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Received late last night by the New Progressive Alliance via email, from Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein:
8 May 2012
To: New Progressive Alliance
From: Jill Stein
Subject: Endorsement of NPA Platform
This is to confirm that as a candidate for President I endorse the
platform of the New Progressive Alliance.
I thank the NPA for the hard work that went into developing this
excellent statement of progressive values.
As you know, I worked actively with the NPA as a board member until I
took a leave of absence to work on my presidential campaign. I hope
to see the NPA flourish and make a major contribution to the revival
of the progressive movement in America.
2012 is shaping up as a year in which we have a golden opportunity to
create a permanent progressive presence on the national political
scene. I am currently involved in Green Party ballot access drives
with the goal of putting our progressive ticket before more than 94%
of the voters in America. I am also working hard to qualify for FEC
matching funds that would give credibility to our campaign and provide
us with funding to undertake several important initiatives. But this
is not a short-term effort to make a splash in one election. It
involves organizing permanent organizations in as many states as
possible and helping elect local and state officials who will organize
in their areas.
We all know that no matter who is elected president on November 6, we
will face enormous challenges over the next four years. We have to
make this election the springboard to what will follow. Every vote we
get in this election, every volunteer that we activate, and every
donor that we discover will put us in a better position to meet the
challenges that will come.
I would like to invite NPA to jump into the fray and demonstrate that
they can make a decisive difference in the electoral arena. There is
much to be done. The Internet and social media have given us exciting
new techniques for political action – and these are ideally suited to
the skills of NPA activists. This is the year to show that we can
revitalize the progressive movement in America and rescue our democracy.
I respectfully request the endorsement of NPA and their full
engagement in the exciting work before us.
Forward!
Jill Stein
Candidate for President of the United States
Green Party
The New Progressive Alliance was founded by MyFDL readers in 2010. Through electoral activism, we aim to unify Progressive independents, third parties, and other organizations to create a strong, uncompromising voice for Progressive principles, policy, and reform at the national level.
Our mission is based on Noam Chomsky’s long-held belief that the American electoral process is upside down, and it is up to citizens to state what they expect of their elected officials and to support only the candidates who pledge to fight for those interests. The Unified Platform is the NPA’s statement of expectations for candidates seeking our support. In addition to the platform content sourced from current and legacy Progressive organizations, much is the result of ideas provided before and during its writing, by readers of MyFDL.
FireDogLake and its affiliated sites are officially neutral as regards the NPA, its mission, and goals. We thank Jane Hamsher for maintaining a forum where people are free to coalesce around issues that are important to them.
To contact NPA facilitator Anthony Noel, email tonyn_at_newprogs_dot_org.
15 Comments
Important news, Anthony! I heartily join you in the following statement:
“We thank Jane Hamsher for maintaining a forum where people are free to coalesce around issues that are important to them.”
This confirms my positive opinion of the Jill Stein candidacy, since they recognize
“the hard work that went into developing this
excellent statement of progressive values.”
(You have made my day. Proud to be registered Green.)
Thanks, juliania. (And I am glad you’re still tossing your two cents in the Lake!)
It appears this support for Stein is a direct response to the recent post(now censored) by the
bannedreinstated Michael Cavlan.Unfortunately Jill Stein was recruited by David Cobb and her campaign manager is Ben Manski. David Cobb and Ben Manski were Democratic Party Trojan Horses who manipulated the arcane rules of the Green Party to stage a coup and have Cobb named as the Green candidate in 2004(with only 12% of the votes), and effectively dismantled the Green Party and the gains they made in 2000 and threw their support to the Democrats.
Cobb and Manski are trying to keep the Green Party as part of Obama’s veal pen. Now Jill Stein may be what soviets used to call a useful_idiot or she may be in on the plan to make the Green Party a tool to corral progressives into supporting Greens in “safe” states and supporting Democrats/Obama in competitive states, but either way, Ms. Stein, her political mentor Cobb and her campaign manager Manski cannot be trusted.
This is a welcome statement from Jill Stein.
I can’t see any reason why liberals, progressives and leftists seeking an alternative to Wall Street’s two-party trap should become embroiled in any disputes over whether we should be supporting Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson or Stewart Alexander.
It seems to me what is important is that we all work together to expose Obama, Romney and any other parties doing Wall Street’s bidding while bringing forward real alternative agendas aimed at solving the problems of the people.
Hopefully, NPA will be receiving similar letters like this one received from Jill Stein from Rocky Anderson and Stewart Alexander and others running for local, state and federal offices. And when all is said and done, the more ways Jill Stein, Rocky Anderson and Stewart Alexander can find to work together the better it will be for our movements for peace, social and economic justice.
To the extent Jill Stein and the Green Party, Rocky Anderson and the Justice Party and Stewart Alexander and the Socialist Party are advocating to the rights, lives and livelihoods of working people we can strengthen our movements— and each and every vote any of these three candidates and others of their parties or any other parties (Peace and Freedom in California or Open Progressives in Minnesota) receive towards these ends should be welcome by all of us seeking real change.
czed, I think you miss the point. It is not about blind trust. We have all been disappointed in people, especially when they say one thing and vote for something else. Our ten goals of peace, full employment at a living wage, the environment, a safety net, Medicare for all, Fair Trade, Civil Rights, fair elections, controlling corporate influence, and rebuilding our infrastructure are fully set out in our platform. If Jill Stein abandons those goals we will loudly disavow her as progressives should have disavowed Obama a long time ago. The NPA has not endorsed anybody yet, but it is notable that Jill Stein has publicly endorsed the NPA platform.
The election, for better or worse, is less than six months from now. There is no time to start from scratch. Who do you recommend we should support? Romney? Obama? Rocky Anderson and the Justice Party? Perhaps, as they seem to have similarities with our goals. Still there are questions with Americans Elect, waiting so long to declare his candidacy, support for a balanced budget, and the fact that he has not endorsed our platform despite invitations to do so.
We all need to think about who to support in this election and how to build for a better society after the election.
I have pretty much decided that Stein will get my vote. She still hasn’t qualified for the ballot here(Virginia) but I am hopeful that she will. Rocky seems like a person with convictions and it is my hope that he does not dismantle his party following this cycle and that he can get it operative in states and on a local level. However, with 6 months left to voting time I think Jill is better equipped to run nationally.
Very well said Alan! We need to stick together for a common goal. As you said, “what is important is that we all work together to expose Obama, Romney and any other parties doing Wall Street’s bidding while bringing forward real alternative agendas aimed at solving the problems of the people.” The only wasted effort or votes are for the democratic-republican Uniparty.
Perhaps one way we could cooperate is decide on one person to support in those states where there is no chance of getting a third party on the ballot. For example: Everyone concedes that Georgia, Oklahoma, and North Carolina are virtually impossible for a third party to get on the ballot. Perhaps we could agree to vote with write-ins for Stein in Georgia, Anderson in Oklahoma, and Alexander in North Carolina.
I’m glad to hear this from Jill Stein, glad to be a Green, glad to have been a founding member of the NPA.
Those problems sited with the campaign, monumental as they may be, are not enough to stop Stein: If she is to do well, in a few months there will be many times as many Greens as there are now: As the Party and the campaign grow, new blood will necessarily come into the top of the Party and campaign too, else our dreams will go down the tube: What it takes to do well does not belong to the Green Party. Yet. It takes lots more people, including at the top.
Thanks all, for your comments.
To Alan Maki: I was just thinking about this same truth, and appreciate your clear statement of it. All along the NPA has been about fomenting a new Progressive Era ad making it permanent. History teaches us that the first Progressive Era was successful with only 18 percent of the populace supporting it at the ballot box.
No political party will bring change quite as swift and certain as a popular movement will. I still hold out hope that Jill, Rocky and Stewart can work together, but even if they don’t, what matters in the end is how many voters vote for alternatives to the corporate parties instead of (once again) believing the bullshit both those parties spew.
How about Stewart Alexander and the Socialist Party USA? At least they have some HUEVOS, as my former Hispanic neighbors in San Antonio and Denver say.
Thanks for that. It would be nice if they could all work together. I’m a little concerned about the alleged machinations within the Green Party, though. Michael Cavlan has the ring of truth when he talks about them. I freely admit my ignorance of those matters, so I really don’t know.
“How about Stewart Alexander and the Socialist Party USA?”
Sounds good, but so far Jill has been the only one to publicly endorse our platform. We need to be issue focused rather than people or speech focused. Obama sounded great as well. Part of our platform says not only must candidates support it, but we will disavow them when they vote against it.
Exactly. There is a lot of common ground on the issues between these groups.
Labels, personalities, etc. we need to leave at the wayside.
Is Jill Stein on record for ceding the powers of the Unitary Executive and dismantling the National Security State?
Is she on record for ‘looking back’ in the name of justice?
(She may not be a pawn of Big Money, but fair questions to ask, I think after the disaster of O.)
It’s more than disappointment. In 2000 the Green Party presidential candidate received over 2.8 million votes. After the undemocratic Cobb Manski coup in 2004 Cobb received less than 120,000 votes! That’s less than 5% of the 2000 total. It would be like a baseball team going .500(81-81), and next season getting a new manager and general manager and subsequently winning only 5 games, going 5-156, and not getting fired.
It doesn’t matter whether Cobb and Manski are saboteurs working for the Democratic Party or whether they are monumentally incompetent(maybe to the point of political malpractice). They should have been canned a long time ago for their failure, just like anywhere else in the real world. But they still lead the Green Party like it is their personal plaything. Get rid of Cobb and Manski and get some real green leadership in the (national)Green Party(the local Green Parties do seem to do real good work), and maybe they will do better.
I wish there was someone honest enough to support but I haven’t found them . . . yet.