Cynthia McKinney is Nominated

Saturday, July 12th

Cynthia McKinney Accepts Green Party Nomination

Cynthia McKinney won the Green Party nomination for President of the United States at the Nominating Convention in Chicago in the 1st round of voting Saturday evening.

NEWS ADVISORY: THE GREEN PARTY OF CALIFORNIA

CHICAGO – The progressive left chose its new candidate for President Saturday when former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney – now a resident of California – was tabbed as Green Party's candidate for President at the Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention here. She won on the first ballot, garnering 313 of 532 votes cast.

"This was an amazing phenomenon. The nomination of Cynthia and her vice president running mate Rosa Clemente demonstrate the growing strength of the Green Party. Let there be no doubt now who speaks for the progressive left in this country," said David Cobb, the 2004 Green Party nominee for President, who resides in Eureka, CA.

"We are getting stronger with every election and with candidates of the caliber of Cynthia and Rosa, we have leadership from constituencies we have not had in the past," Cobb added. Clemente, a hip hop activist and journalist, accepted the vice-president nomination

There was, indeed, amazing energy and excitement in the nominating convention in Chicago Symphony Hall. We were witnessing history being made and everybody in the room knew it. 2008 has been an extraordinary election in these United States. Yes, it has been, though not necessarily as the story is told by the mainstream media (MSM). Both mainstream political parties have emphatically rejected the Bush-Clinton-Bush status quo. However, evidence is piling up in an avalanche that both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are unwilling and/or unable to turn their respective political camps from driving this nation (and the world) over a cliff. As the brilliant Green Party activist, Malik Rahim, noted in his keynote address, irregardless of how the votes fall in November, and no matter what they say about us in the clueless MSM, we have "already won" by helping to jump start the international Green Movement in the united States.

Excerpt from McKinney Acceptance Speech:

And when I got to Washington, I saw that public policy is really made in a room at a table. There were real seats at the table. Well, imagine what has happened to public policymaking now. There is a real room with a window and a door, and there’s two seats at the table. The window is for us to look through, while our representatives make policy for us, so we can see what they’re doing. At the table, one seat is for the Democrats, one seat is for the Republicans. Now, we don’t know who did it, but one of them put a lock on the door and slipped a key to the corporate lobbyists who can come and go at will and whisper what they want to Democrats and Republicans, and the result is that we the people, who pay for those seats and determine who sits in them, want one thing, but because the corporate lobbyists can come and go at will, our values get overridden and our representatives give us something else. That’s how we end up with everyone saying they’re against the war and occupation, but war and occupation still gets funding. That’s how we end up with everyone saying they’re against illegal spying on innocent people, yet end up with a telecom immunity bill being signed into law. That’s how we end up with everyone saying they’re in favor of universal access to healthcare and no one supporting what the physicians, nurses and healthcare really want, and that’s a single-payer healthcare system in this country.

The Movement is key because no president, least of all a president from the one-corporate-race-obsessed-war-party-with-two names can turn things around from the top down.

Go Green!

Great Candidates -- Mesplay, Johnson, and Swift

Friday, July 11th

Candidates Forum

There was a delicious irony to the garish, ostentatious "Red Lacquer" ballroom of Chicago's old Palmer House Hotel being the setting for the final Green Party presidential candidate forum. This hotel is a monument to the First Gilded Age of corrupt capitalist wheeling 'n dealing. Today, my Green Party is the leading edge progressive voice speaking in the Second Gilded Age.

(Left to right) Kent Mesplay of California, Jesse Johnson of West Virginia, Kat Swift of Texas

By Friday evening, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was already the presumptive nominee. Accordingly, as I watched the three "minor candidates" ably fielded tough questions, I could not help but feel a certain pride in the depth and talent within the Green Party.



Dr. Ken Mesplay, California's favorite son, was the strongest on the environmental issues which are, after, the bright green center of our philosophy. I spoke with delegates from all around the country and it seems everyone, everywhere was impressed by Kent's knowledge and commitment.

Jesse Johnson, a bona-fide mountain man from West Virginia, has a towering presence. He spoke about the devastating effects of mountaintop removal by the rapacious coal industry. One thing I learned was that the Appalachian Mountains are the watershed for the rivers that supply drinking water to many states in the Southeast. The clogging and destruction of these waterways is a factor in the drought currently plaguing the Southeast. Johnson says what we need is not "the audacity of hope," but rather, the "audacity of truth." Johnson puts the lie to the pernicious Democrat-Republican mythology that all "working class white people" are racist reactionaries who can only be moved by an appeal to their fears (by the way, this mythology may yet cost the clueless Democrats another presidential election).

Kat Swift, our braided, blonde sister from Texas, is a young, tough activist with a lot of charm. She is smart. But she is open-minded and not too proud to admit she doesn't know it all. At one point, during a response to a question about energy, she joked that her "expert" on energy policy was Dr. Kent Mesplay. One question from the floor was about the touchy question of Israeli-Palestinian relations. Kat gave one of the wisest answers. She said that conversations with people on both sides of that bloody divide has convinced her that, in order to make peace, we have to go around the "leaders" with vested interests in maintaining the conflict and that the United States, of course, cannot be a so-called broker for peace while arming one side. Since this also happens to be my personal opinion, I thought her answer was very wise.

Mayor Daley Welcomes You to Chicago

Mayor Richard M. Daley Welcomes You to Chicago
--Sign in Chicago Midway Airport

Thursday, July 10th

Between the plane and the Orange Line subway train into the city, on my way to the Green Party National Convention, I had to read "Mayor Richard M. Daley" a dozen times. Daley is Chicago. Chicago is "Duh Mayah" -- perfect symbol for the primitive "Old Politics" we are here to organize against.

Thursday night there was a reception for international Greens. A brother from Brazil explained to us the difficulty of fighting for Greens issues there, reminding us that having a strong Green Party in the U.S. is absolutely essential since the U.S. is the 800-pound gorilla in the world, especially in the Western Hemisphere.


International Greens

One of the things I like about the Green Party is that, unlike the one warmaking imperial party with two names, the Greens are international. At the reception there was a tribute to Ingrid Betancourt, the Columbian Green activist.

The Brazilians say they like President Lula's social program, but environmentally. At a discussion afterwards, a few of our folks said they could not understand this. I replied that "This is why we need Greens. We need political leadership around the world that thinks Green." Even the best of the "Old Politics" leaders are going to be interested in "development" in their countries in the conventional way. Brazil is a big, poor country with a lot of "undeveloped" resources. Lula, like evey conventional politician, Left, Right, or Center, is wants to raise the standard of living in his country by the industrial exploitation of the nation's natural resources. That's just the way these guys think -- even the best of them.

There is going to be a workshop on NAFTA and the so-called North American Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) facillitated by Janet Eaton of the Green Party of Canada. Ms. Eaton is a foremost expert on water issues.

California Caucus

There was a California State Caucus Thursday night. We had heard rumors of credentials challenges. The good news is, for once, internal procedural issues have nothing to do with California. Thanks to our "Super Tuesday" primary, California has ben meticulous about certifying the elected delegates. We are going to cast 60% of our votes for Ralph Nader on the first ballot because that was the way the Californians voted in the primary. I have no problem with that at all. There is this thing called "democracy" that ought to be respected. Some states, apparently, only came up with lists of delegates this week. One cheer for the Golden State.

This morning I plan to attend a meeting of the Black Caucus. I already met some interesting folks. At the reception an African-American journalist from Chicago and I had a good time swapping stories about crooked politicians in Chicago and L.A. He told me he has a higher of our Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger than the Democratic pols in Illinois. "At least Arnold will listen and sometimes change his mind. The politicians here will listen, thank you for your input... and then say 'F**k You!' That's Chicago poltiics."

Oh yeah... the "City that works."

This 'Green Brotha' Going to Chicago

The Los Angeles Times published a timely editorial this week on the disgraceful handling of the mess at Martin Luther King/Harbor Hospital in Watts.

From the Los Angeles Times, Monday, July 7, 2008.
Editorial: Learning From a Death in Brooklyn

On June 19, surveillance cameras in a Brooklyn, N.Y., mental ward captured shocking images of a woman collapsing on the floor and lying there, untended by hospital workers, for an hour. She soon died.

The tape, released last week, touched a nerve in Los Angeles because the incident was reminiscent of the death of Edith Isabel Rodriguez at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in May 2007. Rodriguez lay on the emergency-room floor as a janitor mopped around her. The description of her suffering, and of the indifference of hospital workers, silenced all but the most recalcitrant defenders of the mismanaged medical center...

I've made copies of the article (along with some others) to distribute when this "Green Brotha" goes to Chicago this weekend.

On Super Tuesday, when Mayor Villaraigosa, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Laura Richardson, and my Congresswoman Diane Watson were all busy campaigning for Hillary, I was elected a Cynthia McKinney delegate to the 2008 Green Party National Convention. When I get there, if anybody shoves an Obama poster in my face babbling about "change" I'll shove this in his face speaking truth about the status-quo in One-Party Democratic Los Angeles.




The Democratic Convention will have rousing speeches by hypocrites bloviating on health care. Michael Moore will be the toast of Denver for his "Sicko" documentary. But L.A. bosses (and their "Amen corner" among liberal intellectuals) won't talk about Edith Rodriguez at King-Harbor in Watts, Linda Brown at Brotman Medical Center in Culver City, or "Transplants-for-Crooks" at UCLA. They won't talk about patients dumped on skid row, or Dawnelle Keys' daughter dying while bean counters at King and Kaiser Permanente haggled over money, though those stories were featured in Moore's film.

Times investigators have discrovered that even since the sad closing of King/Harbor last summer, almost nothing has been done to discipline the perpetrators of this tragedy.

. . . It is also striking that action against employees in New York was swift. The director of psychiatry, the director of security and the doctor on duty were all fired within 24 hours of Green's death. No one was fired over the Rodriguez incident, and, in fact, a Times review of personnel data shows that hundreds of problem employees who were supposed to be swept out of the county health system remain on the job. Times staff writers Garrett Therolf and Jack Leonard reported that at least 22 workers with significant discipline histories at King still work at the clinics that remain open on the site of the hospital or at other county health facilities. County supervisors claim they had no idea. . .

Cynthia McKinney, all the other Green candidates, and Ralph Nader are speaking truth about the Democrats in Washington - and in Sacramento -- and right here in my town and yours.

Alex Walker
Los Angeles Greens
July 8, 2008