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Green Party in California Trying to Stem Shrinking Numbers
Faced with diminishing numbers, a threatening ballot measure and the perpetual challenge of being a small third party in a two-party system, the California Green Party may be fading to chartreuse.
But that won't happen if a hardy core of delegates, who gathered in San Jose over the weekend for a semiannual state meeting, have their way. Still, the Greens couldn't even hold the attention of their own members. By Sunday, the meeting had shrunk by half to 40 people.
Even its two candidates for governor, Laura Wells of Oakland and Deacon Alexander of Los Angeles, skipped Sunday's talks on platform and procedures.
Five years ago, there were 158,000 registered Greens, or 0.95 percent of California voters. By January this year, the number had shrunk to 111,000, or 0.66 percent of the electorate.
The party knows of just 33 Greens holding elective office, ranging from members of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board to a San Francisco supervisor to the mayors of Richmond and Sebastopol. Its official list includes no elected Greens in Santa Clara County and just two in San Mateo County, both on the Montara water board.
The local party has focused more on issues rather than races, said Jim Stauffer, 59, one of four Santa Clara County delegates. For example, he said, the party is trying to get instant-runoff voting in San Jose on the November ballot. That, they argue, would be more democratic and less expensive, allowing voters to rank
their first, second and third choices among candidates and naming a winner with majority support in a single election.
Green parties, which have their roots in the environmental movement, gained strength in Europe in the 1980s. Greens began appearing with greater numbers on U.S. ballots in the 1990s.
So why, in an era of growing concern about the environment, is the party losing its appeal?
Some cite the Obama effect, which lured people to register for the 2008 Democratic primary. Also, they say, Greens defected because they wanted to vote for liberal Ohio U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich in the Democratic primary. Indeed, in the same five years, state Democratic ranks swelled by about 390,000 voters to 7.5 million, or 44.6 percent of the electorate.
Green delegates on Sunday denied that would-be supporters remain angry that consumer crusader Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate in 2000, may have cost Al Gore the 2000 presidential election in the race against George W. Bush.
Instead, they echoed the perennial lament of small parties: It's difficult to get political traction because of media neglect and scarce resources.
The party, they noted, doesn't accept donations from corporations, unions or political-action committees.
"A 17th-century electoral system keeps minor parties minor," Stauffer said.
With its agenda embracing universal health care, public financing of elections, legalization of undocumented immigrants and free birth control, the party promotes far more than environmentalism. The weekend meeting was partially devoted to hammering out party planks, but some remained unfinished.
Delegates supported downsizing the requirement for passing the state budget from two-thirds to a simple majority but couldn't agree on tax reform, term limits or whether the rights of people to control use of their DNA and body parts belonged in the human rights or health care plank, said delegate Cres Vellucci, 61, of Sacramento.
At a gathering that appeared to have few nonwhite members, delegates acknowledged that the party ought to strive harder to reflect the ethnic makeup of California.
The party is trying to capitalize on liberals disenchanted with President Barack Obama and the Democrats.
It will spend some of its $35,000 budget for 2010-11 on a television ad campaign inviting voters to join the party.
And it's opposing Proposition 14 on the June ballot. The initiative would establish a single primary open to all registered voters. The party believes it would doom its statewide and congressional candidates.
Stumping for votes is hard enough, said Jane Rands, a former state Assembly candidate from Orange County.
"The No. 1 thing people say is, 'I agree with everything you stand for, but I'm not going to vote for you because you are not going to get elected.' "
- Posted in
37 Comments so far
Show AllThis is the issue I have with third-party advocates. All we ever hear is how hopelessly corrupt and compromised the Democratic Party is, and how anyone who votes for a Democrat is either a fool or a sellout. Those of us who supported Obama in 08 are told we must apologize and admit how foolish we were for believing in promises of hope and change.
The problem that third party advocates have is that their strategy, if one can call it that, appears utterly futile to most of us. We are told that we must vote for third parties (usually the Green Party) but we are never told how exactly this voting strategy is supposed to work when even in California, the Green Party's annual convention can't draw more than a few dozen participants. Even if the Green Party convention attracted a few hundred, how exactly would that translate into a national electoral strategy under the U.S.'s first past the post, winner take all electoral system?
I have said for years that realistically, we have more hope for pulling off a revolution than we have getting a third party elected under the American electoral system. Nothing the Greens have ever showed me has led me to believe that their strategy is any more realistic than a vanguard revolution.
Having a full-blown revolution right now would be a disaster. All you have to do is read "My Dissallusionment with Russia" by Emma Goldman to see what an utter failure the Russian Revolution was. The problem they faced was a general lack of education about politics and instead of regional leadership the people sought a central govt. that basically behaved like the Tsarist govt. TOP DOWN. The people were starving and the new govt. was starving the people and imposing draconian measures on people exercising free speech. The people were hungry and educationally powerless to demand a more distributively equal share of the wealth and resources to rebuild their war-torn country. It didn't help that the war coincided w/ WWI and the US was very anti-democratic (both at home and abroad) and would rather have any kind of dictator than an egalitarian-led nation (in any country around the world).
I'm not saying that a vanguard revolution is necessarily desirable, I am just saying that it is more realistic than third-party electoral success. Voting third party might make you feel good, but it has precisely zero chance of changing anything, simply because under the U.S. electoral system, third parties cannot win.
Three fundamental reforms are needed to open this system up to third parties: 1) Public financing of elections; 2) A system of preferential or instant runoff voting; and 3) Proportional representation.
Until those reforms are implemented, third party electoral politics is pointless. Of course, while those reforms are necessary, they also happen to be impossible because the incumbents will never implement reforms that endanger their grip on power. Hence the need for revolution, or at least the credible threat of revolution.
Also need a free mainstream media not beholden to corporate profit-driven decisions.
Your statements of nothing changing until other components are in place is just not true.
With the election of Matt Gonzalez (GP) to the Board of Supervisors in SF (along w/ several other Greens) to pass IRV for the SF voters, got living wages (not minimum wage increases) implemented to many workers in SF, passed legislation preventing gentrification by businesses and has done a lot w/ green energy and recycling programs.
I don't think you are looking deep enough to see how third parties have challenged power and made a difference...indeed the Democratic Party and the Republican Party were both third parties at one point in our history.
people must be eduacated to their history to see how people have been uplifted and how various acts of struggle and justice work both in the election poll booth and outside the booths when you spend your money...that is the best way to exercise power as an individual and in private if one wishes.
You're absolutely right -- I should have qualified my remarks to saying that a national electoral strategy is unrealistic, not necessarily local elections. Kudos to the SF mayor for introducing IRV, that's exactly what we need.
"it has precisely zero chance of changing anything .."
I've been working, have been active in politics for over 30 years. I have worked for Democrats. We put our faith in Democrats over the years. When we do that, what is the outcome? They move to the right! Every time! Yet, people like you trot out your rationale that doing the same thing will surely get us different results. It's simply NOT TRUE.
Simple question: Why do you say things that are false? Democrats do not move to the left when the majority of their party urge them to do so.
I don't care anymore if Democrats win or lose. We will get the same agenda, either way. Might as well be building a new, viable party while we're at it.
"Simple question: Why do you say things that are false? Democrats do not move to the left when the majority of their party urge them to do so."
Simple question: Why do you put words in my mouth? Did I ever say that the Democrats move to the left when the majority of their party urge them to do so? No, I didn't.
I commend you for trying to build a viable third party. I just think a central component of that must be fundamental reform of the electoral system, which has to be done from within the system -- and it just so happens that the system is fundamentally corrupt, perhaps incapable of reform.
People need to vote their conscience rather than treating an election like it's a football game. If you want a sure winner, bet on the major parties and you'll "win" the same old BS you always get.
Ye of little faith. That is how the Democrats screw the majority of people who want to see change. It amazes me how every two and four years the voters who are losing their shirts and everything worth fighting for (jobs, clean water, green technology, education, health care for all....) CONTINUE to throw away their power because of the corrupt mantra "we have a 2 party system and that is the way it is". We get what we vote for....if you are not willing to stand together in solidarity and STRUGGLE like we, workers & the poor have always had to struggle to get things from the rich and powerful, then you are not going to get anything but regressive & punnishing living conditions!
I am living the green 10 Key Values of the Green Party and will NEVER vote Democrat again. If someone wants my vote then they have to remove themselves from a party that systematically acts like the Mafia (at least we KNOW what the Rep. are going to do...they say it and then do it...unlike the cowardly Dems).
I hope the masses will get on-board with the Green Party agenda....really it is just a beautiful vision of how good our lives and world could be.
freethinker68:
I agree with both of your posts and extend my compliments for living the 10 Key Values of the GP.
The author of this article failed, or doesn't know that Marina has a Green Party mayor as well.
All in all, most people still believe in the two-party system, "regardless" of how detrimental to common people the duopoly is, and in this country they are docile enough and uninformed for easy manipulation by the ruling elite. So called liberals and progressives are still making excuses for Obomber and his continuation with the Cheney/Bush agenda for fascism at home and imperial conquests abroad.
Your last sentence speaks for me!
Thanks Peaceman!!! Love your chosen name here!!
I think most of us are like alcoholics...we must be on our knees before we admit we are tired of being dragged down with a jackboot on our necks...that is how third-world revolutions begin and either succeed (like in the case of Cuba and Venezuela) or they fail...in the case of Russia (replacing one dictator w/ another and calling it communism), or Libia (with Kadaffi who by threat of mass destruction from the USA he had to re-implement draconian US friendly measures if he was to stay in power...a return to peasantry like before his rise to power).
Human beings usually have to suffer before they take action...it is a terrible fact of life and unnecessary but that is how lazy we are.
peace to the planet thru adoption of the 10 Key Values!!!
freethinker68: You're welcome!
I agree with this post too!
So much mainstream news in our country focuses on militarism and the omnipresent bogeyman, to keep the public fearful and looking for 'big brother' to protect them. For over a century, the bogeyman was "world communism," and anyone with a liberal/progressive outlook or agenda was labeled a 'commie," or "fifth columnist." Listening to a George Wallace speech in early 60's Alabama, "those outside agitators (northern whites helping blacks during the civil rights movement) are a bunch of communists."
To maintain power and an enormously expensive and unaffordable militaristic budget (defense is a misuse of the word), an enemy has to be created. All we can do now is threaten to blow up the planet...that's the "American Dream."
EFCA, Single Payer, public education.....as the late author Margaret Mitchell might have said..."gone with the wind," with the Democratic Party "hope and change" crowd. Same party in power. $$$...this one!
Really it is beautiful and I admire your idealism. I feel that tying your hopes to a political party is a bit of a waste though. Beauty won't come through the system, but we can create it in our neighborhoods. Bypass the system to create what you want and relocalize. radicalrelocalization.com
How someone can write an article dealing with the decrease in numbers of the Green Party recently and the mistakes and misrepresentations of the GW crew are not even mentioned is beyond me.
True head in the sand thinking and writing.
Laura Wells of Oakland, Deacon Alexander, Jane Rands
Anybody recognize these names?
- $35,000 budget for 2010-11 on a television ad campaign inviting voters to join the party. -
You want to attract young people, Greenies? Get Lady Gaga to do an ad. Find people who are young and hip and recognizable.
People need to be entertained, if you want their attention.
- the Greens couldn't even hold the attention of their own members -
voting your conscince is NEVER a wasted vote....
and voting for the lesser of 2 evils is STILL voting for evil.....
an increasing amount of evil every single time!
and Obama is the monster that ate the left!
A self fulling prophecy - "The No. 1 thing people say is, 'I agree with everything you stand for, but I'm not going to vote for you because you are not going to get elected.' "
The Tea Baggers will bring us: 1) Public financing of elections; 2) A system of preferential or instant runoff voting; and 3) Proportional representation.
And all will end well. Unless you follow the destruction of the environment to obtain the resources that we take for granted.
This is all too sadly true.
We had a good run, but stick a fork in it, we're done.
Statewide California meeting draws 80 people (out of 45million) and half go home before the Convention is over.
.66% register Green, Few non-white faces, 33 elected Greens in the entire state.
"Green delegates on Sunday denied that would-be supporters remain angry that consumer crusader Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate in 2000, may have cost Al Gore the 2000 presidential election"
They can deny it all they want, but it's true. But that's not the worst of it. Nader split the Green party on Racial and Gender lines. The article doesn't mention the drastic reduction in the number of women, but when the White Guys bailed on Cynthia McKinney's run to back Nader's independent (failed, ego driven) run, women, and people of color saw exactly how deep the Green Party's commitment to Race and Gender parity is.
And this: "The party is trying to capitalize on liberals disenchanted with President Barack Obama and the Democrats"
The Greens, since Nader, have been beating this dead horse and look how well it worked. Almost 50% less Greens now than then! Wunderbar!
I have worked for decades to build a Green Party first in Massachusetts in the 70s then in California and the past 10 years in Connecticut. It's a sad thing to see it go down this way, but this party is over.
CV
Do you really think its come to that? I thought the Green party was the best of the third parties. Where does that leave them, or was I wrong in my placement of the Greens?
They WERE the best of the Third Parties, and (aside from the Far Right flareups, like Ross Perot) by far the largest. And at their PEAK the Greens polled less than 5% in the General Election.
It was a noble effort, but wasted.
The alternative way forward is to colonize the Democrats the way the Wingnuts colonized the Republicans. It not only has much more momentum but it eliminates our largest competitor.
And it is a hell of a lot easier than what it took to build even the beginning of a skeleton of a national party, let alone a competitive one.
The largest hurdle American Greens face is that of any "third" party: the first-past-the-post election system in the USA. It is no surprise that the European nations where Greens are part of the political establishment are parliamentary systems where proportional representation is part of the formula.
Therefore, Greens are best advised to concentrate on local races (even dog catcher), and do the hard and tedious work from the ground up.
This is exactly right. Get in to local office and deliver. Learn how to actually govern, get over your naivte and build up a statewide presence. A couple of cycles of State Reps and Local Councils that apply Green principals and values that give the voters some confidence that 1) they aren't throwing their vote away, and 2) if you are elected that you can do the job (several of the Greens who's campaigns I worked on, while nice people with good values and intentions, I doubt could have survived the jobs had they won them).
We got a City Councilor and a member of the Board of Ed in New London this year afer a decade of working every election with as many as eight citywide candidates on the slate. Both of these people are solid, both in experience and in their values, they are competent people and they truly represent the people of New London. And they got elected by filling out the Republican Line on the ballot in a cross endorse, something the Purists howled at, but we actually have a tinge of Green in City Hall now.
Proposition 14 - Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act
Thoughts: Proposition 14 is another attempt to maintain the Republican/Democratic duopoly. Under the act, a primary would occur and only the top two candidates would advance to the general election. How convenient for the two parties that only the top two candidates advance!
- Why not make it three or more? Three would make it uncomfortable for the two parties because they may end up running candidates against themselves if an independent doesn't make the cut. Or even having one independent make the cut, from their point of view, legitimizes the independent.
- Under this act, it would be very difficult for the third parties to establish themselves and grow because the two parties with their political machines and corporate funding would nip any chance for a third party gain momentum and would be invisible in the general elections even if they did rather well in the primaries and lost.
- Another problem is that this would force independent parties to have to fund two campaigns to win, a primary campaign and then a general campaign, versus just the general campaign now. This turns the election further into a money raising even than it is now.
Already, the Rep/Dem duopoly has stacked the cards in their favor with difficult requirements to get on state ballots. This just tightens the screws.
A party need not win a seat to influence politics and elections.
In fact a party that captures just a small number of voters can be almost as powerful as the other two that both have say 48%.
We see this over and over in many countries, a small party blackmails a large party to accept some of its planks or the small party will throw it's decisive weight to the other large party.
The Greens need to relegate Nader to wise advisor and find someone younger and more dynamic.
More people who vote Green the more powerful it becomes if the leaders use their voting bloc for wise leverage.
Where are Green party articles on CD ( other than Nader who seems to represent Nader more than Greens)?
Just vote Green if only to protest a hopeless system.
"A party need not win a seat to influence politics and elections."
Agree. Unfortunately, MSM will never admit to this.
Medea Benjamin is published here as often as anyone. Pat LaMarche is published on CD all the time. In case you forgot, which I'll admit is easy in this case, she was your vice-presidential candidate in 2004, the year the Green Party fell off the cliff, all to do with itself, and nothing to do with Nader before or since, or a backlash after Florida 2000. There are other Greens published here, too, as well as people who advocate voting Green. Certainly at least as many, if not more, then is merited by their numbers in registration, poll results, or influence on major party policies or electoral outcomes.
There never was a backlash after 2000. Registration, election victories, and all other measures of party strength continued to grow in California and nationally through 2003 and the spring of 2004. There is actually a date certain after which Green local victories, enrollment, contributions, media exposure started a rapid, not gradual, decline. That was the 2004 convention. That was the day the outcome shown to the public (I won't dignify it by calling it a democratic vote by the Green membership or their delegates) was an official declaration of withdrawal from contesting Democrats, the infamous "safe states" endorsement. This was followed almost immediately after the election by top "safe states" Greens, like failed Presidential nominee David Cobb and Medea Benjamin and several others, took "safe states" to an inexplicable level of post-surrender collaboration by taking advisory positions and speaking engagements in the formation of the Progressive Democrats of America rather than re-engaging in the building of the Green Party (which they'd said would actually help the Greens grow -- go figure).
At the next convention, 2005 in Tulsa, the collaborationists on the Green National Committee overwhelmingly rejected proposed new policies to not endorse major party candidates, as well as the apportionment imbalances that had led to the 2004 convention failure. The refusal to clamp the artery and remove the source of the laceration took a massive toll. Over the next year the most dedicated and successful organizers started leaving the Green Party, including many from California. That's the real story behind the decline of the Green Party. It has little to do with systemic pressures mitigating against third party growth, or outside hostility due to Nader 2000. The only anti-Nader backlash was from within the Green Party, against itself. It's all amply documented, but reading through it is too much work for today's "journalists" so they just ask a the first two people they can find a question or two, make no verification efforts or fact-finding missions, and go straight to press.
The NDP party of Canada (Ex CCF) has never been elected to power Federally yet punched far above their weight seeing many of their policies adopted by the Liberal Party.
When the Liberals saw support bleed away to the NDP they feared this would see the Conservatives split the Vote and come to power. They then adopted all the NDPs most popular policies.
It's not true that "3rd parties" can not possibly succeed in the US. For example, the Republican Party was formed in 1854 and its standard bearer Abraham Lincoln became President a short time later in 1861.
There can also be a split of an existing party into two parties, both of which can be viable for some time after the split. This is technically how the Democratic Party formed about 1825.
Yes it is much more difficult for a viable (one that can win elections to the House and Senate) party to form in the US than elsewhere, but it is not impossible.
There has been no increase in gainful employment in the US for about 11 years, creating a job deficit relative to "normally functioning" advanced economies of about 25-30 million jobs.
Since both the current Republican Party and the current Democratic Party are too far to the right (and too much controlled by elites in huge corporations) to be able to support policies that will create jobs, "progressives" in the Democratic Party are doomed to be eventually exposed as totally irrelevant if there are few or no jobs indefinitely. To me and to many others here at Common Dreams, the "progressives" are already seen as irrelevant. Obama is worse than irrelevant. If the labor market collapse continues for a second decade or more, sooner or later the "progressives" in the Democratic Party will have two choices: form a new party or be defeated by fascists of various types.
Fascist voters don't like unemployment either if only because they don't want to support those who don't have a job. Fascists came to power in Germany due to economics in general and lack of enough gainful employment in particular.
If the progressives split from the Democrats when the job deficit reaches 50 million or whatever, the new party will obviously (a) promise jobs and (b) be instantly viable. If instead the progressives go down with their ship, a new party can and presumably will form from the ground up. Either way, if and when the point of total economic desperation arrives, the new party will instantly gain massive support from roughly 50 million or more people lacking jobs and another 100 million or many more who don't want to or simply can not support them anymore.
In other words, I doubt that even in the US it will ever get to the point that millions are starving in the streets and yet still there is no new party to address the economic wreckage that the Democratic and the Republican parties have caused.
Precisely because it is so difficult for a new party to be viable in the US you have no choice but to base it on economics rather than on a less popular concern such as the environment. It is no surprise that the Green Party concept works to some extent in parliamentary Germany but not in the more crude US system.
Yes, I know the environment is ultimately more important than the economy, please don't waste your time typing that.
Technically I am just speculating and the country’s economy could be destroyed beyond repair (creating the need for very extensive international intervention) but all of those possibilities are beyond the scope of this comment.
tremaine 1:50 --- good Post ;;;;
There have been other powerful populist third parties around the late eighteen hundreds.
I have read that the Communists in the USA had 10 million voters in early thirties.
And powerful third parties do most often arise from economic anguish.
300,000 foreclosed on each month.
The question is will the left or will the right capture most of the power of the rebelling newly poor.
If a third party cannot win, why do the big two get so nervous every time one pops up? Why did Gore pick Lieberman, a conservative clone of himself, as a VP candidate instead of a moderate or liberal, which would have assured him of victory? (A: because Lieberman and Nader are both from Connecticut where Nader was polling at 15%.)
Why is it when we were about to elect a Green Mayor in San Francisco the Democrats pulled out all the stops? For example, in the two weekends leading up to the election Al Gore and Bill Clinton came to town stumping for the sleezy Democrat and making Orwellian speeches about how San Francisco deserves a "progressive" mayor. You just don't hear about these guys getting involved in mayoral races too often, and they could have at least tried to help somebody running against a Republican of whom there were (are) many.
I agree the CA Green party is about as dysfunctional as you can get. I argued for many years that we should concentrate on voter registration, but the folks in power just wanted to keep having meetings where they could spout off. While I would prefer an alternative to the dormant GP at the moment, they are a world-wide party and are not going anywhere.
Running for dog catcher will not change the national discussion that much but it must be done. (I got myself appointed to the mental health board.) However, as soon as some well known person with scruples, balls, and a little money runs, the dialog will change dramatically.
removed by me, kyb.
This Green party is as bourgeois as Katrina vanden Heuvel. The Green party is full of white trust fund babies.
I found your remark about as shallow as the article itself.
"The No. 1 thing people say is, 'I agree with everything you stand for, but I'm not going to vote for you because you are not going to get elected.' "
This is certainly what I hear from self-described progressives in the US. Oh well, maybe in time, you will learn to like corruption, endless war and watching each other die from preventable diseases.
Us? what do we do? we vote for politicians that support resposible government, peace and universal healthcare. You should try it some time. (maybe you could study us in university, if you can afford university, it isn't cheap in the US, is it?)
This article is rather snarky. The cure for snarkiness is to ask good questions. Why can't the Greens grow their numbers? The author could have asked that basic question, and more, resulting in a different kind of article.
There really are obvious answers as to why the Green's numbers haven't grown, and they have a lot to do with the electoral system itself and how it is controlled.
At the most basic level, third parties have difficulty qualifying to get on the ballot. They are excluded from the debates by the two parties. They lack corporate dollars in a system where money is speech. The winner-take-all system excludes minority parties from governing and being seen to govern, perpetuating the idea that they can't win.
Of course, our corporate-owned press also decides matters. They write articles like this one justifying their lack of coverage by the idea that third parties can't win. Corporate-owned media receive large piles of cash by running campaign ads for the two parties, but receive little (if anything) from third parties.
The author pooh-poohs this whole notion when she writes:
"They [the Green Party] echoed the perennial lament of small parties: It's difficult to get political traction because of media neglect and scarce resources."
Well, it's true. The corporate-owned media (sorry, "free press") somehow fail to cover the issues and candidates of third parties in every campaign. It's just a fact. Campaign coverage is always a two-horse race in the dailies, even with other animals on the track. On the other hand, the mainstream press is also becoming irrelevant. People have stopped reading newspapers in the United States as they tend to present elite opinions.
Does all of this mean that the Greens can never win? No. The largest voting block are the voters who don't vote each election. If they voted Green or third party, they could shake up the power elite.
Those who vote Dem Party (and maybe hold their noses) probably just have long-term memory problems. They don't remember the betrayals, the crimes. But even though they don't get it, poverty will one day bite them in the ass. Perhaps they won't see that the Dems are selling them down the river even then. But, on the other hand, maybe they'll go third party. No one knows for sure. It's why the duopoly collaborates to exclude third parties.
People should not vote expecting to win. This country is an oligarchy, after all. People should vote to disrupt the system, which is locked down. You're in prison, even though you don't see the walls. Cooperating with the wardens won't get you out. At this point, it won't even improve conditions in the cell. People need to get that.
-TIA
Those who vote Dem Party (and maybe hold their noses) DO NOT have long-term memory problems---just the opposite. Loyal Dems think the Democratic Party have the interests of the working people as that party did in the time of the last great depression. No sign of any new deal now---under the current Dems we get fascism and spend our tax funds on gifts to corporations and war, war, war---all over the planet for the profit of the corporations. Our Gestapo is named Homeland Security.