Green Party’s Open Letter to NOW
This came in my email last week, better late than never, I guess:
OPEN LETTER TO NOW, THE NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN
National Women’s Caucus of the Green Party of the United States
http://greens.org/gp-uswomen/Sunday, September 28, 2008
Dear National Organization for Women leadership and members:
The National Women’s Caucus of the Green Party of the United States is dismayed that your recent endorsement of Senator Barack Obama for President of the United States did not acknowledge the first all-female ticket in recent U.S. history. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente are running for President and Vice President, respectively, on the Green Party ballot line.
Cynthia McKinney served six terms in the U.S. Congress and two terms in the Georgia General Assembly. She is a global human rights and peace activist with a substantial voting record supporting women. Rosa Clemente is a community organizer and journalist who was one of the founders and primary organizers of the first national Hip Hop political convention. Their “Power
to the People” campaign goal is to ensure that public policy reflects the Green Party values of ecological wisdom, social justice, grassroots democracy, and nonviolence.Cynthia McKinney has been a steadfast supporter of full reproductive rights for women throughout her legislative career, including opposition to “abstinence only” sex education, funding for contraception and UN family planning. Rosa Clemente has been an outspoken advocate on issues affecting people of color, particularly women, and has directed her campaign toward the 48% of young people who don’t vote, to encourage participation in the electoral process.
Additional positions of the McKinney/Clemente campaign that will benefit women include:
- Equal Rights
- End to forced sterilization and coerced or uninformed consent
procedures,- Immediate end to the War in Iraq and reinvestment of the money into our communities
- Single-payer, universal “Medicare for All”
- Election integrity where every vote is counted
- Right to same-sex marriage
- Free higher education
- End to the drug war
- Right of return of survivors of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita
- Withdrawal from corporate trade agreements such as NAFTA that are devastating economies worldwide
- Promotion of renewable energy (no coal or nuclear) to create hundreds of thousands of new manufacturing, construction and service jobs
Neither Obama nor his Republican opponent John McCain support these positions.
…
I can’t believe they just wanted acknowledgement. They should be asking why the hell NOW, the National Organization for Women, isn’t endorsing them.
It ticks me off that no one in the mass media even mentions the Green Party or McKinney/Clemente being the first all-female ticket ever. Not even the women on The View.
How wrong is that? Not even the women will acknowledge the women running for President and Vice-President of the United States of America. Maybe women don’t deserve to be there if this is how we treat each other. And don’t hand me that, “but they can’t possibly win” excuse. Maybe if we talked about them, and oh, I don’t know, supported them, they might actually have that chance.
The rest of the open letter to NOW:
The National Organization for Women PAC repeatedly praised
Congresswoman McKinney during her six terms in U.S. Congress; and her record, on every relevant issue, surpasses those of the male endorsees. But now, these two women of color — powerful and power-challenging, real choices, and nominated by a political party that proudly boasts Feminism & Gender Equity
among our Ten Key Values — don’t even receive cknowledgment.The National Organization for Women, at all levels, has long struggled over diverging feminist paths — choosing either to press for change within the existing power structure, and its institutions, or to step outside of the expected and challenge the institutions themselves. In the view of the National Women’s Caucus of the Green Party of the United States, NOW has
best served women when NOW has recognized, in the words of Audre Lord, that “when you look back on the road you’ve come, and see pain, and look forward to the road you’re on, and see pain, then, step off the road, and make a new path.”We recall when NOW distributed buttons proclaiming that “Women were not born Democrats, Republicans, or YESTERDAY.” We recall when the heroines of our heritage were Belva Lockwood, Alice Paul and Sonia Johnson, each willing to
form her own political party, or run for president independently, or both.
They were willing because that path provided fewer barriers to telling the plain truth, the truth that needed to be heard, than did service to the establishment parties. We even recall when NOW announced the formation of its own, alternative, political party, the “Party for the 21st Century,” with Dolores Huerta at its head. We rejoiced when NOW sought to make a new path, because the old political road was simply too filled with the pain of condescension and compromise, deferment and settling for what was offered.Even when NOW, through its political action committee, decided in the last two decades to bestow its endorsement on candidates from the over-represented political parties, it was to reward them for actually moving closer to the day when a woman might be president, with a Geraldine Ferraro and a Hillary Clinton sitting in the candidate car, and not just trudging behind it, pushing. But this past week, that endorsement reward was offered without even that, out of the same “fear of the alternative” that has driven women to set our own hopes, dreams and destinations aside,
time and again, to let the men drive the car.Belva, Alice and Sonia did not become president of the United States, but, with the support of the feminists of their time, speaking truth, each re-formed the vision that America had about women. While men can be feminists too, their institutions can only be deemed feminist if they produce equality. The dearth of elected women, at every level, is its own condemnation of the party structures that are the paved road of American democracy. It disappoints us greatly, that earlier this month, NOW has not
made a new path. By failing to commend, or even comment on, the presidential candidacy of Cynthia McKinney and her Green Party running mate, Rosa Clemente, NOW is driving on the wrong side of history.We invite the National Organization for Women, and feminists everywhere, to support the Green Party and the McKinney/Clemente campaign. Come walk the walk with us, and make a new path.
Sincerely,
National Women’s Caucus, Green Party of the United States
Nan Garrett, Co-Chair
Ginny Marie Case, Co-ChairNational Women’s Caucus Member Claudia Ellquist, National NOW Board member, 1990-94, participated in the drafting of this letter
National Women’s Caucus
Green Party of the United States
1711 18th Street NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-319-7191
202-319-7192MORE INFORMATION
Abortion and contraception: McKinney is a firm supporter of abortion rights, appearing on EMILY’s List of pro-choice women. She has also supported federal funding for contraception and U.N. family planning programs.
http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Election2008/CynthiaMcKinney/#MajorElectionIssuesQuite a long statement on Women, Families and Children at
http://archives.allthingscynthiamckinney.com/mckinney.house.gov/women.htm* Voted YES on reducing Marriage Tax by $399B over 10 years. (Mar 2001)
* Supported funding child care, child health, & child housing. (Jul
1999)
http://www.issues2000.org/Cynthia_McKinney.htmMcKinney immediately challenged Georgia House rules requiring women to wear dresses by wearing slacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_McKinneyGreen Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191, 866-41GREEN
Fax 202-319-7193
October 27th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
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