campaign reform, Democracy, Green Party, National Politics, political corruption, Third Party May 21, 2015

The Lesser of Two Evils is Still Evil

CounterPunch by John Halle May 20, 2015 Notes on Spoiling For a decade and half, the spoiler factor has been a third rail of progressive politics. Some of those who have raised the issue are genuinely concerned with the prospect of a third party candidate enabling a far right victory. But others are Democratic Party hacks who, in Matt Taibbi’s phrase “would triangulate their own mothers” to maintain their lock on power. Spoiling for them is a bad faith exercise in maintaining electoral politics as a bipartisan gated community from which left, populist candidates are excluded. Fortunately, there are signs…

Democracy, Green Party, International, National Politics, Social Justice, Socialism May 11, 2015

Left, Independent Political Action Conference: Unprecedented Cooperation

New Politics by Dan La Botz May 5, 2015 Some 200 political activists from a variety of independent political organizations, as well as individual activists, carried out a rich discussion and an amicable debate about how to collaborate in the work of building a large political alternative to the left of the Democratic Party. Participating in the Future of the Left/Independent Politics Conference, in an unprecedented spirit of cooperation, national, state, and local candidates and activists, as well as elected officials from the Green Party, the Peace and Freedom Party, the Richmond Progressive Alliance, Socialist Alternative, and the Vermont Progressive…

campaign reform, Democracy, Green Party, National Politics, Socialism May 9, 2015

A report on The Future of Left/Independent Electoral Action in the United States conference

The North Star Project by Louis Proyect May 8, 2015 For those of us involved with the North Star project, last weekend’s conference on “The Future of Left/Independent Electoral Action in the United States” could only be seen as an important step forward for left unity. With 200 people in attendance, it was a harbinger of future developments moving us closer to the birth of a new anti-capitalist party that can finally express the yearnings of protest movements like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter and the fight for a $15 minimum wage for social change. Half of the editorial…

Green Party, National Politics, Social Justice, Third Party May 7, 2015

Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders: Sheepdogging for Hillary and the Democrats in 2016

Black Agenda Report by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon May 6, 2015 “The sheepdog is a card the Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there’s no White House Democrat running for re-election.” Spoiler alert: we have seen the Bernie Sanders show before, and we know exactly how it ends. Bernie has zero likelihood of winning the Democratic nomination for president over Hillary Clinton. Bernie will lose, Hillary will win. When Bernie folds his tent in the summer of 2016, the money, the hopes and prayers, the year of activist zeal that folks put behind Bernie Sanders’ either…

Climate Change May 7, 2015

Why Composting is critical to our future

Prosperity For Rhode Island by Greg Gerritt Prepared remarks for a Conference sponsored by the Rhode Island Socicety of Environmental Professionals held at the Rhode Island Resource Recovery Corporation’s facility in Johnston, Rhode Island. Climate change is the existential crisis of our time. The removal of organics from our landfill stream is one of our key strategies for reducing the production of greenhouse gases, especially methane, and provides a new resource for one of the few industries in RI that is expanding, agriculture. Like solar energy, compost is an idea whose time is finally coming. We could have adopted both…