Green Party supporters descended on Wall Street Friday afternoon and then jammed into the Ethical Culture Society in NYC that evening to raise funds for Stanley Aronowitz's campaign for Governor and to speak out against Bush's proposed war against Iraq.
While the headliner for the evening was former Green Party Presidential candidate and consumer advocate, Ralph Nader who spoke on the issues of corporate crime, the economy, and the daily beating of the drums of war, it was Global Exchange activist Medea Benjamin who had the crowd raising the rafters with her impassioned speech for peace. Benjamin had just been released from jail in DC for protesting the war against Iraq.
The crowd also heard from long time peace activists Leslie Cagan and Dave McReynolds, Cong. Cynthia McKinney, and green statewide candidates Jennifer Daniels (Lt. Gov.), Howie Hawkins (Comptroller) and Mary Jo Long (Attorney General). Daniels and Hawkins will participate in the rally against War in Iraq this Monday at noon in front of Troy City Hall.
Nader, Benjamin, and Aronowitz had spoken to a crowd of more than 3,000 people earlier in the day outside of the New York Stock Exchange in calling for a crackdown on corporate crime.
"The current corporate crime wave shows every sign of worsening, as more major corporations scramble to admit massive deception of investors, looting of pension funds, self-enrichment of top executives, restatement of earnings and giant farewell compensation packages to departing bosses who wrecked their companies to further their own mega-greed," said Nader.
"The daily beating of the drums of war are destabilizing the economy, depressing the markets, and shattering the public confidence of investors -- draining the attention of our government from domestic matters and necessities at a time of growing recession, deficits, unemployment and poverty."
"We are organizing the 'Crackdown on Corporate Crime Rally' to focus attention on the vast array of corporate misdeeds and to propose sound remedies that will help shareholders, taxpayers, workers, and consumers tame the reckless and out-of control corporate bosses. This rally will unify the plights of workers, shareholders, and pensioners in a common cause for both law and order against corporate crime and basic corporate reform," Nader added.
Cynthia McKinney, a five term Democratic Congresswoman (Georgia), speaking on the impending war with Iraq has been a consistent advocate for peace. "We must wage peace instead of war and once again make America a force for good in the world," states McKinney, a member of the House Armed Services Committee as well the International Relations Committee.
McKinney, known for her forthright honesty, earlier this year, called for an investigation into the events around 9/11. "We deserve to know what went wrong on September 11 and why. Why then does the Administration remain steadfast in its opposition to an investigation into the biggest terrorism attack upon our nation?" Although subsequent events have proved her demand to be appropriate and timely, it resulted in vicious political backlash from both Republicans and Democrats that has yet to be retracted.
McKinney, who has won in the past as a party outsider, observes, "My ability to get elected as a progressive has always relied on bringing nontraditional supporters, such as Green Party voters, into the process. I especially understand the frustration of young people who feel alienated from a Democratic Party that looks like a Republican Party, and which feeds at the same trough."
Nader, who has been publicly supportive of McKinney, said recently, "Representative McKinney has the courage to stand up against corporate and other special interests on legislation that really counts for low, moderate and middle income people."
Gubernatorial Green Party Candidate Stanley Aronowitz, is the only candidate willing to talk against the war, about ending the death penalty and the Rockefeller drug laws, about really spending money to protect the environment and to guarantee an education, health care, child care, and other services to all New Yorkers, as well as opening up and cleaning up the electoral system so that it's fair, accessible and participatory.
Aronowitz stated, "Congress must halt Bush's drive to launch a ground war against Iraq. The proposed U.S. invasion of Iraq is illegal and ill-considered. There has been no attack on the US, no Iraqi threat of war, no Iraqi connection to September 11. This would violate the US's historic policy against using force preemptively. Iraq does not pose a clear and present danger. There is no evidence that Iraq is still developing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. It will just be another war for oil. And until we stop Bush's war and the hundreds of billions of tax dollars that we wasted. we won't have funds in New York for critical programs like environmental protection, schools, affordable housing, and human services."
Global Exchange Director, Medea Benjamin (and former Green Party candidate for US Senate in California) who has led several high profile protests in Congress against the War in Iraq in recent weeks, cited the need for voters to support Stanley Aronowitz and the Greens as an alternative to the war agenda of the Democratic and Republican parties.
Benjamin notes that Aronowitz had been one of the leaders on the movement against the Vietnam War. "George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld want to drag our nation into a disastrous military venture against a country that has not attacked us. They want to wage a war that could lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and many U.S. troops, a war that would alienate people all over the world and make us more vulnerable to attacks here at home, a war that makes a mockery of international law, a war that would cost approximately $100 billion at a time when our schools, human service and environmental programs are starved for funds," said Benjamin.
Nader called for voters to support Aronowitz and the Greens as part of the movement to force lawmakers to get tough on corporate crime. "We need to break the cycle where each new wave of corporate crime and scandal is greeted with a slap on the wrist, with the major parties returning to business as usual as soon as the issue is no longer in the headlines. The current corporate fraud and crime wave has cost millions of Americans trillions of dollars. We need real reforms. We need to ensure that the corporations are democratically accountable to their stakeholders - from investors to workers to consumers to communities. We need a strong Governor who will ban corporate criminals from receiving government contracts and subsidies and who will push to revoke the charters of large companies that seriously and routinely break the law," added Nader
