Topic: politics
So you want to change the world? Or at least a large part of the Lower Great Lakes Bioregion? Well, next Tuesday you can help leverage grassroots democracy by voting Green.
It’s likely voters will go to the polls without ever having seen or heard the following names – thank you very much, local media – but here are the candidates I’m going for:
NY governor: Malachy McCourt.
Lt. Gov.: Alison Duncan. (Actually, David Paterson would be a decent choice, too, much preferable politically to his Dem running mate, Eliot Spitzer. But if you go for Paterson, do it on the Working Families line.)
Comptroller: Julia Willebrand. (See, you don’t have to flip a coin for public-teat sucking specialist Alan Hevesi or, much worse, the Republican.)
State Attorney General: Rachel Treichler.
US Senator: Howie Hawkins. (Beware the Working Families line here: they’ve cross-endorsed Hillary Clinton, enemy of peace and universal health care, etc.)
Last, a related matter of principle: never vote for anyone who’s accepted the Conservative Party endorsement. At the Public Market a couple weeks ago, I talked with a judge seeking re-election who tried to explain why she jumped on this joke party’s bandwagon. She didn’t try too hard. Judges always beg off discussing the issues – by invoking a code of ethics designed as much to shield them from questions as to preserve their neutrality.
But excuse me. Signing on with a party means accepting the party platform. And signing on with the Conservatives means tacit endorsement of an arch-reactionary agenda: limiting abortion rights into non-existence, stopping further restrictions on guns, unleashing a Texas-style judicial crime-wave of executions, and thrusting religion (specifically the “Judeo-Christian moral code”) deeper into public life.
I judge this insanity.