This ought to piss off
both Carl Whitmarsh and Bethany a little more. And that's never a bad thing.
(Update: Noting the correction sent out by cewdem last weekend, he did not make the erroneous assertion.
Somebody *ahem* put colored words on his e-mail. Or something.)
From the
San Antonio Current:
David Collins walked to the front of the Hill Country cabin with a
green toga draped over shirt, tie and slacks, a throwback, he said, to
mankind's first republic: the Roman Senate. "The toga has great symbolic
significance for me," he said, "and I've felt myself to be politically
and spiritually green for a long time." Staring down at the getup,
Collins laughed. "I would run for office naked if I thought the Green
Party would benefit from it."
Collins, a Houston-based longshot
candidate for Texas' open U.S. Senate seat, was among a smattering of
candidates and activists working to dismantle the country's two-party
dominated political system meeting at a small Hill Country retreat in
Grey Forest Saturday and Sunday for the Green Party of Texas'
convention. Far outside the clubby, insidery scenes of political
officialdom on display in Houston and Fort Worth at the weekend's state
Democratic and Republican conventions, Texas Greens held a quiet,
low-key gathering on the outskirts of San Antonio to tap nominees and
chat philosophy, politics, and revolution.
You really need to read the whole piece. Laugh, cry, gnash your teeth, get motivated to help or power up to thwart, whatever floats your boat.
The Texas Greens ultimately, and unsurprisingly, threw support behind
Jill Stein for the party's nomination for president. Stein, who once
ran against Mitt Romney for governor of Massachusetts, says her win in
the California primary last week guaranteed her place as the Green Party
nominee for president at the party's national convention in Baltimore
next month. Sitcom comedienne and celebrity Roseanne Barr, who didn't
show at the Texas convention, spoke to Texas Green members via phone
conference Saturday, saying she'd continue to seek the Green nomination
for president.
Stein, an eloquent Harvard-educated physician keen
on quoting Frederick Douglass ("Power concedes nothing without a
demand") and Alice Walker ("The most common way people give up their
power is by thinking they don't have any"), seems to embody the type of
voter Greens across the country are fighting to win over: liberals,
progressives, peace activists, and environmentalists who feel ditched by
rightward-drifting Democrats.
Stein wrote off the so-called
spoiler effect of third parties, that the major impact is to tip close
races between Democrats and Republicans by siphoning off small, crucial
pieces of the party base. "We've been told to be quiet, that this
silence is an effective strategy," she said. "Well, how's that 'lesser
evil' thing working out for you exactly? … We have assured the policies
of expansive war, of ignoring a climate meltdown, of economic collapse
by silencing ourselves as the only real, non-corporate voice of public
interest," she said. "So many progressives have muzzled themselves."
More Jill Stein, from last weekend's convention outside San Antone.
Texas is
thisclose to qualifying for federal matching funds. When that happens, the momentum hits a higher gear.
Finally,
a terrific Q&A with Kat Swift, Bexar County godmother of the Texas Green Party, which resolves some of the lingering mythological questions people always seem to have about the Greens. Didn't they keep Al Gore from getting elected in 2000? (No.) Didn't they take Republican money to get on the ballot in 2010? (Not exactly, no.)
Go read the whole two things from the SAC and then let's hear what you have to say about it in the comments.
