NORTH CAROLINA GREEN PARTY                   OCTOBER 2024

"JUST IMAGINE ... Honesty, Integrity, Intelligence, and Accountability in the White House" ~ Butch Ware

While we’ve been enduring another travesty of a US political election dominated by the two corporate parties, it's also been thrilling to watch the Green Party seriously breaking through to attract more voters’ attention. We’ve wondered in election after election how long it would take the now 69% of people who say they want a viable third party to realize that THEY are the real driving force for that change. Excuses from Democrats for not enacting any major progressive legislation since 1965 have worn thin, and in our view, the pathetic offerings by the nominated candidate at their August convention of domestic “joy” and foreign “lethality” were enormously shameful.

What becomes the tipping point for our citizenry? For too long, a suffering public has accepted being ignored on vital issues, and only served up more fear and injustice, economic insecurity and environmental decline … you know the list. You’re living it. Battered about by the D and R politicians time after time, our options as voters become a scenario which Jill Stein has likened to an abusive relationship, and quite so. You’re faced with the same kinds of choices: cling loyally and hope things get better (hope & change myth), be guarded but stay and work on problems (reform from within myth), or leave and reclaim your dignity. Breaking free of the corrupt two-party system is what Greens are bravely doing, firmly standing upon their values and taking responsibility in forging a more just and sustainable future.

The “fabric” of our Red/Blue politics – How sad it is to watch another election cycle in which Americans are presented with the same old extravaganza – we hear Red claim the “left” is “tearing the fabric of our country apart” while Blue preys equally on fears of all sorts. Both avoid talking about their major platform positions because wedge issues get more headlines. Both ignore the real policy solutions the Greens offer. Both overshadow their ineptness in governing with crafted marketing campaigns and meaningless political pageantry. Both deny their subservience to a vastly corrupted political system, seen in the fine mesh of the fabric above which squeezes out third parties. Demanding your loyalty to this present form of doing politics is harmfully abusive to the American people as well as deeply cynical.

Please continue reading for more quarterly updates on our activities and news commentary.  

For Immediate Release, October 12, 2024

The Triangle Welcomes Green Party Presidential Candidates Dr. Jill Stein (Oct 21) & Dr. Butch Ware (Oct 15)

Contact:
Rania Masri, local organizer, (984) 202-1782, [email protected] 
Anna Ordoubadi, Co-Chair NC Green Party, (919) 244-4863,  [email protected]  

RALEIGH, NC - The NC Green Party is thrilled to welcome Dr. Jill Stein and Professor Butch Ware to the Triangle.  Vice Presidential candidate Professor Butch Ware will be in the Triangle on October 15. He will be speaking at UNC-Chapel Hill at 1 pm, and again at 6 pm in Raleigh.  Presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein will be in Raleigh on October 21 for a luncheon-speaking event from 1-3 pm.  Please see https://linktr.ee/ncgp for details on the events, and also see the attached flyer.  Press are welcome to attend the ticketed events for free, but need to RSVP.

Dr. Stein is currently on the ballot in 38 states and running write-in campaigns in another eight states, plus DC, representing a total of 510 potential electoral votes, more than enough to secure the presidency. In recent polling, Dr. Stein was tied with Kamala Harris among Muslim voters overall and was the favored choice of Muslim voters in several states. 

In North Carolina, the number of ‘no preference’ votes in the Democratic Primary earlier this year  (88,000) was larger than the number of votes by which former President Trump won the state in the last election (74,481). In this election, voters who are enraged with the current administration’s funding and support for the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon will express themselves at the polls by voting for Jill Stein, and thus will be voting for their values rather than voting out of fear.

Dr Stein said, “We urge all people of conscience to resist the propaganda telling you to hold your nose and vote for genocide. If you vote for genocide, you are actively consenting to it and enabling it. Don’t let them talk you out of your humanity. Stopping genocide is the moral imperative of our time. We know a large majority of Americans want an immediate ceasefire and diplomatic solution to the genocide on Gaza. On top of that, one in three eligible voters didn’t vote in 2020, with those voters being mostly low-income, people of color and young — the very voters our anti-genocide, pro-worker agenda speaks to by calling for an end to genocide now, a weapons embargo to Israel, a $25 minimum wage, health care as a human right through medicare for all, free public higher education, national rent control, reparations, and an end to mass incarceration and police violence. We can pay for these programs by cutting the massive bloated military budget and requiring the rich to pay their fair share of taxes.”

If you would like to schedule an interview with Dr. Jill Stein or Professor Butch Ware, please contact Rania Masri at [email protected] / (984) 202 1782.

Raleigh, NC – Green Party members were on hand September 5th to welcome the North Carolina movement of Abandon Harris as it announced its launch with an inspiring press conference in front of the NC Democratic Party Headquarters. Numerous speakers from the group passionately and sometimes tearfully related their anger and disappointment about US foreign policy and the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris over her positions on Gaza and Palestine.

It now appears that candidate Harris will not offer any real changes from that of the Biden administration, which has been ineffective in securing any permanent ceasefire and refuses to end arms shipments or financial assistance to Israel. Harris has in fact recently reiterated her unconditional support for Israel’s prosecution of a “war” against Palestinians, citing its right to self-defense while saying little about the suffering and slaughter of tens of thousands. Abandon Harris as well as the Greens view this stance as clear and cruel complicity in a genocide and in violation of international law. 

The NC Green Party has been allied with members from Abandon Harris and dozens of other civic and student organizations for ceasefire protests at weekly events since October 7, 2023. It has been a tremendous effort of collaboration – and indeed bravery, given the sometimes hostile environment on public streets and campuses. These demonstrations in NC and nationwide are undeniably changing broad public opinion, if not the positions of current elected representatives. 

Sadly, there is no end in sight yet to the travesties in Gaza and the West Bank. There is, however, an end to the US horse-race of an election in 2024. We must vote against genocide and support for apartheid on November 5th. It is the only strategy left for those whose politics are guided by morality. 

Rebranded from Abandon Biden, the Abandon Harris movement here and across the country is now urging voters to support third-party candidates such as Jill Stein, Cornel West or Claudia de la Cruz (a write-in candidate in NC). The NC Green Party is proudly endorsing Jill Stein for President with Butch Ware for Vice President, and we are happy to welcome all who see genocide as their “red line” into our party to build our ranks for peace.

(pictured above is Anna Ordoubadi, a co-chair of the NC Green Party, at the
microphone during a live-streamed press conference by Abandon Harris in front
of the NC Democratic Party Headquarters in Raleigh on September 5, 2024)
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NORTH CAROLINA GREEN PARTY

OPPOSING IMPERIALISM AND THE NECESSITY OF COLLECTIVE RESISTANCE

Besides continuing havoc around the world, the lesser/greater evil occupying the White House (whichever party of War and Wall Street it’s been) has been revealed to be enabling or complicit in an outright genocide of Palestinians, prolonged more starkly over nine months and counting now. Yet, the realities of ongoing horrific death and destruction seem only to be background noise for the insane strategic planners of the Biden (or Trump) State Department and the Pentagon. The political and financial elites live in a world of their own. Settle down, protesters, the booming you hear is the stock market! They continue to finance the re-occupation of Gaza and the elimination (aka bombing, slaughtering, starving, arresting) of all resistance. Another deranged plan unfolds to give Americans another Mission Accomplished – that is, for the weapons makers, war profiteers, and their lackeys in government. A billionaire class orchestrates America’s unquestionable commitment to the deranged of Israel. We are not fooled by the propaganda they spin, but we who resist are left with few places to say the words genocide, apartheid or ceasefire without fear of arrest or the loss of a job or diploma. The corporate media, owned by the billionaire class, suppress and ignore the illegalities, the mass killings and mass graves, the dead and maimed children, the suffering of millions. But hey, America, don’t worry about the wars – we’ve got this handled! And the coming elections are way too important to be fretting about these pesky foreign details! Protesters? Why, they’re simply antisemitic, terrorist supporters and just plain un-American! 

The Green Party sees their rhetoric and politics for what it is in the end – a false and dangerous veneer hiding policies of brutal and hegemonic Western imperialism. Their level of immorality sickens us. Their greed angers us, as we are buried under debts here and while others in Gaza remain buried under rubble. Their changeable Red Lines insult us, and so activists formed their own on June 8th around the White House (below). Biden, away doing D-Day photo-ops in France, manages to say "We will not forget..." but may not actually remember how many wars he is currently waging and escalating.

 

We find it appalling that this elite class believes it can keep feeding us the same outrageous lies to cover their obvious and ruthless intentions to accumulate unaccountable power and more vast sums of personal wealth in the name of security and democracy. We’ve learned that they actually have no answers – for our issues or for our rage, except to crush it. Elite goals are not about sustaining life across the planet or for the well-being of this country, as the costs of their perpetual wars are paid for dearly at home. The Home of the Brave, where racial and income inequality is worse than ever, jails are full, policing more militarized, and millions are left to survive homeless or at the edge. The Land of the Free, where wages never keep up with living costs, where getting an education or healthcare becomes a luxury, where student and medical debt is worse than ever, where freedoms and constitutional protections are sacrificed. America the Beautiful, where our land and resources have become but commodities for traders and equity funds for the selling, with pollution and environmental degradation not much more than the cost of doing their business.

O say, can you see? We Greens see a situation that is clearly a failure of neoliberal politics and finance capitalism. We see fear, poverty, and war-lust pervading our country in what some call “end-stage empire”. But, if these madmen don’t manage to set off nuclear annihilation, what future awaits us? Greens will hold fast to a way forward called Ecosocialism. We have learned from history and experience – we must keep speaking and moving ourselves together to uncomfortable places, though not all will follow. Rosa Luxemburg reminds, “Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.”  We will be patriotic in a way that doesn’t require us to be isolated and hated by other nations. We will remain brave and in the streets, knowing that we’re part of a resistance that is actually quite large and growing. We will struggle to remain free of the corporate shackles dominating our media and governance. We will create pressure by our very existence, voting in Green candidates as we can, knowing that all of these things can only be done best by a collective resistance. Long may it wave.

Please continue reading for more quarterly news on our activities and updates on Politics, Labor, and the Environment. Featured toward the end is a bit of inspiration from an historical legend of the Green Party. 

NORTH CAROLINA GREEN PARTY

MORALITY AND HUMAN DIGNITY – WHY WE FOCUS ON PALESTINE 

During the winter months, we kept in place our statement standing in solidarity with Occupied Palestine on the website’s home page. Our support has not waivered, while we’ve watched the ongoing situation worsen dramatically and our political leaders continue their complicity in a genocide. The NCGP has remained steadfast, beyond a stance of anti-militarism, and we see identification with the Palestinian struggle growing in our state and across the world. We gain energy from that, despite the heartbreak of the tragedy. We know that our protest of the American-supported Zionist policy of extermination of an indigenous people must be persistent and louder – in our state capital, in our city councils, in DC when possible.

As Greens, we are always involved in a moral fight for justice and universal rights and dignity. Our Values advocate for this, for all peoples, feeling pain at the suffering of any people at the hands or under the bombs of powerful ruling classes. Respecting the human “dignity of the other” has always been central to our advocacy – one of values, dialogue, and diplomacy. We also stand with Palestinians because we challenge neoliberal structures of political power and find allies in our communities dedicated to the fight for liberation of the oppressed. We speak against the network of imperialism, its tool of colonization, its global capitalist system of domination by the US and western powers, so often racialized, subjugating poorer peoples either through legalized apartheid or expropriation of resources by force. We will not be divided in our common humanity, nor be alienated from others whose struggles are the same, whose desires are to live free in a system designed to benefit all people and not just the profits of a few. 

Please continue reading for more quarterly news on our activities and updates on Politics, Labor, and the Environment. Featured toward the end is some inspiration for you from members, books, and history.

NORTH CAROLINA GREEN PARTY 

A NEW YEAR
So much feels different about this one, right? Here, we see inspired new party leadership, supporter and member numbers growing again, social media sites lively as never before, passionate activists now on the ground weekly … still in the fight for People, Planet & Peace. We Greens aren’t just a party preference, we’re here to make an impact – with our voices, with our partner organizations, with our Green candidates, with YOU. All of us are needed in this fight. The year ahead that we face still remains fraught with raging wars and genocide, injustices, environmental degradation, and more. As Greens, we can’t help but to find it within ourselves to remain undaunted, to bravely speak out about our vision and values, to selflessly act to address shared and challenging problems – for our own communities and beyond. May all of us remain hopeful, determined and courageous in this new year!

WEBSITE UPDATES 
Check out and bookmark our website ncgreenparty.org if you haven’t been there in a while. First see our unwavering Home page statement of solidarity on occupied Palestine. Our About section now displays an NCGP Organization graphic, which is meant to bring a better understanding of how we’re organized and working together. The NCGP is not an enigma, it’s a body of real and dedicated folks who would welcome more help at any number of projects. See the Get Involved page for your possible new year’s resolution.

Also at our About section under Contacts & Officers, we provide a link to NCGP Coordinating Committee Profiles, where you can now read about those currently serving on the Coordinating Committee. We’ve revised Become a Member or Renew Dues, and under Resources, we're significantly adding to our list of Partners & Active Alliances. We’ve added a Calendar to show dates of our major meetings and events. And finally, see our updated Candidates section to follow those endorsed by the NCGP running in 2024.

POSITIONS STILL OPEN FOR 2024  
The NCGP is still seeking volunteers for:  Local Growth Chair, Fundraising Chair, and Media Team Chair. These are appointed positions with a one-year term. If you might be interested or wish to know more, please contact [email protected] to arrange for a conversation by phone.

Please continue reading for much more news!

By Michael Dublin

Here we go again! Another corporate party politician making a corporate driven decision that ultimately distresses the already suffering climate and wounds us all. 

The Biden administration broke its promise to voters last week by approving a massive new ConocoPhillips oil drilling project in Alaska called WILLOW over the objections and warnings of environmental experts. The White House says,  “Willow-a-go?” Well we say, “HELL NO."