| WASHINGTON
- August 24 - Green Party organizers and
activists call the policies of the Bush Administration
irresponsible and reckless, and warn of severe damage
to the world environment, to the U.S. economy, and to
the role of the U.S. in international relations. But
Greens say that the lack of a strong, unified response
from Democrats in Congress on many of these policies
-- and Democratic collusion in their introduction and
passage -- shows the urgent need for a progressive
third party.
"When Clinton adopted the Republican Party's rhetoric
about 'big government,' it gave Republicans an excuse
to call for even more deregulation and privatization,"
said Jo Chamberlain, member of the steering committee
of the Green Party of the United States and a
California Green. "These extremes come out of the
Bush White House on a daily basis, schemes like the
privatization of Social Security and the halt on
federal prosecutions for violations of the Clean Air
Act."
"Both Democratic and Republican Parties have been
using the rhetorical threat of 'big government' as an
excuse to raid essential public services and
resources. At the same time, they're beefing up the
power and wealth of corporations, through deregulation
and privatization, through tax breaks and bail-outs,
through military ventures and foreign policy designed
to benefit corporate interests. We call that
corporate welfare -- big government for the benefit of
the wealthy."
The California blackouts have angered many Americans
over energy deregulation. The stock market's
instability has made working Americans uneasy about
the dangerous plan to privatize Social Security. They
realize that if the economy plummets, the least secure
place to stow one's retirement money is Wall Street.
"Greens oppose 'big government' too," added Ben
Manski, another member of the Green Party Steering
Committee and a Green from Wisconsin. "We oppose the
big government that invades our privacy, seeks to roll
back abortion rights, maintains the War on Drugs,
dumps our tax money into dangerous military ventures
and contracts, and gives corporations the means to
trample our rights and well-being."
The common policy of the Clinton and Bush
Administrations in support of secretive international
negotiations at the G8 Summit in July, supporting the
exploitative manipulation of the global economy by the
World Bank and IMF and unelected "free trade"
authorities (WTO, NAFTA, FTAA, etc.), draws special
criticism from Greens. Party members have
participated in protests against all of these and have
condemned the police provocation and abuse against
peaceful demonstrators in Genoa, the site of the G8
meeting, and Quebec, at the FTAA meeting. Thousands
of Greens will join the protests against the IMF and
World Bank in Washington, D.C. in late September.
"Bush has been reckless as the leader of the only
global superpower," said Ben Manski. "Bush refuses to
sign agreements establishing the international ban on
biological warfare which updates the 1972 Biological
Weapons Convention, a United Nations proposal to curb
the international sale of small arms, an international
court to investigate and prosecute genocide and war
crimes, and the Kyoto Treaty committing the U.S. to a
first step in slowing global warming. With the same
irresponsibility, Bush is enacting national missile
defense, a pipedream of Ronald Reagan, revived by Bill
Clinton, which will gut the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty."
The public has now learned -- through the admissions
of high level defense officials -- that the July 14,
2001 test of an anti-missile weapon was rigged, with
an electronic beacon in its target that signaled the
target's location.
The White House also intends to withdraw the U.S. from
the U.N. Conference Against Racism planned for Durban,
South Africa on August 31, a move that's especially
unconscionable in light of a report from the U.N.
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination
criticizing racially biased practices in the U.S.,
including the application of the death penalty,
incarceration rates, and police brutality.
"How much can Americans trust the Democrats to put up
a fight against Bush's destructive and regressive
White House policies?," asked Jo Chamberlain. "36
Democratic members of the House joined with
Republicans to allow Bush to open Alaska's Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Democrats
in Congress blocked Bush's proposed $1.6 billion tax
break that benefits the rich and which will cut the
safety net for the poor -- by okaying a $1.35 billion
tax break, which is already erasing the budget surplus
and threatening to dip into Social Security funds.
Sen. Hillary Clinton, the darling of liberals, voted
for a bankruptcy bill that enriches credit card
companies and hurts Americans in a financial crisis
because of job loss or medical bills. Sen. Russ
Feingold, who's considering a White House run in 2004
as a progressive, helped Bush install John Ashcroft
and Gail Norton."
"The Green Party is now the party of the newly
emerging center, said Carol Miller, New Mexico Green
Party member. "We're the party that supports neither
the military-industrial corporate welfare big
government that the two major parties now favor, nor a
return to the old social welfare big government of New
Deal Democrats. Instead, we demand government that's
locally based and which advances environmentally
healthy sustainable economies, democratic workplaces,
human rights, and a strong social safety net."
MORE INFORMATION
Green Party of the United States http://gpus.org
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