The Georgia Green Party

Month: November 2018

  • Black Milwaukee: What Happens When Democrats Abuse Their Base

    Milwaukee WI leads the nation’s cities in the percentage of African Americans it incarcerates. Although the city votes reliably Democratic in every election, voter turnout for the 2016 was far lower than expected.  This Is Hell’s Chuck Mertz interviews Malaika Jabali on life and politics in Black Milwaukee – as deindustrialization, joblessness and mass incarceration gutted the city’s black neighborhoods over generations, the Democratic establishment is finding little enthusiasm from the people trying their hardest to survive the party’s capitalist agenda.

    Malaika Jabali wrote the article “The Color of Economic Anxiety” for Current Affairs.

    You can find a lot more great interviews like this at ThisIsHell.com, a four hour live radio show broadcast each and every Saturday morning live from Chicago, hosted by Chuck Mertz.

  • Trump Threatens to Shoot Migrants Fleeing US-Fueled Violence and Instability

    November 4, 2018

    While Donald Trump deploys troops to the Mexico border and orders them to shoot immigrants who throw rocks, many people in this migrant caravan in fact already fled US government-fueled violence in Central America. Eduardo García discusses impunity for Border Patrol killings and US-backed instability in Honduras and Guatemala.

    This was originally published by our friends at The Real News Network on November 4, 2019

  • Midterm Results: the War Party Rules

    There is no doubt who won the midterm elections: the War Party, which for generations has been virtually unopposed in the US.

    “Democrats gave a wink and a nod to the military industrial complex by remaining silent on the question of war.”

    Forget the midterms. The “blue wave” was a low tide. The Democrats took the House but lost the Senate, and badly. The good news is that another excessively hyped election is over. Let’s talk instead about how under US imperialism, war is a constant. Republican and Democratic Party officials are members of the War Party. US imperial wars rage on regardless of whether a Democrat is elected for President or Congress. The War Party follows of the dictates of Wall Street and the war machine. Party membership not only includes Democratic and Republican officials but also the corporate media.

    Democratic Party officials described last week’s midterm elections as the most important electoral moment in U.S. history. So-called “blue wave” politicians such as Stacy Abrams and Beto O’Rourke were deemed the “new” face of the Democrat side of the War Party. Democrats have promised their base that they will protect Obamacare, institute immigration reform, and “resist” Trump. These empty promises lacked the substance necessary to improve the conditions of poor and oppressed people. Beyond empty promises and corporate gesturing, Democrats gave a wink and a nod to the military industrial complex by remaining silent on the question of war.

    “The War Party follows of the dictates of Wall Street and the war machine.”

    The War Party planted military and intelligence candidates in midterm electoral races throughout the country. Stacy Abrams colluded with billionaires like Oprah but said nothing about war in her failed bid to become Governor of Georgia. Beto O’Rourke went a step further in his losing effort to the despicable Ted Cruz by promising the military industrial complex that he would shore up the resources necessary to “win” the six wars that his campaign identified in the global War on Terror. Corporate media outlets such as MSNBCand CNN further silenced the question of war by speaking non-stop about the elections as a “referendum” against Trump. What the corporate media and the Democrats didn’t say was that their “resistance” to Trump has always been a pro-war project.

    The midterm elections were a partial success for the Democrat side of the War Party, especially in the House. However, people all over the world will feel no relief. Not one candidate running for War Party seats campaigned to close the eight hundred U.S. military bases that occupy nearly every nation on the planet. The U.S.-backed Saudi war on Yemen continues to starve and murder the people of Yemen with only scant and ineffectual coverage emanating from the New York Timesand other corporate media outlets. In fact, the New York Times has made it clear that its opposition to Trump’s plan to increase troop levels at the U.S.-Mexico border is rooted in the principle that those troops should be fighting in wars in the Middle East or elsewhere . Thus, the Democrats do not oppose much of what the Trump Administration stands for, but rather howthe Administration implements its policies.

    “Their ‘resistance’ to Trump has always been a pro-war project.”

    The War Party has opposed Trump based on the billionaire’s proposed reforms to the imperial war machine. These proposed reforms have been less a product of Trump the individual and more the consequence of an imperialist system on the decline. The War Party exhausted its bipartisan war consensus under the Great Compromiser, Barack Obama. Obama solidified the war machine and expanded domestic and international counterinsurgency campaigns beyond the wildest dreams of the military industrial complex. Ukraine fell to fascists, Libya fell to head-chopping jihadists, and Syria became the prime location of one of the greatest refugee catastrophes in recent human history—all thanks to Obama. This made Israel and the US’ band of fascist allies smile, regardless of how much they disliked his skin color.

    The War Party fell into instant crisis under Donald Trump, which it hopes to rectify in the 2020 Presidential race. Trump campaigned on cordial relations with Russia and anti-free trade rhetoric. The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), multinational capital’s plan to strangle China, was instantly thrown away with the stroke of a pen. NATO trembled at the thought that Trump would speak to Putin in a fraternal manner and possibly discuss the de-escalation of its military arsenal from the Russian border. The War Party could care less about Trump’s racist epithets and policies toward undocumented immigrants. Its mission since Trump came into office has been to stabilize the imperialist system by marginalizing Trump where it matters and aligning with him when doing so maximizes the profits of the global capitalist elite.

    Such is the game of bourgeois politics. This round of midterm elections is no different. The War Party does not preside over a democracy. Even mainstream observers have labeled the U.S. electoral system an oligarchy . Corporations and their armed guards reign supreme. The wars raging on in Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America are set to expand regardless of which side of the corporate duopoly rules Congress.

    “Ukraine fell to fascists, Libya fell to head-chopping jihadists, and Syria became the prime location of one of the greatest refugee catastrophes in recent human history—all thanks to Obama.”

    This is evident in the political debates that have dominated the midterm elections. Trump has blown the racist dog whistle over the thousands of Central American migrants making their way from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala. However, Trump would have no whistle to blow were it not for over a century’s worth of US imperial policy in the region. The War Party is responsible for the violence in Honduras. When Obama was at the helm, the War Party supported the overthrow of leftist President Manuel Zelaya. The coup made Honduras one of the most dangerous place to be an environmental or trade union activist in the world.

    Under Obama, the Democratic Party solidified its allegiance to the War Party. In the spirit of Lyndon Johnson’s massacre of the Vietnamese people, Obama committed resources to proxies that committed massacres in Libya and Syria. He authorized ten times the number of drone strikes on civilian populations as George W. Bush. Under Obama, the military budget ballooned even as discussions among both sides of the War Party ensued about a “Grand Bargain” to cut Social Security and Medicare. The War Party made it clear under Obama that the masses would have to starve for the war machine to be fed.

    “The wars raging on in Palestine, Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, and throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America are set to expand regardless of which side of the corporate duopoly rules Congress.”

    Not much has changed with the War Party under the Trump Administration. However, what has changed is the progress that the people of the world have made to counter US imperialist hegemony. Imperialist propaganda mill, Voice of America, has complained that China and Russia have developed deeper ties to nations in Latin America. Korea is working toward real and lasting peace . Cuban President Diaz-Canel is traveling through the DPRK, China, Vietnam, Laos, and Russia to further develop ties of solidarity . Amid much hardship and struggle, the people of the world are maintaining their resolve against imperialism.

    This has infuriated the War Party. Members of the War Party know that Donald Trump cannot deliver what it seeks: permanent global hegemony. The War Party and the imperialist system it governs is no longer able to achieve its own interests. Imperialism is at a dead-end. Trump is merely the most acute indicator. The fake “resistance” hopes to right the War Party’s sinking ship.

    “Black Americans will continue to fill prison beds and graveyards at the hands of the police.”

    In this midterm election and for U.S. elections to come, victory for the War Party is guaranteed. The War Party will continue its assault on oppressed people and exploited people, at home and abroad. Black Americans will continue to fill prison beds and graveyards at the hands of the police.Poor people will continue to struggle to find work, healthcare, and housing. Civilian populations in every corner of the globe will be maimed by U.S. bombs and military operations.

    These are the fruits of the War Party. The core of every one of these fruits is rotten. This is a dangerous time and not because Trump is a Nazi in the White House. Economic crisis and world war are on the horizon. It is time to dump the War Party and build an independent organization comprised of all that the War Party has forsaken.

    Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto Sirvent are co-authors of the forthcoming book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News- From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (Skyhorse Publishing). He can be reached at wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com.

    This item was originally published at Black Agenda Report on November 14, 2018.

  • Election Clearly Stolen from Georgia Voters

    Greens welcome Abrams stand for election integrity, concerned for scope
    Green candidate documents cronyism in Kemp’s mismanagement of Georgia elections

    “This election was clearly stolen from the Georgia voters, in a campaign of a thousand cuts and involving at least outgoing Secretary Kemp. Undoubtedly, private profit is in there somewhere,” said Bruce Dixon, cochair of the Georgia Green Party and managing editor of Black Agenda Report. “Kemp acknowledges the inherent conflict of interest in a person certifying their own election with his own resignation. It was only after he had managed as Secretary of State his own election as Governor that he took this step. How more clear can he make it that his own integrity and the integrity of the election, the legitimacy of its results were never a real concern for him.”

    Over the past few years Brian Kemp has purged hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls. This cycle alone he closed over two hundred polling places, mostly in precincts where republican candidates have performed poorly. He has restricted early voting opportunities. Some 50,000 new voter registrations submitted to his office have simply disappeared. A variety of tactics resulted in hundreds of thousands of voters being obligated to use second class provisional ballots, which state law requires be subsequently defended by having the voter show up a second time to resolve questions related to their identity and registration.

    “We welcome the attention of the blue team to the critical issue of voter suppression. We have much work to do if we want to operate our elections with the integrity necessary that they can serve as a means for naming a legitimate government with a popular mandate,” said John Fortuin, commenting on the pending litigation and the Democrat Gubernatorial nominee’s statements that she would not concede this week’s election. “We welcome Abrams’ insistence on an accurate vote count. We also urge her to stand firm against the pressures which will be brought to bear as we call out the theft of this election.”

    John Fortuin is a co-founder of Defenders of Democracy and a candidate this year for the Georgia Assembly in Senate District #46 (Walton, Oconee and Clarke Counties), a nominee of the Georgia Green Party. He is a certified write-in candidate for the 2018 general election. His status as a write-in candidate is due to a 75 year old voter suppression scheme enacted in 1943 by Democrats elected by the all-white primaries of the day. The initial intent of their rules was to deny black veterans access to the ballot in Georgia’s General Election. These rules continue to keep important voices, independent of corporate wealth, off of the ballot in Georgia.

    Previously, Democrat candidates have turned a blind eye to opportunities to fight for the right of voters to have the intent expressed on their ballots honored by the certified results of elections; and in Georgia have actively opposed Green Party initiatives to reform the ballot access barriers.

    In 2004, in Ohio and New Mexico, witness reports gave rise to concerns that the election had been subverted and that the results would not represent voter intent, that the election results had been compromised. Results that year showed irregularities that were not credible, based on statistics and reports from voters and elections observers. The Green Party’s Cobb-LaMarche campaign launched recounts in both states. The reports generated by the Green Party recount effort led to an investigation by the minority caucus in House Judiciary and became the basis for the first challenge to the seating of an electoral college delegation in the history of the country. The challenge was rejected and the Republican delegation was seated for Ohio based on compromised results, changing the outcome of the election. Ohio Green Party’s former nominee for Governor, journalist and now attorney Bob Fritakas, continued the investigation, and the evidence compiled by Greens led to the prosecution, conviction and incarceration of multiple Ohio election officials, but not the revisiting of the tainted election results in a closely divided state, which changed the outcome of a national election.

    Likewise in 2016, when Greens identified voter suppression issues in Pennsylvania and two other states, Jill Stein, the party’s Presidential candidate for a second cycle, mobilized her campaign to raise and spend millions of dollars to initiate recounts, which appeared likely to show evidence of significant election fraud. The Clinton campaign sent an observer, but otherwise stood by and watched judges appointed by Democrat and Republican administrations shut down the effort, again changing the outcome of the national election.

    “Greens and Democrats may disagree on some points of public policy. That does not mean we think it is ok when the will of Georgia voters is subverted to deny their preferred candidate a place in a run-off, or perhaps an outright majority. I urge that the Abrams campaign stand firm; and break from her party’s pattern of conceding defeat in the face of victory,” said Fortuin. A long time election integrity advocate, Fortuin has just published a new report, “Brian Kemp: Like his Democratic Predecessors, Suppressing Ballot Integrity and the Legitimacy of Georgia’s Elections”.

    Fortuin’s report contextualizes the finding of Federal Judge Amy Totenberg of Georgia’s Northern District in her recent Order, that “State election officials had buried their heads in the sand… [on known computerized voting vulnerabilities]”. The report documents the revolving door relationships between state election officials and richly rewarded private contractors doing business with the office of the Secretary of State, to provide for the administration of public elections.

    “The Green Party has been raising the alarm on these critical election integrity issues since at least 2003,” said John Fortuin. That year Party activists served in a leadership role with the Voter Choice Coalition, a multi-partisan coalition originally organized to work for reform to Georgia’s ballot access barriers. Coalition participants worked to require that the Diebold machines produce a voter verified paper ballot, which computer scientists understood even then, as the minimum standard for election integrity.

    Greens have a long history of supporting voting integrity issues, and welcome this focus on ‘voter suppression’ by a Democratic party candidate. “But we must demand more,” said Dixon, state party chairman and Cobb County resident. “Abrams must broaden her perspective on voter suppression to embrace the need to replace faith-based computerized voting with paper ballots, to enact automatic, permanent voter registration, to provide for publicly funded election campaigns, to end the abuse of the reapportionment process to deny voters contested races among competing perspectives, to tear down the barriers to ballot access used to deny voters an opportunity to vote for the candidates of their choice, to end the exclusion of otherwise qualified candidates from the public airwaves, news reports, polls and debates. These mechanisms deny voters information about our options and are fundamentally anti-democratic. The coming years will provide us an opportunity to see if Abrams concerns for voter suppression are serious or simply motivated by her own short term partisan interests. There is plenty of this agenda she can contribute to.”

    “Even with all the legitimate critiques of Stacey Abrams’ track record and her silence on crucial issues, there is something to be said about her fight for a fair election in Georgia,” said Andrea Merida, a cochair of the Green Party of the United States. “Gillum concedes Florida, Clinton ignored evidence of flagrant 2016 violations in battleground states, Gore abandoned the field in 2000. We do not generally expect this from her Party, but Abrams is right to fight, not just for herself, not just for Black women, but for all voters in Georgia.”

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    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
    Friday, November 9th, 2018

    For further information, please contact:
    Bruce Dixon 404-797-2087; bdixon@georgiagreenparty.org
    John Fortuin 706-534-6001; info@FortuinForGeorgia.com