WHO'S NEXT???-GPUSA-US Green Party leader Oden a Victim of Dirty Politics

As a member of both Green parties, I must protest Starlene Rankin's "USGP

advisory on detention of a Green at Maine airport" at

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=83634&group=webcast . Her

failure to support a

fellow Green manhandled by the military and barred from her flight raises

disturbing questions about Rankin herself.


The GPUSA statement on Nancy Oden's airport ordeal needs no "correction"

from Rankin, as it is clearly labeled "GREEN PARTY USA COORDINATOR DETAINED

AT AIRPORT" (GPUSA) -- SEE http://www.greenparty.org/bangor.txt .


The real confusion arises from Rankin's attempt to conceal the fact there

are TWO Green parties. She is NOW working for Green Party of the United

States - GPUS, but in fact she WAS the office secretary for Green Party USA

-- GPUSA-- until recently-- when she deserted under a cloud of allegations

of embezzlement and sabotage against her employer, GPUSA. She fails to

mention these publicly known facts. Also missing is any mention of her

long-running war against Nancy Oden, the very subject of the Maine airport

ordeal. Some have called Rankin's post dirty politics.


Yet Rankin made the astounding claim: "The Green Party of the United

States is the only Green political organization organized nationally as a

party". One can imagine why she would like people to believe that.


The confusion over party names is not the fault of the Green Party USA.

The Green Party USA has been the Green Party for years, and held national

conventions since 1984. SEE http://www.greenparty.org/intro.html


But it wasn't until July 1, 2001 that the Association of State Green

Parties formed a national party called Green Party of the United States

--GPUS. SEE GPUS own page at http://www.greenparties.org/fec/fec.html .

"7.01.01 - In our annual meeting in Santa Barbara on July 27 and 28, the

Association of State Green Parties will vote on whether to form the

national Green Party of the United States" And SEE GPUS own page at

http://gpus.org>/press/pr_07_30_01.html "July 30, 2001: Greens Create

National Party - Santa Monica, Calif. -- Green Party leaders today

celebrated the formation of the Green Party of the United States"


The choice of party name, Green Party of the United States, is

unfortunate. But of course the confusion was predicted by the 16-year old

Green Party USA when GPUS announced themselves last July as THE ONLY Green

Party of the United States.


For those interested in facts, there's an interview with Nancy Oden at

http://www.wartimeliberty.com/article.pl?sid=01/11/03/1813233 -- AND The

Bangor, Maine paper report is at

http://www.bangornews.com/editorialnews/article.html?ID=44958 . Even AFTER

she was completely searched and cleared, and her baggage, she was STILL

barred from her flight, or any other flight out of there. Officials did not

report that she refused any search. IF she had, you can be certain they

would have told the paper, and the paper would have reported it. The

officials did not report any kind of disturbance or prohibited items on her

or in her baggage, nor any abusive language or threats from her. Note:

Nancy Oden is a 60-year old activist. Does anyone seriously believe they

had any legitimate reason to bar her from her flight to her party

convention, and forfeit hundreds of dollars she paid for her ticket?


Some political enemies are claiming it would be happening to others, if

her account is true. But it IS happening to others, and probably far more

often that we hear about. People lose their jobs when it gets back. But

here's one such story, from a Sacramento reporter.

http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2001-10-25/cover.asp#


A Green Party leader in Canada --Joan Russow, PhD-- was "tagged" as a

terrorist threat and barred from the APEC convention THREE YEARS ago

http://www.green.ca/english/news/nr980929.htm . She found out by accident

that she was on a secret hit list.


We know thousands of activists have been stopped at border crossings,

airports, train stations etc where WTO meetings were scheduled in different

countries. We saw police using video cameras to record marchers. We know

they use face recognition computers for matching records on people.


Bangor International Airport is a jumping off point for Canada.


Nancy's enemies on the Right insist she wasn't on any target list. THEY

haven't had problems with the law. Yet Nancy is a well known, highly

visible activist in Maine, a veteran of Monsanto campaigns and antiwar

efforts, among others, and her signed articles have been published in Maine

newspapers. Of course the FBI knows who she is. They know who everybody is.

Unfortunately, Nancy's flight plans were public information in advance,

and serious activists have serious enemies who work covertly with

intelligence and law enforcement.

--paul, webmaster http://globalcircle.net

networking for ecology, justice, and all our relations

Paul, the internet warrior, friend of Oden and a ghost from my past is back! i'm really too busy doing activism and community organizing to have to deal with defending myself on indymedia. But, oh well, here goes.

i guess i should have known Paul Prior would come after me. It was one of his favorite activities earlier this year when i was working for Nancy Oden and G/GPUSA and it's one of the reasons i don't work for them anymore.

i put my heart and soul into my work for G/GPUSA for many years, but when these sectarians pulled their coup last winter and started abusing their staff and not following their own bylaws, myself and many other Greens backed out and are now part of the new Green Party of the United States.



Lots of former GPUSAers are also involved in starting an organization called the "Green Alliance" (working name) that will fill the void left by the dysfunctional G/GPUSA.

The Green Alliance (working name) is a new membership based organization for Green Party activists that organizes alongside, and works within the Green Party of the United States and the ballot-line Green Party organizations of each state and county.

The Green Alliance will work to have its perspectives adopted by the Green Party, while reserving the right to speak and act independently on behalf of its own members.

We envision the creation of a National Clearinghouse to facilitate networking, resources and information between Green Activists and Green Organizations.

Our founding meeting will be January 19-21 in New Orleans, LA and we hope many Greens, will attend and participate. i'll post more information about this meeting as details become available.

Peace,

Starlene

At a time like this, when the war hysteria being carefully cultivated by the military-industrial-governmental-media complex has led to arbitrary detentions of hundreds of Arab-Americans and passage of a law (the so-called "Patriot Act") that makes some of the stuff that came out of the McCarthy era look by comparison like the ACLU could have written it, this is not the time to air our dirty linen in public or to denounce victims of government harassment because they don't belong to the "right" faction or because we've had some sort of difficulty in the past.

I haven't yet had the opportunity to check out Nancy Oden's story journalistically and I don't want to take a position on it until I do, but the relevant fact is: was she denied permission to fly on a scheduled flight and refused a refund on her ticket because her political activities put her on some sort of blacklist from the FBI or some other agency of government? If she was, ALL progressives should rally in support of her and should expose this kind of government misconduct for what it is: the beginnings of an American fascism under the guise of "patriotism" and a "war emergency" that (like the permanent wars in George Orwell's "1984") can be sustained by the government indefinitely and used as a pretext for destroying the spirit of the Bill of Rights even while it remains technically a part of the Constitution.

Mark Gabrish Conlan

Editor/Publisher, Zenger's Newsmagazine

Contributor, San Diego IMC

This is why there is no unity on the left. We must put all this shit behind us and try to work together. We are all vyiong for the same thing and associating with parties and trying to use this as an oppurtunity to gain power is ridiculuous. If we are all against the war then let us work together and root out the injustices committed against anybody together. Let us not disparage each other with idle words that are only used to separate us from each other. In times of crisis we need unity, and not the unity that the government is callin for. We need unity of the critical mind that can come out and say look what you have done in their part of the world. The exploitation of peoples and resources and the unwavering "power" the US is supposed to have. We must fight against this war on all fronts at home and abroad, and not fight amongst oursleves. Let us put aside our petty differences about party affiliations and who's who. All that should not matter when outr civil liberties and the freedom of knowledge is being challenged on all fronts. We become no better than anybody else by trying to expose little things like that, this is why party politics suck. It only makes me think that if the greens were in power there would be no difference, you talk a good game but again resort to the same tactics that every other politician does. I am very disappointed