Vote Green on Tuesday - don't waste your vote on Clinton!

[Mark Robinowitz <mrobinowitz@igc.org>]

                   Don't Waste Your Vote on Clinton!

                  Write In Ralph Nader * Green Party 

Maryland was one of only three places to vote more than 50 percent for
Clinton in 1992 (the others were Arkansas and D.C.). Since Bill Clinton will
clearly win in Maryland -- Dole hasn't even bothered to campaign here --
people who want to send the Democrats a message but who fear electing Dole
by default have nothing to worry about. 

Due to the electoral college (where is its campus???) system, votes cannot
be transferred from state to state.  So an extra vote for Clinton in a state
that's heavily Democratic doesn't cancel out a vote for Dole in Utah or
Idaho or Texas. 

Don't waste your vote for a president and party that promoted NAFTA (an
ecological and social disasta), the GATT treaty (which can override all US
laws on worker safety and environmental protection), toxic waste
incinerators, clearcutting ancient forests, campaign finance corruption,
more pesticides in food, abandonment of the poor, the death penalty,
continued outrageous military spending and other forms of corporate welfare,
and last, but not least, completely forgetting the goal of national health
care for everybody.

Clinton only responds to citizen concerns when forced to. Therefore, only a
strong showing for Ralph Nader could make Clinton pretend to care about the
environment, workers' rights and social justice.


states with Ralph Nader listed on the ballot:
Alaska
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
District of Columbia
Hawai'i
Iowa
Louisiana
Maine
Minnesota
Nevada
New Jersey
New York
New Mexico
Oregon
Rhode Island
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin

states where Ralph is NOT on the ballot and is also NOT a qualified write-in
candidate:
Illinois, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota,
Virginia, West Virginia

___________________
Ralph on the issues____________________________________________________

"Society rots from the top down and is reconstructed from the bottom up. The
takeover of our political government at the national and state levels by the
corporate powers is dismantling our democracy. What of the future for our
children, nearly 25 percent of whom live in poverty? What will THEY think of
our generation if we do not launch the green waves and breezes of a
resurgent democracy across this land."

"We've got two parties that are really one corporate party with two heads
wearing different make-up. Thomas Jefferson warned us this could happen.
Corporate power is taking over the United States government."

"The problem is too little demo-cracy. Too much power and too much wealth in
too few hands. To the two-party Goliath of Tweedle Dum Tweedle Dee, I say,
'Watch Out!' Here come the acorns!"

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Instructions for write-in votes:

Find the write-in slide at the top of the machine, which is directly above
the office that you want to vote for (slide corresponds to office column number)

Raise the slide and you will see white paper.

Write the name of the candidate on the paper.

[some jurisdictions have slightly different technologies]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

______________________________________________________________________

The Boulder Weekly, web site http://www.boulderweekly.com, came out in
support of Ralph Nader in its Oct. 31 - Nov. 6th issue!  The Weekly is
almost 5 years old and it does some very good investigative reporting.

Here is what they said.

Historian Howard Zinn made a good point during an interview with "Boulder
Weekly" a few weeks ago.  He said that the first four years of the Clinton
administration have been the most conclusive evidence so far that America
has but one political party and that party is controlled by corporate interests.

We've called them Republicrats, Demopublicans, Demreps and Repcrats - all
of which is just another way of saying that Bob Dole and Bill Clinton are
the same thing.  They're like two heads on a deformed calf in a freak show.
 A closer look reveals that both heads are attached to a single body, in
this case, corporate America.

"The lesser of two evils" has been the mantra of presidential politics for
some time now, and it's likely to continue that way until voters realize
that they have the power to change things.  As long as campaign finance
reform remains a glimmer in the idealist's eye and not a reality, we will
always be choosing between two corporate kowtowing fund-raisers.
Unfortunately, those who benefit most from the current system are the only
ones who can change it.  And that isn't going to happen.

But there is another way: third parties.  In the past we've considered
voting for third parties a form of protest at best.  The truth is, in
today's political environment, they may be our only hope.  People will stay
home before they'll vote for Clinton or Dole.  Some will call it apathy
while others call it common sense.  People don't think their vote matters.
If their choice is limited to Clinton or Dole, they're right ... but
fortunately it isn't.

This is the year to start building a new political system, a multi-party
system.  Can Ralph Nader of the Green Party really be elected president
this time around?  No.  Should we vote for him anyway?  Yes.  And if Nader
doesn't do it for you, vote Libertarian or Natural Law or Socialist or
anything else.  The point is, we don't have to give our vote to lousy
store-bought candidates like Clinton and Dole.  We don't have to play the
status quo game that Washington dictates to us every four years.  But until
we start voting for third parties and stop staying home, nothing is going
to change.

This is the year.  This is the beginning.  This is our chance to create
change.  We endorsing the Green Party ticket of Ralph Nader and Winona
LaDuke.  If you can't support Nader/LaDuke, then choose another third
party.  "The lesser of two evils" is nobody's idea of good government,
unless of course you're a corporation that has both candidates in the bag.


___________________________________________
Metroland (a weekly newspaper in Albany, NY)___________________

Many people believe that there's no point in voting for a minor-party or
independent candidate, that doing so amounts to throwing away one's vote. We
have come to believe just the opposite: Until ordinary citizens begin voting
their consciences in greater numbers, they will continue throwing away their
votes on major-party candidates who simply do not represent their interests,
and those candidates will be given no reason to rethink their ways ...

_____________________________________
Williamette Weekly (Oregon) editorial____________________________________

Nader is campaigning on a platform of restoring the tools of democracy,
cleaning up the brothel that is Washington, D.C., and reining in the
excesses of global corporate hegemony.

For the past 30 years, Nader has worked tirelessly on behalf of average
Americans, and in so doing has managed to make the sometimes callous
landscape of American capitalism more navigable. ... Thanks to his efforts,
we have workplace safety regulations, environmental protection and
food-packaging guidelines. We have Nader spinoffs all over the country ...

The November election is a foregone conclusion. We are not naive enough to
believe that Ralph Nader will be elected president-or, frankly, that he even
wants the job. But we do not think a vote for him would be wasted. 

It's what happens on Nov. 6 and beyond that concerns us. Will Washington,
D.C., continue along the path of least resistance? Or will a strong showing
for Nader help to build a movement that will seek to check the unchallenged
priorities of corporate globalization? Will it allow us finally to come to
grips with the corrosive influence that campaign money has had on our democracy?

A boost for a Nader-backed movement is our best hope of sending Democrats a
message that there are voters who are fed up with Clinton's
faux-progressiveness and that, if we put our collective shoulders into it,
we can start the boulder of a new politics rolling.



The following op/ed piece appeared in the 'Commentary' section of 
the Los Angeles Times today, July 21st.  It is written by David 
Brower, one of the preeminent US environmentalists of the 20th 
century.  
     
Brower, now in his early 80's, is a past president of the Sierra 
Club, is currently a nat'l board member there, founded Earth 
Island Institute and Friends of the Earth in the US, and is on the 
boards of a variety of environmental organizations around the US.
    
     
     
Why I Won't Vote for Clinton
     
- Environment: This president has done more harm than Reagan and 
Bush combined.
     
By DAVID BROWER
     
     Over the past three years, I have become increasingly 
distressed by President Clinton's environmental record.  While I 
certainly would expect no better from Bob Dole, I think it is time 
to examine where we are going as a movement and as a civilization.
     My personal assessment has led me to support Ralph Nader's 
presidential campaign.  Briefly, let me recount the reasons for my 
disaffection with the president
     His administration is responsible for:
 - The passage of the "salvage logging" rider that is causing the 
destruction of ancient public forests and critical watersheds.
 - The signing of the Panama Declaration, which undermines 
protection or marine mammals including dolphins and whales.
 - The continuation of the use of methyl bromide, a highly toxic 
pesticide known to destroy the Earth's ozone layer.
[note: the two US factories that still make it are in Arkansas]

 - The weakening if not the gutting, of the Endangered Species Act 
through administrative changes in its rules and regulations.
 - The passage of NAFTA and GATT, international trade agreements 
that represent the biggest sellout of American workers in U.S. 
history and effectively remove environmental protections passed by 
Congress because any legislation deemed to "restrain free trade" 
can be declared illegal by international tribunals dominated by 
large-scale corporate interests.
 - The lowering of grazing fees on public land, despite promises 
by candidate Clinton to raise those fees.  As a result, Clinton is 
subsidizing the cattle industry while overtaxing people and land.
 - Continuing to subsidize the sugar industry in Florida, which is 
poisoning the Everglades and diverting large amounts of water 
needed by wildlife.
 - Opening wildlife refuges to hunting and fishing by presidential 
decrees
 - Weakening the Safe Drinking Water Act by allowing increased 
levels of lead and arsenic in drinking water supplies.
 - Reversing the ban on the production of and importation of PCBs 
(polychlorinated biphenyls), which may cause more than 40,000 
fatalities in the Great Lakes region alone.  
 - Increasing our dependence on Middle East Oil by breaking the 
promise to not allow the export of Alaskan oil.
     
     President Clinton has done more to harm the environment and 
to weaken environmental regulations in three years than Presidents 
Bush and Reagan did in 12 years.
     After an interim of reading lips, we have seen the regimes of 
environmental destruction move from the Great Communicator to the 
Great Capitulator.  Even so, Clinton has tried to "greenwash" his 
record, claiming to be on the side of the environment.
     Having fought for the environment for more than 50 years, I 
see planet Earth not only as our father and mother but also as our 
child, demanding our care and nurture.  Neither of the major 
parties comprehends the seriousness of this responsibility.
     In response, I am supporting a real alternative in 1996.  I 
have known Ralph Nader for nearly 30 years, and in that time, he 
has never let me or the environment down.  He is properly 
described as an idealistic if modest Spartan.  
     Nader understands that until we rein in the far-flung empires 
of multinational corporations and subject them to international 
sustainable environmental standards, the planet will continue to 
suffer.
     
          David Brower is a longtime environmentalist 
          and a board member of the Sierra Club



_______________________________________________________________________
Please help us build a progressive alternative to Demican / Republicrat
corruption of the political system. 

Maryland Green Party
Box 461 * College Park MD 20740
phone: (301) 441-4716 
e-mail: dmoore@crosslink.net
http://www.vais.net/~nader96/
http://www.greens.org/