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Rally for Real Democracy in Wisconsin
Oshkosh Demonstration Planned
OSHKOSH – Activists and concerned citizens from across the state of
Wisconsin will converge at Riverside Park in Oshkosh Saturday, June 11 to
participate in the Rally for Real Democracy in Wisconsin. The rally is
scheduled to begin at 10:00am.
The rally is in direct response to the Wisconsin Democratic Party Convention
being held the same weekend in Oshkosh. “The Democratic Party states that
they have a lot to celebrate, yet in the past year Wisconsin has seen some of the
worst attacks on the environment and the UW system in history, while other
issues such as health care and campaign finance reform have not even been
mentioned,” stated Lake Winnebago Green Party Co-Chair Julie Stockwell.
The rally will focus on the following issues:
- Opposition to the horrific Gov. Doyle-sponsored Job Creation Acts that
have dismantled air and water quality protections - Opposition to the backroom logrolling of Gov Doyle’s administration on
the minimum wage deal that took away local control - Opposition to the bipartisan assaults on the UW system that have
diminished the quality of education while increasingly replacing merit as
a determinative factor in the make up of the student body (the average
household income of a UW student is $94g) - Opposition to the Democratic Philosophy of “Lesser Evilism” which
consistently sells short the citizens of Wisconsin - To demand progress towards Guaranteed Health Care, as over 9% of the
state's population is still uninsured - To demand serious Campaign Finance Reform, a promise that Gov
Doyle made over 2 years ago - To demand serious environmental quality protections
- To demand domestic partner benefits and for gender identity protection
under our state’s existing nondiscrimination law
The Rally for Real Democracy will take place at Riverside Park, Oshkosh,
directly behind the Park Plaza Convention Center, One North Main St,
Oshkosh. For directions visit: http://www.parkplazaoshkosh.
com/Directions.htm. Organizers of the rally include the Lake Winnebago
Green Party, the Oshkosh Campus Greens, and active citizens from across the
state.
Contact: Julie Stockwell 920-205-7363, julestockwelll@yahoo.com
Wisconsin Libertarian and
Green Parties Decry
Supreme Court Ruling on
Medical Marijuana
The Wisconsin Libertarian and Green
Parties noted today that the recent
Supreme Court ruling on medical
marijuana was a victory for
pharmaceutical companies and insurance
companies, but a loss to the well being of
United States citizens, by impinging upon
their rights to pursue life and liberty.
“This ruling is not only a blow to the
elderly, sick and terminally ill, but also
represents the further decline of states’
rights,” said Arif Khan, Chair of the
Libertarian Party of Wisconsin. “It is
important that Wisconsinites do not
minimize this issue by believing that it only
affects ‘pot smokers’ as it is a much
deeper debate involving the intrusion of
the federal government upon the states,
the power of the prescription drug lobby,
and the decline of individual freedom.”
Jill Bussiere, Co-Chair of the Wisconsin
Green Party agreed, adding, "It doesn't
make any sense to prohibit an available
and affordable remedy such as marijuana
to qualified patients. This court ruling isn’
t about citizens’ well being - it is about the
inappropriate use of the power of the
federal government. The ruling, which
was pushed forward by the Bush
administration, not only lacks compassion
for the sick but is also a clear
encroachment upon states’ rights.”
The United States Supreme Court has
ruled that the federal government can
continue to arrest and prosecute sick and
terminally ill Americans who use
marijuana for medical purposes. The
decision supersedes state laws and the
votes of citizens that allow the medical
use of marijuana.
While the people of ten states voted for
the right of sick and dying patients to use
marijuana as a medical treatment, the
Supreme Court’s ruling permits the
federal government to ignore the recorded
decisions of an electorate.
The Wisconsin Libertarian and Green
parties support legislation such as the
medical marijuana bill of the last session
of the Wisconsin Assembly that would
allow qualifying patients to invoke a
“medical necessity defense” protecting
them from the current laws forbidding
citizens to possess, grow, or purchase
marijuana, or to possess marijuana
paraphernalia.
The Libertarian Party is a long-standing
advocate for individual liberty and believes
that Americans should be responsible for
their own actions and, in this case, be able
to use alternative forms of medication
outside of the realm of insurance
companies and the pharmaceutical lobby.
Wisconsin Greens stand firmly for civil
liberties, and advocate for a medical
system in the United States that puts the
well being of citizens before the profits of
pharmaceutical corporations, and for an
end to the senseless, expensive, and
ineffective U.S. War on Drugs. The
Wisconsin Green Party is affiliated with
the Green Party of the United States, and
stands on the four pillars of Social &
Economic Justice, Grassroots
Democracy, Nonviolence, and Ecological
Wisdom.
The Wisconsin Green and Libertarian
Parties have a history of standing together
on issues of civil liberties.
For more information on the Wisconsin
Green Party, visit http://www.
wisconsingreenparty.org . The Green
Party of the United States' website is http:
//www.gp.org .
For more information on the Wisconsin
Libertarian Party, visit www.lpwi.org/
reprinted with permission from Steven Stwalley
Universal Health
Care Rising
by babblemur
The concept of Universal Health
Care is getting a lot of talk and
attention lately given the
economic health care crisis that
no one seems to want to
acknowledge. I could babble
about this, but I would rather
leave that to others with more
finely tuned arguments. Below
are article summaries, follow the
headline link to go to the full
text. Note that California and
Vermont are both considering
state level versions of a
Universal Health Care system.
Why the nation will
embrace Universal
Health Care
by Lance Dickie, Seattle Times
If the engine of change in most
democracies is a disgruntled
middle class, then I am
emboldened to make a
prediction. The U.S. is headed
toward a single-payer system of
universal health care.
Everyone keeps his or her
doctor and, more to the point,
everyone will have one. The
medical-delivery system —
physicians, hospitals and
pharmaceuticals — stays
private, but the paperwork and
bills are routed through and paid
by the federal government.
A Republican
Argument for Universal
Health Care: Part 1
by Ben Brothers (BadgerBlues)
Democrats often take it as an article of
faith that universal health care would
be a good thing. We see it as an issue
of moral justice. Freedom from want
and freedom from fear are fundamental
Democratic values, and making sure
that every American has the right to
adequate medical care has been a
Democratic goal ever since Franklin
Roosevelt proposed a Second Bill of
Rights in 1944.
We don't need to be convinced, but
we're only half of the country. The
other half of the country are
Republicans, and many of them do
need to be convinced.
A Republican
Argument for Universal
Health Care: Part 2
by Ben Brothers (BadgerBlues)
Yesterday I wrote about good
American companies that provide
good benefits for their workers and are
penalized under the United States'
uniquely self-defeating business model.
The converse is that bad companies
that do not play by the rules should
not be rewarded for doing so. Wal-
Mart employees are the largest group
of Wisconsinites enrolled in
BadgerCare. Wisconsin's taxpayers,
including those who own businesses
that compete with Wal-Mart, are
subsidizing their competitor because
Wal-Mart is not doing the right thing.
Troubled Corporations
Need Single Payer
by Dave Zweifel, Capital Times
(Madison)
Anita Weier of our staff reported
several weeks ago that a significant
number of Wal-Mart employees in
Wisconsin wind up having to rely on
the state-paid BadgerCare program for
their health insurance at a significant
cost to the state's taxpayers.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last
week repeated that information and
added that while Wal-Mart by far
leads the list of big corporations
whose workers need to take advantage
of taxpayer-paid poverty programs,
there are several other big firms whose
workers need to do so too.
CommonDreams.org
Buy Your Gas at Citgo: Join
the BUY-cott!
by Jeff Cohen
Looking for an easy way to protest Bush
foreign policy week after week? And an
easy way to help alleviate global poverty?
Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations.
And tell your friends.
Of the top oil producing countries in the
world, only one is a democracy with a
president who was elected on a platform
of using his nation's oil revenue to benefit
the poor. The country is Venezuela. The
President is Hugo Chavez. Call him "the
Anti-Bush."
Citgo is a U.S. refining and marketing firm
that is a wholly owned subsidiary of
Venezuela's state-owned oil company.
Money you pay to Citgo goes primarily to
Venezuela -- not Saudi Arabia or the
Middle East. There are 14,000 Citgo gas
stations in the US. (Click here
http://www.citgo.com/CITGOLocator/St
oreLocator.jsp to find one near you.) By
buying your gasoline at Citgo, you are
contributing to the billions of dollars that
Venezuela's democratic government is
using to provide health care, literacy and
education, and subsidized food for the
majority of Venezuelans.
Instead of using government to help the
rich and the corporate, as Bush does,
Chavez is using the resources and oil
revenue of his government to help the
poor in Venezuela. A country with so
much oil wealth shouldn't have 60 percent
of its people living in poverty, earning less
than $2 per day. With a mass movement
behind him, Chavez is confronting poverty
in Venezuela. That's why large majorities
have consistently backed him in
democratic elections. And why the Bush
administration supported an attempted
military coup in 2002 that sought to
overthrow Chavez.
So this is the opposite of a boycott. Call it
a BUYcott. Spread the word.
Of course, if you can take mass transit or
bike or walk to your job, you should do
so. And we should all work for political
changes that move our country toward a
cleaner environment based on renewable
energy. The BUYcott is for those of us
who don't have a practical alternative to
filling up our cars.
So get your gas at Citgo. And help fuel a
democratic revolution in Venezuela.
Jeff Cohen is an author and media critic
(www.jeffcohen.org)
6 June 2005
Philosopher breaks
down management self-
help books
by Puripnon
Applied Rhizomatics, as it is a business,
will require a great amount of economic,
managerial, etc. knowledge to run
properly. With that in mind, I stumbled
across this list while skimming the self-
improvement regions of the blogsphere.
It seemed like a pretty good selection of
texts on just about every subject covered
in an MBA program. I decided to look
for these books at the library last night
and found that most of them were
checked out (good sign). A couple of the
"Productivity" books were in, so I
decided to speed read them to see if they
were worthy of a perusal.
They weren't.
The first book I tried to read was The 7
Habits of Highly Effective People.
Half way through the book, I picked up
Mr. Covey's formula:
- translate a piece of common
sense into buzzwords
(proactive! synergize!!!), - back up your buzz-wisdom
with largely fictional anecdotes, - sprinkle the text with highbrow
quotes from some book of
quotes and pretend like you've
actually read the work (like this
guy has really read any Goethe), - make millions off of the dopes
who buy the book.
The core of the book, that we should
center our lives around principles rather
than image and organize our lives from
the inside out according to these
principles, is decent, if not downright
important. However, this only took me
one run-on sentence to say, rather than
300+ pages. The rest of the book is fluff
and Mr. Covey's often sly attempts (and
sometimes outright attempts) to convert
his readers to Christianity.
If anyone is thinking about reading this
book, don't. If you're interested in
guidance and wisdom, turn to the book
that contains all of Mr. Covey's
important points and a whole lot more,
The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
Of course, Aurelius didn't write at a 5th
grade reading level.
The second piece of crap I read was The
80/20 Principle. It follows the EXACT
SAME FORMULA AS ALL OF
THESE OTHER SHITTY SELF-HELP
BOOKS. This is just infinitely more
annoying. The premise of this book is
that 20% of something leads to 80% of
something else. Yep, that's it. At first,
this seems plausible. Common sense
tells us that only a fraction of what we
do is really important and that by
focusing on this fraction, we can be more
productive. Unfortunately, the author
doesn't stop there. He tries to tie
EVERYTHING IN THE GOD
DAMNED WORLD into the 80/20
principle, as if it's a magical formula that
explains everything, from crime, to our
personal lives, to the unequal
distribution of wealth. It insists that
everything obeys this principle, and
sites only evidence that proves this.
This books fails to provide anything
more than the aforementioned common
sense in the way of advice.
I have developed the 99/1 Principle.
This principle is the following: 1% of
a self-help book contains 99% of the
book's value. Most of these books can
be condensed into 2 pages of bullets,
AT MOST. The other 99% is bullshit.
GREENS URGE SUPPORT FOR
MAYOR JASON WEST OF NEW
PALTZ, N.Y., AS HE FACES
PROSECUTION FOR SAME-SEX
MARRIAGES
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Green Party
leaders appealed to all Americans and
organizations who value human rights to
speak out in support of Mayor Jason
West of New Paltz, New York.
Mr. West, a member of the Green Party,
will face prosecution for violating domestic
relations law for officiating at the weddings
of 24 same-sex couples in 2004, according
to a ruling on May 27 from New York's
highest court. Mayor West, whose case
will be heard in a New Paltz town court,
performed the ceremonies to champion the
rights of gay, lesbian, and bisexual
Americans.
"The State of New York wants to punish an
elected Green Mayor for performing same-sex
marriages and defending the constitutional
guarantee of equal protection," said Chaia Lehrer,
who was married in New Paltz and is a member
of the Green Party. "While Democrats and
moderate Republicans have backtracked on gay
rights during and since the 2004 election, the Green
Party has enthusiastically endorsed equal marriage
rights for same-sex couples."
"The West prosecution is more than a court case.
It's a measure of the willingness of political leaders,
parties, and elected officials to stand up for
freedom and human rights," added Ms. Lehrer, who
noted that New York Gov. George Pataki and
Attorney General Eliot Spitzer have claimed that
same-sex marriages violate state law. "Mayor
West's defense should be a national cause célèbre
for gay rights."
Mayor West, who faces a maximum of 24 years in
prison and thousand of dollars in fines for multiple
misdemeanor counts if convicted, will be
represented in court by E. Joshua Rosenkranz of
Heller, Ehrman, White, McAuliffe.
"By performing same-sex marriages, we are
upholding the U.S. and New York State
constitutions, as well as our party platform which
defends human and civil rights," said Rebecca
Rotzler, New Paltz Deputy Mayor, who has also
performed a same-sex marriage.
Greens have called the prosecution of Mayor West
politically motivated.
Greens noted that two Unitarian ministers
conducted more than a dozen same-sex weddings in
New Paltz. But when a New Paltz judge threw out
the charges against the ministers, Ulster County
District Attorney Don Williams did not seek
reinstatement of the charges.
Furthermore, Mayor Gavin Newsom of San
Francisco conducted a few thousand weddings, but
even though the weddings themselves were held to
be invalid and were ordered to be stopped, no
charges were filed against Mayor Newsom, who
happens to be a Democrat.
Greens observed that D.A. Williams ran for office
on the Republican, Conservative, Democratic, and
Independence party lines (New York allows fusion
candidacies), and that the Ulster County
Democratic Party nominated Mr. Williams as their
own candidate and gave him their ballot line.
Greens also noted that the initial legal effort against
Mayor West was led by an organization called the
Liberty Counsel <http://www.lc.org>, which
serves as the the legal arm of Jerry Falwell
ministries.
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States
http://www.gp.org
1700 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 404
Washington, DC 20009.
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
Lavender Green Caucus
http://www.lavendergreens.org
Green Party of New York State
http://www.gpnys.org