2024 -- PUSHBACK AGAINST THE PROPAGANDA
In these last few months in the run-up to the 2024 election, the opponents of the Green Party are doing all they can to prevent our pro-worker, anti-war/anti-genocide, and climate emergency agenda from being fairly presented before the public and on the ballot in November.
We have seen the Democrats employ armies of lawyers to file suits against us to keep us off state ballots and tie up our time and resources. They have openly hired infiltrators to attempt damage to us from within, and they have held up our earned public matching election funds to hinder our campaigning. The two major parties conspire to keep us out of national debates and keep their captured mainstream media from covering Green candidates. These tactics are not new and continue to be used in every national election cycle as our movement grows and threatens the power of their two-party dominance.
And then there’s the ridiculous propaganda and smears – repeated endlessly to sway voters away from the Green Party before they can even hear the serious and positive solutions we propose for a more just and sustainable country. We Greens urge you to RESIST falling into their trap of hopelessness or helplessness by giving into a skewed idea of strategic voting (against one or the other dominant parties). We stand to DEFY their system corrupted by the wealthy donors of both these parties, all of whom back the same agenda of increasing conflicts and exploitation of our planet to increase their profits. We ask you to DENY them your vote, which will only be used to portray continued support for War and Wall Street. We must use our votes to register our resistance to what is being done by the powerful in this country and around the world.
Below, the NC Green Party’s CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR, WAYNE TURNER, pushes back on 12 of the most tiresome talking points and attacks that we hear year after year, particularly from the Democrats:
"Jill will take/siphon/steal votes away from Kamala Harris."
Jill CAN'T take votes away from Kamala, because Kamala and the Democratic Party don't own our votes. Candidates have to earn our votes. Jill is earning our votes, Kamala isn't.
"Jill can't win."
Jill CAN win if enough people vote for her. To reduce voting to a bet on a candidate's winnability turns elections into horse races. We're voting for Jill because she represents our interests and ideals. Kamala Harris and Donald Trump do not. Furthermore, votes for Jill help state Green Parties achieve ballot status and bring the Green Party closer to status as a national party that can compete with the two major parties.
"Jill will be a spoiler for Kamala."
If you're really concerned about "spoiling," you should urge Democrats to work to enact RANKED CHOICE VOTING (RCV), which allows voters to rank their choices, eliminates the alleged spoiler factor, and accommodates alternative parties. When Democrats reject RCV, it tells us they'd rather lose to Republicans than tolerate multi-party democracy, which is the only real democracy. There's no such thing as democracy limited to only two-parties, which is one step away from a one-party system.
"Jill is working for Putin."
Jill dined with President Putin at a conference event, as have many US political leaders including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who accepted four donations from Russia's Uranium One to the Clinton Foundation totaling $2.35 million. Jill has received no money from Russia or any other foreign nation, as a Senate subcommittee confirmed after an investigation. It's just sad to see Democrats resorting to McCarthy-style smears. Some of the smears are coming from Third Way, which is funded by right-wing billionaires including the Koch Brothers.
"Trump is such a threat that we all need to vote for Kamala. It's not the right time for a Green presidential candidate."
Democrats have said "It's not the right time for a Green candidate" in every previous election, and they'll say it in every future election. Trump is a threat, but Kamala Harris -- who is maintaining President Biden's dangerous foreign policies in Gaza and elsewhere -- is in many ways a threat too, especially to global peace and stability and she has said little about actions she'd take to solve the climate emergency. Note that Biden has continued to permit new drilling and has blocked legally binding goals set at international COP conferences on climate change.
"Jill has never shown leadership and isn't qualified."
Jill Stein, who has a long and distinguished career as a physician and activist (her bio here), introduced the Green New Deal nationally in the US during her 2012 Green presidential campaign. Because of the global climate crisis, the Green New Deal might be the most important idea of the 21st century. Progressive Democrats later offered a significantly watered-down version of the Green New Deal, and the Democratic and Republican party establishments entirely reject the Green New Deal. Theirs is not the leadership required in these times of climate crisis and economic struggle today.
"The Green Party and Democratic Party have the same goals, so we should just all vote Democrat."
No, on major economic, environmental, military, and foreign policy, Democrats and Republicans are more like each other than either is like the Green Party. Greens demand Single-Payer universal health care, a $25 livable wage, repeal of barriers to union organizing, reparations for the descendants of slaves, community control over police departments, an Ecosocialist Green New Deal, deep cuts in military spending, and the closing of US military bases around the world. The Democratic Party opposes all these ideas. The Green Party has called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and a cutoff of US aid to Israel (as well as other countries that commit atrocities and war crimes), while both major parties continue to support Israel's apartheid system and genocidal assault on Gazan civilians. The Democratic and Republican parties and their candidates routinely accept generous checks from corporate PACs and lobbies (like AIPAC), while the Green Party rejects all such contributions. (See OpenSecrets.org for more information about the financial influence of corporations and the super-rich on both major parties.)
"Why should we vote for Jill and not for another independent candidate?"
A vote for Jill is also a vote to help build the Green Party as a permanent alternative to the two corporate-money parties. We need to end the two-party stranglehold on US elections. Independents have no effect after Election Day. In 1980, independent candidate John Anderson drew 10% but his campaign did nothing to change the US political landscape.
"If we don't vote Democrat, the Republicans will outlaw abortion rights."
Republicans have been conspiring to repeal Roe v. Wade since the 1980s, but Democrats have rejected every chance they had to pass a federal law protecting women's reproductive rights. President Obama declared in 2009 that such a law wasn't a priority. Hillary Clinton chose an anti-abortion running mate in 2016. Rep. Nancy Pelosi said in 2017 that the demand for protection of abortion rights was hurting the Democratic Party. Why should we suddenly trust them on abortion rights now?
"Jill was a spoiler for Hillary’s run in 2016 ..."
Hillary Clinton lost because she was an uninspiring War & Wall Street candidate, she chose an anti-abortion running mate (Tim Kaine), she botched her campaign strategy by giving lots of attention to Trump (believing she'd beat him easily), and by declining to campaign in key swing states. She also lost because of the Electoral College (although she won the popular vote) and because tens of millions of Americans didn't bother to vote. Hillary's failure to defeat the worst Republican nominee in US history in a landslide had nothing to do with Jill and Green voters.
"...and Nader spoiled in 2000."
In the 2000 election, about 308,000 Florida Democrats voted for George W. Bush. Only 24,000 Democrats (97,000 voters total) in Florida voted for Green candidate Ralph Nader. In other words, 308K Democrats were the real spoilers. Democratic Party apologists like to blame Nader because they don't want to explain why so many Democrats voted for Bush, why Gore ran such a weak campaign that he even lost in his home state of Tennessee, why Gore challenged voter obstruction by Republican operatives in only three Florida counties instead of the entire state, and why Democrats in the US Senate voted unanimously to confirm Bush's election despite evidence of voter obstruction. These spoiler arguments have been thoroughly debunked, and Democrats need to stop lying to the American people.
"The Democratic Party is defending democracy, that's why you should vote Democrat."
Democrats are only concerned about democracy when their own status is threatened. The Democratic Party has been working overtime to kick Greens off the ballot, filing frivolous ballot-access legal challenges designed to drain money and time from Green parties and candidates, even when the lawsuits get thrown out of court -- which happened recently in Nevada and Wisconsin. (Maybe they learned this strategy from Trump's bogus lawsuits after the 2020 election.) The Democratic National Committee brazenly violated its own rules about impartiality when it favored Hillary over Bernie in 2016 and Biden over Bernie in 2020, effectively rigging the nomination in both years. Democrats and Republicans have worked together to enact ballot-access rules that privilege their own candidates and hinder alternative parties and independents.
THE NORTH CAROLINA GREEN PARTY ENDORSES JILL STEIN
AND BUTCH WARE IN THE 2024 GENERAL ELECTION
Early Voting in North Carolina runs Oct 17th thru Nov 2nd
prior to the General Election on November 5th
SEE OUR OTHER NC GREEN CANDIDATES FOR 2024
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The North Carolina Green Party (NCGP) is the only left-wing political party to have placed its candidates on the ballot in this state in over 30 years. We're not Democrats or Republicans. We're a separate party—the Greens. The NCGP is no ordinary political party: we are structured as a membership-based, dues-paying party funded entirely by individual working-class people. We and our endorsed candidates never accept money from corporations or wealthy elite interests.
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