Excerpts from the Green Party E-Newsletter sent out each month by Masada Disenhouse
Volume 1, No. 4, March 11, 2001
Welcome to another issue of the Green Party of New York State's E-News! Our goal is to update greens across the state about important issues, news, events, and resources. We hope you will find E-News informative and entertaining. We welcome your comments, contributions and assistance. Send your news, events, and alerts for the next issue to Cathy Sadell and let us know if you would like to help write the next issue. Note that E-News will print letters to the editor from Greens, Nader supporters, and people with something interesting to say. Deadline for submissions to next issue: Monday, March 26, 2001. To learn more about the Greens in New York or to contact your local Green chapter please visit greens.org.
Action and Activity Alerts
From 16 -27 April the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) convenes in New York. One of the issues on the agenda for its ninth session (hence CSD 9) will be energy and sustainability. Countries report to the Commission on the progress made, and the Commission advises the UN and its Member States on how to achieve sustainable development in the 21st century. A sustainable future obviously does not include nuclear power. However, the CSD apparently needs a robust reminder of this. This month, the CSD Energy Expert group convenes to prepare CSD9. The energy experts have issued a draft report taking a rather pro-nuclear stance. If an authoritative institute such as the CSD continues to refuse to label nuclear as NOT sustainable, this would be a trump card in the hands of the nuclear lobby. The latter recently keeps trying to present nuclear power as sustainable, and even as a tool to combat climate change.
WISE Amsterdam in collaboration with Helio International, Earthday Network and Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) have therefore launched a petition, urging CSD not to consider nuclear a sustainable source of energy, and in stead work in the spirit of the Rio Declaration towards a sustainable future. The petition can be signed online by organizations at here for reasons why Nuclear Power Plants [NPPs] are NOT the solution to global warming.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to end the 4-to-1 Campaign Finance Matching Program that many Green City Council candidates are depending on. If Giuliani wins, we will lose our chance at matching funds and running viable races. But we are fighting back: Green candidate Craig Seeman was recently contacted by the Brennan Center for Justice (they represented Ralph Nader in several Ballot Access cases during his presidential campaign) and asked to join a counter-suit against Giuliani, which Seeman did. The suit already involves the Campaign Finance Board but the Brennan Center is also asking affected candidates to intervene. Although there are several major party candidates intervening, the Brennan Center felt that the Green Party represents a position that is different than that of the major parties. The Brennan Center will represent Seeman pro bono. For more information about the lawsuit and New York's Campaign Finance Matching Program, contact Craig Seeman at (718) 797-0045. Green locals who want to sign a online group letter to City Council Speaker Peter Vallone protesting Giuliani's undemocratic attack on public campaign financing can go to the NYPIRG web site.
In a continuing effort to prevent solid wastes such as shredded tires, municipal solid waste and creosoted wood from becoming regularly utilized as fuels at stationary combustion facilities in New York State, the St. Lawrence River Valley Greens recently met with Assembly Member for the 112th District, Dierdre K. Scozzafava. As a result of this contact, an opportunity to discuss the legality of alternative fuel use with NYS DEC is now being arranged. Our group believes that DAR-3, the Division of Air Resources policy guidance that underpins DEC approval of industry requests to burn solid wastes, interferes seriously with the purposes of the Clean Air Act.
The Environmental Conservation Committee of the NY State Assembly exerts a measure of control over NYS DEC. Chairman Richard Brodsky has agreed to discuss the damaging impacts of DAR-3 on the State's air quality. This meeting will occur on March 13th at the LOB in Albany. Any Green Party member interested in attending can contact us for details. We would also value hearing from Greens who have information on solid waste fueled cogenerators, industrial combustors, etc. operating in their area. Help eliminate DAR-3 from the fuel choice avenues available to NY State industries. For more information, contact: Don Hassig, St. Lawrence River Valley Greens.
The GMO Lobby Day (on genetic engineering) originally scheduled for March 6, 2001 was rescheduled for Tuesday, April 3rd, location TBA. We are looking for people to bring costumes for the media event on April 3rd. You can register for April 3rd with Mark Dunlea, or call 518 286 3411.
Greens will join a coalition of environmental, food safety and agricultural reform groups conference to urge New York State legislative leaders today to pass legislation requiring a five-year moratorium on the planting of genetically modified crops in New York State, and labeling of milk with the recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone.
Meetings and Events in Upstate NY
Join Greens and others to lobby legislators about the Drug Laws. Tell them the discrimination, harsh sentencing and conditions, and continued growth of the prison industry can't go on!
From the Drop the Rock Web Page:
The Time is Now to Repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws. The Rockefeller Drug Laws are wasteful, unjust, ineffective, and racially biased. Enacted in 1973 when Nelson Rockefeller was governor, the Rockefeller Drug Laws require harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs. The harshest provision of this statute mandates that a judge impose a prison term of no less than 15 years to life for anyone convicted of selling 2 ounces or possessing 4 ounces of a narcotic substance. The penalties apply without regard to the circumstances of the offense or the individual's character or background, making it irrelevant whether the person is a first-time or repeat offender.
On Tuesday, March 27th, people from around New York State will gather in Albany for DROP THE ROCK DAY, a Day of Education and Action, to demand that policy makers repeal the Rockefeller Drug Laws.
You can play an active role in building for the Drop the Rock Day. Invite us to send a speaker to your community organization, school, religious center, union or any other group; get a set of our organizing materials and help spread the word; join the list of Drop the Rock endorsers; help put together a group to travel to Albany on March 27th.
Buses are available from NYC and other locations. Contact Masada for more information.
Geneseo College Greens report that that 2000 Green Party VP candidate Winona LaDuke will be speaking on the Geneseo College campus, Thursday March 29th at 730 PM. Mark this on your calendars! Geneseo is about an hour south of Rochester.
Green groups in the Capital District, including Campus Greens, are sponsoring a community student Green conference at SUNY Albany on Saturday March 31st. We would love any other Greens from around the state to participate. We are also looking for additional workshop leaders (e.g., Green history and philosophy; organizing a Green local). We particularly invite participation and sponsorship from other green groups in the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys, North Country and 1-88 corridor. The conference has three tracks: training on how to run as a Green Party candidate; building the Campus Greens; and, issue workshops. We will also have a workshop on how to start and build a Green local. I hope that other greens around the state will be interested in organizing their own local conferences. With enough advance notice, I am willing to travel to other parts of the state to assist with the workshops on how to run as a Green Party candidate. The agenda is still in formation; some of the workshop leaders listed below are proposed rather than committed. Contact Mark Dunlea
Building a Green America -- Organizing Following the Bush Coup d'etat
Learn about the Green Movement
Saturday, March 31, 1:00 PM - 6:00 PM
SUNY Albany (1400 Washington Ave, uptown campus)
Campus Green Organizing ; Green Philosophy and History; Training Workshops on Running As a Green Candidate; Fundraising; Media Issue Organizing: Electoral reform, Globalization, Genetic Engineering, Military Budget, Children, Green History, The Drug War, Green City Project, Independent Media, Green-Labor, Social Entrepreneurial, How to Do Civil Disobedience, Sprawl and Poverty, Think Globally, Act Locally Free - Public Welcome For more information, call the Greens 286-3411 or Campus Green 283-5987
A Corporate Accountability Conference & Carnival May 6 & 7, 2001 in Albany, NY Including : Sweatshop Campaigns, WTO Protests, Unsafe Working Conditions, Genetically Modified Organisms, Corporate Welfare Abuse, Polluter Cleanups Join labor, environmental, student & social justice activists from across NY to build the movement, publicize our issues & have fun! We need creative people to help with a fun media event! The Corporate Welfare Carnival features such booths as the Corporate Welfare Wheel of Misfortune and more! (Contact us for a full list and a chuckle). Agenda includes: Outreach, Workshops, Carnival Booths, Draft Conference Brochure, Group Sponsors, Possible Concert and Fundraising. The event is sponsored by labor, environmental, student, social justice and community groups, including over 20 groups in the NYS Labor & Environment Network. For more information, please contact Anne Rabe at Citizens' Environmental Coalition (CEC), 518-462-5527, cecanne@igc.org
Featured Local: Lower East Side Greens, NYC
Lower East Side Greens - Origins & Accomplishments, by Ray Dowd
Founded in early 2000, the Lower East Side Greens held the first Election 2000 Nader fundraiser in New York State. The local ran a candidate for State Assembly - Manhattan trial attorney Ray Dowd - who ran against Sheldon Silver, New York State's most powerful Democrat. The Dowd campaign, managed by local member Tom Heaney raised just under $10,000. The campaign was profiled on the cover of the New York Observer, The Villager, and the New York Law Journal. Dowd received the endorsement of The Resident, Manhattan's largest community newspaper. Ralph Nader came to Chinatown to endorse Dowd and attack Silver for his failure to respect the picketing workers at the New Silver Palace Restaurant in Chinatown. Dowd used his legal skills to go to court and have a judge throw his Republican adversary, Leonard Wertheim off the ballot for forging signatures on his petitions. As a result of the Dowd campaign, four Board of Elections workers were forced to resign for their role in the forgeries. Despite a media blackout by the Village Voice and the New York Times, running only on the Green line, the Dowd campaign garnered 15% of the vote, the highest Green total in New York State. Local member Colin MacAllister designed a state-of-the-art website that enabled the Dowd campaign to raise money online - the first Green website to do so. Local member Dan Parham used his skills as a graphic designer to design innovative brochures and imaginative palm cards that led voters to the eighth row on the voting machine. The Dowd campaign uncovered Sheldon Silver's ownership of Waste Management stock when Silver voted to close the Fresh Kills landfill - and Silver's subsequent cashing in on this inside information. The Dowd campaign hammered Silver on his support of the death penalty, his opposition to reforming the racist Rockefeller drug laws, his deregulation of Con Edison and his abandonment of the tenants and school children in his district. Following the race, Dowd was honored with the Anti-Corruption Award by the Independence Party: a tribute to the efforts of the Lower East Side Greens in fighting corruption. John McGann, who was elected Poet-Laureate of the Lower East Side Greens at its first meeting, provided the space for the Nader Campaign's New York City headquarters. The official song of the Lower East Side Greens is "It Ain't Easy Being Green" by Kermit the Frog. The Lower East Side Greens are now organizing around other issues and candidates and welcome your issues, your support and your involvement. Although we are focusing attention on the 62nd Assembly District, which runs from the East Village through Little Italy, Chinatown, the Financial District and Battery Park City, we welcome members from around the City, and visitors from around the world.
