• Response by the Green Party of the United States to a statement from European Greens
  November 1, 2024

We invite European Greens to communicate directly with us to understand our positions and participation in elections, and to support our demand for a national popular vote by ranked-choice voting (RCV) for president, which would eliminate the alleged spoiler factor.

They seem to have swallowed the myth that Stein voters would have voted for the Democrat if Jill Stein had never entered the presidential race, and that Dr. Stein's withdrawal would release her supporters to vote for Harris.

The feedback we are receiving from voters is that Dr. Stein's supporters had no intention of voting for either of the major-party candidates in the first place. Dr. Stein and the Green Party are drawing support from Americans who are appalled by US military aid for Israel's ethnic cleansing and extermination of civilians in Gaza. Large numbers of voters refuse to vote for any candidate who favors more aid for genocide or hesitates to call for an immediate ceasefire, which describes both Harris and Donald Trump.

US Greens have been dismayed by European Green silence or complicity in response to Israel's apartheid policies, illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, and atrocities in Gaza (now spreading to the West Bank and Lebanon). This issue is conspicuously absent from their recent statement on the US elections.

Regarding Ukraine: US Greens don't share European Greens' apparent reluctance to question the role of NATO, which too often promotes global US dominance and military aggression. US Greens have been critical of NATO expansionism, which helped provoke the current proxy war in Ukraine. This isn't an endorsement of Putin's actions — military invasion of another country is always a crime and targeted killing of civilians is always an atrocity that deserves prosecution under international law. Dr. Stein and US Greens have repeatedly called for a ceasefire and negotiation to halt the bloodshed in the Russia-Ukraine war.

We also recognize that, while Trump is calling climate change a hoax, Harris and Democrats will do as little as possible to reduce fossil-fuel extraction and consumption in the US. Harris boasted during the Sept. 10 debate that the Biden-Harris administration has facilitated "'the largest increase in domestic oil production in history," which suggests she will continue to promote an increase as president. See "Green Party: Both Harris and Trump would be a disaster for the climate": https://www.gp.org/harris_trump_would_be_a_disaster_for_the_climate

US Greens and other Stein supporters are as concerned about Trump's anti-democratic, authoritarian policies as anyone else -- perhaps even more so than Democrats, who have consistently compromised with and capitulated to Republicans during recent decades on policy. Harris is already parroting Trump's demagogic fear-mongering positions on immigrants to the US. Democrats have also worked aggressively to suppress Green voters’ voting rights by attempting to remove the Green Party from the ballot in many states.

The Green Party of the US exists and Dr. Stein is running because our country needs a real opposition party and a permanent alternative to the two parties of war and Wall Street.

We invite European Greens to communicate directly with us to understand our positions and participation in elections, and to support our demand for a national popular vote by ranked-choice voting (RCV) for president, which would eliminate the alleged spoiler factor.

The Democratic Party has ignored and rejected this demand, which leads us to suspect that Democrats would rather lose to Republicans like Trump than tolerate the presence of more than two parties and real competition in U.S. elections.

European Greens have the privilege of living under fairer and more democratic proportional representation electoral systems. Their public critiques of US politics should focus on why the unfair US system needs to be reformed. This would be more constructive than questioning, without talking to US Greens, the strategies of Green organizers, activists, and candidates here on the ground who must operate under the current system.

Insert photo: Israel’s war on Lebanon is “upending children’s lives,” according to UNICEF. (Photo: via UNICEF)
Source: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/deep-emotional-scars-unicef-highlights-effects-of-war-on-children-in-lebanon/