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The
Green Party of New Jersey |
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When
preparations were going on for the New Jersey Green Party
Convention, a group of terrorists hijacked 4 planes and did
terrible things to thousands of human beings, on the planes, in
New York City, the Pentagon and near Pittsburgh.
We mourn the victims and express our solidarity with the
families of those who were killed, including their wives,
husbands, children, friends and other relatives. We
have to put this destructive terrorism into a real perspective,
senseless as its horrors are.
This country's military and its capitalist imperialism
commits far more acts of terrorism every day than the hijackers
did on their day of destruction.
The Pentagon has 6,500 employees whose job is to sell
arms to approximately 182 countries. Usually the sales are to both sides of a conflict.
75% of the sales to Third World Countries are to
opponents of Human Rights.
The military uses huge amounts for training 1700 foreign
troops under the Joint Combined Exchange Training Program.
The School of Americas is only one such example.
Most of the training takes place in countries in which
the U.S. corporations have control and defy the best interests
of their people. When
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. supplied
military and economic aid to Afghanistan in its war against
Russia. Then, as
now, Osama Bin Laden, a rich young Saudi Arabian, lived in
Afghanistan--and the U.S. worked closely with him until 1989,
when Russia was forced to withdraw. Moreover
the U.S. kills far more people by its dollar than by its
bombing. The U.S. has one quarter of one percent who control
more wealth than the bottom 95%, twice as much as the bottom
80%, which includes the so-called middle class. The 3 richest
people have assets that exceed the combined domestic products of
the 48 least developed countries.
But a mere 4% of their wealth would provide universal
access to basic education, health care, adequate food, clean
water and safe sewers for everyone in the world. In
response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, some people,
including the so-called President (Bush) and the corporate
media, call for U.S. military increases and war against any
country that hosts Omar Bin Laden or any other country that
harbors terrorists against the U.S. But killing innocent civilians in such countries
would do no justice to those killed in this country, and will
not bring them back to life.
Launching a war that destabilizes regions or leads to a
further escalation of violence would be a grave mistake with
unforeseen consequences. It
would not increase our safety and might increase the likelihood
of more terrorist attacks.
Instead we should strengthen the efforts to strengthen
the nonviolent efforts throughout the world to do away with
capitalist imperialism and its corporate control by people who
think that U.S. dominance and military and economic control are
primary. I have been working for an end to capitalist imperialism ever since I went to prison for a year-and-a-day before Japan invaded Pearl Harbor. I became a War Tax Resister even before 1940. In 1995 1 attended a summit that led to the formation of the Independent Progressive Politics Network and have been a member of its Steering Committee ever since. The IPPN has been composed of organizations and individuals committed to the achievement of a national, non-sectarian, independent progressive party, or an alliance of such parties, that will form an alternative to the corporate controlled Democratic and Republican Parties. Through IPPN and in other nonviolent activities I work to replace racism, classism, sexism and homophobia. I work for the involvement of people of color, women, young people and workers in key leadership positions. Ever since my first arrest, I visit and correspond with prisoners, including those who do harm to other people. For years I have worked with Toward Freedom, a magazine that stands for human rights, the elimination of the capitalist system and the replacement of the Prison Industrial Complex by Rehabilitation of those who respond to their poverty and the society's racism by doing crimes that hurt other people. For the U.S. Presidency I always write "None of the Above." But when Ralph Nader ran as a Green Candidate, I voted for him in the last two elections. Today,
growing numbers all over the world are calling for a loving
economy that is shared by people everywhere--and begins in our
own lives. From
Seattle to Quebec City, Genoa
and the recent cancellation by the World Bank and the IMF of its
D.C. meeting, there are indications that more and more people,
including young ones, are calling for human rights for everyone,
for a genuine democracy. For
the first time in many of our lives, we have the possibility
that these changes may become a reality and a new society may be
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