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In the past when I was running for office the presence of the Green Party on the same turf as the Corporate pa ties and the Libertarian Party was an important “educational tool.” Without candidates it might also be useful in demonstrating our issue advocacy to some. I don't think we ever managed to get support $$$ from the event but it would be useful if we could do something in the booth that would at least pay for its presence. Sell hats, T-shirts??? Run a roulette wheel?
We would in Pikes Peak attempt to create as accurate and large a list of voters that included emails or some other means of communicating more regularly with Green Voters and Independents.
:-X I wish I even know a little about how to help. I can't even get our local web/social media up to snuff and I cannot seem to get any clear way of participating effectively on the Forum
August has come and gone and we don't seem to be moving on this resolution, either with the original or a substitute. It is unclear how to go about this.
At the 2010 ASM (Annual State Meeting) in Florence we passed two resolutions:Calls for an end to US military aid to Israel and approving only humanitarian and economic aid to both Israel and Palestine on an equitable basis.Calls for an immediate end of Israeli occupation of Palestine including an end of Settlement building and wall building within East Jerusalem and the West Bank and the blockade of the Gaza Strip.I suggest that we refer to these resolutions in the above proposal or create a new proposal. The US should demand immediate access to Gaza to provide emergency needs for water, food and medicine to be paid for with the money appropriated for military aid to Israel since the problem was created by the Israeli military.
From Wikipedia on Feisal-Weizmann:Weizmann first met Faisal in June 1918, during the British advance from the South against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. As leader of an impromptu "Zionist Commission", Weizmann traveled to southern Transjordan for the meeting. The intended purpose was to forge an agreement between Faisal and the Zionist movement to support an Arab Kingdom and Jewish settlement in Palestine, respectively. The wishes of the Palestinian Arabs were to be ignored, and, indeed, both men seem to have held the Palestinian Arabs in considerable disdain. Weizmann had called them "treacherous", "arrogant", "uneducated", and "greedy" and had complained to the British that the system in Palestine did "not take into account the fact that there is a fundamental qualitative difference between Jew and Arab".[2] After his meeting with Faisal, Weizmann reported that Faisal was "contemptuous of the Palestinian Arabs whom he doesn't even regard as Arabs".[3]In preparation for the meeting, British diplomat Mark Sykes had written to Faisal about the Jewish people, "I know that the Arabs despise, condemn, and hate the Jews" but he added "I speak the truth when I say that this race, despised and weak, is universal, is all-powerful and cannot be put down" and he suggested that Faisal view the Jews as a powerful ally.[4] In the event, Weizmann and Faisal established an informal agreement under which Faisal would support close Jewish settlement in Palestine while the Zionist movement would assist in the development of the vast Arab nation that Faisal hoped to establish.At their first meeting in June 1918 Weizmann had assured Faisal that "the Jews did not propose to set up a government of their own but wished to work under British protection, to colonize and develop Palestine without encroaching on any legitimate interests".[5] Weizmann and Faisal met again later in 1918, while both were in London preparing their statements for the upcoming peace conference in Paris.They signed the written agreement, which bears their names, on 3 January 1919. The next day, Weizmann arrived in Paris to head the Zionist delegation to the Peace Conference. It was a triumphal moment for Weizmann; it was an accord that climaxed years of negotiations and ceaseless shuttles between the Middle East and the capitals of Western Europe and that promised to usher in an era of peace and cooperation between the two principal ethnic groups of Palestine: Arabs and Jews.[6]Somehow, given the nature of the two negotiators, I don't think this agreement was very well received by either the Palestinian Arab Population or President Wilson who believed in the self determination of peoples. It appears to be an agreement made by two men, one of whom who represented the British/French Imperial control of the former Ottoman region via mandate and the other a Zionist from Europe having no authority to be dealing control of a territory he just wanted to inhabit regardless of the people living there. Well there was at the time a relatively small minority of Jews some of whom had emigrated from Europe and the US but even by 1931 the population of Jews in the area was less than 175,000. Compare that with the 750,000 Palestinians (from the small area of Palestine declared by terrorist Ben Gurion as the new Sate of Israel, homeless after the 1948 "war" of Independence.
I'm a religious leader and I have been condemning this violence and Israel's justification of it for a long long time.
I would support a statement on this current event but one which is more focused on US Foreign Policy/Military Foreign Aid to Israel. I realize that the proposal is attempting to be even handed and not blame. However, blame is in order. The blank check to Israel in the form of 3.1 Billion Dollars a year of military aid that continued even after Netenyahu continued to support Settlement building in the West Bank and an economic blockade around Gaza has been in effect the USA taking sides with Israel. The current tragedy is another whirlwind brought by our sowing the wind (the AIPAC version of history). I would suggest an alternative proposal: The Green Party of Colorado calls for an immediate cease fire by both Hamas and the Israeli Defense Force and immediate end to US military aid to Israel not just until hostilities cease but until Israel actually concludes a peaceful conclusion of a one or two state solution that guarantees equal rights and justice for Arab Palestinians. We recognize that the blockade maintained by Israel around Gaza since 2007 has been, in international law, an act of war and that Gaza had a right to seek to defend itself as best it could. We also recognize that Israel has refused to bargain in good faith in the so called "Peace Process", and that despite a few statements to the contrary, Israel's leaders never intended to give up the Occupied Territories for the establishment of a Palestinian two state solution. And we recognize that it as been the US blind support of Israel (according to the AIPAC script and thus ignoring UN calls for Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories), that has enabled Israel to operate in such disingenuous fashion to slowly annex all of Palestine. We note that the three Israeli young men who were killed recently were traversing between Israel and one of the extremist settlements within the West Bank. What could more clearly reveal the realities underlying the current tragedy?
I am sorry I didn't see this and respond to it before the annual meeting. It was incredibly hard to hear Michael's presentation in that meeting (as it was Gary's).My hearing is week with lots of background noise--especially when speaker's voice and articulation are low. I would support the general gist of the resolution but would hope it included placing the offending corporation and all its assets under a government receivership as the means to carry out "capital punishment" or a subsitute to it. The Executive officers should receive high fines and jail sentences and the board of directors should be rebuilt with people who have economic credentials but not members of the 1 percent. They should receive government civil service salaries to serve on the BoD and as CEO etc. Stockholders would not be able to vote in new directors for a decade but could give a vote of no confidence to the current ones after a six year period. Corporation would be required to pay income taxes at the individual rates rather than the reduced corporate rates. I wish I could incorporate and pay corporate rate taxes.
The agenda for this meeting needs to include selection of delegates to the National Convention or else anyone who chooses to attend that meeting will have not vote in National matters. I am hoping to attend this year again but can't be certain. I haven't heard much from the other national delegates and have yet to figure out how to function in this capacity. I don't appear to be receiving any information from them even though I communicated with them. We have a need to clarify the Non Violent value as it relates to Gun Violence and Gun Control legislation.
The problem with the time limit is that when the State moved the Primary elections up it moved a lot of deadlines up as well. Eric would know most about this. The other problem is finding candidates. Buddy popped up after I had announced for Senate and as Kevin says, he was pretty one issue, was driving a mega camper that smoked like a coal fired power plant as his campaign vehicle and wasn't even a Green Party member for long enough to demonstrate his commitment to the ten key values. We need candidates and I believe that it is OK for the Council to bend the rules whenever a candidate shows up who would be good.
