On Truthdig, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges recently wrote an opinion piece advocating that people join the Green Party. Read the full thing here.
We owe Ralph Nader and Cynthia McKinney an apology. They were right about Barack Obama. They were right about the corporate state. They had the courage of their convictions and they stood fast despite wholesale defections and ridicule by liberals and progressives…
A shift to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader, along with genuine grass-roots movements, will not be a quick fix. It will require years in the wilderness. We will again be told by the Democrats that the least-worse candidate they select for office is better than the Republican troll trotted out as an alternative. We will be bombarded with slick commercials about hope and change and spoken to in a cloying feel-your-pain language. We will be made afraid. But if we again acquiesce we will be reduced to sad and pathetic footnotes in our accelerating transformation from a democracy to a totalitarian corporate state. Isolation and ridicule—ask Nader or McKinney—is the cost of defying power, speaking truth and building movements. Anger at injustice, as Martin Luther King wrote, is the political expression of love. And it is vital that this anger become our own. We have historical precedents to fall back upon.
H/T to Michael Cavlan
And quite a few vote for “bad” to keep out “terrible” and later realize they got “just as bad” or “even worse.”
But, bad habits are hard to break. Lord knows I’ve had my share.
DSH,
“everyone” doesn’t say that.
A few do, but probably only because they don’t realize that “bad” and “terrible” are joined at the hip and whenever you vote for one you get both.
Two sides of the same bad penny.
The whole thing is rotten, and spoiling it is impossible.
No, I am most certainly not joking.
If I was, I would still be a Democrat. And I’m not.
Paulie, Sam: You’re joking, right? When, in retrospect, everyone who voted for your candidate smacks themselves in the head and says “D’oh; you mean, if I’d voted for ‘bad’ instead ‘good’, I wouldn’t’ve gotten ‘terrible’?”
GP Fan: State party meeting is suppose to be this month, we’ll see (although if there’s a residency requirement, I’m screwed, I just moved here.)
Dale Sheldon-Hess,
run on the ballot as a Green Party candidate and advocate this message.
That’s how you do it…
Chris Hedges, the Green Party thanks you.
For Green Party leaders, and Green Party members this part of the article is especially welcomed, and kind.
” It is the only alternative left to save our embattled open society. We can begin by sending a message to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader. Let them know they are no longer alone.”
Bravo!
Great Green Party story!
Thank you!
The Green Party IS both the short term and long term fix.
Put 435 Green Party candidates on the ballot in ever U.S. House race in 2010 and you’ll be delighted and amazed at how many get elected…
Whenever Greens put candidates on the ballot their ration of getting elected is through the roof and amazing!
Get on the ballot today as a Green!
Good question, Paulie. I await a reasonable answer.
“We will be bombarded with slick commercials about hope and change and spoken to in a cloying feel-your-pain language. We will be made afraid. ”
So it will be another election year with the same ads from the two main parties… how insightful.
How do you spoil something so rotten?
from a Perot, Perot, Nader, Nader, Nader voter”
“told ya so, told ya so, told ya so ………”
“A shift to the Green Party, McKinney and Nader, along with genuine grass-roots movements, will not be a quick fix. It will require years in the wilderness. ”
Years in the wilderness building support, until you spoil another election and 95% of your support runs crying back to the major party they came from.
The Green party needs to start supporting approval and score voting if they want to avoid this.