Join Us to Collect Signatures & Put Jill on The Massachusetts Ballot! Or submit your ideas for events where we can collect signatures HERE

WE NEED YOUR HELP COLLECTING SIGNATURES. Monday, July 15, is our goal to collect a total of 15,000 signatures from registered Massachusetts voters.

Cheryl Rose, who is leading petitioning efforts across the state, notes that we have collected a total of 5,500 signatures to date.

Will you join us at an event, or pledge to collect signatures on your own?

The week of July 4th provides a number of opportunities to collect signatures at popular events across Massachusetts. For example, Boston petition lead Jeanette Mathy has pledged to lead teams at three events in the Boston area this week (see Google form for details).

THE MORE VOLUNTEERS WE HAVE, THE FEWER SIGNATURES WE WILL EACH NEED TO COLLECT, SO BRING YOUR FRIENDS, AND MAKE IT A PARTY!

Dementia and double talk cover a US-enabled genocide

by David Keil

The President's job is often to talk out of both sides of his mouth. This is difficult when shipping arms for a genocide while facing near-universal international condemnation. Part of Biden's disastrous debate performance on June 27 was his claim to be the best supporter of the murderous Zionist apartheid state while also acknowledging that care is required when killing civilians.

Trump was more consistent, accusing Biden of being a Palestinian or pro-Palestinian. He is a flashier liar, and a more brazen defender of genocide, than Biden.

Even high-school students across Massachusetts have organized to protest the US role in the genocide in Gaza. On June 4, they called a protest of hundreds of young people at the State House, taking over the street and organizing a die-in. This summer and fall, as in 1968 and 1972, the biggest reply to the brawling candidates of war will be in the streets. Next on the national schedule is a protest at the Republican National Convention on July 15 in Milwaukee. Following that is the Democratic convention in Chicago in August.

The Green-Rainbow Party is a co-sponsor of Gaza protests across the state. The best source of information about antiwar protests is Massachusetts Peace Action.

IS THERE A DIFFERENCE?

by John Blumenstiel

Massachusetts, a state considered "liberal" by many citizens and observers, is essentially a one-party state and that party is the "liberal" Democratic party. The exception is that there is a preference for the voters to choose a Republican governor regularly. Many would believe that a liberal Democratic one-party state would be like going to heaven and the "peoples' voice would be acknowledged and a representative democracy would effectively address the peoples' problems. How does this work in actuality? Many will claim that it does not since both parties gravitate towards the well-heeled, well-funded self-interests within the state (the ongoing problem of the 1%ers.) On this basis, Massachusetts looks and acts a lot like the rest of the country.

Consider one case in point: Money in politics.

It is no secret that monied interests own our political system. This is the ruination of our democracy. Since the advent of the US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United,( 2010 ) money in politics is considered "free speech" and the legal contrivance of corporations being considered "people". Thus, there is no ability to regulate the use of money in political campaigns. This decision has eviscerated the rights of the actual, real-life citizens of our country. In the meantime, states across the country have initiated a movement to pass a US constitutional amendment that declares "corporations are not people and money is not free speech." Since the decision of Citizens United a citizens group in Massachusetts has spent years advocating, lobbying, creating, and passing non-binding resolutions in Massachusetts state house districts that express the Massachusetts citizenry's desire to reverse the democracy-destroying Citizens United decision. This effort has consistently garnered 60 plus percent of the Massachusetts voters' support. Year after year legislation has been filed in the Massachusetts House and Senate, the "We the People Act" targeted to passing a Massachusetts resolution to reverse Citizens United by amending the US Constitution. And year after year this legislation gets sidetracked, buried in the committees and subcommittees of the cavernous state house bureaucracy. All this occurs without any legislative votes counted, no committee votes recorded and no accountability assigned for passage or failure. This is standard operating procedure in the Massachusetts Statehouse.

Year after year worthy legislation often filed by committed and concerned citizens gets the fast shuffle within this legislative maze. For years this same legislative maneuvering has blocked the Massachusetts legislature from having the opportunity to even vote on a Massachusetts Medicare 4 All legislation. Such statehouse maneuvering is a major hindrance to accomplishing "the peoples' business" and addressing the peoples' needs. It is, however, the way the system does NOT work.

How did this come to pass? By acceptance of an entrenched, inbred political system managed by a political elite that owes its allegiance to the donor class. Our country and our state lack a political organization that will bring the people's voices to the forefront and build the power to create and sustain change for the people.

In Massachusetts, the Green-Rainbow Party is our best hope. So what must be done?

• move beyond our differences (they will always exist),
• move beyond our inability to dialogue (that is essential for democracy and unity),
• realize the difference

CLEANER ECONOMIC GROWTH

by Frank Jeffers

I watched the Green Party's Eco-Action Committee's webinar on de-growth a few weeks ago. David Schwartzman gave a balanced account of how this can play out in the incredibly complex world economy. After many years of financing preposterous schemes and zombie industries to make the economy appear healthy and progressive, a day of reckoning is inevitable. A 'shake-out' has been due for a generation and economic distortions have piled one on another. Predictions are that this will become apparent by the fourth quarter of this year. Are the banks timing it to hold off a Trump election that could come if he blames it all on Joe Biden when we've been building up to it for thirty years?

A shake-out is a de-growth in some aspects of the economy while other aspects emerge and grow. For instance, $100,000 pickup trucks and SUVs that get 16 miles to the gallon 'should' de-grow. Light EVs and hybrids that get 80 miles to the gallon should grow. Construction of cardboard faux mansions should de-grow while basic energy-efficient housing at low cost should grow. Lithium-ion battery parks, a very expensive very short duration buffer for erratic 'green energy' production might de-grow. Inexpensive storage through e-fuels or bio-fuels might grow. Dictation of soon-to-be-obsolete technical solutions by the greenwashing, virtue signaling Massachusetts legislature will come back to haunt them. Recognition that we can’t escape the carbon cycle in which all life exists, will be forced on those who call for preposterous 100% clean energy schemes that cannot exist in the real world.

Here is Dr. Schwarzman's take on the complexities of growth/de-growth. Hopefully, this will reduce global warming before things get too ugly. But in the end, even he is grasping at straws.

https://ecology.iww.org/node/4832

Just because we want science and engineers to do things doesn't mean they can fulfill political agendas. The laws of physics and Karma, the Buddhist 'iron law of consequences', get in the way. The straw is 'direct air capture' which flies in the face of the possible. Sure, you can do it, but you'll go broke before you have any effect. There are far better sources of CO2 than the open air. Collected CO2 is basic feedstock for e-fuels that will steal the market from petroleum interests; no wonder they want to shove it underground and out of sight before somebody does that with it. Iceland has demonstrated the practicality of the one approach and the impracticality of the other. But that's a free country, so perhaps irrelevant for Massachusetts.

Iceland is the go-to source for geothermal energy knowledge, doing it for 50 years. They also are a go-to source for carbon dioxide recycling. They have huge carbon dioxide emissions from the widespread volcanism all over the country which they can’t control except to put to use. They pioneered injecting CO2 into volcanic rocks to sequester it forever as calcium carbonate. The American petroleum interests have turned this into a vast pipeline collection scheme to get it out of sight before it’s used to compete with fossil fuels. Iceland allowed an American company to build an air capture system that collects CO2 equal to the emissions of 7800 cars in a year, shoving it down a rathole at great expense. Not far away, the Icelandic power company converts volcanic and byproduct CO2 into methanol that could replace the petroleum used by 100,000 cars. They don’t suffer the roadblocks we do here.

Americans should look at Iceland and weep. They can see a prosperous well-educated nation. Its method is global cooperation, not domination. Iceland's society advances while ours stagnates and struggles, made vulnerable by our hate and sabotaged education systems.

Green-Rainbow Helps Turn Warheads into Windmills

GRP Liaison Meeting with the Warheads to Windmills Coalition June 26

by Lois Gagnon

If you attended the Green-Rainbow Party Annual State Convention in May, you were treated to a very informative presentation on how to abolish nuclear weapons and use the savings to develop the renewable energy infrastructure that will be needed to tackle the threat of climate catastrophe by Timmon Wallis and Vicki Elson. Timmon is the author of “Warheads to Windmills” Preventing Climate Catastrophe and Nuclear War.

I first met Timmon and Vicki at the first meeting of their newly formed organization, NuclearBan.US which still exists. They started it after the UN passed The Treaty on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons on September 20, 2017. The organization’s strategy is to target for divestment the companies tied to the development and maintenance of nuclear weapons.

Warheads To Windmills ties the above strategy with the climate emergency as they are both existential threats to life on our planet. The Green-Rainbow Party is a proud member of this growing coalition. Other Green Party members include the Green Party of Florida, the DC Statehood Green Party, and the Eco-Action Committee of the national Green Party. W2W’s goals are a perfect fit for the Green Party movement.

Some of the actions that are coming up soon are:

1. Planning for DC Lobby July 8-9th following the Veterans For Peace Walk. Details on the website. Link below.
   
   
2. Trying for a Special Order Hour. A whole hour dedicated to one topic, spoken into the record- on September 26th, International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
   
   
3. In September there are back-to-back weeks of action on nuclear weapons and climate. September 16-22nd, ICAN (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) will sponsor a Week of Action on the abolition of nuclear weapons. September 23-29th is Climate Week. This is a perfect opportunity to tie these two issues of survival together.

There will be more details next month on these September events. Watch this space!

The link to the Warheads to Windmills website is here: https://warheadstowindmills.org

If you are interested in becoming active in this movement at the state coalition level, please contact Lois Gagnon at [email protected]

Make a Difference

Do you want to sharpen your skills and expand your resume while creating a progressive, humane America?

The Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts has internship opportunities available in:

1) Digital Communications

2) Digital newsletter development

3) Political party financial management and "fun-raising"

Contact Eileen Wheeler Sheehan at [email protected]

Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts

[email protected]

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