New Haven Independent

Posted by: Genghis Conn | August 28, 2007 11:00 AM

I absolutely love the fact that both Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Ferrucci are wearing nametags.

Posted by: LAFAYETTE | August 28, 2007 5:35 PM

Urgh. I think that there are enough federal policy differences between both major parties this time around to render Nader's 2000 logic obsolete. Yes, the war is still going, but to argue that the Dems are fully responsible for that misses the fact that they lack the votes in the Senate. "Defund the war?" What does that mean as an actual policy? Withdrawal operations have to be funded...complications and contingencies based on that exodus have to be funded. And so on. It's a valid emotional impulse, but a confusing one to keep regurgitating because it implies an immediate withdrawal is feasible with the present resources and somehow already budgeted for. If Ms. Mckinney wants to end the war she should go doorknocking against pro-war Senators...like our very own Joe Lieberman. I doubt there were that many Lieberman supporters in that crowd. Maybe I am wrong.

At the local level, the appeal of the Greens is greater because they can infuse some new ideas and voices. But Ralph is not the best standard-bearer. How would Ferruci actually go about creating a Tax-Yale law that would pass legal challenges? What is objectively "unfair" about the current arrangement with Yale? Is he concerned that the university would withdraw its voluntary payments and programs if there was a new tax regime put in effect? I think Sumrall's approach of putting out a steady stream of concrete ideas that seem likely to be adopted or co-opted is a more exciting approach than their mayoral candidates. Ferruci's issues page is very abstract. Lower taxes? Who doesn't love that!? How you actually going to do it, sir?

Posted by: Over the Greens | August 28, 2007 9:49 PM

This party used to mean something, but they now waste time doing stupid things and having peculiar talking points. Running against Bitsie is smart, she is a conservative democrat who could use a little refreshing with progressive ideas. But running against Mattison is a waste. Replace one progressive guy with another who won't be able to get anything done? Why I lived through the dark days of John Halle being my alderman and not getting anything done when I asked for his help, I'll never make the same mistake again. A one party town sucks, but sometimes it is useful if you want things done in your neighborhood. And the Republicans would be a much bettter second party. But if the Greens are going to run, run if meanigful places - against conservative anti-enviro dems like Silverman and Sandman, Rhodeen and Shah. A real three-way in those wards would be possible and greens could easily win or impact the race.

Posted by: latichever | August 30, 2007 8:32 AM

The only thing need be said about the Greens is that we have who we have as president because of them, and all that has entailed. There's a special place in hell for that. I will never forget nor forgive them--particularly their arch-demon, Nader--a truly self-absorbed, self-important excuse for a human being who crapped all over the stellar achievements of his youth.

Posted by: Clifford W. Thornton, Jr. | August 30, 2007 12:39 PM

Wow, latichever, you have not considered a vote for Rep. or Dem is a vote not given to a Green.

You have as president a person who got there becacuse the Dems were unwilling to fight the case in 2000 and 2004. We see it all over again with the war over there.

Posted by: AllanBrison | August 30, 2007 12:51 PM

As the Green Party candidate in Ward 10, I would like to explain some of the reasons why I am running and why I feel this is a viable race. This is in response to Over the Greens' comments above. I quote, in part, from my website: www.allanbrison.org

To a large degree this race is about the Mayor and the fact that my opponent, Ed Mattison, never casts a vote in opposition to this Mayor. We need a Board of Alderman that will challenge, not simply rubber stamp, mayoral policies.

Over the Greens seems to think that Mattison is a "progressive", and that Bitzi Clark is a "conservative", democrat. S/he also goes on to mention several other alders, Silverman, Sandman, Rhodeen, and Shah, whom s/he feel are "conservative".

But, this analysis breaks down when you realize that all of the cited alders, including Mattison, vote as a block with the Mayor on the important issues of the Budget, Downtown and Rte 34 Development plans, and the Board of Education.

Often in local politics the issues are not easily amenable to the left/right, liberal/conservative, analysis that we are use to on national or international issues. It is easy to appear progressive when your most important votes are on subjects of budget, land use, development, and the like; subjects that many progressives blank out on.

So what is wrong with the Mayor and his policies? For starters, he is much too interested in paying off his developer/contractor friends who have financed his political campaigns, giving them lots of work, than he is on improving the tax base, or in keeping New Haven an affordable town to live.

The downtown development plans, for example, involve bringing Gateway, as well as the COOP high School, downtown. Thus 3 huge parcels of prime downtown real estate will be tax exempt for ever.

The Mayor and his minions are dedicated to the top-down Big Project concept of urban development, a concept which has worked poorly in the past in cities across the country as well as here in New Haven. Our city planners need to study the writings of urban planners like Jane Jacobs and Roberta Gratz, who stress small, incremental, and often inexpensive development plans.

We need a vision of a downtown where people of all income levels actually live; where rents are affordable and where commercial establishments are in place so that a nurse at Yale-New Haven Hospital, for example, can afford to live, walking to work, and shopping for his or her daily needs on the way home.

Then our downtown would be truly re-vitalized.

Another vital issue that Mattison, Shah, Clark and company will never deal with is the endemic mismanagement and patronage at the Board of Education.

To sum up, we need to elect alders who are independent of the Mayor and of the Democratic political machine, two of the main power brokers in the City. This is not a strictly party thing. Some Greens are as tied to the Mayor as any Democrat, and some Democrats are as independent of the Mayor as I. And the only Republican on the Board votes with the mayoral block.

As to John Halle, much of his accomplishments are in the form of what the power structure has done to coop him and the Greens in New Haven. Ever think of why, all of a sudden there was a bike lane right down Orange Street, through the center of his ward? I have good word that the City's decision to put filters on the diesel school busses was done to coop the Greens. Also the Mayor's abandonment of the English Station power plant project, after his original enthusiastic endorsement, had everything to do with John and the Greens, the main opponent of that development.

I have spoken to a number of ward 9 folks who say that John was the most active alder in the ward in memory.

One thing Over the Greens and I agree: a one-party town sucks. New Haven could do a lot worse that to see the Green Party back on the Board of Aldermen.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | August 30, 2007 3:12 PM

Latichever
Stop Blaming The Greens And Nader For Who We Have In The White House. Read BBC Journalist Greg Palast Book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy Also
See The Movie American Black Out Which Like Greg
Palast Book Chronicles Voter Irregularities And Disenfranchisement.Also Google In Athan Gibbs A African American Who Develop The Tru Vote System
Which After You Vote Would Print You A Receipt, On His Way To Show The Tru Vote System He Died In A Mysterious Car Accident. You Want To Blame Some One Blame Diebold who Make These Crooked Machine
That We Use To Vote With, So Stop Blaming Nader And The Greens, How About The Democratic Party who Are In Power That Give King Bush More Money For The War And Sign Off On The Bill To Expand Wire Taping.How About The People In This State Who Vote For Bush Puppet Joe Lieberman Did You Vote For Him? So Stop Blaming Nader And The Greens
For Who Is In The WhiteHouse. P.S. I Forgot If Good Old Al Gore Would Have Won His Own State Than We Would Not Have King Bush!!!

Posted by: AllanBrison | August 30, 2007 9:57 PM

While I agree essentially with THREEFIFTS, I do feel that LARICHEVER has a point that we Green try to ignore. Any left-of-center party like the Greens does split votes off from the Dems, just as any right-of-center party like the Reform Party splits votes away from the Repubs.

This is obvious and undeniable.

However, even with Nader in the 2000 race, Gore actually won the election. Only by his and the Dems rolling over and playing dead, while the Repubs flooded Florida with their high-level operatives, was the stage set for the Supremes to select Bush as our President.

There is however a simple solution to the "spoiler" effect, employed by many democracies around the world. It is called Runoff Elections. With runoffs, voters can vote their conscience in the first round, knowing that they will be able to vote for a major candidate in the second.

This totally neutralizes the "spoiler" effect. It allows 3rd parties to demonstrate their true strength, which in turn allows them to flourish and grow.

Runoff elections would be a sea change in the US. However there is an even better solution. It is called Instant Runoff Voting. With IRV, voters rank their choices. In this way, enough data is collected in a single election to simulate a series of runoffs, until one candidate gets a clear majority. No spoiler possible.

IRV is being used successfully in municipal elections in San Francisco and in several other jurisdictions in the US. It is used extensively in Ireland and Australia.

If the Democrats were really interested in winning elections against the Republicans, they would join with the Greens to embrace IRV instead of fighting it everywhere it comes up. But no, they prefer losing to Republicans rather than allowing a 3rd parties to grow.

Posted by: latichever | August 31, 2007 12:47 PM

I'd like to see runoff elections too. Heck, I'd like to see proportional representation. But with the system we have, elementary mathematics shows that if Nader (am I the first person to notice his name is a homophone for nadir?) hadn't run there wouldn't have been any ambiguity or vagueness about the results in Florida or nationally.

My low opinion of Nader and the Greens is reinforced by my clear recognition of people--many of them friends and associates of Nader saying words to the effect: "We appreciate what you're doing and we support the idea of building your party, but we beg you to confine your efforts to solidly Blue or Red states. Please stay out of the close battleground states where you could siphon away votes from Gore."

But did Nader respond positively to this reasonable request? Not at all. In fact, instead of doing party building in uncontested states he redoubled his efforts in battle ground states. It's that for which he and the Greens will never be forgiven by me and many others.

(I even supported efforts to "trade" votes betewen Decmocratic voters in solidly Gore states like Connecticut and Greens in states like Florida, but Nader wouldn't even support that.)

Efforts to spin the statistics that it was Gore's and the Democrats' own fault for Bush is just evidence of a guilty conscience.

Gore didn't run the greatest race, but he ran one good enough to win on his own, and good enough to win unambiguously if Nader hadn't mucked it all up.

I hold Nader and the Greens at least partly responsible for genocide in Iraq, war crimes, torture, illegal government surveillance, unconstitutional expansion of Presidential powers,stagnation in worker's wage growth, continued assaults on unionization, a dirtier environment, and millions more without health coverage--to enumerate just a few of the ills released from the Pandora's box they opened with Bush's victory.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | August 31, 2007 4:02 PM

Latichever
Article Two Of The Constitution States That To Run For The President Of The United States The Required Qualifications Are You Must Be A Natural Born Citizen At Least Thirtyfive Years Old And Resident In The United States At Least Fourteen Years.Nader Met This Requirement, So If Someone
Meets These Same Requirements They Like Nader Have The Rigth To Run!!! That's Why We Call It A Election!!! You Must Have Not Read My Post Al Gore
Lost His Own Home State. The Election Was Stolen
By Voter Fraud. Wake-Up Under This Two Party System Both Of Them Are Crooked One A Wolf The Other A Fox One A Box Spring The Other A Mattress
How Come The Democrats Did Not Sign The Petition
To Stop King Bush From Geting Into Office? And How Many Democrats Voted For Judge Alto And Roberts. Dodd Voted For Attorney General Ashcroft
And Joe Biden Voted For Judge Clarence Thomas!!
Did Not Good Old Hillary Vote For The War? You Talk AboutThe Greens Being At Least Partly Responisble For The Genocide In Irag, Please Tell Me How The Greens Are Partly Responsible When The
Last Time I Looked There Are No Greens In Office
Just Republican And Democrats And The Democrats
Sign Off To Give King Bush More Money For The War.
Bottom Line Latichever We Need To Get Away From This Two Party Political Pirate System That Is Only Looking Out For The Corporatist!!!

Posted by: What? | September 1, 2007 5:42 PM

Over the Greens said Bitsie Clark is a conservative Democrat?

Bitsie Clark is the most liberal -- progressive -- left of center -- darn near communist -- whatever term you want -- member of the board of aldermen. I don't even think Ed Matteson (who over the greens cites as a lefty) would consider Bitsie to his right.

The Greens seem to like to take on progressive Democrats in New Haven and then complain that no one takes them seriously when progressive Democrats get frustrated with them and ignore them. Remember the longest serving Green on the BOA was not particularly progressive and was certainly far to the right of Ed or Bitsie.

There are plenty of less than left members of the BOA but they have that nasty habit of not living in the three wards that Greens feel safe to live in. So every couple of years the Greens get up the energy to run against a "reactionary" like Bitsie or Ed, saying things like "we shouldn't have a community college downtown."

A completely legitimate view to have but there is a party for that -- it's called the Republican party.

Posted by: latichever | September 3, 2007 12:13 PM

My main grievance with Nader/Greens 2000 is over Nader's refusal to lay off the battleground states, proving he was not interested in party building but in self-aggrandizement.

The Democrats leave a lot to be desired, but had Al Gore been President, I doubt we'd be in the fine mess we're in.

Locally, I think Gateway and the HS downtown are great ideas. Brison gripes about taking these parcels permanently off the tax roles, yet omits the economic activity that will be generated by thousands of additional people spending their money downtown.

It is also inconsistent to argue against the tax loss from Gateway/Arts HS, while advocating low income housing that will not produce as much tax revenue as yuppified condos/apartments. You can't have it both ways.

From purely anecdotal awareness, I doubt that many families are itching to live downtown.No supermarkets, parks or schools--other than the new HS. It's not a place to park the family car. It is more suited for young working people who will be attracted to the clubs, boutiques, and walking distance to either the State St. or Union rail stations.

Does Brison advocate affordable housing in East Rock? That's a much more family friendly neigborhood, relatively safe from street crime with good parking and good schools.

Posted by: Ralph Ferrucci | September 3, 2007 1:25 PM

Let's first start with taxing of Yale.

In 2003, John DeStefano meet with state reps. and senators in Hartford and was asked if he thought taxing Yale was important. John Said he did not think it was a good idea. They were looking for and elected offial to get behind it. It is possible to tax Yale. Think to yourself exaxctly what a non-profit is.

Yal NH Hospital makes a profit. If you do not pay they will go after you and may put a lien on your home. Yale University cost $40,000 a year. The corporation has an endowment of nearly 20Billion dollars, they make over 5 million dollars a day on interest of their endowment. Yale makes millions of dollars a year on patenet that they own.

How do you descibe a non-profit? This sound like a profit to me.

Taxes. Taxes has gone up 40% this year. John will tell you we had a tax decrease. In reality we did. We lower the mill rate 1.3 mills. Tax assessments nearly doubled from 10 years ago making homes worth almost twice as much. The mill rate may have droped but taxes are still higher than they have ever been before.

How manty working class families bringing in $40,000 a year can pay a 1,200 mortgage and pay their taxes that last year was $4,000 and this year will be $7500. We must not forget that in the last few years we have seen fuel prices go up, home heating prices, UI and SCG.

If you do the math on the price of the home(mortgage), estimated UI, SCG, Home fuel, car fuel prices and food plus taxes the average wage of $40,000 a year income will pay a person will pay estimated $35,000 to survive.

This year the city will collect more money than it has ever before. This year the city will spend more money than it has ever had before.

How many more properties will we give away for free, then not tax them. Lets give more tax money away to Bob Matthews whose assessment was dropped in 2000 when everone elses went up. Is commercial propert worth less than it was 10 years ago. Bob Matthews owns 300 George St., The Palace Thatre and 1 long Wharf(thge old home of the Advocate),those three buildings were woth $28 million and are now worth $14 million. Bob Matthews was a former fundraiser for Bill Clinton and John Rowland (working both sides of the fence). He was the owner of the cabin in DC that was sold to Rowland's daughter for very little money, what did Bob get out of this favor?

We forgave loans to Fusco corp. worth $6 million, the donated to DeStefanos Maytoral campaigns.

We can fix taxes easily just by fixing mismanagement and free corporate give aways. We can also go after yale to pay it's fair share.

Now lets talk about Florida.
Ralph Nader did not ruin the election for Al Gore, He did it all on his own.

1) Al lost his own state. Not many candidates lose the state they are from.

2) Clinton sent Elian Gonsales back to Cuba. 200,000 cubans voted against Gore.

3) the Socialist Candidate McRenolds received more votes than Al Gore needed to win. Did McRenolds throw the election?

4) Al Gore did something unconstitutional. He asked for the recount of 3 counties. If you call for a recount it needs to be the state not counties.

After recounting those counties he would have lost the race anyways. If he recounted the whole state he would have won the election.

Posted by: Bruce | September 4, 2007 9:02 AM

It's ironic that people blame Nader for siphoning votes when George W. Bush himself is so much more popular among Democrats than Nader could ever dream of being. In Florida, for example, almost ten times as many Dems voted for Bush as voted for Nader in 2000. Same thing in 2004. Look up some data before you do your "elementary mathematics".

Also, why should Nader (or anyone, for that matter) go out of his way to support the Dems? It's not like they've put up any sort of opposition to Bush's policies.