OntheWilderSide

Common Dreams is a wonderful and respected source for progressive news. They are sometimes light on Green Party news, but once in awhile they publish a good, green story.

The latest includes a photo and article link about Cynthia McKinney on the front cover – directly under the photo and article link for Hillary Clinton. Finally, equal time!

Here is a link the original story at IPS News. For Sentimental reasons, here is a link to the same story at Common Dreams, where you can see the good article placement, and the better photo (ie: the one here) that Common Dreams published of former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. www.runcynthiarun.org/

Excerpts from the IPS News story below. Full article here.

POLITICS-US: Outspoken War Critic Poised for Green Party Run
By Matthew Cardinale

In Congress, Cynthia McKinney noted the similarity between the food aid packages and cluster bombs dropped by the U.S. on Afghanistan in 2001.

Credit:Pan-African News Wire

ATLANTA, Apr 22 (IPS) – With media attention focused almost exclusively on the dramatic contest between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, millions of U.S. voters probably have no inkling that there is a ballot option beyond the Democratic and Republican Parties.

“There needs to be room for a lot of policy threads in American discourse. But the corporate media is not informing the people,” Cynthia McKinney, the front-runner for the Green Party presidential nomination, told IPS during a rare 90-minute interview.

Founded in 2001 as the successor of the Association of State Green Parties, the party’s platform revolves around environmentalism, non-violence, social justice and grassroots organising. It has slightly more than 300,000 registered voters nationwide, and a standing ballot line in 20 states plus Washington, DC. In other states, the party must circulate petitions to get its candidates on the ballot.

McKinney, a former congressional representative from Georgia, abandoned the Democratic Party last year in disgust at its failure to end the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and is now poised for a presidential run on the Green Party ticket…

many party activists are excited by the prospect of McKinney’s campaign inspiring a “Black-Brown-Green Coalition”…

“Some people have been out of the political system for a very long time,” McKinney noted. “They made a choice to not be involved in the political process. After a series of disappointments, people made a rational choice. Unfortunately, the U.S. participation rates are well below that of other countries.”

In recent years, Green parties have been racking up electoral successes around the world, particularly in Europe.

“The Green Party participated in the coalition that led in Germany and in Ireland and in the Kenyan Parliament,” McKinney said. “The Green Party is international.”

“We have a winner-take-all system in the U.S. that pushes conformity,” she added. “Regressive ballot access laws in Georgia [and other states] prevent candidates from getting on the ballot.”

“The Green Party is a political entity that deserves to be built,” she said.

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