http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x279666#279670

This link is to a thread at the DU discussing McKinney's imprisonment in Israel along with about 22 others. The MSM and even lesser media outlets have ignored this stoory completely as has our Congress. It's and interesting read and ALL the comments are imortant. It show exactly what and how Israeli influences our very existence.

And read more than one thread on DU about it..half of the posters outright hate her and a goodly portion of those want to know why its always poor Israel that gets criticized for wanton, indiscriminate bloodbaths rahter than those nasty Palestineans (ummmm...), another quarter either like/ambivalent but still found the need to condemn her for whatever reason (fraud, attention whore, self-aggrandizer, hysteric/melodramaitc, "stupid" etc)

Nice group of people..can't say I care to meet em though..

I agree with you. I have been banned from posting at DU for my "anti-semtic" comments that criticize Israeli policies and US double-standards. My heart aches for the lives that have been lost and the human resource waste that US-Israeli POLICIES AND BEHAVIOR has caused for the last 60 years across the world.

I like her because she pisses white people off, almost across the board. I have little doubt she would call me if a cracker or something if I met her :)

Politically, I think she is actually offering nada, but you can't say shes run-of-the-mill about it

Cynthia is a magnet for those who claim "reverse racism" and that is helpful to get those bigots out in the fucking open, because they are always the ones who claim they are the most open-minded and tolerant souls..to be honest, in some cases I'd like to kick their goddamn heads in, but I guess that is for another time

They're all on my list though

There was one girl in my high school, pretty popular even and kinda pretty (maybe a 7, but an 8 or 9 personality), who hung out mainly with black girls because she found her white friends were too judgemental and catty and manipulative. She was even fond of saying exactly that. I hung out with them too, but of course I had an ulterior motive..;)

It is taboo to say stuff like on PI though, so I will have 48 different people telling me I am misogynist over this..

for president was pretty strong left, no major battles with her from me; I voted for her in fact. (When people asked me if I voted for the woman or the African American, I just say/said yes...) It was a vote I could make, won't vote otherwise...

jobs, homes, health, solidarity, imperialism?

Shes nowhere, same as everybody else you could name

Its not really a criticism because thats not something you can expect from her, but she most definitely is offering nada

watch for fun, she does couch her terms...its all moot and I have no ownership here, I just think she's alright...

http://www.strimoo.com/video/14323030/Cynthia-McKinney-Green-Party-Nat-l-Convention-Candidate-Forum-Vimeo.html

I may post another...

Watch it all kid,

The 8 middle minutes of her acceptance speech for the green party...listen closely, beyond the green party rhetoric she says quite a little bit of what you ask about, a lot on education but listen after that too...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UzcqK2Ii70

AND a cracker.

;)

where the high school football coach barked at one of his lineman after a game to stop being a "street n***er". So the Principal says in his defense, "I wouldn't mind if a black person called me a cracker". And the guy was like an astrophysicist or something, too.

:rofl:

I don't know why I'm so giddy and inappropriate today. I just checked out the Time to Chill Out forum and couldn't stop laughing. Wish I'd gotten here a couple weeks ago to see whatever it was all about. Oh well, there'll be more I imagine.

Alright, I gotta get off my ass for a minute. I'll be back later. And by later I either mean in an hour or in several months :P

or are you scared of being wrong? ;)

but unfortunately I'm not wrong about this..and I do mean unfortunately because I'd just as soon be wrong

I've actually seen Cynthia's speeches before (not in person however) and I watched one of the videos you linked to. Like I said, I like her and say more power to her :)

But you really gotta read the part from the Manifesto that Anax has posted more than once about Booge Socialism.

Whats it really about, Mary?

Hope you watched the second video, and not the first, not real sure she's as booge as you think, maybe...I've read it and will revisit, actually might read from the original as it will save my eyes. Thanks! (just been picking on you a lot Kid... :) )

I'd seen it before, and I've read it

Here it is, the exact excerpt in your video, we can take it from the top if you want and go point-by-point

(rest of speech here: http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2008/07/mckinneys-acceptance-speech/)

What I want to know is simple: is it the state of the system or the system? If the latter, then her "plan" isn't a plan at all -- its a ploy

(PS not giving you a hard time, I know what you're saying..but we're way past "conscience" here)

SPEECH:

But we make history today only because we must. In 2008, after two stolen Presidential elections and eight years of George W. Bush, and at least two years of Democratic Party complicity, the racket is about war crimes, torture, crimes against the peace; the racket is about crimes against the Constitution, crimes against the American people, and crimes against the global community. The racket is even about values that we thought were long settled as reasonable to pursue, like liberty and justice, and economic opportunity, for all. Yes, Sojourner, there’s a lot out of kilter now, but these two women, Rosa and me, joined by all the men and women in this room, are going to do our best to turn this country right side up again.

And just like the women and men at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 who declared their independence from the Old Order, I celebrated my birthday last year by doing something I had done a dozen times in my head, but had never done publicly: I declared my independence from every bomb dropped, every threat leveled, every civil liberties rollback, every child killed, every veteran maimed, every man tortured, and the national leadership that let this happen. At that pro-peace rally in front of the Pentagon, I noted that nowhere on the Democratic Party’s Congressional Agenda for their first 100 days in the majority was any mention at all of a livable wage, the right of return for Katrina survivors, repealing the Patriot Acts, the Secret Evidence Act, the Military Commissions Act, or bringing our troops home now. Nowhere on the Congressional Democrats’ agenda was an investigation into the Pentagon’s “loss” of $2.3 trillion that Rumsfeld admitted to just before September 11th. And nowhere was there any plan to get that money back for jobs, health care, education, and for veterans. Not even repeal of the Bush tax cuts that have helped to usher in, according to some, levels of income inequality not experienced in this country since the Great Depression. And instead of Articles of Impeachment to hold the criminals accountable, impeachment was taken “off the table.”

And so, taking these words directly from our own Declaration of Independence, and from the Seneca Falls document “it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it.”

There is no doubt that the people of this country and in the global community are suffering from Washington, D.C.’s policies today.

Even as the ice in the Arctic Ocean reportedly was melting, the United States was obstructing an international discussion of climate change goals-setting for 2020 at the recently-concluded G-8 Summit. Even while George Bush has made himself an international climate change villain by not signing onto the Kyoto Protocol, his own scientists at the U.S. Climate Change Science Program have predicted more heat waves, intense rains, increased drought, and stronger hurricanes to affect the U.S. due to the worsening effects of climate change.

Public policy can be our friend or it can be our foe in understanding and working through the immense changes our planet is undergoing. We the voters, the activists, the policy wonks, the candidates, and the elected officials all have a role to play in making public policy. As I have said so many times during this campaign for the Green Party nomination, politics is not a beauty contest; it is not a fashion show; it is not a horse race. Politics is the authoritative allocation of values in a society. Politics is about values being reflected in public policy. It is about having power over public policy. And we engage in the political process because we want our values reflected in public policy.

Had the Green Party’s values been reflected in public policy since the beginnings of the Green Party in this country, the United States would have long ago implemented a livable wage; there would be no civil liberties erosion; diversity would be respected, appreciated and welcomed; education would be interesting and relevant to students’ lives and no student would graduate from college $100,000 in debt in a Green Party USA because education, not incarceration and militarization, would be subsidized by the state. In a Green Party USA, health care would be provided for everyone here through a single payer, Medicare-for-all type health care system. We would have no homeless men and women sleeping on our streets and everyone who could work would have work. Rebuilding our infrastructure, manufacturing green technology, retooling our economy so that those who protect us, train us, heal us and prepare us for tomorrow are compensated in what is their true value to our culture and our society, based on their contribution to our civilization. Vietnam War-era veterans would be our last war veterans because we would never have been engaged in war and occupation against Afghanistan and Iraq. We would forego imperial designs on our neighbors to the north and south, never building any wall of division, not ever encroaching on their geographic or cultural sovereignty. In fact, if Green Party values were now reflected in U.S. public policy, our country not only would not be engaged in war and occupation, there would be peace in the Middle East based on self-determination, respect for human rights, and justice. We would strive to perfect our democracy at home through election integrity and no one would be denied their rightful place in our Union due to discrimination. Our neighbors in the global community would look up to us for our cultural and technological accomplishments. We would have apologized for genocide against the indigenous peoples of this land and the abomination of chattel slavery. Our country would have dignity on the world stage and in every international forum, and no one in this country would be made to live in fear.

Oh, if it could be true: that the values of the Green Party were reflected in the Federal Government’s public policy. Let me wake up and snap out of my reverie. Yes, today’s reality is harsh. Abu Ghraib, torture, rendition, lying, spying, war, stolen elections, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, New Orleans, poverty, racial profiling, Sean Bell, the San Francisco 8, Benton Harbor’s Reverend Pinkney, the Holy Land Foundation, 9/11/01.

Embargo, blockade, friendly fire, depleted uranium, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, bunker busters, shock and awe.

Predatory lending, mortgage crisis, foreclosures, a country $53 trillion in debt. And while Bear Stearns gets a bailout, you and I sink or swim.

Harsh? Today’s reality is harsh. But what’s even harder for many to accept and admit is that our quality of life today is the making of the Democratic and Republican Parties.

What our country has become through their public policy is reflective of their values.

We will never get a United States that is reflective of different values if we continue to do the same thing. Those who delivered us into this mess cannot be trusted to get us out of it.

That’s why I signed up to do something I’ve never done before so I can have something I’ve never had before: My country, made in the likeness of the values of the Green Party.

When my father first started out in the world of politics in Georgia, he began as a Republican, because Georgia Democrats would not allow blacks to vote in their primaries. Some of my father’s closest friends today are still Republicans because of that history.

My father served 30 years in the Georgia Legislature as a Democrat. Because of him, I served 4 years in the Georgia Legislature, where we were the country’s only father daughter legislative team. And then I went to Congress and served 12 years working with the Democratic Party and its current leadership representing the State of Georgia.

My son grew up playing on the Floor underneath my desk in the Chamber of the Georgia House of Representatives. His buddies were the legislators down there, under the Gold Dome, who were my and my father’s colleagues.

My mother is the genteel Southern lady who keeps our family glued together. A nurse by profession, a nurturer by instinct, she could patch over all the times I had a political disagreements with my Dad and it ended up being discussed, not only at the family dinner table, but also on the evening news.

My father and I stumped for candidates, and helped keep Georgia in the Democratic Party fold, until on my election night in 2002, I was forced to admit that the Republicans wanted to beat me more than the Democrats wanted to keep me. Both my father and I were put out of office after being targeted by a convergence of special interests operating in both the Democratic and Republican parties. In November of 2002, after the Primary Election losses of my father and me, Georgia went Republican: the first time since Reconstruction. With all kinds of certainty, I can say that my father and I—we McKinneys—we know too well how both the Republican and Democratic Parties operate.

And that’s why I know we need an opposition party in this country. With 200 elected officials already, the Green Party can become this country’s premier opposition Party. One thing is clear, Democratic and Republican values are not Green Party values. And honestly, I believe, Green Party values are the values held by the majority in this country. And through our vigorous Power to the People campaign, we will proclaim our presence to every nook and cranny of this country. We are needed now, more than ever and here’s an example of why.

It is hard to not hear the warning signs of a new war: a war against Iran. Dick Cheney told us to expect war for the next generation. The Republicans launched this war economy and their presumptive nominee said that we could stay in Iraq for the next 100 years and even sang a song for the bombing of Iran. The Democratic majority in Congress just voted to fund the war into 2009 and has 200 sponsors on a bill that declares war on Iran by calling for a naval blockade. A naval blockade is a declaration of war. The Democratic presumptive nominee wants to increase the size of the overused military and the budget for an already-bloated and wasteful Pentagon. I am the only candidate who has consistently voted against the Pentagon budget, voted against the war in Iraq, and I voted against the bills that funded it. The Green Party was against the war when it started, is against the war now, and is against any military action against Iran that might take place tomorrow. The Green Party is a peace party. A Green vote is a peace vote.

Not a word has been mentioned in this political season about the disparities that exist within our country with the recognition that public policy can erase them. And even though for the first time a woman and an African-American were being taken seriously in national primaries, a real discussion of race and gender has been studiously avoided on all sides. At a time when the United States is under review, itself, by the United Nations for its poor record on domestic respect for human rights, particularly in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, a real discussion of race and gender is needed now more than ever. On some indices, according to United for a Fair Economy, the racial disparities that exist today are worse than at the time of the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Right here in Chicago, Hull House reported that it would take 200 years, without a public policy intervention from elected leadership, for the quality of life experienced by black Chicagoans to equal that of white Chicagoans.

Women are still the overwhelming profile of the minimum wage worker in this country. 65% of all minimum wage workers are women, according to 2005 statistics. Despite the law, women still go to work every day, performing the same tasks as men, yet bring home less pay than their male counterparts. Asian-American and Pacific Island women make 88 cents for every dollar earned by men, but African-American women earn only 72 cents and my Latina sisters earn only 60 cents for every dollar earned by men. Overall, according to 2007 statistics, women with similar education, skills, and experience are paid 77 cents for every dollar a man makes. Equal pay for equal work is not yet a reality for working women in this country. And the glass ceiling is all too real.

I’m very proud of my second cousin, Shonté, whose mother, a divorcée, raised her pretty much as a single mother. Shonté’s mother, Shara, understood the value of her child getting a good education and helped her as much as she could with university tuition. The rest Shonté was able to secure by working on campus and in student loans. Shonté graduated from college, and then took a one-year Master’s program in Social Work, and now wants to get her Ph.D. But she’s already over $90,000 in debt. It doesn’t have to be this way and we don’t have to accept it. In other countries around the world, higher education is valued and is made affordable to all who want it. Only a sick government would place a banker in-between a student and her teacher.

An insurance lobbyist in-between a patient and his doctor.

Lying and spying before 9/11 Truth and the Constitution.

Only a sick government would place a wealthy family and their huge corporation and its genetically-modified frankenfood peddled by force in-between us and the organic food that’s healthy for us to eat and that farmers would prefer to grow.

Only a sick government would do this.

And I am no longer willing to trust the ones who are responsible for getting us into this mess to provide the solution to get us out of it.

The Green Party long ago took a stand for racial justice: against profiling, against police brutality, against discrimination of any sort, and for reparations stemming from the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

The Green Party long ago took a stand for gender equity.

The Green Party long ago took a stand against all discrimination.

The Green Party is a justice party. A Green vote is a justice vote.

And the day after the election, if voters have been disfranchised and don’t believe the announced election results, it will be the Green Party that will be there, as it was in 2004, to demand election integrity.

It is for all these reasons and more that I redeclare my goals in the language of my sisters who convened at Seneca Falls, NY 160 years ago. They wrote:

“It is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.”
That declaration not only avoids the politics of the past, it contains a kernel for the future. How can those new guards for the future be won?

Here’s how:

When I was first running for Congress and it was the year of the woman, women all over the country were saying, “We want our seat at the table.” And when I got to Washington, I saw that policy was really made in a room, at a table. There were real seats at the table. Well, imagine what has happened to public policy making now.

There is a real room, with a window and a door and there’s two seats at the table. The window is for us to look through while our representatives make policy for us so we can see what they’re doing. At the table, one seat is for the Democrats and one seat is for the Republicans. Now, we don’t know who did it, but one of them put a lock on the door and slipped a key to the corporate lobbyists who can come and go at will and whisper what they want to the Democrats, and then whisper what they want to the Republicans, and the result is that we the people, who pay for those seats and determine who sits in them, want one thing, but because the corporate lobbyists can come and go at will, our values get overridden and our representatives give us something else.

That’s how we end up with everyone saying they’re against the war and occupation, but war and occupation still gets funding.

That’s how we end up with everyone saying they’re against illegal spying on innocent people, yet end up with a telecom immunity bill being signed into law.

That’s how we end up with everyone saying they’re in favor of universal access to health care and no one implementing what the physicians, nurses, and health care providers support, and that’s a single payer health care system in this country.

That’s why my cousin and so many other students in this country face staggering personal debt just to get an education, yet our elected representatives keep voting to spend 720 million dollars a day on war and occupation, war crimes, and crimes against the peace.

Now, if we can entice people who have stopped voting because they see the system as rigged, to become active again, and to vote Green . . .

If we can convince those first-time voters from the previous two Presidential elections, though they might be discouraged because they saw their vote obstructed and then not counted while neither of the big parties fought to protect them, if we can convince them to vote Green . . .

If we can convince those who see two parties, but only one political agenda, to vote Green, then it is possible for the Green Party to get 5% of the national vote.

5% of the vote makes the Green Party, not a minor party in the eyes of the federal government, but a major party.

5% confers on the Green Party major party status. And with that 5%, we can pull up another chair at the table of public policy making. It only takes 5% of those who vote, including the near majority who don’t vote, to come out for a Green Party President and then we will have an official third party in this country, and public policy that truly reflects our values.

She got my vote last November.

figured it might be the same here

I watched the videos posted by BLF above and I reviewed the transcript I posted as well. What shocked me is how much TAMER it is than what I was remembering. Maybe the convention was not her fireiest moment, but she really did say nothing at all

who are you and why should I care about what you think?

n/t

..

:hi:

what did McKinney say (or, not say) that makes you believe she deserves more scrutiny? Scrutiny as compared to whom? What is it that you disagree with?

:shrug:

but no one is paying attention right now, and I'm not sure how far we can go on the topic. Its of little interest of itself if we're just going to debate Cynthia.

I will try to find a few choice parts of her speech and highlight them tomorrow. The idea is that she is not saying anything "radical" or even anything that Barack Obama wouldn't say more or less.

I recognize that she takes important "stands" (like on Palestine) but I haven't figured out what those mean other than offering people a way to assuage their conscience without abstaining at the ballot box.

:shrug:

I think McKinney takes those stands because she believes in them. She may not be eloquent or a great leader, but I don't see any negative intentions on her part. Perhaps you're just not interested in anyone who doesn't want to throw bombs (politically speaking, of course)

Sorry! don't have it right now to take it on: one point:

"Those who delivered us into this mess cannot be trusted to get us out of it."

May I add, nor do they desire or have any intention of doing so! they will continue to deliver us into messes until we, somehow, refuse to let them, somehow, turn around and deliver them to their own mess...

Damn Kid the impetus to go into this is gone for me right now, but Cynthia M. is alright with me, she's not stopping...Cindy Sheehan another one. Might not be always right, might not always agree with them, but they keep going...bless them...

Rosa Clemente had all the fire there that night, should have posted that part of the video, you are right, it seemed more firey in my memory...

They are what they are. What they're not is anti-capitalist, or -- in the last -- anti-imperialist. Barring that, what programs are possible? I think you know the answer. Harsh realities spawn harsh reactions, goes both ways.

(And I agree with you on Rosa, she is a spitfire)

EDIT: to cut off some of the return fire I can see coming..

Lenin said the State is organized, systemic violence. You can't possibly try to mitigate that observation by claimings its organized for or by workers. Cynthia and Rosa want to make this about the State and/or talk about the role of the State. The State has ONE role and Lenin already told us what it is. In our turn we will take advantage of the same, but its sheer craziness for the moment.

Don't edit on my account! I think these folks are trying to work within the system, and I agree the system is organized violence, to try to work within that system just might be, as I think you are saying, complicity, ...thanks Kid! :)

edited for clarification! not to avoid crossfire! ;)

Yeah, you can do that and point fingers and say "You're complicit!". Not sure that is what I want to do and definitely sure that is not what I'm saying here. Idea is to expose exactly how tame and meek her proposals are. Once people consider it from that angle, the rest falls into place of its own accord.

Think about Political Heretic..he is slowly coming to terms with the fact that there is NO ONE saying what he wants to hear programatically. In the process he is paring down "what he wants to hear" to its bare essentials..and thats where we come in.

Nobody *likes* the taste of bitter medicine..

Everything I do is "within the system". In the US this not a time where the working class is seizing institutional power. It's how we work within the system that counts.

You're certainly not complicit, if the work you're doing focuses on collective action by working people, helps identify the class lines (power relationships) that define the battle, promotes solidarity, makes people more self-reliant, gives them confidence that they can win and leaves them looking forward to the next fight.

that was Mary talking, not me. See post 30 because I agree with you completely here, there is no way to "separate" oneself from the system except to kill yourself. And that is the final capitulation.

Keep us updated on the Taco Bell/Yum fight btw

The threaded view looks like I replied to her, or I am such a dunce that I can't follow the threading? Wouldn't surprise me.

just wanting to emphasize that her post arose out of a misunderstanding

EDIT: sorry, I'm a bit jumpy..don't want to get "credit" for something that wasn't me :)

when the medicine works, but mind wrong diagnoses, especially when I make one...

if you haven't been here for a day or so, lol.

What concerns me is that "over there" is such a reflection of the mainstream U.S.; those of us who are not part of that mainstream are such a minority that we have no effect on...anything. There just aren't enough of us.

Or perhaps I'm just discouraged today.

For me anyway! You can have any "credit" given me! :)

When it follows as you say! thanks...

http://www.youtube.com/v/GUFm0ZtB3Wk&rel=0&border=1&color1=0x2b405b&color2=0x6b8ab6&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1