Ralph Nader has failed to raise enough votes to qualify for the California

ballot. However, the Green Party of California has until Aug. 26 to decide

its candidate and has the opportunity to put Nader on the ballot in Cobb's

place. Beth Moore Haines, a California party spokeswoman, has said, "I

think there would be considerable cost to California in good will toward the

rest of the Greens in the nation if we did something like that." Of course,

here is where the party is mistaken. The *members* of the Green party

support a platform of peace and critical, uncompromised resistance as

embodied in the Nader-Camejo campaign; it is the party's *leadership* that

does not.

Greens and anti-war advocates across the country should contact the Green

party of California and let them know that they support the sober and

rational discussion of peace as an alternative to the violent hegemony

overtly perpetrated by the Democrats and Republicans and implicitly condoned

by the Green party's leadership and thus that they support Ralph Nader's

ballot access (and Green Californians should demand it), which would entail

such a discussion. They should reject the Green party convention as an

exercise by the party's leadership against the will of its members, which

has undermined the resistance and message of peace. Anti-war Democrats and

Republicans should join in this call to put Nader on the ballot in

California in response to the fact that not one of these three parties is

willing to engage seriously in the discussion of peace as an alternative.

It is out of compassion, rationality and moral obligation that we resist our

nation's wars and our nation's war parties. There will be no cost in good

will toward the California Greens, should they decide to support this

resistance and thus Nader. On the contrary, it is to "stay the course" that

would bear not only a cost in good will, but in the soul of the party.

gpca (at) greens.org

http://www.cagreens.org/

http://www.cagreens.org/locals/details.php

David