the state Green Independent Party.

The party has nearly doubled its number of qualified candidates from 2008, and has expanded its geographic outreach. The Greens have qualified 15 candidates for State House and 3 for State Senate.

The criminal, anti-democratic racket described in this NYT article is just the latest blatant display of greedy Wall Street manipulation of the global economy.

Dean Baker has a great summary of Goldman Sachs’ “savvy” track record in this Guardian/UK article. And don’t forget Matt Taibbi’s mind-boggling portrait in Rolling Stone of Goldman Sachs profiting from one self-created economic bubble after the other. And it was the finance industry who gave Scott Brown a big last-minute send-off to Washington, signaling their equal opportunity approach to looting.

I’m starting to think that a focus on unearthing the dirt behind Goldman Sachs and its political influence might shine some daylight on the criminal convergence of politics and economics at the start of the 21st century.  

There are good discussions popping up in some different places about Green-Rainbow electoral strategies, and I’d like to take this opportunity to create an ongoing dialogue that could help catalyze some action.

Leo Maley points out on Blue Mass Group that there will be something like 25 open seats this year in the Legislature. In the same space, he also argues that the Green-Rainbow Party has no business running for high office without having demonstrated political viability or acuity at any level other than a small crop of municipal officials.

Jason Pramas ponders pretty much the same question at Open Media Boston, with a little less devotion to the Grand Old Democrats, and a little more interest in seeing a local electoral focus take hold.

And Peter Vickery makes an eloquent case to run for office and to run Green right here at GMG.

Of course, the Green-Rainbow Party’s electoral strategy for 2010-2012 was to go after State Rep. seats with an eye towards winning one or two in 2012. And Jill Stein’s gubernatorial bid emerged as a powerfully synergistic opportunity to help spur stronger legislative challenges. A strong municipal field in 2011 would also be synergistic with this top-to-bottom-and-up approach.