Maine Green Independent Party

Maine Green Independent Party Statement in Support of Ceasefire in Gaza

2025-01-29T19:29:00.000-08:00

Maine Green Independent Party Statement in Support of Ceasefire in Gaza

January 17, 2025

We, the Maine Green Independent Party, are steadfast in our solidarity with the Palestinian people and remain vigilant, counting the hours until the anticipated ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas goes into place this Sunday, the 19th of January.

In addition to an end to genocide, we continue to demand an end to ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and occupation. For without it, there can be no justice, nor lasting peace. Inherent in these demands is the recognition of Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

Further, Israel must provide restorative justice to the Palestinian people, whose neighborhoods, homes, hospitals, educational and religious institutions have been obliterated, whose olive groves have been razed and whose lands have been desecrated by the environmental fallout from the equivalent of 6 Hiroshima bombs that have been levied against Gaza over the past 15 months.

We view the 6-week temporary ceasefire, slated to be instituted on the last day of the current US Administration, as a shameful attempt to rewrite history; but we will not forget who is responsible. We urge the world to bring the war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu and his cohorts before the International Court of Justice to be tried for Crimes against Humanity.

We recognize that Israel’s crimes were aided and abetted by the Biden Administration, in providing Billions in weapons of war which are still being used by Israel to annihilate men, women, and children abroad, while further impoverishing the American people at home, who struggle to get their most basic needs met.

We also want to take this moment to recognize the complexity of emotions that are being experienced by the people of Gaza, who remain under siege, with 80 martyred these last 24 hours alone. We grieve with the Palestinian people for so much incomprehensible loss, and will continue in the struggle for liberation.

We will not stop. We will not rest. Free Palestine.

https://mainegreens.org/issues/255-maine-green-independent-party-statement-in-support-of-ceasefire-in-gaza

With sadness, we mark the passing of our founder John Rensenbrink

2022-08-04T06:28:00.006-07:00

August 4, 2022

MAINE--It is with great sadness that the Maine Green Independent Party marks the passing of John Rensenbrink, of Topsham, who died at the age of 93 on Saturday, July 30th. Rensenbrink co-founded both the Maine Green Independent Party and the Green Party of the United States

"John was our Northern Star," said Green Independent Party Co-Chair Fred McCann. "Not only did he revolutionize third-party politics in the United States, he also showed us how to recontextualize our views of ourselves outside conventional structures of politics and economics."

Rensenbrink was born in 1928 in rural Minnesota to his parents Effie and John. After the death of his father in 1943, John, aged 15, managed his family’s farm with the help of his brother. A few years later, he left home to attend Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history and political science. An insatiable scholar, he subsequently attained a master’s degree in political science from the University of Michigan and a doctorate from the University of Chicago.

Rensenbrink moved to Maine in 1961 where he taught philosophy and history at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. In 1983, he spent six months in Poland with his wife Carla and three daughters Kathryn, Margaret and Elizabeth, where he worked as a research professor at the Marie Sklodowska University in Lublin.

While in Europe, Rensenbrink heard that a new political party, the Green Party, had won seats in the German Parliament. After his friend Alan Philbrook attended Canada’s first-ever Green Party meeting later in the year, the two held a meeting on January 8th, 1984 to form a Maine Green Party – the first Green state-level political party in the United States.

Rensenbrink served as the campaign manager for the gubernatorial campaigns of Jonathan Carter in 1994 and Pat LaMarche in 1998. After Carter's 1994 campaign, the Maine Green Party became a qualified political party with access to Maine's ballot. At a state convention, Rensenbrink was elected as the party's first co-chair, alongside Nancy Allen of Brooksville.

"He was a giant of Green Party commitment," said Allen.

In 1996, Rensenbrink ran for U.S. Senate, garnering four percent of the vote against Susan Collins. His campaign slogans, "Don't Eat the Seed Corn" and "Proceed on Green Only" (depicting a traffic light) conveyed a progressive urgency for sustainability.

Tom Fusco, who replaced Rensenbrink as party co-chair in 1996, after Rensenbrink stepped down to run for Senate, said Rensenbrink believed in empowering people over corporations.

"John was one of those rare people who saw the big picture," said Fusco. "He saw politics as a means to making things better not as the cause of the end. He knew that real power does not lie with politicians or corporations, it belongs to the people."

Pat LaMarche, who ran for governor in 1998 and 2006 and vice president in 2006, in a tribute she posted on Facebook, said she first met Rensenbrink when she was a radio journalist who interviewed him during his 1996 Senate run.

"I barely looked up when he walked into our studio - until he spoke," LaMarche posted. "I could not believe my ears. He soft-spokenly explained that America was entitled to a justice based government of our own making - with representation at the highest levels that respected civil rights, economic justice and ecological wisdom... Rensenbrink cared about people and he believed in their ability to self-govern without corporate influence."

In 1996, the Maine Green Party lost qualified party status after Ralph Nader failed to acquire at least 5 percent of the vote for president. After LaMarche's 1998 gubernatorial candidacy, the party regained qualified status, but this time as the Maine Green Independent Party, due to changes in state law in how parties are named when formed by a candidate that acquires the requisite votes.

The Green Independent Party celebrates its 25th consecutive year as a qualified party in Maine next year.

Sam Pfeifle, an elected Green who is chair of the Gray-New Gloucester School Board, said he was inspired to join the Green Party after Rensenbrink's senatorial run and Nader's presidential campaign that same year.

"You read about people with a twinkle in their eye, but John was maybe the only one where I’ve seen it in person," said Pfeifle.

While Rensenbrink was an internationally recognized political activist, Rensenbrink often espoused the importance of involvement with local politics: "All politics is local politics."

Resnsenbrink's commitment to engaging in political activism at all levels, is a factor that later inspired Pfeifle to run for office himself.

"Just look at what he’d been able to do in conserving land and reforming government in his little town," Pfeifle said. "If this guy could have this much enthusiasm and joy after nearly 90 years on this earth and a lifetime of butting his head against corporate behemoths, surely I could muster up some hope and at least see what I could do on the local school board."

Rensenbrink's commitment to environmentalism and local politics was not confined to Green Party electoral activism.

The Cathance River Education Alliance, a not-for-profit group co-founded by Rensenbrink in 2000, posted a tribute to him on their Facebook page.

"John was a visionary and played an essential role in CREA’s creation and evolution," the group posted. "All that CREA does today is part of his legacy. His vision of using the Preserve to nurture appreciation for the natural world is realized in the shrieks of delight of our summer campers immersed in outdoor discovery, the 'Wows!' and 'Look at this!' of schoolchildren learning at the Preserve, the local elementary students experiencing robust science curricula, the engagement of people introduced to startling natural wonders on guided walks, and so much more."

In 2005, Rensenbrink wrote of the alliance, “We didn’t quite know exactly how to translate the idea into reality, but we did know that we wanted to make maximum use of the 230 acres along the wildest portion of the Cathance River in Topsham for environmental education purposes. Also, to help nurture an appreciation for and knowledge of this pristine area now known as the Cathance River Nature Preserve.”

In 2019, the year Rensenbrink turned 90, the alliance named a walking path at their center Rensenbrink Way in his honor.

Betsy Garrold, of Knox, who is running to be the state representative in House District 38, first met Rensenbrink in 2002, during her first run for the Legislature.

“He came to my house and sat at my kitchen table eating blueberry muffins with me and Jonathan Carter and some others," said Garrold. "He became one of my most cherished political mentors, gave me an autographed copy of 'Against All Odds,' made me laugh, made me cry, praised my ethics and pointed out my mistakes.”

In a blog post on Blogger, Maine Green activist Sam Smith, of Freeport, said Rensenbrink is the reason why Maine's party is arguably the most successful state Green Party in the nation.

"A few days before his passing, I happened to be examining in which states the Green Party had been most successful and found to my amazement that Maine had 32% of all the elected Green officials in the country, including a constable in one town and a sewer board member in mine," wrote Smith. "Thanks in no small part to the inclusive politics of Rensenbrink, Maine was the first state with a Green Party, not to mention giving me one of my favorite role models."

Jon Olsen, of Jefferson, who chaired the party in 2018, said Rensenbrink "lived an exemplary life of service, honor, wisdom and compassion--all of which are sorely needed in these times in which we live. To use an ecological analogy, while the rest of us are pines, oaks, maples and birches, he was our sequoia."

The Maine Green Independent Party posted on Monday, "Those who know John know how beautiful his soul is. His will and determination guided our party from creation to present, and we are forever honored to have been so closely connected with the history John made."

Rensenbrink was inducted into the Maine Green Independent Party Hall of Fame in 2019 and served as the party's senior advisor at the time of his passing, a role he had for nearly two decades.

"The Green Independent Party, on behalf of its members, extends eternal gratitude to Rensenbrink for a lifetime of service in connecting people with nature, and connecting politics with both people and nature," said Lyn Maravell, co-chair of the party. "Our heartfelt sympathies and admiration go out to the family of this incredible man."

Rensenbrink authored four books on Green politics and was a frequent contributor to numerous periodicals, including Green Horizon Magazine, which he co-founded and edited.

In a 2015 issue of Green Horizon Magazine, Rensenbrink wrote, "Life is open, thought is open. In that awareness and with willing and purposeful intent, we can and do change the world."

https://mainegreens.org/news/press-releases/221-greens-mark-founder-john-rensenbrink-s-passing

John Rensenbrink, 1928-2022

2019 MGIP Annual Convention

2019-03-12T13:42:00.003-07:00

2019 Green Independent Party Convention!

2019 Green Independent Party Convention!
Sunday May 19 th 9AM – 4PM
At Viles Arboretum
153 Hospital St,
Augusta Maine
MGIP's Spring Unity Gathering presents an amazing group of speakers about a wide variety of important Maine topics! (see program below) Including presidential candidates!
Registration 8:30 A.M - 9:20 A.M.
$20 suggested registration fee. We do not accept corporate funds and rely on the good people of Maine to help fund the cost of green change. Thank You!
Donate anytime at - https://mainegreens.org/donate
Everyone is Invited! Families can walk/bike the grounds of the beautiful Arboretum!
Unenrolled and youths under the age of 18 are welcome to witness/participate in this amazing event. Registered Green Independent's are envited to participate in the state votes and committee seats are now open!
We look forward to you joining our email committee groups and implementing your ideas.
Potluck lunch!
Please bring a dish! For potluck questions or for more information please call Jacqui at 207- 284 - 3358.
Silent Auction!
We have 2 beautiful green-themed paintings from The Studio. Earth art from Maine Minerals and more to help fundraise for MGIP.

SCHEDULE
8:30 - 9:20 Registration
9:25 Blessing - Dawn Neptune Adams
9:30 Welcome greeting - Co-Chair Niomi Larrivee
9:35 Convention Rules - Secretary Ben Meiklejohn
9:40 Elect convention secretary, elect convention chair
9:45 State of the Party Co-Chair - Jon Olsen
9:55 Bylaws Amendments
10:20 Hemp Farm Bill/CMP - Gil Harris
10:30 Elect party co-chair
10:40 Greetings from Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts - Darlene Elias
10:55 Elect party secretary
11:05 Canadian Greens from Parti vert du Québec.
11:20 Elect at-large state committee members. sub committee/reports
11:30 Green of the Year Awards
11:40 John Rensenbrink
11:45 Group photo shoot
12:00. Lunch
1:00 Decide eligibility to vote in 2020 MGIP primary
1:15 Fish Farming in Penobscot Bay & its Environmental Impact - Ron Huber
1:25 Elect GPUS delegates to national and international committees
1:35 Food Sovereignty & Local Control of the Food System - Betsy Garrold
1:45 Approve party budget - Treasurer Allen Cooke
1:55 5G Network- Jolie Diane
Legislative initiative to prohibit pollution emissions. History of weather modification
2:05 Approve party goals (see info packets)
2:30 Employment - Tessa Byrnes
2:40 Jill Stein, 2012 and 2016 GPUS nominee for U.S. president with Q&A
3:00 Water Justice - Nickie Sekera
3:10 Presidential candidates - (5 min per candidate) Candidates are still confirming and may be subject to change. To be updated.
3:45 Open discussion
4:00 Closing remarks and Silent Auction winners.
The purpose of the Maine Green Independent Party is to transform public policy through the implementation of our 10 Key Values and be publicly visible as the party that stands for the common good.
Ten Key Values -
ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE
NONVIOLENCE
DECENTRALIZATION
COMMUNITY BASED ECONOMICS
GENDER EQUALITY
RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
SUSTAINABILITY

Cordially,
Niomi Larrivee
Chairperson of the Maine Green Independent Party

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RSVP at our Facebook Event! https://www.facebook.com/events/2219726968292802/

To register online, please visit our website:

https://mainegreens.org/convention

Maine Greens call for people’s veto of bill effectively killing RCV

2017-10-25T05:06:00.000-07:00

Maine Greens call for people’s veto of bill effectively killing RCV

Maine Green Independent Party co-chairs Riva O’Rourke and Jon Olsen today condemned the Maine State Legislature's actions in special session yesterday in passing passed LD 1646, “An Act To Implement Ranked Choice Voting in 2021.” This bill, supported by members of both the Democratic and Republican parties, “sabotages the citizen referendum on ranked choice voting,” said Olsen and O'Rourke. “This vote severely damages our first-in-the nation statewide effort to initiate RCV, and may have dealt it a fatal blow.”

While the bill in name implements RCV in 2021, in truth it does nothing of the sort, as many dissenting but ultimately unsuccessful legislators noted. Rather, it places obligations on future legislatures. Unless, by Dec. 1, 2021, the constitution is amended, RCV is completely repealed. The MGIP believes this is unacceptable.

"This sort of disregard for the people's will is a big part of my decision to run for governor," said Betsy Marsano, who announced her candidacy earlier this month. "For too long has our leadership in Augusta ignored everyday Mainers who expressed their will at the ballot box, only to see their interests go unaddressed by the legislature and the Blaine House."

The MGIP understands the concern over a recent advisory opinion from the justices of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court. However, some races, such as those for federal offices, are completely unaffected by the Maine Constitution. RCV as passed by the voters could have been implemented for those races and allowed to proceed as mandated in the referendum vote without any fear of constitutional conflict.

The MGIP believes that by yet again ignoring the will of the voters—as expressed with the second-largest majority on record for a referendum vote, no less—legislative majority has overstepped its role. "The Maine people have spoken," said Olsen and O'Rourke. "We should be working to get as close to immediate implementation of RCV as possible.”

“We intend to oppose vigorously those legislators who voted to sabotage the referendum vote,” said Olsen and O’Rourke. Already, in part due to the legislature’s failure to implement the people’s will, State Rep. Ralph Chapman (G—Brooksville) has switched from Democrat to Green Independent. Greens welcome any other Democrats to join us in our efforts.

Further, the Maine Green Independent Party calls for and intends to initiate its effort toward a people's veto of this law and calls for a coalition of parties and organizations to come together and defeat, for the first time since 2010, a law passed by the Maine State Legislature.

"Join the Merriment" - 2017 MGIP Fall Assembly & special Convention

2017-10-22T13:11:00.002-07:00

"Join the Merriment"

Maine Green Independent Party

2017 Fall Assembly & Special Convention

November 5, 2017

10:00 am - 3:00pm

Belfast Free Library

106 High St, Belfast, ME

"Pot Luck Lunch"

Suggested Contribution $20.00

Agenda

10:00 - 11:00 Computerized Registration of Guests

11:00 - 11:10 Elect Convention Chair: Secretary: "Vibes Manager": Time Keeper:

11:10 - 11:15 Co-Chair MGIP Opening Salutations / Welcome

11:15 - 11:30 Decision on Voter Participation in Party Primary Election

11:30 - 11:45 Randall Parr – Public Banking Initiative

11:45 - 12:00 Ron Huber – Coast Watch Radio – Health of the Penobscot Bay

Full Script News - vs. - Sound-bite Social Media

12:00 - 1:00 Pot Luck Lunch

1:00 - 1:15 Justin Beth – Skype – SLACK

1:15 - 1:30 Ralph Chapman – Introduction – Inside the State House – The Future

1:30 - 2:00 Betsy Marsano Campaign

2:00 - 2:30 Jay Dresser Campaign

2:30 - 3:00 Questions and Answer Period to the Gubernatorial Candidates

3:00 - 3:05 – Co-Chair MGIP Closing Thoughts

3:05 - 4:00 Clean-up

Join, like and follow us at our social media sites:

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Enrolled Maine Green Independents are welcome to join our discussion forum:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/mainegreens

Betsy Marsano, Green Party Candidate for Maine Governor

2017-10-20T19:01:00.001-07:00

Maine Green Independent Party 2017 Promo

2017-06-05T17:09:00.001-07:00

2017 Maine Green Independent Party Convention with Jill Stein

2017-05-07T15:18:00.001-07:00

Please visit the convention page on our website:

http://www.mainegreens.org/convention_2017_details

or like our event on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/927369727403632/

SAVE THE DATE Sunday, May 21st for the 2017 MGIP Annual Convention.
at Viles Arboretum, 153 Hospital Street, Augusta

Come early to walk or bring your bike to ride the trails
Registration will be 9-9:30AM

A $20 registration fee is requested, but no one will be turned away.
We'll be sharing a potluck lunch, so please bring your favorite salads, appetizers or desserts!

This year, in addition to regular Party business, we’re honored to have Dr Jill Stein, the 2016 Green Party Presidential candidate, and Dawn Neptune Adams, a member of the Penobscot Nation, who describes herself as a mom, activist, carpenter, citizen journalist, Water Protector and Land Defender. as our Keynote Speakers.

We will have folks from the Maine Clean Elections, Southern Maine Workers on Healthcare is a Human Right and the Prison:Last Chance.

The State Committee will have openings and we will be accepting nominations for officers and members at large. We will also have elections for National and International Representatives, to help keep Maine voices in the forefront of Green issues around the world.

The newly formed Maine Green Women's Caucus will be looking for members.

We will have shared tables for any art, books, organizations info that you would like to share
.
For info on the Maine Green Women's Caucus or tabling please contact: jacquio50@yahoo.com

We hope you will be a part of our annual gathering in this important year when we are welcoming Berners and other DemExit folks.

Please contact Jacqui Deveneau jacqio50@yahoo.com 207-284-3358 to register to attend the Convention.

CONVENTION SCHEDULE:

7-9AM   Walk and bike ride the trails on the grounds

9-9:30AM:   Registration

9:30-9:45:   Blessing Dawn Neptune Adams

9:45-10AM:   Welcome By MGIP Co-Chairs

10-10:15AM:   Election of Convention Officers

10:15-10:30AM:   Treasurer's Report and Budget Approval

10:30-11AM:   By Law Changes

11-11:30AM:   Maine Clean Elections, Southern Maine Workers, Prison: Fair Chance

11:30AM-12PM:   Dawn Neptune Adams/Standing Rock

12-1:30PM:   Lunch/Award

1:30-2PM:   Jill Stein Presidential candidate [2012 & 2016]

2- 2:30PM:   Elections of SC/NC/IC

2:30--3PM:   Committees/Women's Caucus

3-3:30PM: Goals/ Who Can Vote in the MGIP 2018 Primary

3:30-5PM: TBA

5PM: Closing Statement from new SC

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Maine Greens call to end culture of violence, hate

2016-06-22T23:48:00.000-07:00

Friday, June 13, 2016
The Maine Green Independent Party released the following statement today in response to yesterday's Orlando, Florida shootings:
We in the Maine Green Independent Party offer our deepest condolences to the families and communities most affected by the mass shooting in Orlando at the Pulse nightclub on Sunday morning. The shockwave from this hateful act on Latinx queer Floridians is being felt by many of us up in Maine as we ponder what it means to live in a world where our very simple choices of who to love are considered grounds for murder.
THE MAINE GREENS CALL TO END CULTURE OF VIOLENCE, HATE.
The Maine Green Independent Party denies any supposition that the kind of hate crime committed in Orlando stems from religious affiliation with Islam. The negative and hateful responses to the Islamic faith around these kinds of incidents do nothing but further incite the culture of violence. In Los Angeles, another potential shooter was stopped before he could make any attacks. In Orlando the shooter’s parents confirmed that the shooter was openly hateful of gay people and not an actively practicing Muslim.
We also oppose the claim that the shooting in Orlando was the “largest mass shooting in US history” as most media outlets have been claiming. Such a claim erases the history of violence against native peoples in America including the shootings at Sand Creek, Wounded Knee and Bloody Island, each which took over 150 lives.
Many people are quick to point out the availability of high powered assault weapons as being one of the root causes for this kind of violence, but solely removing access to weapons would not remove the potential for this level of hate. The United States is a country built on the backs of slave labor and on the appropriated land of Native Americans. We exist in a patriarchal culture where violence is respected as a means to respond to disagreements. Our major political parties ascribe to platforms of endless war. The banning of assault weapons and stronger background checks will make a difference, but not the kind of difference a flat out refusal to engage in violence as a means of problem solving would potentially bring about. We can’t though, merely point out the history and struggle with violence and toxic masculinity. Many LGBTQIA+ people are working now to find words and find the courage to continue being who they are in public, when to do so is a risk.

Continue reading article at http://www.mainegreens.org/maine_greens_call_to

MGIP opens primary election to Independent voters

2016-01-06T16:46:00.003-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jan. 6, 2016

Augusta--Maine Green Independent Party Co-Chairman Gil Harris delivered a letter to Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap today, formally notifying the state that under the provisions of Maine Statute 21-A §340, "Notice of parties of qualified primary voters," the party has determined that unenrolled voters (commonly called "Independents") are eligible to vote in the 2016 Green Independent Party primary, in addition to enrolled Green Independents.

Maine Green Independent Party members voted at an annual convention, Aug. 22, 2015, to allow unenrolled voters ("Independents") to vote in the party's 2016 primary election, along with Green Independents. According to the statute, notification must be made during the general election year and before Feb. 1. Harris notified the state of the party's primary eligibility requirements as early as possible, so that municipal clerks across the state may be informed and trained on who may vote on Green Independent ballots.

"We've been looking into this and to the best of our knowledge, this may be the first instance of any political party in Maine allowing more than enrolled party members to vote in a primary," Harris said. "Our hopes are that voters who have been disenfranchised or frustrated by other parties will realize they have another option."

Harris said grassroots democracy is one of the 10 Key Values of the Maine Green Independent Party, and opening the primary to additional voters could be another way to increase participation in the political process.
... To finish reading this story, please click on the link below ...

http://www.mainegreens.org/mgip_opens_primary_election_to_unenrolled_voters

DNC's dirty tricks

2015-12-29T16:50:00.001-08:00

Vote Green in 2016

It should be clear by now the Democratic Party has no interest in allowing progressives to win the nomination of their Wall Street and Pentagon funded billionaire’s club.

After a firewall crash in a shared DNC database exposed Clinton campaign information to the Sanders campaign, the DNC responded by blocking the Sanders people from accessing their own voter files. Access was only restored after the Sanders camp filed a lawsuit.

This follows DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz limiting debates and scheduling them for weekends-- reducing the ability of Sanders to get his message out to the public.

But this is nothing new for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has a long history of shutting out voices from the left, notably, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean, and Jesse Jackson.

Howard Dean, gaining traction for his anti-war message in 2004, was made a laughing stock, with help from the corporate media, over the now infamous “Dean Scream” which was a childish personal attack.

Dennis Kucinich was kept out of the MSNBC debate despite his ability to meet all the requirements put forth, because MSNBC had the “1st amendment right” to invite, or uninvite, any candidates they saw fit, showing what a fraud the debates are.

Jesse Jackson’s campaign was similarly squashed, despite widespread popular support, and was subject to a smear campaign led by DNC insiders.

The question that Bernie Supporters should be asking themselves, (and that Greens should be asking them as well) is this:

When the DNC and the corporate media finish their campaign of “death by 1,000 cuts”-- and when Hillary, or some other corporate candidate becomes the DNC nominee, will Bernie’s supporters fall in line behind the Democratic Party’s lesser evil? Or will they break with the Democratic Party fully and finally, and work instead to build an independent political party?

This is the reason the Green Party exists. We are not a group working within the Democratic Party. We understand that the Democratic Party has no interest in pursuing the policies of the 99%, because of their financial ties to Wall Street & Pentagon contractors.

The Green Party doesn’t need to engage in the tightly controlled public relations event of the DNC primary. We run our own candidates, like 2012’s Jill Stein / Cheri Honkala ticket, or 2008’s Cynthia McKinney / Rosa Clemente ticket.

Please share this message with your friends, and commit to vote Green Party in 2016.

Visit this blog at our website and pledge your support:

http://www.mainegreens.org/vote_green_in_2016?utm_campaign=bernie_blast&utm_medium=email&utm_source=mainegreens

Sign up at our website!

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Dr Jill Stein speaks on Climate Change and Capitalism

2013-02-19T10:24:00.002-08:00

This video was taken at the #F17 rally in Washington DC.

State of the Union- Green Party Response by Jill Stein

2013-02-15T20:24:00.002-08:00

This Weekly Address is the Green Party's Response to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, delivered by our 2012 presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein, who originally presented this address live on the web via Livestream.

Weekly Update 2/3/2013

2013-02-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

This week's address comes from Maine Green Independent Party Steering Committee member Randall Parr of Appleton, ME.

Photos from USM Campus Greens

2013-01-29T11:10:00.001-08:00

Maine Green Independent Party Chair, Asher Platts, and Vice-Chair, Whitley Newman, were at USM this past Thursday at the involvement fair, and were met with an outpouring of support for the Green Party!

We can't wait to get the USM Campus Greens group up and running.

If you would like to start a Campus Greens group on your campus, please contact Asher at asher@mainegreens.org.

For a More Direct Democracy- Weekly Address 1/26

2013-01-28T11:45:00.001-08:00

Help us reach our $20,000 goal! Donate $5, $10, $25 today!

The Local Committee Handbook: click here

Photos from Anti-Tar Sands Protest

2013-01-26T21:04:00.000-08:00

Click on any photo to go to our Flickr Page to see more!

See more! Follow this link to our Flickr page!

Political Dejavu - Weekly Address 1/17/2013

2013-01-19T10:06:00.002-08:00

This week's script courtesy of 2012 Green Party Candidate, Jill Stein.

Click to Subscribe to our YouTube weekly addresses. [it's free!]

TRANSCRIPT:

If you’re having political déjà vu as Obama’s second term in the White House gets underway, you’re not alone.

The supposedly populist candidate — who won re-election promising to tax the rich, protect Social Security, and make the economy fair — has morphed back into an invaluable ally of the economic elite. Yet again, he’s willing to let you fall under the bus.

In carving out 2013′s first round of self-inflicted budget pain, President Barack Obama has laid the groundwork for much worse to come. By making most Bush tax cuts permanent, he gave away the massive bargaining chip he could have used to protect safety net programs in the next negotiating round. Now, thanks to his pre-emptive capitulation, austerity advocates hold all the cards.

While the deal extends unemployment insurance, this temporary relief is overwhelmed by massive, permanent gifts to the super-rich. Estate taxes have been repealed for all but the wealthiest 0.1 percent with a whopping $10.5 million per couple exemption. The agreement also locks in low capital gains and dividends rates of 15-20 percent, ensuring that billionaire bosses everywhere will pay lower tax rates than their secretaries.

Among new corporate favors, the deal retained one of the loopholes that multinational firms are using to dodge taxes on their foreign subsidiaries — an incentive to export jobs that cost us $1.1 billion in 2012. Meanwhile, vulnerable workers are hit with a big increase in Social Security payroll taxes, as rates revert to 2010 levels.

The fig leaf Obama provided to cover this surrender is a token tax increase on wealthy households earning over $450,000 per year. This marks a brazen retreat from his promise to raise taxes on those earning over $250,000, a meager reform to begin with in a tax system already rife with favors for the rich.

In this past round of budget bargaining, Obama proposed alarming cuts to key safety net programs that will be considered in upcoming negotiations. This tossed aside another key promise: to protect Social Security. It comes as nearly half of Americans are either low-income or living in poverty, and one in three seniors relies on Social Security to stay out of poverty.

Obama also offered to slash needed reductions in bloated military spending from $500 billion over 10 years, the amount included in the 2011 budget deal, to a mere $100 billion.

Obama’s abandonment of his progressive base repeats 2008 post-election history, when the hope-and-change candidate suddenly devolved into a fearless defender of economic privilege. His early White House appointments of Wall Street darlings Larry Summers and Timothy Geithner were followed, with breath-taking irony, by the naming of General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt, America’s leader in layoffs, to head the jobs council.

Team Obama then led the charge for trillions in Wall Street bailouts, corporate-driven trade agreements that send jobs overseas and depress U.S. wages, health care reform that locked public options out of the debate, drill-baby-drill energy policies, the sabotage of international climate accords, foreclosure neglect, surging immigrant deportations, drone attacks, assaults on civil liberties, and more.

As Obama’s second term begins, he’s again undermining the progressive base, paving the way for more austerity, disparities, war and corporate power.

Washington’s failure to deal justly and effectively with the fake fiscal cliff calamity leaves little hope it will resolve the real looming crises — the unraveling economy and accelerating climate catastrophe. The enormity of these threats compel solutions of equal magnitude — like the Green New Deal I promoted as the Green Party’s presidential candidate in 2012. It would obliterate the fiscal cliff while putting America back to work, greening the economy, cutting the oversized military, saving trillions through Medicare for All, and taxing the wealthy.

Fortunately, grassroots movements and non-corporate political parties have begun to lead the way. It’s time to join them while we still can, putting our voices, bodies, and votes behind real solutions that can truly deliver a peaceful, just, green future for us all.

~ Jill Stein won half a million votes as the Green Party's presidential candidate in 2012.Distributed via OtherWords (OtherWords.org) for publication in newspapers internationally.

Corporate Welfare vs Social Welfare

2013-01-13T22:13:00.002-08:00

Script by Former Portland Green Independent Committee Chair, Adam Marletta.

TRANSCRIPT:

While the overblown hysteria of the “fiscal cliff” is behind us (for now, anyway), the assault on the poor, the needy and the disenfranchised continues.

Now that House Republicans have given President Obama his modest tax increases for the wealthy, Washington insiders speculate he will soon be expected to return the favor with deep cuts to essential programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And, contrary to Democrats insistence the president will do the “right thing,” he has stated on numerous occasions he is prepared to enact a “Grand Bargain” with the GOP with regard to these cherished social programs.

Here in Maine, Gov. Paul LePage has been given the go-ahead by the Department of Health and Human Services to enact at least some of his proposed cuts to the state’s Medicare program, MaineCare.

More than 20,000 low-income Mainers—including senior citizens and those with disabilities—are now in danger of losing their MaineCare benefits by March 1.

LePage, who routinely references his own struggle with childhood poverty, insists that Maine is “too generous” with its “entitlement” programs. This is the same compassionate governor, readers may recall, who blasted welfare recipients during last year’s Republican convention, urging them to “Get off the couch and get yourself a job!”

It may surprise you to hear me say that right-wingers are correct our living in a welfare state. But they are confused about the actual recipients of the bulk of government handouts.

It is not the poor and middle-class that enjoy the bulk of these benefits—these benefits primarily go to corporations and the rich. Corporations and the wealthy are the real welfare queens. Through a seemingly endless array of complex loopholes, tax-breaks, government subsidies, bailouts, benefits, and fraudulent practices, corporations are the real moochers of society.

How does corporate welfare compare to social welfare, you ask? Consider the following statistics:

According to the libertarian Cato Institute, the US government spent$93 billion on corporate subsidies in 2002 alone (that number was $205 billion in 2012). This is compared with the roughly $59 billion spent on traditional welfare programs annually.

Additionally, 30 multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 corporations—including General Electric and Boeing—did not pay any income taxes at all in the last three years, according to a 2011 report byCitizens for Tax Justice. Collectively, these corporations raked in $160 billion in profits that year--and they kept every dime.

Yet Mitt Romney and the “liberal” media would rather we focus our outrage on the alleged 47 percent of citizen tax-evaders Romney derided when he thought no one was listening. In fact, the only presidential candidate I recall ever mentioning the issue of corporate welfare was Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein—and most Americans do not know who she is.

As Ralph Nader noted in a 1996 article for Earth Island Journal(“It’s Time to End Corporate Welfare as We Know It”):

“…[B]y any yardstick, there is far more crime, and far more violence, and far more welfare disbursement…in the corporate world than in the impoverished street arena. The federal government’s corporate welfare programs number over 120. They are so varied and embedded that we actually grow up thinking that the government interferes with the free enterprise system, rather than subsidizing it.” (From Nader’s The Ralph Nader Reader, Seven Stories Press, 2000, p. 154.)

Indeed, I think it is high time U.S. corporations started taking responsibility for their own lives. You know—pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

Unfortunately, Americans are more likely to buy into the “blame-the-poor” narrative, a recent example being how those in the corporate media erroneously blames the Hostess bakers’strike for the company’s shutdown last winter, when it was in fact, the owners who simply decided it was easier to dismantle the business entirely than pay their workers a living wage.

The idea that working people are parasites, to be blamed for all the worlds ills, could not be further from reality.

Recently, AIG announced it would thank the federal government for saving it from collapse with taxpayer money with a lawsuit. AIG (American International Group) claims that in the bailout package that they willingly agreed to, the Federal Reserve violated its Fifth Amendment property rights and, more importantly, may have interfered with shareholders’ earnings.

As veteran financial reporter William Greider aptly puts it in The Nation, AIG’s brazen, utterly ungrateful behavior “sets a world record for breath-taking arrogance.”

One could say that by filing this lawsuit AIG is looking to have it’s cake and eat yours too.

But, according to the narrative created by corporate apologists, the unskilled, $15-an-hour workers with the nerve to demand better working conditions are the ones looking for a “free ride.”

It is important to keep in mind the banks are chiefly responsible for crashing the economy. Giant banks like Chase, Goldman-Sachs and Merrill Lynch sold “toxic” or junk assets they knew were worthless and then insidiously bet against them on the market. This is no different than setting your own house on fire, and then trying to cash-in on the homeowner’s insurance—a criminal practice commonly known as insurance fraud. The only difference is if convicted of fraud, you or I would go to jail. Wall Street hedge-fund managers do not, because when they do it, it’s legal.

Corporations follow one objective: Maximize profits while externalizing losses. Call it “free-market” capitalism if you will, but it seems more like socialism for the rich to me.

Here's to a Green 2013!

2013-01-10T13:56:00.003-08:00

Click to Subscribe to our YouTube weekly addresses. [it's free!]

TRANSCRIPT:
Hi there. My name is Asher Platts, chair of the Maine Green Independent Party, and this is something new we’re doing, a weekly address, focused on State Issues.

It’s our hope that you will share this video widely by reposting it on your social media networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, Pintrest, and emailing it to your friends and relatives.

Governor LePage has repeatedly made it clear that he thinks that what poor people need more than jobs, housing, food, or education, is lots of “tough love” and punishment for being down on their luck.

One part of his recently introduced Welfare Reform bill would ban convicted drug felons from receiving public assistance.

This is the exact wrong approach and is based in an illogical belief that more punishment will lead to the desired outcome of lower incidents of crime, and lower incidents of drug use.

We can look to real world results for a scientific approach to public policy. Rather than punishing drug users, Portugal set an example for the world in 2001, when they decriminalized all drug use, and started dealing with drug addiction for what it is-- a disease, not a crime. The result? Addiction rates in Portugal are the lowest in Europe, particularly when compared with countries with the strictest drug laws.

Furthermore, it is immoral to further punish convicted felons, who have already served their time and may have even reformed their behaviour. It is immoral to permanently punish people for transgressions made in the past.

By denying TANF benefits, we are prohibiting women who may have had non-violent drug offenses in the past the ability to provide food for their children during times when they are down on their luck.

LePage’s wrongheaded drug policy is destined to increase crime and drug use by increasing desperation for food, housing, and thus more crime and violence which all citizens will bear the brunt of.

Maine was recently voted most peaceful place to live, let's keep it that way-- by ensuring that food, housing assistance are accessible to those who need it most-- instead of creating a permanent criminal underclass.

I feel it important to emphasize that the Green Party is the Party of Economic Justice. We do not accept donations from corporations, so we do not serve any interests but the interests of the people. We pride ourselves on being a party made up of a diverse variety of economic backgrounds, and that we have low-income people in places of leadership.

In full disclosure, I myself am a low-income person and an EBT recipient. EBT is not a free ride. One must carefully budget to make sure that they have enough food for the month. Where Paul LePage has proposed that we prohibit EBT from being used to purchase soda, I would be willing to trade the right to buy soda for the ability to purchase necessary items, like soap, toothpaste, and shampoo, which are not available to EBT users.

Soda is unhealthy, and costs money in the long term through increased incident rates for diabetes, and other obesity related health issues, which translates into increased medical costs.

In fact, it would be fair that if EBT users are no longer able to purchase soda using public funds, then ALL Public money should be prohibited from purchasing not just soda, both also bottled water. Bottled water is a product of manufactured demand, invented by marketing teams at soda companies when soda consumption peaked in the 1970s, is often nothing more than bottled tap water itself, and is sold with a markup of 200,000%, using public water, often without paying a dime to the public for extraction, despite the fact that water does no stop at the edge of property lines, and problems with disturbed water tables, drained wells, and more, have been recorded here in Maine. There is no reason that Augusta should be paying to have Maine’s water, a public good we the people already own, sold back to us.
 
The Green Party supports a minimum income, where everyone receives a stipend that they can cover bare essentials with. If the Maine State Legislature were to expand EBT to cover necessary items like toothpaste, soap, and toilet paper, and open the program to everybody --rather than making recipients jump through hoops, Maine could achieve that goal.

And since social spending has a strong fiscal multiplier effect, the money being spent on food and necessary items would go to local shop keepers, growing our state economy. If Governor LePage is serious about growing Maine’s economy, I would suggest rather than focusing on punishing the weakest among us, he should be focusing on creating incentives to use EBT to purchase from local farms and retailers, such as giving double benefits for purchases made at farmer’s markets. Some of the Green Party’s 10 Key Values are decentralization, and local economies. A Green Party administration would put the focus on small farms, local economies, and making it easy to maintain a healthy diet.

We can end poverty, and help everybody out while doing it. We need to ask ourselves why we aren't doing it. 
In closing, I would like to give congratulations to all the municipal office holders in the Green Party who won their elections this past year. Also, I want to say how proud I am of our presidential candidate, Jill Stein. Stein was the first-ever Green Party candidate to qualify for FEC matching funds, and got the highest total national vote total as a Green since Ralph Nader ran in 2000. I want to also express my gratitude to Maine’s Green Voters. Maine had the largest percentage Green Voters of all 50 states.

There are many local offices opening in 2013, and I would encourage any Green Party activists who are interested, in running for office. Jill Stein’s campaign managers Ben Manski and Tia Nowak, are going to be coming to Maine this March to lead a course in best practices for running a strong campaign. Please contact me if you are interested in running for office, at [asher.d.platts@gmail.com]

Here’s to a Green 2013!

Maine Greens FlashMob WalMart

2012-11-24T12:55:00.002-08:00

On Black Friday Maine Greens participated in a Flash Mob at the Scarborough location of WalMart. The action, hosted by the Southern Maine Worker’s Center (SMWC), was in Solidarity with striking WalMart workers throughout the U.S., and to point out unfair labor practices that are commonplace within WalMart. SMWC says:

In Maine three Walmart stores alone have received $22 million in taxpayer subsidies.
(http://www.walmartsubsidywatch.org/state_detail.html?state=ME).

A study in California showed that one 200-employee Walmart store costs taxpayers $840,000 in subsidies including: food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit, subsidized school lunches and subsidized housing.
(http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/retail/walmart.pdf).

In addition WalMart has been consistently cited for low wages, lack of benefits including paid sick time and health insurance, forcing workers to under-report hours, and more.

Maine Greens were proud to participate not only in organizing and leading the Flash Mob, but also in informational leafletting and holding signs of protest on Black Friday yesterday. Click here to check out the video!

Chris Hedges: "Why I'm Voting Green"

2012-10-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

Why I’m Voting Green

By Chris Hedges

The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us. And if we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil disobedience and in defiance. Those who rebel are our only hope. And for this reason I will vote next month for Jill Stein the Green Party candidate, although I could as easily vote for Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. I will step outside the system. Voting for the “lesser evil”—or failing to vote at all—is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction.

All the major correctives to American democracy have come through movements and third parties that have operated outside the mainstream. Few achieved formal positions of power. These movements built enough momentum and popular support, always in the face of fierce opposition, to force the power elite to respond to their concerns. Such developments, along with the courage to defy the political charade in the voting booth, offer the only hope of saving us from Wall Street predators, the assault on the ecosystem by the fossil fuel industry, the rise of the security and surveillance state and the dramatic erosion of our civil liberties.

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any,” Alice Walker writes.

It was the Liberty Party that first fought slavery. It was the Prohibition and Socialist parties, along with the Suffragists, that began the fight for the vote for women and made possible the 19th Amendment. It was the Socialist Party, along with radical labor unions, that first battled against child labor and made possible the 40-hour workweek. It was the organizing of the Populist Party that gave us the Immigration Act of 1924 along with a “progressive” tax system. And it was the Socialists who battled for unemployment benefits, leading the way to the Social Security Act of 1935. No one in the ruling elite, including Franklin Roosevelt, would have passed this legislation without pressure from the outside.

“It is the combination of a social movement on the ground with an independent political party that has always made history together, whether during abolition, women’s suffrage or the labor movement,” Stein said when I reached her by phone as she campaigned in Chicago. “We need courage in our politics that matches the courage of the social movements—of Occupy, eviction blockades, Keystone pipeline civil disobedience, student strikes, the Chicago teachers union and more. If public opinion really mattered in this race, we [her presidential ticket] would win. We have majority support in poll after poll on nearly all of the key issues, from downsizing the military budget and bringing the troops home, to taxing the rich, to stopping the Wall Street bailouts, to breaking up the banks, to ending the offshoring of jobs, to supporting workers’ rights, to increasing the minimum wage, to health care as a human right, through Medicare for all. These are the solutions a majority of Americans are clamoring for.”

The corporate state has successfully waged a campaign of fear to disempower voters and citizens. By intimidating voters through a barrage of propaganda with the message that Americans have to vote for the lesser evil and that making a defiant stand for justice and democracy is counterproductive, it cements into place the agenda of corporate domination we seek to thwart. This fear campaign, skillfully disseminated by the $2.5 billion spent on political propaganda, has silenced real political opposition. It has turned those few politicians and leaders who have the courage to resist, such as Stein and Ralph Nader, into pariahs, denied a voice in the debates and the national discourse. Capitulation, silence and fear, however, are not a strategy. They will guarantee everything we seek to avoid.

“The Obama administration has embraced the policies of George W. Bush, and then gone much further,” Stein said. “Wall Street bailouts went ballistic under Obama—$700 billion under Bush, but $4.5 trillion under Obama, plus another $16 trillion in zero-interest loans for Wall Street. Obama continues offshoring our jobs. Bill Clinton brought us NAFTA, which was carried out under George W. Bush. It was vastly expanded under Obama to labor abusers in Colombia, and to Panama and South Korea. The Transpacific Partnership, being negotiated behind closed doors by the Obama White House, is NAFTA on steroids. It continues to send our jobs overseas. It undermines wages at home. It overrides American sovereignty by establishing an international corporate board that can overrule American legislation and regulations that protect workers as well as our air, our water, our climate and our food supply.”

Obama, who has claimed the power of assassinating U.S. citizens without charge or trial, increased the drone war and has vastly expanded the wars in the Middle East. He is waging proxy wars in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia. His assault on civil liberties—from his use of the Espionage Act to silence whistle-blowers to Section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act to the FISA Amendment Act—is worse than Bush’s. His attack on immigrant rights has also outpaced that of Bush. Obama has deported more undocumented workers in four years than his Republican predecessor did in eight years. There is negligible difference between Obama and Romney on the issue of student debt, which has turned a generation of college students into indentured servants. But the most important convergence between the Republicans and the Democrats is their utter failure to address the perilous assault by the fossil fuel industry on the ecosystem. It was Obama who undercut the international climate accord reached last year at Durban, South Africa, saying the world could wait until 2020 for an agreement.

“Obama is promoting oil drilling in the Arctic, where the ice cap has already collapsed to one-quarter of its size from a couple decades ago, and he’s opened up our national parks for drilling,” Stein said. “He has given the green light to fracking. He has permitted the exhaust from shale oil [extraction] to go into the atmosphere. He is building the southern pass of the Keystone Pipeline. He brags that he has built more miles of pipeline than any other president.

“There is a protracted drought in 60 percent of the continental U.S.,” Stein said. “There are record forest fires and rising food prices. We have just now seen the 12 hottest months on record. Storms are growing in destructiveness. All this is happening with less than 1-degree Celsius temperature rise. Yet we are now on track for a 6-degree Celsius warming in this century alone. This is not survivable. The most pessimistic science on climate change has underpredicted the rate at which climate change is advancing.”

The flimsy excuses used by liberals and progressives to support Obama, including the argument that we can’t let Romney appoint the next Supreme Court justices, ignore the imperative of building a movement as fast and as radical as possible as a counterweight to corporate power. The Supreme Court, no matter what its composition, will not save us from financial implosion and climate collapse. And Obama, whatever his proclivity on social issues, has provided ample evidence that he will not alter his servitude to the corporate state. For example, he has refused to provide assurance that he will not make cuts in basic social infrastructures. He has proposed raising the eligibility age for Medicare, a move that would leave millions without adequate health care in retirement. He has said he will reduce the cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, thrusting vast numbers of seniors into poverty. Progressives’ call to vote for independents in “safe” states where it is certain the Democrats will win will do nothing to mitigate fossil fuel’s ravaging of the ecosystem, regulate and prosecute Wall Street or return to us our civil liberties.

“There is no state out there where either Obama or Romney offers a way out of here alive,” Stein said. “It’s up to us to create truly safe states, a safe nation, and a safe planet. Neither Obama nor Romney has a single exit strategy from the deadly crises we face.”

Originally posted: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/why_im_voting_green_20121029//

Posted on October 29, 2012

Let Jill Stein Debate!!

2012-10-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Green Party Presidential Candidate Jill Stein needs to poll at 15% in order to be let in to national debates. Help her get there to address issues like single-payer healthcare, workers rights, peace and freedom by signing the petition today!

Sign the Petition

Maine Green Independent Party to hold Fundraiser Dinner this Sunday

2012-09-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Featuring a Local Peruvian menu and a Presentation on
Street Cars

On Sunday, September 16th a plate dinner will be held at the Maine Irish Heritage Center, 34 Gray St. in Portland. Dinner will be prepared by local Peruvian Chefs Maria, Crystal, and Heather Cron. Vegetarian and gluten free options will be available.

The dinner will feature a presentation by Green Independent Portland City Councilor David Marshall on the history and future of streetcars in Maine.

Proceeds will benefit the Maine Green Independent Party. All are welcome!

“This event is comprised of delicious, homemade food and education on the timely & imperative topic of transportation choice in Maine. It will benefit a grassroots, third-party movement based on peace, sustainability, & equality that does not take corporate or PAC contributions of any kind. You don’t want to miss it,” said Asher Platts, Chair of the Maine Green Independent Party.

Doors will open at 5:00 p.m. on Sunday and dinner will be served at 5:30 p.m. The cost is $20 at the door. For more information call Tom at 207-272-5833 or visitwww.mainegreens.org.

We hope to see you there!!

Reflections on my first year in the Occupy Movement: Political movements of 2011 and Activism in the instant media age

2012-08-22T11:06:00.002-07:00

By Holly Seeliger

The year 2011 saw the beginning of a global activist movement to challenge the current corporatization of political, economic, and financial power by moneyed elites. From the indigenous battles and student protests in South America, the indignados in Spain, the Tar Sands and student protestors in Canada, the young anti-Putin movement and “Pussy Riot” in Russia, the masses at Tahrir square and the “Arab spring”, and the “Occupy” movements in the U.S. and around the world, the struggle of these social movements is the same. It is a battle for autonomous control and collective ownership of production and labor, distribution of goods and services, and the communication of information and ideas. The movements of today are fundamentally changing democratic participation and civic norms to creative a future which is shaped by the people.

All around the world we are witness to the shattering of our social compacts, our rights, and our aspirations for the future under crippling cuts to services, and an increase in violence and pollution. Austerity measures have sought to decrease education, healthcare, and opportunities for a skilled workforce at the expense of ever-increasing military spending and the surveillance of our own people. Since 2007, recession deficits pose the biggest threat to economic recovery and global stability, yet the established consensus revolves around reduced investment in infrastructure and social services, under the guise of shared sacrifice for “living beyond our means”.

The failures of corporate industrialism upon our ecosystems, our health, economy and equality are too encompassing and too dangerous to ignore. No amount of energy spent on the defense of the “freedom” or the “American Way”, or excuses and adjustment to regulate or moralize capitalism can shield its failure. Compounded with the squeeze of austerity, the tenants of industrialism- the replacement of people as labor by transitioning to technology, and the concentration of wealth and resources into the elite minorities- seem closer to our world realities. How can these movements which began in 2011 stand up to such overwhelming and encompassing challenges? The answer is and always has been through non-violence and non-compliance to oppression, and holistic and egalitarian direct civic engagement and participation.

Protestors acknowledge the grave shape of our institutions, which have remained self-serving and have neglected the needs of the people. The relentless perusal of maximum profits by the privileged one percent has taken the form of corporatism, which must, by legal definition, place profit for shareholders over any other consideration. It is the duty of the people to create a new social ethos, which will value small group challenges, local issues and citizen control of political, social, and economic arenas.

More and more, activists realize that the global battle is against multi-national corporations and the antidote is a fight that says “not in my backyard”, and more importantly, “not on my planet”. From the XL pipelines and fracking, to the stripping of the Appalachians, the melting of our ice caps, the damming of the Amazon River, the Gulf Coast and Kalamazoo oil spills, and the Fukashima Nuclear disaster, it has become a global responsibility for all to stand up to the destruction of our people, animals, and planet.

These movements are lead by students who are over-burdened with debt, majority populations without affordable healthcare or a livable wage, and citizens and soldiers who are rejecting the decade-long wars on foreign and domestic terror. Whether on the serving or receiving end of the “Global war on terror”, the

“War on Drugs”, or the “War on Illegal Immigration”, all of the youth who have grown up in this shadow are victims. My generation will battle puppet regimes, destructive capitalism and our real environmental threats to our water, soil and air, which have been purchased by corporations and polluted and exploited. The youth of today are brave enough and open-minded enough to challenge previous economic and social structures and restrictions.

In an age of vast wealth inequality and blatant corruption of institutions a la “corporate personhood”, the activists of today do not only challenge capitalist institutions, but demand direct responsibility and decision-making. Because of globalization, the corporate model can reach vast economic, social, institutional, and political power, yet it is through this same advancement that activists can also connect around the world. These new movements utilize hand-held media technology to instantaneously stream video, post pictures, or share articles online with fellow activists.

Within the course of just one year, these movements have gained worldwide momentum and have protested against bailed-out banks, foreclosed homes, occupied workplaces and college campuses, defended rivers and waterways, demanded the closure of nuclear power plants, joined in the preservation of public spaces, and the called for an end to strip-mining, poaching, fracking, and clear-cutting. Online sharing of news and events around the world have taught activists that direct action and democratic participation creates tangible and often global results.

What connects all of these movements is the targeted use of new media sources and pragmatism in political involvement through the exchange of tactics, updates and ideas with other activists around the world. Because of the accessibility to real-time communication and the spread of news, new actions can spring up around the world and build a global movement. Today’s tech-savvy youth are aware of deliberate manipulation of facts by the corporate media, and the bias against activism by the media worldwide. Citizen and alternative journalism have empowered people around the world through sharing of stories. The Tahrir Square activists used Twitter, the indignados created newspapers, radio and television programs, and the Occupy Movements have connected though the “livestreaming” of events.

The movements which began in 2011 will change the status quo as students and others seek participation in civic life and “Occupy the ballot” through grassroots campaigns and elections into local political offices. Support for alternative politics and political parties have grown, as in the case of Ron Paul’s Libertarian and Jill Stein’s Green Party Presidential Campaigns.

I graduated from the University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine with my B.A. in Political Science in 2010. In the fall of 2011, I became joined the Occupy Maine Movement and wrote and reported for several episodes of “Occupy Maine TV News”, which appeared online and on Portland’s cable access network CTN-5. Many Occupy members have also joined the Green Party to seek election in local politics, and I have decided to run for the Portland School Board as a Green Party member in the November 2012 elections.

There is now a global demand against the corporate elite’s control of the planet towards the pursuit of non-violence, transparency, health and equality. The powerful minorities are no longer needed as our overlord, our politician, our economic stimulator, or our “job creator”. Today’s political movements are holistic in tactic, seeing the potential for grass-roots change in every institution. It is my belief that the new status quo is non-violent direct participation and the utilization of new media to spread information and ideas, and structures that are subject to corporatism and elite minorities are in the process of falling apart. This is achieved through non-compliance with governments who no longer serve the people, and through the demand for collective ownership of production, communication, and distribution. As self-reliant individuals who seek collective ownership and responsibility towards our planet, today’s political movements use new media technology to create active stewardship of our destiny.