Instant Runoff Voting still worth the effort

by: thegreengrass

Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 10:49:18 AM EST

Even more interesting, though, was the next question:

If it was apparent that your first choice could not win the election, which candidate (or party) would be your second choice? 

DeLeo's Speech: A Disturbing Vision for Massachusetts

by: jandrews

Thu Mar 04, 2010 at 17:07:36 PM EST

1) Remember all that talk about how casino revenues would be devoted to worthy purposes like education?  Now DeLeo has a different idea: the priority is doling casino revenues out as gifts to corporations.  You know, building infrastructure for businesses.  It's NOT graft - it's economic stimulus.  The recent Supreme Court decision allowing corporations to spend unlimited money in campaigns seems to be having its effect already.  The politicians aren't even waiting for the money to appear before they sell out.

A necessary frame for the local master plan

by: robc

Fri Feb 26, 2010 at 16:31:14 PM EST

Green Values Are American Values

by: thegreengrass

Fri Feb 19, 2010 at 23:58:31 PM EST

Thinking beyond the two party system

by: rossl

Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 20:21:38 PM EST

I'm not going to pull any punches here.  I detest the two party system.  I believe that it undermines representative government.  It makes our government more responsive to corporations than to citizens.  It decreases the chances of progress and it results in many good ideas being shut out of the national political debate.

The limits imposed on this nation by the two party system are slowly leading to its demise.  Partisan gridlock in Washington, outright corruption, the absurd difficulty of kicking out incumbents, corporate control of Washington, and the infamous backwardness of many local governments (among many things) are all symptoms of this same disease.  And I do not use that language lightly.

Not either/or

by: seemstome

Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 11:26:27 AM EST

Obama praises a criminal racket as savvy, puts them in his Administration

by: eli_beckerman

Tue Feb 16, 2010 at 14:41:23 PM EST

Dean Baker has a great summary of Goldman Sachs' "savvy" track record in this Guardian/UK article. And don't forget Matt Taibbi's mind-boggling portrait in Rolling Stone of Goldman Sachs profiting from one self-created economic bubble after the other. And it was the finance industry who gave Scott Brown a big last-minute send-off to Washington, signaling their equal opportunity approach to looting.

I'm starting to think that a focus on unearthing the dirt behind Goldman Sachs and its political influence might shine some daylight on the criminal convergence of politics and economics at the start of the 21st century.  

Mr Franklin's Folks Go to the Tea Party

by: gmoke

Sat Feb 13, 2010 at 20:11:00 PM EST

"Mr Franklin's Folks" is a demonstration of practical energy actions that remain practical whatever your politics.  I don't know but it might be time for the Franklin Folk to invite the Tea Party people to a weatherization barnraising.

Green-Rainbow strategy for challenging the State Legislature

by: eli_beckerman

Wed Feb 10, 2010 at 11:14:55 AM EST

Leo Maley points out on Blue Mass Group that there will be something like 25 open seats this year in the Legislature. In the same space, he also argues that the Green-Rainbow Party has no business running for high office without having demonstrated political viability or acuity at any level other than a small crop of municipal officials.

Jason Pramas ponders pretty much the same question at Open Media Boston, with a little less devotion to the Grand Old Democrats, and a little more interest in seeing a local electoral focus take hold.

And Peter Vickery makes an eloquent case to run for office and to run Green right here at GMG.

Of course, the Green-Rainbow Party's electoral strategy for 2010-2012 was to go after State Rep. seats with an eye towards winning one or two in 2012. And Jill Stein's gubernatorial bid emerged as a powerfully synergistic opportunity to help spur stronger legislative challenges. A strong municipal field in 2011 would also be synergistic with this top-to-bottom-and-up approach.  

Jill Stein launches campaign to regain control of our Commonwealth and our common future

by: eli_beckerman

Mon Feb 08, 2010 at 16:36:43 PM EST

Prepared Remarks of Jill Stein
Candidate for Governor of Massachusetts
February 8, 2010 at the State House, Boston, Massachusetts

INTRODUCTION

Thank you so much for being here today. This is the year we the people regain control of our Commonwealth and our common future. It's time for a Commonwealth that listens to the people, works for the people, and answers to the people. It's time to bring the voices of ordinary people into this election and into the halls of power. It's time to break the stranglehold of lobbyists and insiders, and get Beacon Hill back to work for the families and communities of the Commonwealth. It's time to start building the healthy, secure green future we so urgently need, richly deserve, and is within our reach. My name is Jill Stein and that's why I'm running for governor.

Not the comfy chair

by: peter_vickery

Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 20:07:51 PM EST

I shall be offering no prizes (repeat, no prizes) for guessing the source of climate confusion in the land of my birth. But if you guessed "oil companies," give yourself a pat on the back.

ExxonMobil is one of the fossil-fuel giants behind a network of right-wing think tanks successfully pushing climate-change-denialism into the popular media, says the UK's Independent newspaper.

The bright side? It's not only Americans who are falling prey to corporate-sponsored climate-change denialism. Apparently a British accent is no predictor of intellectual ability or an indication of inherent authority after all, although any of my students (or offspring) who happen to have stumbled across this blog should disregard that last comment. I really do know best.

In the face of the Right's success in making climate-change denialism part of the debate among grown-ups who ought to know better, how should progressives respond? One option is to continue supporting Democratic office-holders who talk a good game about climate-change solutions but vote for decidedly dodgy cap-and-trade non-solutions like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). For a strong indictment of carbon-trading I recommend Mark Schapiro's "Conning the Climate" in the current Harper's Magazine.

Another option, popular among Democratic activists and voters alike during the senatorial special election, was to take what I think of as the Comfy Chair Option. My goal in this post is to urge readers to renounce that option and all its works. But I do understand its appeal.

After a decade of directionless Democratic supermajorities in Massachusetts and a year of Democratic under-achievement at the national level, many Bay State progressives are feeling disappointed, disaffected, and distraught. Yes, there is a welcoming home waiting for them in the GRP, but even I (a Green with the zeal of the convert) have to admit to a continuing dearth of legislative candidates and active local branches. And on the path from Democratic to Green is the comfy chair of alienation.

Some contributors to the blog just across the aisle (BlueMassGroup) are having a healthy and robust debate about the merits of fighting on within the party as opposed to supporting third-party candidates, among them my friend Leo Maley, who managed my successful 2004 campaign for Governor's Council. One of Leo's observations that jumps off the screen is that the 25 open seats in this year's legislative elections present progressives with an opportunity to change the dynamic of the State House for the next decade.

Yes, 25 seats with no Democratic incumbent. As the manufacture and dissemination of news increasingly becomes the preserve of the major corporations, it becomes even more important to jump into the public arena, particularly the part of the arena dedicated to electoral politics. Whether progressives devote their resources to fighting on within the Democratic Party or to taking it outside by joining the Greens matters less than their decision to shun the comfy chair. I would like some of those 25 districts to end up in Green hands, but in the absence of Green candidates that hardly seems likely.

However, we can hope that Jill Stein's candidacy will have a coat-tails effect and encourage Green activists not simply to support the gubernatorial campaign but to run for office themselves.

And this is definitely the year to run. Just as in Britain, here in Massachusetts the importance of the climate issue (an issue we should own lock, stock, and barrel) is starting to fade among the general public, giving climate-solution activists an even greater incentive to push it back where it belongs, i.e. front and center. If our voice is not in the electoral mix we leave the debate to ExxonMobil and their little denialist helpers in the Republican Party and to the the Wall Street dice-rollers and their Democratic allies.

So what's my proposal for countering the fossil-fool propaganda and calling out the carbon-trader hucksters? Go to town or city hall, pull nomination papers for state rep, and run Green. Or persuade a friend to run.

Anything but the comfy chair.

You can help rewrite the Green Party Platform for 2010

by: daveschwab

Tue Feb 02, 2010 at 10:23:37 AM EST

GreenChange.org and GP.org are inviting Greens to participate in the process of rewriting the Green Party Platform for 2010. This is an example of the potential of online grassroots democracy, and a great opportunity to contribute your voice to the Green Party's vision for our future. Read on for details:

Defending Dedham: cuz "los bancos tienen mucho dinero"

by: michael horan

Sun Jan 31, 2010 at 21:21:20 PM EST

Think back a few years, and you may recall Boston's hipster boutiques sporting a line of t-shirts festooned with an M4 carbine and a cryptic stenciled message: "Defend Allston"(which was followed by "Defend JP,"  "Defend Dorchester," and, I suppose inevitably, "Invade Harvard Square"). The text's ambiguity gave it its edge: defend from what, exactly? Students? Rats? The Yankees?

Well, as it turned out ... it was the banks we needed defendin' against! Who knew, back in the halcyon days on 2006?  

The Earnings Report for Main Street-- By Prakash Laufer

by: suzanneb

Thu Jan 28, 2010 at 13:25:41 PM EST

These are some of the same institutions whose predatory and unethically risky actions brought our economy to its knees. But, thanks to billions of dollars in government resuscitation, they seem to be recovering nicely from their near-death experiences.

Everyone's Academic: Goodbye, Howard

by: michael horan

Wed Jan 27, 2010 at 20:35:48 PM EST

I first met him a few months after moving to Massachusetts; Howard was supposed to talk about what was then his latest book, Three Strikes, but seeing as how the event at the BPL took place in mid September 2001, the conversation quickly moved to,uh, more timely subjects. Having finally got around A People's History, I wanted to see the man; I was not disappointed.

Nor was I disappointed on the several occasions he joined us on Boston Common as we fulminated against the Iraq War; when he spoke at First Parish, along with Patti Smith, on behalf of Ralph Nader; or when I last saw him, Spring '08, at Old South Church, where he did a benefit for Spare Change newspaper.

autographing a pic for Cate
at Old South Church, Spring 2008)

Because that what was Howard did--whatever was needed at  the time. Whether it meant signing on in World War II to fight fascists, teaching (and organizing) at a black college in the fifties, putting his job on the line (again) to protest against the Viet Nam war in the sixties, he was there. Physically. He knew the importance of getting out of the libraries and away from the computer screens, of putting theory on the backburner and putting your reputation, your livelihood, and your physical well-being on the line.