Posted on 08/22/2002 10:05:05 AM PDT by smokinleroy
BONHAM -- Paul Cardwell says necessity and desperation led him to rally a Fannin County Green Party.
The organizational meeting will be held at 2 p.m. Aug. 31 at the County Courthouse Annex. Cardwell is urging anyone interested in progressive politics to attend, regardless of current or previous party affiliations.
"I just don't like the way the country's drifting," he said. "Sam Rayburn's whole legacy to the nation has been dismantled. We've got a top corporate lobbyist heading the Securities Exchange Commission. No wonder we've got the stock market collapsing."
The Green Party is based on its "10 Key Values" of grassroots democracy: social justice; ecological wisdom, non-violence; decentralization; community-based economics; gender equity; respect for diversity; personal and global responsibility; and future focus.
County records show that in the 2000 election, with scant media attention and banned from presidential debates, consumer advocate and the Green presidential candidate Ralph Nader won a strong third place in both the nation and Texas.
Greens got some votes in each of Fannin County's 19 boxes. The party front-runner for Fannin County was Supreme Court candidate Ben Levy with 725 votes in Fannin and more than 450,000 statewide.
"The party has gotten as close as Collin County, so we might as well keep it spreading," Cardwell said.
Dallas has been organized for more than a year. The state was organized in 2000. Counties included at that time were Harris and Travis. After the presidential election, they got to work on county organization and it's been spreading since then, Cardwell added.
"I was Democrat," Cardwell said. "I have been claiming that the Green Party is actually what the Democrats used to be in Sam Rayburn's time. You take the New Deal and bring it up to date and you get Green."
Cardwell said of Democrats, "They're getting Republican. That's the problem. It's scary, especially since the Republicans are going absolutely fascist. The Bill of Rights is getting shredded."
He decided to create the Fannin County Green Party after getting involved in the Dallas County organization, where he got his training, Cardwell said. Later, he helped Collin County get organized. "Just head up (State Highway) 121," he said. "We're next."
Essentially, to start the party, Cardwell contacted the state Green Party and said he had some people here. "After all, 110 voted for Nader," he said. "That's enough to indicate I wasn't alone." Each county party must have a chairman and a treasurer.
Texas Greens ran only five candidates in 2000. This year, the Texas Green Party is running civil rights activist Roy Williams for U.S. Senate; physicist Rahul Mahajan for Governor; community developer Nathalie Paravicini for Lt. Governor; attorney David Keith Cobb for Attorney General; environmentalist Jane Elioseff for Agricultural Commissioner; community activist Ruben Reyes for Comptroller; educator Michael B. McInerney for Land Commissioner; petroleum engineer Charles Mauch for Railroad Commissioner; attorney Brad Rockwell for Texas Supreme Court; attorney Robert "Rob" Owen for Court of Criminal Appeals Place 1; and attorney Ollie Ruth Jefferson for Court of Criminal Appeals Place 3.
"Statewide, there are more than 40 candidates for House of Representatives, state Legislature and local positions such as county commission, city council and justice of the peace, but none we can vote for," Cardwell said. "One purpose of organizing Greens in Fannin County is to give the voters this choice in future elections."
Main national campaign issues
In a press release from Cardwell, he detailed many of the Green Party's national campaign issues. Stated from the party standpoint, they are:
v Election finance -- Political office essentially is sold to the highest bidder and campaign contributions effectively are bribes. Greens refuse all political action committee money, limit individual contributors to those within the jurisdiction of that office and support government financing of elections.
v Corporate responsibility -- Pensions must be protected from CEO piracy and laws already on the books regarding corporate finance disclosure must be enforced with real prisons, not Club Fed, for those convicted. Sam Rayburn's New Deal "legacy to the nation" must be restored.
v Wars constitutionally declared -- Negotiation first. An end to wars ordered by oil companies, fruit companies, sugar companies, etc. Their wealth at the price of our kids' blood.
v Single-payer health insurance -- We are the only country in the overdeveloped world that does not consider a healthy citizenry to be in the national interest. As a Canadian doctor said after that country's change, "I can't see that I practice medicine any differently now that I no longer worry about being paid."
v Instant runoff elections -- Ballots should allow voting for second and third choices and if there is no majority, add the second choice (and third, if necessary) until there is a majority. It saves the cost of a runoff while preventing the office going to a candidate that only a minority can stand.
v Reliance on renewable energy rather than foreign oil.
Cardwell said the Green Party offers an alternative to the "increasingly identical nature of the two wings of the Republican Party" (Republicans and Democrats).
"The Bill of Rights is the best protection for the people, rather than a police state. Don't vote for the lesser of two evils when you can vote for a good," he said.
Contact Fannin County Greens, Paul Cardwell, at (903) 583-9296. The party can be contacted by e-mail: carpgachair@yahoo.com
I don't have a reason to care about the Greens except to understand that I am probably talking to a closet Socialist.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
I cast no aspersions on you. I was merely commenting on the article and tieing it to what was happening here.
I agree that they take votes from the 'rats. I was trying to make the point that they don't exist in any REAL numbers. They exist mostly in the lamestream media.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
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