Greetings,

Welcome New Year's Day,
A New Way
Save People, Planet, & Peace
in 2024

Challenging the Duopoly in 2024

Welcome to 2024! The year of our country's most dangerous presidential election since the Civil War. No sense in recounting the crises we are facing. We are all too aware.

So what is to be done? The Greens must lead the way to end the two-party duopoly of voter disenfranchisement! At least 6 candidates have stepped up to raise the issues of global urgency. This will put our party and candidates on the map and then the race begins.

Presidential politics is a complex, bureaucratic gauntlet. So much detail, so many regulations, and so many oversight agencies that it boggles the mind. The party is thankful for those who jump in and manage the process.

This article is the first to help our readership/membership understand and participate in the process.

For our New Year's edition, we will focus on when and how the membership must be activated and participate.

First, and fundamentally important, is the issue of ballot access. This is the process of getting the Green-Rainbow Party listed on the November election ballot in Massachusetts.

As we know, Massachusetts, like many other states, makes it nearly impossible for third parties to get on the ballot. Unlike officially recognized state parties, which can select their presidential candidate in a single presidential primary, parties not meeting a voter threshold in a previous election must submit 10,000 certified voter signatures on their nominating petition.

Next steps for the GRP election process

Given that the Green-Rainbow party did not meet the mandatory level of votes in the 2022 election, it must employ “nominating petitions” to place the chosen Green Party candidate on the November Massachusetts ballot. This process requires a candidate “selection” early in the campaign process to enable petition gatherers to collect sufficient signatures.

Step 1: The GRP Presidential Campaign Working Group (PCWG) will be publishing a poll shortly asking which candidate among the six currently seeking the nomination should be named on those papers as the most likely to receive the nomination. To learn more about the candidates, you can see the list on the GPUS website: https://www.gp.org/2024_nomination_process. At the bottom of that page are links to the candidates' websites.

Step 3: The GRP will submit the ballot access application to the Secretary of State. Once the application is approved, nominating papers will be printed with the frontrunner as our candidate. Out of respect for all candidates, the GRP will not endorse any candidate specifically before the Green Party’s Annual Nominating Convention in June 2024

Step 4: A total of 10,000 signatures must be collected on the nominating papers, and be certified by town/city clerks by July 30.

Step 5: If the candidate on the Massachusetts nomination papers is not selected at the Green Annual National Convention, the GRP will work with the GPUS to run a write-in campaign for the actual GPUS candidate.

For purposes of brevity and the need for timeliness, further information regarding the Massachusetts Presidential Preference Poll, choosing delegates to the national nominating convention, and representatives to the electoral college will be sent in additional articles.

Let’s focus on getting onto the ballot and then go onto a GPUS victory."

Straits of Dilemma

By Gus Steeves

Every few days, the situation in Palestine threatens to metastasize into a far larger regional and maybe even world war. Two major flash points stand out: one to the north, Lebanon, and the other to the south, Yemen.

A Second Front on the North?

Almost everyone knows at least something about Lebanon. At the very least, the typical American might recall President Reagan foolishly sticking Marines in the US Embassy there to get blown up back in the 1980s.

But since then, Israel has fought a couple of wars with Lebanon, including occupying their neighbor up to the Litani River for several years and then losing ignominiously to Hezbollah in 2006. That war ended with a UN-brokered deal whereby Hezbollah was supposed to stay out of the area south of the Litani (in practice, a nonsensical requirement that would've been the equivalent of saying the US military can't be in Texas, its own sovereign territory.)

That situation threatens to explode again very soon, with Israel and Hezbollah frequently exchanging missiles, gunfire, and bombs across that tense border. Recently, the Boston Globe reported Israel is seriously considering opening a “second front” by invading Lebanon again.

Hezbollah is an ally of Syria and Iran, and those nations – with significant military capacity of their own – are backed by Russia. Israel, of course, is backed by our own government, India, and several NATO states. US forces are already deployed around the region and two or three carrier attack groups hover nearby.

Not too long ago, though, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to turn Beirut and southern Lebanon into Gaza.

However, because Hezbollah's military capacity, with thousands of missiles and tens of thousands of trained soldiers, is much stronger than the last time Israel attacked, such an invasion will turn into a bloodbath very quickly... even if it stays conventional.

What if the Gaza tactics are not enough?

Given the distance and Hezbollah's missiles, Israeli aircraft would find it quite difficult to repeatedly bomb Beirut the way they've bombed Gaza. A single nuclear strike would fulfill such a threat if they felt they could get away with it. Admittedly, that's a HUGE “if,” in part because Russia has said it would see nuke use against its allies as an “existential threat” warranting using its nukes. But countries have been known to do desperate things when they feel extremely threatened, are losing, or if they let ideology overrule common sense.

Assassinating Hezbollah's Friends

Even more recently, Israel was the most likely suspect in the aerial assassination of Iranian Gen. Mousavi in Syria, the chief conduit between Tehran, Damascus, and Hezbollah. From what I've read, that could've been signaled one of 3 Israeli choices:

• to dissuade Hezbollah and Iran from further action,
• to prepare the ground for Israeli expansion of war to the north (by impeding Hezbollah's supply lines), or
• to provoke Iran into action Israel would see as justifying some kind of massive attack on Iran by Israel or the US.

Either of the last two could very easily bring both Iran and Russia into the war.

The Southern Front

Similarly, Iran would likely enter if Israel or the US attack Yemen.

That country's Ansarallah (Houthi) leadership has been the only other one to actively support the Palestinian cause with military effort, by launching missiles and drones against Israel-related shipping in the Red Sea (and, allegedly, US naval vessels). Ansarallah specifically said they're only interested in Israel-bound or -sourced craft, and have told other ships to leave their transponders on to avoid attacks. Somebody (probably the US) has told those ships to turn off those transponders, though. It's the maritime equivalent of using civilians as shields – exactly what pro-Israel propaganda claims Hamas does in Gaza.

A Global Tripwire

The southern Red Sea and nearby Gulf of Aden have become a naval tripwire, with warships from many countries reportedly there. Among them are the US, Iran, China, India, Japan, France, Norway, Israel, and Russia, all warily watching each other.

In December, the US tried to get a “coalition of the willing” to commit a significant naval force to that region, but several allies refused to participate (probably rightly suspecting they'd be used as a cover for a US attack on Yemen). France initially joined but backed out, saying they'll only protect their own marine vessels there.

So many of these incidents are just fuses waiting to detonate. All of them could be rapidly defused if Washington DC had enough guts to stand up to Israel, cut that country off from further weapons, supplies, and other war material, and warn them in the bluntest possible terms they will be obliterated if they try to expand this war in any direction. That'd require American leaders here who are willing to put the desires of the world's people first, rather than the short-term profit of their MIC* donors. Until we get such leaders, Washington's cowardice and corruption will keep greasing a slow slide toward World War III.

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"Military Industrial Complex." Ray McGovern also calls it the MICIMATT = military, industrial, congressional, intelligence, media, academic think-tank complex.

The Youth are the Solution

Green-Rainbow Party of Massachusetts

[email protected]

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