Now
Available!
Dime's
Worth of Difference:
Beyond the
Lesser of Two Evils
Order Here!
Today's
Stories
September 7,
2004
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
September 7, 2004
$10 Million
May Not Be Much for the DNC, But It's Still $10 Million More
Than ... Zilch
The
Green Party Unravels From Within
By
JOSHUA FRANK
As if the Green Party hasn't had enough
to deal with these days, now this. On August 24, Liz Trojan,
the Co-chair of the Pacific Green Party stepped down from her
post and exited the Party altogether. Only six days later her
fellow co-chair, Jeff Strang abandoned his co-chair position
but remained a member of the Party. The two are furious over
a recent incident in which an Oregon Green candidate for the
House of Representatives, Teresa Keane, switched races and decided
to run for US Senate instead.
It sounds frivolous enough.
But Trojan and Strang claim that Party by-laws were broken in
the process, undermining Green ethics.
"I was called on the phone
and told to come meet with Teresa [Keane], Jeff [Cropp] (Keane's
campaign manager) and Marnie Glickman (ex-Co-Chair of the national
Green Party) at a local pub to discuss Teresa's candidacy,"
Trojan says. "Teresa, who was nominated at our convention
to run against US Representative David Wu, had realized she no
longer lived in District 1, Wu's district, so we met to discuss
what it is she should do."
Upon investigation, however,
Trojan and Strang found out, that according to Oregon law, it
does not matter in which district Teresa Keane resides, only
that she be an Oregon resident. She did not have to switch races.
"So we show up,"
Trojan continues, "and find out Glickman and Cropp had already
decided to switch Keane to run against Oregon Senator Ron Wyden.
Jeff [Strang] and I contended that nominations can only be made
at a convention, and Keane had only been nominated to run against
Wu in District 1. I told them this would be breaking our by-laws.
Marnie [Glickman] then told us that 'by-laws are just guidelines.'
It was a coup."
Glickman of course had no reason
to even be at the meeting, as she holds no position whatsoever
with the Pacific Green Party, and did not even attend the convention
where Keane was nominated.
"Of course we should follow
by-laws," Glickman told me over the phone, "[but] I've
never read the Green by-laws."
Glickman's statement is odd
to say the least as Glickman has just graduated law school, and
is waiting to hear back on whether or not she passed the Oregon
Bar Exam. Again, Trojan and Strang wonder why she was even involved.
"Glickman has been one
of the powerful people pulling strings for the Green Party this
year," says Clint Coopernoll who was a Washington Green
Party delegate at the Party's national convention in Wisconsin
last July but now devotes his energies to the Ralph Nader campaign.
"I've seen Glickman at work for a few years now. During
a campaign forum in Portland last year, I heard her say that,
after talking to friends at Emily's List where she has deep connections,
and used to be employed, that she wouldn't be supporting Nader's
candidacy in 2004."
Glickman denies making any
such comment. "I had hoped Nader would seek the Party's
nomination, but he didn't," Glickman explains. "So
I backed [David] Cobb."
Glickman in the past has not
been shy about her support for Democratic candidates. While seeking
the co-Chair position of the Green Party she wrote on her resume
that she had raised in excess of $10 million dollars for the
Democratic Party during the 1990s. "Ten million isn't that
much," Glickman admits. But how much has Glickman brought
into the Green Party since her entrance? Zilch.
"Glickman, [Medea] Benjamin,
Ted Glick, Jody Haug (another co-Chair of the National Party),
and others sabotaged Nader at the convention," another delegate
who attended the convention told me.
"It's true," Coopernoll
says, "Haug was one of the worst. She and her cronies who
sat on the Rules Committee at the convention actually passed
a resolution that refused to allow motions from the floor. No
kidding. The Republicans still allow motions from the floor.
They just didn't want Nader friendly delegates to have a voice.
It was blatantly undemocratic. And now we are left with David
Cobb, who is a safe-state strategy himself, as he is unknown
wherever he goes."
Liz Trojan, who was one of
the lone delegates from Oregon who supported endorsing Nader,
concurs. "It is true what they say, the convention was rigged."
"I heard Glickman in the
bathroom say, 'I won't be that involved [with the Greens] now.
My work is done here.' I took it as if she was admitting she
had done her job, her and the others got Cobb nominated,"
said another Green delegate from Washington who did not want
to be named.
"These guys like [David]
Cobb and Glickman would love to see the Greens become a caucus
of the Democratic Party," says Coopernoll. "It's very
sad. And you have to understand, Green Party members for the
most part aren't wealthy people. So when a national convention
comes up we can't all go and be delegates. But Medea [Benjamin]
and others financed trips for many pro-Cobb delegates."
And many believe Benjamin got the money to do so from the Nader-hating
Democrat billionaire, George Soros who has funded her Global
Exchange organization in the past. This rumor has yet to be proven
however. Benjamin could not be reached for comment.
Fast forward to Oregon. Glickman,
who is still listed as a fundraiser for the Green Party on their
official website, may have ulterior motives regarding the Teresa
Keane nomination.
Democrat David Wu is running
a tight race in Oregon against a well-financed Republican woman
named Goli Ameri. Senator Ron Wyden on the other hand is leading
in most polls by more then 25%. Why switch Keane from Wu to Wyden
then, if not to protect David Wu?
"It's not about that at
all," says Keane's campaign manager Jeff Cropp. "We
decided that since she [Keane] isn't from District 1, that it'd
be best for her to run a state-wide campaign against Wyden ...
That way she can go to places that don't have a Green on the
ballot."
In other words, Keane is now
running a sort of "safe-in-state" strategy, where she'll
have no impact whatsoever on the election in which she is running.
Sounds like an ominous trend for Greens.
"I'd rather see Keane
run against Wu," Glickman says. "But she wants to run
against Wyden."
Unfortunately not all Greens
believe it is Keane's decision who she can run against. Nor is
it the Coordinating Committee's who was called by Keane after
her candidate swap and asked whether or not they would have supported
her nomination at the convention had she sought it. A small majority
said they would have, but one who voted in favor now says he
would not have done so if he knew by-laws were being broken.
And where does this leave Pavel Goberman, who wanted to run against
Wu but lost to Keane during their party's convention?
"No where in the by-laws
does it say the Coordinating Committee can make that decision,"
Trojan says. "It does say we can interpret, but we cannot
create. And nowhere does it say anything about a candidate switching
races. It's outrageous. Glickman and Cropp are way out of line."
Lloyd Marbet, a long-time Oregon
Green Party loyalist who ran on the Party's ticket as Attorney
General in 2000 agrees. "If this decision is not reversed
I will leave the Party," Marbet says, "This is disturbing
for a lot of reasons ... it is just contrary to everything I
thought the Green Party stands."
Marbet is currently seeking
legal counsel to help set things straight. "This isn't a
Nader-Cobb issue. This is an issue of how we should be as a party,"
he says.
Jeff Cropp, who is an ardent
Cobb supporter, sees it much different. "Their (Trojan,
Strang, and Marbet) attitude is deplorable. They didn't get their
way at the convention so they are using this hyperbole to fight
back. They are being babies," Cropp fumed.
Babies or not, the fact remains
the Green Party is splitting in Oregon. The Teresa Keane saga
is just one of many we will see unfold within the Green Party
over the next few months. You can bet on it. As more whistleblowers
come forward and expose the internal mayhem of the Greens, we
may see some dramatic shifts in the way progressives view the
vitality of the party.
So this is how the Green Party
functions at the state level. One can only imagine what they
are capable of at the national. If the rumors turn out to be
true, and Medea Benjamin did in fact use Soros money to fly Cobb
delegates to the party's national convention in Milwaukee last
July, the Greens will never again be trusted as the standard
bearer of progressive causes. Or maybe they have lost that title
already. Either way, it is clear that the Greens are unraveling
from within.
Joshua Frank, a contributor to CounterPunch's forthcoming
book, A
Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils,
is putting the finishing touches on Left
Out: How Liberals did Bush's Work for Him, to be published
by Common Courage Press. He welcomes comments at frank_joshua@hotmail.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
Keep
CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home
/ subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|