Unfortunately, the Green

shelleyp — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:02:21 -0500

Unfortunately, the Green Party in the US doesn't seem to have the ability to mount a unified campaign in the US, like it does in many other countries.

Case in point is Missouri. The "Green" party here is really the Progressive Party, because we had two, competing Green parties, and there are still members of "greens" across the state that disagree strongly with each other...it's so convoluted it's impossible to keep straight.

I remember going to an anti-Iraqi war protest, before we invaded Iraq, and the contender for Green office was attending. The guy was so pretentious I wanted to hit him -- he was less interested in winning than being part of an "outsider" party. The point is, he really wasn't taking the run for office seriously. Yet running for office is a serious thing. This was the best the Greens could do?

Yet the Green Party in Washington and elsewhere have been well organized, and making roads in state elections. Perhaps someday...

No offense to Ms. Clemente, but she got involved in the party in 2004 and she's the VP running mate? Makes Sarah Palin look over-experienced. And focusing on hip hop? Really?

I like many of the platform issues for the Greens. I just wish the party would grow up.

You're welcome

Kim Pearson — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 19:09:53 -0500

I'm glad that we have at least some representation of the McKinney Clemente ticket on the ite this election season, especially since both candidates are women.

She does raise food for thought, indeed. And I think she is right that there are still young people and poor people who don't feel politically engaged or empowered. But Obama has made surprising inroads. And the young hiphoppas I meet are decidedly capitalistic.

Kim
BlogHer Contributing Editor|Professor Kim|

Thank you for this interview

Maria Niles — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 17:13:13 -0500

Although I think my days of third party voting are long over, I do believe that their perspectives are important. Democrats and Republicans are relatively close in the big picture and I think it would be eye opening to allow some of the bigger third party candidates into debate. I would have liked to see at least one debate with McKinney and Bob Barr the Libertarian candidate involved.

Thanks for sharing Ms. Clemente's views with us. She raises much food for thought.

BlogHer Contributing Editor
PopConsumer
Beyond Help

Rosa Clemente, Green Party candidate for VP, talks to BlogHer

Kim Pearson — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:31:44 -0500

Rosa Clemente doesn’t take things at face value. My first
clue about that was when when the Green Party vice-presidential candidate nixed
my plan to record our conversation using Freeconferencecall.com. She said she didn’t like that kind of service because the providers store the audio files on their servers, where they can be datamined.

So, while I took notes as quickly as possible, we set off on
a stimulating chat about the Green Party and the campaign that she and her presidential running mate, former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, have mounted for the 2008 election.

Clemente, 36, is a veteran progressive activist with strong
ties to the hip-hop community. That’s fitting: she was born in the South Bronx in 1972, in the same place and roughly at the same time as rap icons such as DJ Kool Herc and the Sugar Hill Gang were creating a world-changing cultural phenomenon. Clemente says she became an activist as an undergraduate student at SUNY Albany, where she interned at the New York State assembly and “got to see what was not happening.”

As a graduate student at Cornell University, she researched such movements as the Black Liberation Army and the Young Lords. She went on to become heavily involved in grass-roots movements against police brutality, the Rockefeller drug laws and the prison industrial complex, among other causes. She also became a widely-published free-lance journalist, writing for such outlets as Clamor Magazine, The Ave. magazine, The Black World Today, and The Final Call.

Clemente helped found the National Hip-Hop Political
Convention in 2003 and is widely known as a Hip-Hop activist. She said she got involved with the Green Party in 2004, and already supported Cynthia McKinney when she became the party’s VP pick. The
Green Party, she noted, is composed of autonomous political parties with candidates running in several countries around the world. While the Greens vary ideologically, the US party subscribes to a core set of principles that include a commitment to democracy, social justice, economic sustainability and ecological wisdom McKinney and Clemente are on the ballot in 32 states this year, and Green candidates are on
the ballot in 248 local races.

Clemente argues that the Green Party’s values are more
responsive to the needs of the hip-hop generation – voters born since 1969 – than either the Republican or Democratic parties. While both Barack Obama and John McCain pitch their campaigns to middle-class voters, Clemente said most members of the hip-hop generation are working class. For too many of those workers, Clemente said, “We have no job creation. We don’t have a liveable
wage. There are still people making $5.00 hour” at a time when the minimum wage is between $6.55 an $7.25 an hour, and some advocates say
it ought to be more like $10/hour.

Clemente also decries the “school-to-prison” pipeline in
many poor and working class communities, where dropout rates are 50-55%. The prison-industrial complex is the “overarching nemesis” of the hip-hop generation, creating a culture that profits from criminalizing young people instead of tapping their potential.

A McKinney-Clemente administration would reverse this trend
by shifting economic priorities to the creation green-collar jobs a la Van Jones’ book, The Green Collar Economy. Jones’ organization, Green for All, is actively working
to create new opportunities via sustainable development.

Green dismisses critics who say that she and McKinney are
taking votes away from Democrats, and especially that they dilute support for the first African American Democratic nominee. “I don’t care; [Mc Kinney] doesn’t care. We’re not Democrats. We’re supposed to take votes away from them.” According to Clemente, the Democrats have “completely capitulated to the Bush
government.”

While Barack Obama’s campaign is targeting young voters,
Clemente maintains that his policies don’t respond to their needs. According to Clemente, Obama “capitulated on the war. He’s just gonna draw down troops and transfer them to Afghanistan.” Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden is “a warmongerer.” Most of Obama’s young
supporters are middle class, leaving large numbers of African American and Latino students cold. In fact, she said, 49% of those voters aren’t registered.

I asked Clemente what she thought of Obama’s injunctions to
African American parents to do a better job. “I don’t even respond to.. that Bill Cosby Black/Latino thing,” she said. She opined that there is a group of “elite” black people who are “ashamed of us.” You can find poor and black and brown people taking care of their kids every day, she added, and you can find wealthy and white people who neglect their children. She argued that we are always asking working-class people to be more responsible, but we don’t demand the same level accountability for those at the top of our economic, political and cultural institutions.

“Democrats who truly believe in Obama have every right to
vote for him,” McKinney said. She and McKinney are targeting people who aren’t attracted to either party -- to build a movement “to hold whatever president is elected accountable.”

For November 4, McKinney and Clemente are hoping to get 5%
of the vote, which would earn the Greens a spot on all 50 state ballots in future elections. That may prove daunting -- as of October 15, Pollster.com puts support for the Green ticket at about 1%.

Clemente argues that support for third-party candidates would be higher with greater media visibility and access to the debates, but she maintains that the powers that be have conspired to limit debate. She noted, for example, the since the 1960s, the only third-party ticket allowed by the Commission on Presidential Debates was that of Ross Perot and Adm. James Stockdale in 1992. Clemente said Perot's wealth helped him garner the level of support needed to gain entry to that forum. As for the corporate-owned media, Clemente says she and McKinney have been "whited out."

She also expects that the Green Party will be involved in battles to ensure that everyone’s vote is
counted – as they were in Ohio in 2004. Already, she notes the massive voter registration and heavy turnout in early
voting is bringing allegations of vote suppression and fraud. She ticks off the problems: The Republicans have been purging many people of color off the rolls. Many elderly and Machines are failing in West Virginia and Tennessee. Not enough poll workers. The NAACP sued the state of Virginia Monday for inadequate election preparations.

With mass chaos comes mass anger, Clemente warned. The 2000
election was stolen: “[George W. Bush] was never elected; we know what went down.” And in 2008, Clemente predicts, “Even if the person that everyone thinks should win does win, a lot of people will be disenfranchised.”

But Clemente and her fellow activists will keep pressing for
their cause. Defeat is another thing she doesn’t take at face value.

Rosa Clemente in her own words:

BlogHer - Rosa Clemente, Green Party candidate for VP, talks to BlogHer - Comments

Unfortunately, the Green

You're welcome

Thank you for this interview

Rosa Clemente, Green Party candidate for VP, talks to BlogHer