[Announce-DAN] [A Green Response to Seattle City Councilmembers

["getmelissa@uswest.net" <getmelissa@uswest.net>]

From: "Sally Soriano" <sally.pfft@worldnet.att.net>

Last week, two Seattle City Council members, Judy Nicastro and Richard
Conlin, announced in an op-ed to the Times  that they were leaving the
Green Party. They warned Green Party members that a vote for Nader would
be a vote for Bush.

Following is a response from two members of the Washington State Green
Party. A shorter version will appear in today's (Nov. 1st) edition of
Real Change-- Puget Sound's Newspaper of the Poor and Homeless.
http://www.realchangenews.org

A Vote for Nader Is a Vote for Genuine Democracy

by Sally Soriano and Adriene Sere

Why is it that when people hear Ralph Nader speak just once, they are
mesmerized? For months the airwaves have been filled with designer
political commercials and superficial media coverage of the two major
candidates. Yet with just a glimpse of a progressive alternative, people
become solid supporters of Nader.

Green Party presidential candidate Nader understands the real interests
of people. He aims to take back our government from corporate control.
He advocates a living minimum wage of $10 an hour, investment in
alternative energy and a foreign policy of waging peace. He points out
that the two-party monopoly has meant stagnant wages for most U.S.
workers, increased poverty for women and children, eroding health
facilities, neglected public schools and a bloated military budget.
Nader explains how the current political system is constructed for the
benefit of the wealthiest one-percent.

Look at health care for example. Insurance companies make money by
keeping things complex and confused, and suppressing the legitimate
alternatives. When Nader speaks about single payer health care
(guaranteed full health care for everyone), it is not complicated. It
simply makes sense.

For these reasons and more, the corporate media has given almost no
coverage to Nader. The Democrats and Republicans aggressively excluded
Nader from the debates. His campaign, run on a shoestring, has been
financed entirely by citizens.

Yet Nader is still getting close to 5% of the vote. He is filling up
arenas in major cities across the country with 10-15,000 supporters who
pay $10 - $20 to hear him speak — unprecedented for a political
candidate.

Illegally barring Nader from the debates was not enough for the
Democrats. As we near election day, they are desperately attacking him,
orchestrating a scare-mongering campaign to convince Nader supporters to
vote for Vice-President Gore.

Why are they going after Nader’s hard won 5%? Why aren’t the Democrats —
including Seattle City Councilmembers Richard Conlin and Judy Nicastro,
who recently attacked Nader supporters in a Seattle Times Op-Ed — trying
to instead attract the 52% of the people who don’t vote and the
undecided. Is it because there is so little about Gore, other than the
fear of Bush, that would ever motivate anybody to vote for him?

Nicastro and Conlin, who occupy non-partisan offices, courted the Green
Party during their own election campaigns. Now we see them attacking the
very Green Party members who gave so much time and labor to get them
elected. In the past, Nicastro and Conlin have both taken important
progressive stands. The Green Party is building an infrastructure to
allow politicians to take such positions without fearing for their
political futures.

The corporate media has presented Nicastro and Conlin’s departure from
the Greens as a set-back for the Green Party. But the real measure of
our movement is the people who are now turning to the Greens.

Recently, Reverend Robert Jeffrey, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church,
proudly announced at the Black Dollar Day’s Task Force Benefit, that he
is now a Green Party member. He is known as one of Seattle’s foremost
leaders in the fight against apartheid, against police brutality, and in
his work for economic justice and empowerment of the African-American
community.

This ground swell of support for the Green Party is also reflected in
young high school activists. Joe Szwaja, local high school teacher and
human rights activist, was recruited by students who are active in the
fair trade and anti-sweatshop movements to run for Congress in the 7th
District against Representative Jim “free trade” McDermott. In the
recent primary Szwaja got 14% of the vote!

In September, two local unions broke with their national leadership to
endorse Ralph Nader. Endorsements came from Teamsters 174 and the
Seattle Area American Postal Workers. Sarah Luthens, member of both the
Amercian Federation of Musicians and Labor for Nader, said: “Nader has
been working for labor rights for four decades. More and more union
members as well as union leaders are recognizing this is a fight we have
to join.”

Those who are telling us that a vote for Nader is a vote for Bush
obviously have no memory of recent voting history. Eight years ago many
progressives were told to vote for Clinton over George Bush, Sr. because
Clinton was the “lesser of two evils”. Many progressives, half believing
that Clinton’s Democratic-led government would be there for them,
reluctantly voted for him. We couldn’t have imagined, at that time, the
evil that this “lesser” would deliver.

In the first year of the Clinton administration, new legislation that
would have protected striking workers from being permanently replaced
was defeated. Although this was of crucial importance to their labor
supporters, Clinton and Gore did nothing to assure its passage in the
Democratic controlled Congress.

Catering to corporate interests was an entirely different story. Clinton
and Gore did everything they could assure passage of NAFTA — at the
expense of workers, the environment, and the democratic process itself.
They set up a war room in the basement of the White House and bought
Congressional votes by promising millions in pork barrel spending. Yet
their promise to oppose NAFTA was one of the cornerstones of their 1992
campaign.

Today we can thank Clinton and Gore for twelve, multi-million dollar
NAFTA lawsuits. NAFTA allows corporations to sue governments (Canada,
Mexico, and the U.S.) if a protective law enacted by these governments
results in loss of corporate profit. Presently, a Canadian corporation
is suing our federal government for a billion dollars because the
California legislature banned the fuel additive MTBE which causes nerve
damage to humans and makes drinking water carcinogenic.

 Because of such betrayals by Clinton and Gore, in the first two years
of their Administration, millions of liberal and progressive voters
stayed home in the 1994 elections. As a result, the Republican’s were
able to win control of both the House and the Senate. In Washington
state alone we lost five Democratic Congressional seats. It was Clinton
and Gore who opened the door to Newt Gingrich’s Contract on America.

In 1995, Vice-President Gore went on to push the establishment of the
WTO through Congress. Ralph Nader was the only well known public person
still opposing the WTO on the day of the vote.

Last November, anti-WTO protestors in the streets of Seattle demanded
that the rights of corporate investors should never take precedence over
the public interest. But WTO member countries are moving ahead anyway.
The corporate media is not informing the public about the fact that the
WTO is already negotiating new goals: the privatization of all public
services including water, electricity, schools, health care, and
prisons. If this WTO agenda continues to move forward, the role of
government officials and public sector unions will eventually be made
irrelevant.

But already we are feeling the devastating consequences of the
Clinton-Gore administration’s pro-corporate policies. They won the
election in 1992 in part with the promise to improve the welfare system.
Instead they demolished the safety net, demonized single mothers, and
jeopardized the health and safety of millions of children. The corporate
media is not reporting what is really happening to those who are in need
but are not receiving adequate assistance.

Through the past eight years, the Clinton administration has facilitated
the corporate agenda over and over again. Their liberal rhetoric hides
their reactionary policies. As talk show host Jim Hightower says, “we
are now in the 20th year of the Reagan administration".

We respect everyone’s right to vote for Gore. We don’t respect the
Democratic Party’s attempt to whip up hysteria against Nader. In a real
democracy, people vote for the candidate that best represents their
values and community interests.

A vote for Ralph Nader and his Vice-Presidential running mate candidate
Winona LaDuke is a vote for the beginning of genuine democracy. It is a
rejection of the “inevitability” of right-wing politics, whether these
politics carry the label of “Democrat” or “Republican". A vote for Nader
is a vote for ending the cycle of destruction perpetuated by the
two-party monopoly.

It is a vote that matters: if Ralph Nader wins 5% of the vote the Green
Party will receive millions of dollars in federal funds which will put
power and money behind progressive candidates in the next election.
Ralph Nader’s presidential candidacy in this election offers us the
chance of a lifetime to begin the creation of a viable, progressive
alternative.

Sally Soriano, WA State Green Party member and organizer for People for
Fair Trade
sally@peopleforfairtrade.org

Adriene Sere is also a WA State Green Party member and editor of Said
It, a radical feminist publication.

Washington State Green Party website: http://www.wagreens.org

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