A Speak Out For Peace rally will take place this afternoon, starting at 4:00, on the corner outside the Tompkins County Public Library. The event is taking place in reaction to the news that President Obama will announce a significant escalation of the war in Afghanistan tonight.
People are urged to bring signs, banners, and ideas to express. For further information, email leahlovely@gmail.com
The Tompkins County Green Party will be meeting tonight from 6:15 to 8:15 PM in the Tompkins County Public Library. The location has been changed from the west side of the Borg Warner room to the east side. On the agenda tonight will be:
Updates
Outreach
Antiwar activism
GLBT activism
Health Care
Natural Gas Drilling
Tompkins County Green Party Platform
Other items can be added to the article by members in attendance. The meeting is open to all registered members of the Tompkins County Green Party, as well as others who are interested in joining the party.
The next monthly meeting of the Tompkins County Green Party will be 6:15 to 8:15 PM, Thursday September 3rd, in the west side of the Borg Warner Room in the Tompkins County Public Library on Green Street in Ithaca, New York.
All those residents of Tompkins County who are registered to vote as members of the Green Party are encouraged to attend. Residents who are interested in becoming members of the Green Party are also welcome.
Some people, upon hearing about Allen Carstensen’s Green Party candidacy for Supervisor of the Town of Ulysses, might wonder what the benefit of adding a third party to the contest could be. The first thing they need to understand is that Carstensen’s campaign doesn’t add a third party to the election. It adds a second party.
It has been 16 years since voters in the Town of Ulysses have had the ability to choose their own Supervisor. In 1993, the year after Bill Clinton was elected President for the first time, Republican Doug Austic won against a Democrat in an election for Supervisor. Since that time, Austic has not been challenged.
It isn’t only that Democrats have failed to offer their own candidates for Supervisor. Worse than that, the Ulysses Democratic Committee endorsed Austic for Supervisor. Austic became the selection of the Republicans and a small group of insider Democrats. Without a ballot being cast in a voting booth, Austic was practically appointed to office. Citizens going to vote in the general election had the option of choosing either Doug Austic or Doug Austic.
This year, that tidy little arrangement between the Ulysses Republicans and Democrats looked as if it might come to an end, as Doug Austic made it plain that he didn’t intend to run for re-election. Sadly, high expectations for a restoration to democracy for the selection of the Ulysses Town Supervisor as it became clear that the Ulysses Democrats and Republicans had merely chosen a new person for appointment.
Chris Thomas, having served a term on the Trumansburg Board of Trustees, became the insider favorite for the upcoming Democratic caucus. The Ulysses Republicans didn’t offer any candidate of their own, and many Ulysses Republican Party insiders indicated that their group intended to endorse Chris Thomas as well. Once again, it seemed that the voters in the Town of Ulysses would not have a choice. An entire generation would pass without a democratic election for Supervisor.
Luckily, Trumansburg resident Allen Carstensen stepped forward, and earned the endorsement of the Tompkins County Green Party in the election for Ulysses Town Supervisor. Thanks to the cooperation of Carstensen and the Green Party, Ulysses residents will have the ability to choose their own Supervisor for the first time this century.
Jennifer Dotson, Alderperson representing the First Ward on the Ithaca Common Council, has questioned the value of the Car Allowance Rebate System, more commonly known as the “Cash for Clunkers” deal. Dotson, who works as Executive Director of Ithaca Carshare, wrote an article this week asking, What Should Clunkers Turn Into?
The problem, Dotson suggests, is that the Car Allowance Rebate System merely encourages people to change one car for another, at an historic moment when American communities could benefit from a more fundamental shift, from cars to other, more efficient, modes of transportation. The CARS deal moves participants to slightly more fuel efficient vehicles, but the fuel efficiency requirements for the program are significantly lower than had been proposed as an environmentally-meaningful standard.
The result is that carbon emissions will stay the same for most CARS participants, and some may actually increase their carbon footprint. That’s because it requires the use of a great deal of energy, resulting in carbon emissions, to create a new car, regardless of whether the car is fuel efficient. Dotson explains, “when you look at the embodied energy in your car (the energy that was used to make the item itself), the impact of better mileage pales… Repackaging an industry subsidy as an environmental program is not the kind of government transparency we need.”
Jennifer Dotson is a registered member of the Green Party, and is currently running for re-election to the Ithaca Common Council.
Just a couple of hours to the west of Tompkins County, New York Green Fest will be held this coming weekend on the campus of Alfred University. Events start on Friday and go through Sunday. Issues to be addressed at the event will be artistic, practical, cultural and political in scope. Topics of particular workshops and discussions include:
- Anti-nuclear campaigning
- Landscaping for food
- Progressive media
- Feltmaking
- Political theory
- Living off the grid
- Marcellus Shale and natural development
- Global warming
- Poetry
- Ballot access
- History of third parties
- Localism
- Sustainability
Green Party activists from across New York State and the entire Northeast United States will be traveling long distances to get Green Fest. Given our proximity to Alfred, a good number of Tompkins County Greens will be attending, and some will be involved in keeping the Green Fest working behind the scenes. A van will be leaving early Saturday and Sunday morning from the parking lot of the Greenstar Food Co-Op on route 13 in Ithaca, and there is space for a couple of people to ride along. Email oakgall [at] gmail.com soon if you would like a seat in this carpool to Green Fest 2009.
After a brief hiatus, the Tompkins County Green Party is back on the web. You may remember us from TCGreens.org. We’re the same organization, just at a new domain.
In our discussions of a new web site, we decided we wanted a domain that would reflect the active political nature of our group. We believe in living green, but we also believe in voting Green, an approach that involves a great deal more than just environmental sensitivity.
The identity of the Green Party of the United States is represented in its 10 Key Values:
1. Grassroots Democracy
2. Social Justice and Equal Opportunity
3. Ecological Wisdom
4. Non-Violence
5. Decentralization
6. Community-Based Economic Justice
7. Feminism and Gender Equity
8. Respect for Diversity
9. Personal and Global Responsibility
10. Future Focus
In accord with the value of decentralization, these 10 key values are not centrally determined. State and local Green Party organizations are able and encouraged to adapt them according to community identity.
Is there some aspect of these 10 key values that could be adjusted to apply to Tompkins County more appropriately?
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