PA Green on Suffrage and the ERA

Green Party of Pennsylvania

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

CONTACT:
Chris Robinson, Communication Team
215-843-4256 and chrisrecon@netzero.net

PA Green on Suffrage and the ERA

-- By Emily Cook.

Several anniversaries acknowledging rights of women are coming up, most notably the centenary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which gave women the right to vote. One would think that the beginning of suffrage would bring women equality, but in spite of societal gains this last century women still remain underpaid, are victims of violence and suffer from exploitation worldwide.

Also, the United Nations will soon remind us of International Women’s Day (IWD), March 8, which originated when the Socialist Party of America organized the first Women’s Day in 1909. Women’s Day was renowned for marches and demonstrations which had even incited the Russian Revolution. The IWD has become largely an innocuous merchandised holiday in much of the world – an anachronistic celebration of what was once public demand for social reforms for workers and women.

And it seems every generation or so, women attempt to revive the still needed Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which is often cleverly extinguished by Washington’s legislative manipulation of ratification deadlines and hijacked by conservatives. I, myself, naively thought that the ERA was an initiative of the feminists of the 1970s. In fact, it had been conceived by Pennsylvania suffragist, Alice Paul back in 1923 (and finally ratified in PA in 1972). After suffrage, Paul and other agitators and civil rights activists like Pauli Murray continued to fight for the ERA seeking equal gender rights. Last month, the state of Virginia moved to ratify the ERA offering up hope until or unless Congress decides to scuttle it again. But as Chris Carson of the League of Women Voters said, “There is no deadline on equality.”

Young women today may feel all battles for emancipation and wage parity have been won, but the consequences of patriarchy still persist. For instance, the minimum wage in a few states like Pennsylvania stagnates at $7.35 an hour, which disproportionately affects women since they comprise more of the minimum wage workforce. Additionally, three quarters of Pennsylvania tip workers are women – struggling on $2.83 an hour. With labor legislation and laws regarding child care and public health, why did just over half of women eligible to vote cast a ballot in the last midterms? What would labor activist Teresa Malkiel and Pennsylvania suffragists Lucretia Mott, Dora Lewis, Caroline Katzensein and Frances E Watkins think of how we observe these anniversaries given their hard work and sacrifice?

The ERA is simple: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Enough states have ratified ERA, but the deadline for ratification has expired. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to repeal this deadline. Now we need the U.S. Senate to act! Please sign the petition to the Senate: “Enshrine in our Constitution that women and men are equal. Repeal the ERA ratification deadline now!” https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-on-lets-put-the-era-in-the-constitution

_____________

Emily Cook is a member of the Green Party of Montgomery County, PA. The Green Party of PA (GPPA, https://www.gpofpa.org/) is an independent political party that stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s four pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please visit www.gpofpa.org or email contact@gpofpa.org. Please follow GPPA on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

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February 18, 2020

Green Party Welcomes Voters Exploited by Scandals of the Democratic and Republican Establishment

Green Party of Allegheny County, PA

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

CONTACT:
Chris Robinson, GPPA Communication Team
215-843-4256 and chrisrecon@netzero.net
and
Ron Gavalik, GPOAC Media Coordinator
info@alleghenycountygreens.org

Green Party Welcomes Voters Exploited by Scandals of the Democratic and Republican Establishment

Pittsburgh -- In the past weeks, the Green Party of Allegheny County has witnessed the Democratic and Republican establishment continue their gluttonous exploitation of the citizenry and of our natural environment. As the current power structure drives our society toward the destruction of democracy and ecological collapse, we ask responsible residents to join with us and become a democratic firewall to finally end the absolute violence inflicted upon the people.

Last week, Iowa’s Democratic Party used mobile technology and their well-financed power structure to defraud that state’s citizens during the party’s presidential caucuses. The disregard for satellite caucuses made up of ethnically diverse working-class residents is shameful. The blatant misrepresentation of voter numbers and the slow release of the results provided the media a distorted projection of the candidates and their supporters. That totalitarian control over the trajectory of the Democratic presidential contest to stop the popular nomination of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont is a clear mockery of democracy.

Another recent, horrific example of exploitation came to light on February 4, when we learned the Pennsylvania State Legislature passed HB 1100, which uses corporate tax giveaways to encourage more fracking and petrochemical processing. Allegheny County already has some of the dirtiest, unhealthy air in the nation. The state’s political establishment has again ignored the benefits of the Green New Deal that could develop a sustainable economic infrastructure for energy and usher in a renaissance for American manufacturing. Instead, the egregious and arrogant decision to fund the further destruction of the ecosystem will undoubtedly increase the planet’s temperature past the 1.5C and 2C set by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018.

As devoted democratic actors in the world’s former epicenter of steel production, we call upon our neighbors to resist the march toward totalitarian control and the anthropogenic destruction of the ecosystem.

Join us! Together, we can work to end this violence and pursue justice for the vulnerable, our nation, and the planet.

Signed in Power and Solidarity,

Green Party of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania

The Green Party of Allegheny County (GPOAC, www.alleghenycountygreens.org) is an independent political party that stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s four pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. Please follow GPOAC on social media, @AlleghenyGreens on Facebook and Twitter. For more information about GPOAC, please email info@alleghenygreens.org.

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February 11, 2020

Greens welcome the new year of metal and the rat

GREEN PARTY OF PHILADELPHIA

News Release

For release: Thursday, January 23, 2020

For more information please contact

Charles Sherrouse, 267-972-5752, options@critpath.org

Greens welcome the new year of metal and the rat

On the second new moon after the winter solstice, Saturday January 25th the outgoing yin year of earth pig begets the yang year of metal rat. This transition is the beginning of the fourth 12 year zodiac cycle of the sexagenary lunar calendar. The last year of yang metal rat was in 1960.

The Green Party of Philadelphia (GPOP) will mark the new year with a protest against saber rattling and provocations toward war with Iran. The noon rally at Dilworth Plaza on the West side of City Hall <https://www.facebook.com/events/568160367071707/> is among hundreds of local actions called for the 25th by CodePink <https://www.codepink.org/01252020>, United National Antiwar Coalition, the Green Party of Pennsylvania, and dozens of other peace organizations.

Yang metal years are associated with evening, dryness, white, contracting and age. These are in tension with the rat's association with offspring, birth, water, green and growth. "This tension can symbolize the waning of the old order of militarism, empire and exploitation, giving way to a new generation intent on peace, social justice and ecology." said Charles Sherrouse, GPOP membership secretary.

The Greens will continue celebrating the new year with their monthly general meeting at 7 PM Thursday, January 30th at Lee Cultural Center on Haverford Avenue, at 44th Street in West Philly <https://www.facebook.com/events/758554861321113/>. The meeting will open nominations for the GPOP City Committee to be elected next month. Other business includes adding members to the organizing, communications and electoral committees; as well as planning for their ballot access petition launch in February, a public forum in March, and the local Green Party Presidential Caucus in April.

Qualities traditionally associated with yang metal years include persistence, determination, patience, organization, and transformation. Characteristics associated with rat years include optimism, practicality, intelligence, sensitivity, and conservation. These themes might be observed throughout the year. "The association of gold and generosity with metal combined with the association of gold and thrift with the rat could indicate a good time to invest in ones values," suggests GPOP Chair Belinda Davis.

The Green Party will strive to incorporate the best of these traits into their activities to advance the four pillars of social justice, ecology, nonviolence and grassroots democracy. For more information, please contact 215-843-4256, <gpop@gpop.org>, <https://www.facebook.com/GreenPartyOfPhiladelphia/> or <https://twitter.com/GreenPartyofPHL/>.

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January 23, 2020

“Blame It on My Bladder. I Didn’t Get Arrested”

Green Party of Pennsylvania

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

CONTACT:
Chris Robinson, Communication Team
215-843-4256 and chrisrecon@netzero.net

and

Doug Mason, centrecountygreenparty@gmail.com

“Blame It on My Bladder. I Didn’t Get Arrested”

By Doug Mason

I have been putting my body on the line for more than 30 years now, staring with a protest involving three others at the first such anti-nuke activity at Oak Ridge Laboratories near Knoxville, TN, in August 1988. I've since been arrested at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, TX, and twice on the Nevada Test Site in opposition to nuclear weapons. I was also detained at Fort Benning in Columbus, GA, for demonstrating against Central American policies emanating from the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (aka the School of the Americas), and was twice handcuffed for protesting government policy (or lack thereof) in Washington, DC, regarding climate change. I am chair of both the Centre County Green Party and the Sierra Club Moshannon Group in central PA.

Blame it on my bladder. I didn't get arrested, as I had planned, with 40 others at Jane Fonda's 13th Fire Drill Friday against federal inaction about climate change on January 3 in Washington, DC. Just as the rally ended on the southeast lawn of the Capitol Building, I hurried through security to access a men's room in the hallowed halls of Congress. I finished my business and approached the hundreds of marchers outside, who were by then blocking the intersection of Capitol and First Streets NE. The Capitol Police had just given their last of three warnings to the crowd to cease and desist. As I stepped off the pavement to join the most committed protesters, I was told by one of the officers to turn around or I would be arrested and face additional, more serious charges, including the crossing of a police line. He asked if I was carrying a toothbrush, since I would need it while I was locked up for the weekend awaiting an appearance before the judge on Monday. I moved back onto the sidewalk.

Those handcuffed for "unlawfully demonstrating" included actor Sam Waterston ("The Killing Fields," "Law & Order," etc.); Janet Redman, climate director of Greenpeace USA; and retired Air Force officer Colleen Boland, coordinator of Veterans Against Climate Change. They and the others were charged with “crowding, obstructing or incommoding.” In theory, those arrested would be offered a post and forfeit -- whereby one pays a $50 fine and is released back into society after being transported by paddy wagon to the warehouse at 67 K Street NW. Post and forfeit is an option reserved for people without criminal histories who have not been engaging in the same conduct repeatedly.

Fonda had been arrested five times since her first Fire Drill Friday in October. For that reason, she chose to step back with most of the crowd at the final police warning. She had already been locked up overnight for one of those arrests in the DC jail, which she complained had been hard on her 82-year-old bones. The actress moved Fire Drill Fridays activities to Los Angeles on February 7, after she resumed production on her TV show, "Grace and Frankie," on the west coast.

On the sidewalk, I talked with rally speaker Veronica Coptis, executive director of the Center for Coalfield Justice and chair of the Pennsylvania chapter of the Sierra Club's executive committee, as demonstrators were led away by the cops after high noon. Veronica had spoken eloquently that morning as a mother in her fight for environmental justice in southwestern PA, and linked the global climate emergency to the military industrial complex. (U.S. drones had just killed Iranian Major General Qassim Soleimani in Baghdad that day.) The theme of this first Fire Drill Friday of 2020 emphasized that "Holding Fossil Fuel Companies Accountable Can't Wait."

Others at the rally podium included actor Iain Armitage ("Young Sheldon"), who pledged to limit his plastic consumption; film director Josh Fox ("Gaslight"), who is now working on a project focused on climate refugees; and Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, North America director of 350.org, a woman of color who challenged us to listen to the voices of diversity in the climate justice movement.

Of course I'm disappointed that I wasn't arrested (it would have been my eighth bust for nonviolent civil disobedience). I spent a long July Fourth holiday weekend in a Texas jail cell once, and I wasn't quite prepared this time for hearing the slam of the barred doors again. The timing had seemed so auspicious, though . . . threatening weather held its precipitation until after the arrests, I was wearing my new Elvis "Jailhouse Rock" T-shirt and it was Greta Thunberg's 17th birthday. But my daughter was later celebrating her 44th with family at a birthday party in Virginia, where my wife was patiently awaiting my return from the nation's capital as well. Direct action is not for everyone, least of all me that day, but I believe we all need to consider ramping up our activism in light of climate chaos and other things that should outrage, if not enrage us, in this decade that history may remember as the Raging Twenties. I think it may get ugly out there in the years ahead.

Consider two laws proposed in Harrisburg by PA senators in 2019: the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, Senate Bill 887 (SB 887), and the Commonwealth Cost Reimbursement Act (SB 323). SB 887 would make felons of protesters, and could punish violators with a year in jail and a fine of at least $5,000 for a first-time offense. SB 323 would make such demonstrators pay for all governmental costs incurred in response to their actions. Senate Bills 807 and 323 are both autocratic pieces designed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) that aim to criminalize our right to protest at pipelines and other fossil fuel sites. [On November 3, the steering committee of the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA) voted to oppose SB 887 and SB 323.]

The slippery slope being molded here is intended to scare us from rising up to exercise our most basic democratic rights. As ALEC was shopping such bills from state to state, it issued a boogeyman letter from fossil fuel giants urging lawmakers around the country to curtail the "growing and disturbing trend" of eco-radicals roving the land, intent on destroying America's corporate infrastructure. I don't know about you, but my hackles are up. It's time we take back our government, our energy system and our future from the corporations and corrupt politicians whose decisions and deceit contribute to the global climate crisis.

The Green Party of PA (GPPA, https://www.gpofpa.org/) is an independent political party that stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party’s four pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please visit www.gpofpa.org or email contact@gpofpa.org. Please follow GPPA on social media: Facebook and Twitter.

For more information:

“PA Green Party calls Senate Bill 887 ‘an Act of Terrorism’” by Timothy Runkle, GPPA News Release, November 9, 2019, https://www.gp.org/senate_bill_887_an_act_of_terrorism and https://www.gpofpa.org/pa_green_party_calls_senate_bill_887_an_act_of_terrorism .

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January 18, 2020

Allegheny County PA Greens - Municipal Efforts Against Fracking Are Grassroots Democracy

Municipal Efforts Against Fracking Are Grassroots Democracy

This editorial appeared in Green Point #2, online newsletter of the Green Party of Allegheny County, https://www.alleghenycountygreens.org/news

By Garret Wassermann

On October 30, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto surprised many of us by finally opposing the petrochemical build-out in western Pennsylvania publicly -- although he was careful to oppose only “additional” development and not the Shell “cracker plant” currently being built in Beaver County. Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s response was a very heated rant in favor of fracking and the petrochemical industry. Fitzgerald talked about natural-gas-powered cars, implied plastics are inevitable so should be made here, and demonized a general anti-fossil-fuel stance as “far left” and unreasonable.

The lack of leadership from elected officials against today’s fracking and pipeline projects is resulting in residents taking matters into their own hands. As reported in Green Star #1 (October 21), residents of Grant Township are currently opposing a PA Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) lawsuit that was initiated to protect oil and gas profits; the lawsuit stems from township residents establishing a “home rule charter" to protect their air and water. On November 4, residents of Elizabeth Township will next be going to court to protect their public parks and water by opposing a township decision to open up their park to private fracking.

Municipalities are beginning to stand up and demand a more direct democracy, via courts and “home rule”. Rather than top-down governance, residents are asking: why can’t we make important decisions about our own communities directly? Indeed, this idea is exactly grassroots democracy, one of the pillars of the Green Party. We Greens should not only be supportive of Grant, Elizabeth, and other townships exerting their rights to self-determination, but actively encourage municipalities throughout Allegheny County to do the same. Our 2020 Green legislative campaigns can help change the public debate by calling attention to these struggles and strongly emphasizing communities’ right to decide their own affairs to protect their own environment and health.

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and state affiliate PA Community Rights Network are organizations promoting this approach; they even have draft state constitutional amendments that would affirm municipal rights to protect their environment free of state “preemption” laws as well as recognize statewide ballot referenda. It’s our values of democracy and decentralization at their finest; promoting these ideas also means promoting Green values.

I hope Green candidates in 2020 will consider these amendments as part of their legislative platforms; all Greens can investigate how to push their municipalities into claiming their own “home rule” rights to act when county and state leaders won’t.

______

Garret Wasserman is vice-chair of the Green Party of Allegheny County and managing editor of their Green Point online newsletter.

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November 19, 2019

The Real Green New Deal and Our National Well-Being

Green Party of Pennsylvania

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, April 2, 2019

Contact:

Neal Gale, 267-825-4190 and nealgale@verizon.net

Chris Robinson, 215-843-4256 and chrisrecon@netzero.net

The Real Green New Deal and Our National Well-Being

-- By Neal Gale.

As we approach Earth Day, April 22, 2019, we might want to update ourselves on the progress we have made in addressing the ongoing climate crisis, the number one existential threat to our children, their children and everyone else who will be challenged by it for the next several millennia. In a few words – there’s so much to do and so little time to do it!

At the local and state levels, citizen activist organizations have taken the lead, followed in some cases by local and state governments, which have seen their way clear to joining with those groups fighting against the impending impact of the climatic changes that are already overtaking infrastructure in their communities. Those struggles are sometimes well rewarded, as communities and a few states have determined to set goals for transitioning to 100% renewable energy by 2035 to 2050.

Whether or not these goals are achieved locally, statewide or even on a national basis, the earth will continue on. We observe Earth Day as if we are the presumed keepers of planetary balance and well-being. Some scientists have even designated a new geological era, the Anthropocene, as an indication that we humans now possess the awesome power to sway the rest of nature. And of course we do, to some extent -- our impact over the past 250 years has been unrelenting and disastrous.

But the Earth doesn’t care. She will get through it all, no matter how bad things become, and for however long it takes to re-balance herself, which she will do, with or without us humans helping out. Earth Day is just another twenty-four hours to the Great Mother.

This may all seem somewhat dour, and perhaps it is. But in spite of the pessimistic picture I have sketched, I am overall optimistic. I see promise in the Green Party’s Real Green New Deal (Real GND)¹, and I imagine it being adopted as a standard, below which we will not allow ourselves to fall. Because of the urgency I feel regarding the potential good the Green Party’s Real GND can do, I am compelled to warn us off the GND Resolution (HR 109) introduced by the Democrats this year. It does not point to the same results, and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be fooled.

The Green Party has been developing the Real GND since the early two thousands, beginning with the European Green Party and continuing with the Green Party of the US, as a vision to change the course of this crisis -- while recognizing that it is not just about the environment. The dramatic and geologically recent alteration of the global climate has occurred as a result of the emergence of industrial capitalism, beginning at the outset of the eighteenth century, and our increasing reliance on the use of extracted, fossil fuels, ever since.

Additionally, that economic transition has effected all aspects of our society, transforming our way of life, in terms of the abuse of our natural resources, the structural imbalance of our economic model and the institutionalized social injustices required to support these interlocking systems. In this manner, those in power have maintained their hegemony at the cost of our planet’s stability and the well-being of the vast majority of people around the globe. These are the concerns addressed by the Green Party as expressed in its vision of the Real GND.

This vision includes an encompassing reformation of our economic model, in line with the understandings of forward-thinking economists² who have been espousing modern monetary theory for decades, explaining how sovereign governments actually spend money. The Real GND programs outlined, including the enactment of a Full-Employment Program, will be paid for in the same way all federal programs are funded; the government passes a spending bill and then keystrokes “money” into the bank accounts of the appropriate recipients. The government does not (nor has it ever) required tax “revenues” to support spending. There are no actual, fiscal restraints on its spending. It has always been a question of political will. Who and what will the current federal spending bill favor?

This is one of the fundamental distinctions between the Green Party’s Real GND and the Democrats’. The Democrats, as one of the two political parties making up the corporate-sponsored duopoly, are not looking to take the necessary steps to alter Congress’ political will. They are part of that agenda, regardless of their GND trappings. Built into the words of their HR 109 are back doors³, allowing for the continued extraction, sales and consumption of carbon based fuels, and of course, no mention of the nuclear power industry. There’s just too much money and power driving the existing political process to allow for significant change. As noted above, without an actual, far-reaching structural change in our economic model -- with its abuse of planetary resources, inevitable economic imbalance and social injustices -- those things will all remain intact. Not to mention the climate crisis.

In light of this, perhaps we can observe on Earth Day 2019 our connection to, and reliance on the planetary systems that sustain all life; a day set aside to reflect on how we fit into the natural order, and how effectively we have disrupted it. My hope is that this Earth Day will mark the beginning of a unified call for real action on the part of all of our friends, relations, sisters and brothers: a call to transition our economic, social and environmental institutions along the lines of the Green Party’s Real Green New Deal. This must be nothing short of a re-visioning of the purpose of those institutions, aligning them with the evolution of our collective thinking. This moment calls for nothing less. The stakes are far too high.

Neal Gale is chair of the Green Party of Montgomery County, PA, and he ran as a Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate from PA in 2018. The Green Party is an independent political party that stands in opposition to the two corporate parties. GPPA candidates promote public policy based on the Green Party four pillars: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, ecological wisdom, and social justice/equal opportunity. For further information about GPPA, please visit www.gpofpa.org. Follow GPPA on social media: Facebook, Green Party of Pennsylvania and Twitter, @GreenPartyofPA.

Footnotes:

¹Green Party’s Green New Deal: https://www.gp.org/green_new_deal

²See L. Randall Wray, Warren Mosler, Stephanie Kelton and others, regarding modern monetary theory (MMT).

³From the proposed House Resolution 109, introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on February 7, 2019:

(H) overhauling transportation systems in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in—
(F) spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States and removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible, including by expanding renewable energy manufacturing and investing in existing manufacturing and industry;
(G) working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, including—
(i) by eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible;
(iv) by ensuring that any infrastructure bill considered by Congress addresses climate change;

(Bold italics added)

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April 02, 2019

3 Ways to help the Green Party (and probably not even notice) …

3 Ways to help the Green Party

(and probably not even notice) …

I have accumulated and summarized a brief list of actions and activities that you can implement in your routine that will have little or no impact to your daily life or budget.

Undoubtedly, with little change to your time and pocketbook – you can make a big impact.

Always Share (at least) three times

It almost goes without saying, or does it? Green Party of the United States (GPUS) official graphics, branding and content have come a long way over the last few years. Their press releases, op-ed and graphic production is seriously topnotch, and people should see it, especially people who are not Green…

A suggested routine regarding GPUS official content for example; a simple share to 3 “non-Green” groups you frequent. It is good to share our content for discussion amongst your other groups’ membership. Good or bad responses - conversation aside, this action builds awareness, educates and carries our message to those that may have not seen it otherwise. We are the media. We are our voice.

“Be Seen Being Green” everyday …

No Green message is too small or simple to share. Passively sharing the “Green Party” by name is one of the easier actions we can actively engage in to garner awareness and help further educate.

Everyday you passively interact with dozens or thousands of people whether you realize it or not. Maybe a lot of people look at your backpack on the bus or subway, everyday. A trip to the grocery store in a town of 15,000 people on a Saturday for 45 minutes and you have just had forty or so people looking right at you. Your laptop could be out all day at school and every one of your classmates sees the back of your screen, everyday.

Have great road frontage with medium to heavy traffic? A one-time small investment into a banner or homemade sign with only the “Vote Green” and the Party website www.GP.org may engage the interest of a passersby, further building awareness and educating.

Every moment people are looking at the back of your car, backpack, laptop, coat or hat … is an opportunity for them to read “Green Party” proudly displayed on a button, pin or sticker. It is time for them to read and possibly to peak their curiosity.

Give Green to Greens

When you can, if you can … give several small donations to several Green Party caucuses, candidates and organizations during the year. This has a minimal impact on your budget and is literally helping a candidate or Party chapter plan for the growth and outreach that our party needs.

The GreenCents program and small sustaining monthly donations of $3 and $5 are the perfect sentiment of your commitment to grow the Green Party into the largest party in the United States.

Small donors are the lifeblood of our grassroots organizations and campaigns. Your $5 every month makes a huge difference and DOES make an impact to those organizers, candidate, state and local parties you are supporting.

Written by David Ochmanowicz Jr.

David is a previous Green Party of PA (GPPA) Steering Committee Member and GPPA Secretary.

He currently serves as a local delegate, member of the GPPA and GPUS Media Committees as well as co chair of the GPUS Merchandise Committee.

You can download a 1 page printable version here

posted by | 2239.60sc
January 15, 2019

June marks the start of LGBTQ+ Pride Month

June marks the start

of LGBTQ+ Pride Month

June marks the start of LGBTQ+ Pride Month. Pride Month isn’t just a time of glitter and rainbows. It is, in fact, a time to reflect upon the radical spark that set forth to the modern day queer rights movement.

On June 28th, 1969 the Stonewall Riots erupted out of the indignation with the abuse and hardships queer folk faced on a daily basis. Police brutality, sexual violence, community rejection, homelessness, and poverty were among these issues. Gay rights pioneers like Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were among the first to speak up and take action. Pride Month is also a time to celebrate other achievements, such as when black gay civil rights leader Bayard Rustin organized the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963 or when the Green Party of the United States recognized LGBTQI equality in 2000.

Many of those same issues that plagued the queer community in 1960’s persist to this day. Only two US states (California and Illinois) have outlawed the gay panic defense, which basically allows a bigot to claim temporary insanity when beating or killing an LGBT+ person. Some states, like Texas or North Carolina, have gone the extra mile to oppress LGBT+ folk by restricting access to bathrooms and adopting children. This is a load of malarkey. In addition to this, less than half of US States offer protections from discrimination in housing, employment, and from other hate crimes. Sadly, Pennsylvania is not one of the states that offer protections for its LGBT+ citizens. However over 40+ cities, within our state, have passed local ordinances. This includes 5 in Northeastern Pennsylvania (Scranton, Pittston, Dickson City, Wilkes-Barre, and Stroudsburg). I do not believe this is enough though. We need statewide protections and we need it now. Doing so will show it's citizens and the rest of the United States that Pennsylvania stands for basic human dignity.

The lack of legal protections also allows for homophobia and transphobia to go unchecked. This, in turn, puts queer folk, especially LGBTQ+ youth, at higher risk of developing depression, attempting suicide, and becoming homeless.

To put this in perspective, 1 in 4 LGBTQ+ have attempted or thought about taking their own life. This is a very serious issue that does not get talked about, largely in part due to the stigmas around mental health. Trying to curb these matters, are non-profits such as The Trevor Project. This organization works around the clock on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth. The Trevor Project has a 24/7 crisis hotline at “1-866-488-7386”.

In keeping with the Green Key Values of diversity, social justice and feminism, we support full legal and political equality for all persons, regardless of sex, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity, characteristics, and expression. You can read more on the Green Platform at www.gp.org/social_justice_2016

About the author:

Tim Maloney is a queer activist based out of the Wyoming Valley with a blog at maloneyofnepa.com

posted by | 9sc
January 15, 2019

Jocolyn Bowser-Bostick, candidate for Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania

My name is Jocolyn Bowser-Bostick and I am happy to be endorsed by the Green Party of PA as a candidate for Lt. Governor of Pennsylvania.

I was born in Philadelphia and attended public schools first in North Philadelphia and then later in Media, PA where I also lived. I took classes at Yale University and CCP before graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in biology from Temple University. While attending college I worked at several different jobs and got married. My husband and I moved from an apartment in Media to our own house and home in Chester, PA in 1989. A few years later I graduated, and I spent the next 24 years working as a laboratory technician at a medical research facility & biorepository in New Jersey. I left this position when I was laid off, and I found that it was very hard to find employment again (possibly because I was over 50) especially in a full-time position. I have spent a lot of time volunteering, gardening and teaching English as a second language to adult students with my extra free time. I am currently working part-time as a pharmacy technician. Many years ago my husband and I became the parents of my late brother’s youngest son and eventually home schooled him so he could get a better education than he was receiving in Chester’s public schools. He now has his Ph. D. in biology and is doing AIDS research in Portland, Oregon.

I am both an active member of my county level Green Party by serving as the chair of the Green Party of Delaware County PA and the state level Green Party by serving as an At-Large Delegate on the steering committee of the Green Party of Pennsylvania (GPPA). I am enthusiastic about being a Green Party member because I am neither suicidal nor homicidal and the goals and values of the Green Party make it the most life-affirming political party I know of on the planet. Our Green Party is not only one of the best tools or strategies for improving the peace of mind, health and safety for ourselves, our loved ones and the rest of the human race, but also for maintaining the beauty and diversity of the land, the seas and all other living species.

The Green Party’s Ten Key Values which are succinctly expressed by its four pillars which advocate for grassroots democracy, social justice, peace and ecological wisdom equate to putting the welfare of people and the planet always above the quest for financial gain. I feel that working with other people who have the same goals on issues and are interested in electing people who are committed to the same values that the Green Party is dedicated to is much more effective than trying to do the same work by myself or within either major political party which lets the money and ideas of the rich and powerful dictate its values and goals. Therefore, both major parties are ineffective at reducing widespread poverty and oppression and too often support policies and spend our tax dollars with little or no consideration toward eliminating these large and persistent problems.

The attitudes of Greens and the policies and changes in society for which we work such as excellent universal healthcare for all in the U.S., improvements to K-12 public education, tuition-free college education, cutting the U.S. military budget by more than half, ending U.S. funding of and involvement in violent conflicts around the world, ending fossil fuel extraction and use, and making our economy 100% reliant on clean and renewable energy sources benefit the physical, mental and emotional health of people within the United States and around the world.

As a Green Party member and the GPPA’s 2018 candidate for Lt. Governor of PA I feel obligated to those who put their trust, support or money into Green Party projects and candidates to make the following statement a permanent truth about the Green Party: Defenders of workers’ rights on and off the job, environmental activists, those working to make high quality healthcare obtainable by all, social justice advocates, anti-war/peace activists, reformers of our criminal justice system, and protectors and expanders of civil liberties, human rights, political expression, and economic justice for all and especially historically marginalized groups—You can all find a nurturing home in the U.S. Green Parties where people are fighting through electoral politics and activism to make the solutions you want a part of our everyday reality. The commitment to make society more compassionate and just through a greater expression of the Green Party’s Ten Key Values in all aspects of our daily lives is what makes the Green Party such a uniquely superior political party.

To volunteer now, contact Green Wave in our efforts to secure ballot access.

posted by | 301.40sc
May 29, 2018

PA Medical Marijuana Program Is Up & Running

Pennsylvania's Medical Marijuana Program Is Up & Running

Megan L. McElhinney, CPhT

February 26, 2018

On April 17, 2016, Gov. Tom Wolf signed SB3, Pennsylvania’s Medical Marijuana (PAMMJ) Program, into law. 669 days later the first Medical Marijuana dispensaries opened. CY+ in Butler, Pa (Butler County) and Solevo Wellness Center in Squirrel Hill, Pa (Allegheny County) opened their doors on February 15th to patients that have received their medical cards. Two days later TerraVida in Sellersville, Pa (Bucks County) and Keystone Shops in Devon, Pa (Chester County) followed. Over the next few months more dispensaries will begin to open as the Health Department gives them the go ahead. Restore Integrative Wellness Center, is slated to be the first dispensary to open in the city of Philadelphia come mid April.

Currently, there is one medical marijuana cultivation center providing medicine to the 6 open dispensaries throughout the state. Dispensaries will only be able to offer patients their medicine in the following forms: Pills, Oils, Topical, such as, gels, creams and ointments. Also, tincture, which is a sublingual liquid you put under your tongue, and other forms of liquid medicine. Finally, vaporization of oils and nebulization will be the only way a patient can inhale their medicine. Smoking flower, or bud, is prohibited under state law.

Over 17,000 patients and caregivers have registered with the Department of Health and 4,000 have been certified by a registered physician. Among those 4,000 patients more than 400 have received their medical cards. To be eligible for the PAMMJ Program you must meet the 17 serious medical conditions outlined by the state. Physicians are required to take a four hour course approved by the Pennsylvania Department of Health if they want to certify a patient for the PAMMJ Program. You can find more about the PAMMJ Program at the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's website.

For more information on the Green Party of Pennsylvania's position on cannabis, click here.

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