Another Green Party Sell-out (Now funded by Blackwater USA)

[Ian_rd]

LINK

Iraq mercenaries supporting political mercenaries: More on the appalling sell-out of the Pennsylvania Green Party

You may have heard of Blackwater USA. They're the shadowy, Virginia-based soldier-for-hire company with roots in the U.S. military intelligence community. It has reaped untold millions in Pentagon and Homeland Security contracts since the advent of the Bush administration, from the fires of Fallujah to the floodwaters of New Orleans.

Simply put, Blackwater USA is not the kind of company you'd expect to get behind the Green Party, with its far-left platform that ostensibly seeks to pull the United States out of Iraq and end the type of military actions that have proved to be such a good source of new business for the mercenary industry.

Yet, new Federal Election Commission filings reviewed by Attytood (thanks to blogger Bernie O'Hare for the initial tip) showed that that founder and owner of Blackwater USA, Erik Prince, and his wife donated $10,000 -- the legal maximum -- on July 21 to the once obscure Green Party of Luzerne County, the group that apparently spent well over $100,000 in a now all-but-failed bid to get its U.S. Senate candidate, Carl Romanelli, onto the November ballot.

Full story here.

[soothsayer]

1. Interesting, but I think they're NC based, not here in 'ol Virginny

[Hugin]

2. When are people going to learn the 'green party' is a ruse?

Why else would it's platform be identical to the Democratic platform if
it's purpose isn't to cloud the water?

[Solo_in_MD]

3. The greens are much more serious a party in Europe

An clearly if the US is ever going to break the two party system, there is going to be some pain. If it does happen, I just hope the pain is on the repuke side, not ours

[Hugin]

5. Apples and Oranges...

The Green Party in Europe is an entirely different matter.

They have an independent platform to the other parties. The American green party,
however, is set up such that it is a knife at the throat of only the Democratic
Party. Why aren't they running around over in Freepland telling them how to do
it?

[Solo_in_MD]

12. The Greens I know would not agree with you

They have a different set of priorities than the Dems or the Repukes. They are genuine and fervent. I can not for the life of me see how they get as many votes as they do, except as a protest vote against both parties, which is the real issue for us. They only draw votes from Dems, which in the two party system we have does indeed hurt us.

[Ian_rd]

4. Up until the Nader campaign in 2000, the Green Party showed great promise

with it's growing base made up of people like me who felt (and still feel) betrayed by the Clinton-DLC corporate sell-out of the Democratic Party. The Green platform is NOT identical to the Democratic Party, in fact it reflects the liberal base of the Democratic Party sans the Hillary-esque triangulation tactics.

But the Nader campaign was a horrible, horrible move - an attempt to run a national campaign before the grassroots were strong. The result was the election of the most dangerous, greedy, corrupt, and violent administration in many generations (coupled with the election theft, of course).

What we're seeing now is the result of how the Nader campaign destroyed the Green Party. Now all that's left are a few desperate candidates willing to accept support from any source, no matter how vile, as a means to stay relevant.

As a true liberal, I mourn the death of the Green Party. But also realize the need to rally behind the Democrats now more than ever.

[marions ghost]

6. true but

you could also say that the misguided Nader campaign gave us the Rethuglican nightmare and opened up the
whole can of worms. The can needed to be opened up. As bad as it reeks, people needed to SEE what is happening now. They were much too naive, trusting, complacent on one hand-- and too apathetic, turned-off, disinterested on the other. All that has changed. While I think the Greens are too narrowly focused, I applaud the sincere efforts of many associated with the Greens. I don't "blame" Greens for Boosh. It allowed us to see just HOW well our antiquated, byzantine, undemocratic election system "works." The problem is the ridiculous bi-polar system which makes it so impossible for 3rd party candidates to have any effect other than being spoilers.

We may have a chance to change that now, now that the Hindenburg is about to hit the ropes (or wires whatever it deconstructs on).

There's work to be done regardless of labels. Not a time to be picking apart the nuances between us. Time to go for the enchilada.

[MadHound]

7. And let's also look at who supports the Democratic party

GE, Phillip Morris, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Tenneco, all of these defense contractors and more have funneled well over a billion dollars into Democratic coffers in the past ten years. And you're getting all bent out of shape about $10,000 given to the Greens. Sheesh:eyes: At least the Greens have a good reason for accepting this money, they're so poor, and so marginalized that they have to get whatever money they can from where they can. What's the Democrats' excuse?

Perhaps your effort would be better spent cleaning out the questionable, morally incompatible donations from the Dem coffers before you worry about the Greens. Then again, given the Dems support of this illegal, immoral war, perhaps those contributions aren't so incompatible after all.

[knitter4democracy]

8. Dick DeVos's brother-in-law.

How can he be high in the polls at all when he is so damn much like Bush?

[pschoeb]

9. I see no such entry for the Prince's of Blackwater fame at opensecrets

Here's link to all of Prince and his wifes's contribution fro 2005/2006, nothing is listed to the Green party of Luzerne County.

http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=Prince&txtState=VA&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=&txt2006=Y&Order=N

Here's a link to all the donations given to "green Paty of Luzerne County" at opensecrets, nothing listed for Prince or Blackwater
http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/search.asp?NumOfThou=0&txtName=&txtState=%28all+states%29&txtZip=&txtEmploy=&txtCand=Green+Party+of+Luzerne+County&txt2006=Y&Order=N

Maybe some bloggers should actually check their facts.

[reformed_military]

10. Nice fact checking

If you do a search by "Blackwater" on open secrets you see that some of the members of the Board give to Dems.

[pschoeb]

11. Actually I was wrong, but your right about Blackwater Exec's giving to Dem

The data at opensecrets was updated as of Oct 11, and supposedly this info on Prince comes from data submitted to the FEC on Oct 15th.


Edit to add FEC filings for Luzerne County Greens with info submitted OCT 15

http://query.nictusa.com/cgi-bin/dcdev/forms/C00424820/244628/sa/ALL