Thank you to all Virginia Greens who supported our three candidates on the ballot this year. I thank everyone who got signatures for the candidates to get on the ballot; for helping distribute campaign literature, and who gave of their own money and time to help them.

Jill Stein for President got about 8,000 votes (0.3%) statewide, fairly well distributed across the state with slightly more in the 8th, 11th and 1st Congressional Districts. Audrey Clement got 9,400 votes in Arlington County Board of Supervisors election or 12 percent of the total votes cast. Green Joe Galdo in his first campaign for office for the 11th Congressional seat in Fairfax area got about 1,200 votes.

Arlington Greens have had a Green candidate for county board for six years straight. Audrey got the highest percentage of the vote for any Green facing both a Republican and Democratic candidate. In 2009, the Green candidate got about 32 percent of the vote against only a Democratic candidate for County Board in Arlington.

Unfortunately, Jill Stein only got about 350 votes in Arlington County, despite Audrey’s excellent vote results. Many, many Green voters for local candidates showed they would NOT vote for our national Green presidential candidate.

Jill Stein got nearly three times the number of votes our 2008 Green candidate Cynthia McKiney received. Nationwide, Stein is expected to get over 1 million votes, the highest for any Green candidate since Ralph Nader in 2000. The Stein campaign did well and was organized, despite widespread media blackout and considering its lack of funding.

The two major parties spent a reported $2 billion directly for the presidential race, plus independent political campaign comittees funded largely by rich people and corporations spent probably another $2 billion. With about 135 million votes cast, the two major parties and their corporate allies spent about $35 per vote cast.

Arlington Introduces New Waste Reduction Effort
Great news! Arlington County now offers a free online service for residents to opt out of unwanted mail, catalogs, and phonebooks. Starting now, residents can visit http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/EnvironmentalServices/SW/page87611.aspx to manage their personalized opt-out requests. This Catalog Choice program is just one of the steps we are taking to foster waste reduction in the County.

Arlington County would greatly appreciate your help in sharing our Catalog Choice information with the community by including it in your Civic Association’s newsletters, listservs, websites, meetings, etc.

By continuing to stop unwanted mail and telling others about this program, you are supporting our goal to save the community’s natural resources. Thank you very much for your continued participation and support.

If you have any questions about this service, please feel free to contact Arlington County at 703-228-6570.

Laura G. Smith
Communications Specialist
Arlington County Government
Department of Environmental Services
T: 703.228.6596 | M: 571.255.9216 email: lgsmith@arlingtonva.us

After you vote on Tuesday, November 6, join us at our post-election Green Party celebration this year at the home of Don Rouse, at 5010 11th St N, Arlington, VA 22205, starting around 7 PM on Tuesday, Nov. 6. Win, lose or draw, we Greens have won already presenting our hopes for a better country and better county through our two candidates Jill Stein for President and Audrey Clement for Arlington County Board. Vegetarian chili, corn bread, hot and cold drinks.

Driving Directions: from N. Washington Blvd and N. George Mason Drive, go south on George Mason Drive to 11th Street (next to Lacey Woods Park), and go left (east) on N. 11th Street about two blocks to 5010 N. 11th Street.

Location: 5010 N. 11th Street
Arlington, VA 22205

Time: Beginning around 7 PM, Tuesday, Nov. 6

We hope to see you there. Thank you for all the people who have donated their time and talents and resources to our Green Party candidates. As Jill Stein has said, “we are voting our hopes, not voting our fears.”

Note–our regular November meeting on Nov. 7 is cancelled owing to the Election. See you at the regular December meeting.

John Reeder
chair – Arlington Greens

Voting Green in a Swing State
By B. Sidney Smith (Page 1 of 4 pages)
OpEdNews Op Eds 10/26/2012 at 06:05:15

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Voting-Green-in-a-Swing-St-by-B-Sidney-Smith-121025-298.html

(Preface: This article isn’t really meant for everyone, so I might be able to save you some time. If you think climate change isn’t a serious electoral issue, this probably wasn’t written for you. If you think American presidents should conduct wars on their own authority and that it’s okay if they secretly assassinate whomever they (secretly) decide are bad people who might hurt us then you needn’t concern yourself with what follows. If you think the Bill of Rights of the Constitution doesn’t necessarily apply when terrorism is involved, or that letting gays have civil rights should be decided on a state-by-state basis like slavery before the civil war, or that the health of the environment isn’t more important than economic growth, or that whistleblowers who expose governmental and corporate crimes should go to prison but that privileged lawbreakers shouldn’t, or that whether a candidate is electable should depend on how much she pleases wealthy donors–if any of these approximates your own take on the issues, please read no further. You’ll be bored. Honestly.)

I live in a purple part of the country (Virginia) and move in academic circles, so of course I know many, many people who will be voting for Obama. If that doesn’t strike you as funny, then you are the person I have written this for.

Of course it is impossible to know, but if I murdered Santa Claus in front of their children, the look on my Obama-voter friends’ faces could scarcely be much different than the look they get when I say I am voting for Jill Stein.

“But this is a swing state…you have to vote for Obama…what if Romney wins?!?”

The pain in their voices tugs at my sympathies; their fear is very real. I want to reassure them, but I was cured a few presidential elections ago. I won’t be drinking from that cup again.

At first they assume I don’t understand what’s at stake. They tell me about the Romney/Ryan agenda. They tell me about Obamacare. They tell me about DOMA and the Fair Pay Act. But the conversation wanes when I am not only unsurprised by the information but able to supply amplifications and corrections. I’ve read the (detailed summary of) the Affordable Care Act. I know about Romney’s probable agenda. I even know the age and bodily afflictions of key members of the Supreme Court. In short, I know what’s at stake.

This is awkward, and for some there is no plan B, but experienced partisans know where to take it next. There is something wrong with me. I’m a purist, a liberal elitist who won’t be satisfied, arrogantly “engaging in a form of rhetorical narcissism and ideological self-preoccupation.”1 I indulge in a “pernicious idealism that wants the world to be perfect and is disgruntled that it isn’t.”2 I trade the common good for private conceit.

Fortunately my friends are mature people with trained minds, so for most it is enough to mention the ad hominem fallacy, to remind them that my personal faults–which I stipulate are legion–aren’t relevant to the validity or otherwise of my position in this debate. Usually we can agree to leave that brand of “discourse” to the professional bloviators.

So at last we come down to it. What are the arguments? There seem to be only two reasons for a progressive (you’re still reading, so I suppose that includes you) to vote for Obama. Either (1) you think Obama is not so bad, really, and has done a lot of good and could do more, or (2) Obama’s record makes you green about the gills, but the thought of Romney winning is intolerable.

Obama enthusiasts have by heart a widely-circulated3 list of his achievements: The Fair Pay Act, the auto bailout, legislation for credit card reform and hate crimes and student loans, some tax cuts, repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, raising fuel efficiency standards, and ending the war in Iraq. Some also add killing bin Laden, the stimulus, and a new Start treaty with Russia. Everyone adds Obamacare.

Some of these really are achievements. The Fair Pay Act is a no-brainer, for one. Others are marginal. Credit card reform stopped some abuses but left millions imprisoned by usurious interest rates on their debt, with their homes and futures at the mercy of predatory lenders. If you are drowning it is definitely better to have fewer stones around your neck. You still drown though.

Editor’s Note–we generally only publish one page articles on Greens of Arlington; this is only page one of four pages; please go to website above for the remaining three pages.

Arlington County Board election focuses on streetcar debate
By Patricia Sullivan, Published: October 14, 2012

Libby Garvey, the Arlington County Board member who is trying to retain her seat in the Nov. 6 election against two challengers, has made up her mind on the Columbia Pike streetcar. She’s against it.

The controversy over whether to put a streetcar line down the curb lanes of the busy street has been one of the most contentious issues in Arlington over the past year. Garvey, 61, a Democrat who won a March special election for the seat, abstained from voting when the board endorsed the streetcar July 24.

That abstention has drawn significant fire from Republican candidate Matt Wavro and Green Party candidate Audrey Clement, who have opposed building the 4.5-mile streetcar line for months. Garvey said she was studying the issue and waiting for more information, and last week she got it.

“I now believe a modern, bus rapid transit system is by far the best system for Arlington and the region,” she said during a Patch.com candidates’ forum at Arlington Independent Media on Thursday. “Just this week a real cost-benefit analysis came over the transom into our offices and I’ve read that and it absolutely confirms everything I’ve thought . . . not only because of the tremendous difference in expense. I think we can get a much better quality of service because of the connectivity a BRT system can provide.

“Fairfax County is looking at BRT, Alexandria is looking at BRT, Montgomery County is planning a BRT. It makes no sense to have Arlington in the middle with a streetcar and a BRT system all around us.”

The cost-benefit analysis was a 33-page document written by Peter Rousselot, an attorney and transportation consultant and former chair of the Arlington County Democratic Committee. The report concluded that a modern BRT system would cost one-fifth to one-half of a streetcar system, while achieving the same goals. A BRT system could be in place faster and would help the redevelopment of the Columbia Pike area, it said.

Whether the report or Garvey’s position will have any impact on the decision is unclear. The County Board voted 4 to 0 to support the streetcar, and the Federal Transit Administration is expected to decide by year’s end whether to endorse and fund about one-quarter of the project.

Wavro, 32, a human resources consultant making his first bid for elective office, prefers a system of articulated buses on the Pike. But his main concern is with the all-Democratic board, which he said does not listen to all points of view on a variety of issues.

He said housing services for people who make less than half the area’s median income should be continued, but that the county should stop directly funding housing. Negotiating with private developers to swap development rights for market-rate affordable housing is the better way to go, he said.

“The policies of this board have made it more expensive for businesses to rent, not less,” he said. He urged the elimination of the county’s commercial real estate property tax.

Like Wavro, Clement supports the hiring of an independent inspector general to scrutinize local spending. Clement, 63, a computer programmer who is making her third try for county office, said Arlington needs a public housing authority to combat higher rents and wants developers to pay more of the infrastructure costs their projects create. She’s also concerned with the county government’s “profligate capital spending,” pointing disapprovingly to the board’s support of an indoor aquatic center at Long Bridge Park, the money-losing Artisphere and the Columbia Pike streetcar line.

Eliminating those kinds of capital projects, Clement said, would allow libraries to be open seven days a week, solar panels to be erected on all county buildings and a green jobs project to be created. She also pledged to roll back real estate taxes.

Garvey, who describes herself as both an independent and a team player, warns that Arlington’s “comparative advantage is slipping” for businesses, which pay half the county’s tax revenue. The cost of housing, the coming expansion of Metro into Loudoun County and the increasing commercial rents also create challenges. The National Science Foundation’s lease expires next year and other knowledge-based organizations such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Virginia Tech’s Research Center, as well as long-standing private organizations, are constantly tempted with lower-cost locations elsewhere.

Garvey also supported negotiations to buy an office building near the county courthouse for government offices and a year-round homeless shelter. Neither she nor the other candidates wanted the county to use eminent domain for the purchase, but Clement and Wavro said the county is willing to spend too much.

Garvey has the edge in campaign contributions, reporting $45,449 in cash donations through Aug. 31. Wavro followed with $4,345, and Clement raised $3,966. The county routinely elects Democratic office-seekers, and the national election this fall is expected to bring out large numbers of voters.

Garvey, a 15-year veteran of the School Board, allowed that this was not the toughest campaign she has weathered.

“I’m confident, but you never want to take any election for granted,” she said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/arlington-county-board-election-focuses-on-streetcar-debate/2012/10/14/c58caebc-147c-11e2-bf18-a8a596df4bee_story.html

Washington Post: Jill Stein responds to five key debate questions
Posted by Jill Stein for President 1844.80pc on October 15, 2012 ·Brook Silva-Braga of the Washington Post asked Jill Stein for her responses to five key questions from the first presidential debate.

Watch the video of Jill Stein’s responses at the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/video/thefold/green-party-nominee-jill-stein/2012/10/12/b68c8f6a-14ac-11e2-ba83-a7a396e6b2a7_video.html

Green Party Issues Split Verdict on County Bonds
Posted: Monday, October 8, 2012 5:00 am
http://www.sungazette.net/arlington/news/green-party-issues-split-verdict-on-county-bonds/article_505358f6-0f15-11e2-aeb3-0019bb2963f4.html

The Arlington Green Party has voted to support two of the four county bond referendums on the Nov. 6 ballot, to oppose one and to stay neutral on the fourth.

Meeting on Oct. 3, party members endorsed the $31.9 million bond for Metro and transportation, as well as the $28.3 million bond for community and neighborhood infrastructure.

But like the Arlington County Republican Committee several weeks before, the Green Party urged voters to reject the $50.5 million parks and recreation bond. Greens said their opposition was because the vast bulk of the bond funding would fund a “vanity water park” at Long Bridge Park.

Greens took no position on the $42.6 million school bond; party members split on whether the funds were the best way to address crowding issues.

“More must be done to open more schools and provide more classrooms, but the hasty School Board plans to build two new elementary schools next to existing schools, and to simply add more trailers or to build more classrooms at already overcrowded elementary schools, is ill-advised,” Arlington Green Party chairman John Reeder said in a statement.

County Republicans have endorsed all bonds except the park bond, and the Arlington County Democratic Committee has endorsed all four.

Oct. 5, 2012

Arlington Green Party supports bonds for Metro and transportation, and community infrastructure on the November 6 ballot in Arlington, but rejects parks and recreation bond, and stays neutral on the school bond.

Arlington Greens voted at their October 3 meeting to urge Arlington voters to approve the $31.9 million bond for Metro and transportation, and the $28.3 million bond for community and neighborhood infrastructure. Greens urge Arliington voters to disapprove the $50.5 million bond for parks and recreation (most of which will go to build a vanity water park in Crystal City at the Long Bridge Park). Greens supported the two Virginia Constitutional amendments on the November ballot.

Arlington Greens stayed neutral on the $42.6 million school bond, and were divided as to whether the school board plan to spend these funds was a wise and sustainable way to reduce student overcrowding and at the same time improve student academic achievement.

Arlington Green chairman John Reeder said,” Arlington school enrollments are rising, and that more must be done to open more schools and provide more classrooms, but this hasty school board plans to build two new elementary schools next to existing schools, and to simply add more trailers or to build more classrooms at already overcrowded elementary schools is ill advised.

Green parent and activist Sandra Hernandez said, “the school board’s building plan is too costly and eliminates green space and recreation fields. “ She recommended that the board open up smaller, magnet and new elementary schools, at the Fairlington Community Center or the Madison Recreation Center, and even open a new performing arts and arts middle school at the Newseum building in Rosslyn, now used as a failing performing arts center at county expense.

Arlington Greens rejected the $50 million bond for recreation and parks as wasteful. AGP chairman John Reeder says the county does not need the proposed aquatics center with five pools because there already are three Olympic-sized public pools available at three Arlington high schools, and many private summer pools as well. The Long Bridge Park is remote, and inaccessible to most county residents, and aging parks and ball fields in other parts of the county should take precedence over building five vanity swimming pools. The county board has persistently neglected parks like Lubber Run Amphitheater in order to fund its pet vanity projects like the Long Bridge swimming pools and the money-losing Newseum in Rosslyn, Reeder said.

As posted separately below, Reston community activist John Lovaas writes in his Reston Patch blog that there is no real difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. >http://reston.patch.com/blog_posts/the-view-from-over-here-5728eedf>

He is singing our Greens theme song, i.e., if voters want a sincere candidate who will work for the people, then look to the Green Party candidates–Jill Stein for president, Audrey Clement for Arlington County Board, and for votes in Fairfax County, Joe Galdo for Congress.

Take time to read Lovaas blog and post a comment. What Lovaas says about the Virginia senate race and the 11th CD Congressional race can also be said about the presidential race.

Take a look at the differences between Romney and Obama over U.S. war policy. There is no difference. Both support U.S. military intervention abroad and continue wasteful military spending. Do either Obama or Romney have a plan for peace or do we just continue to live in a national security/ military state engulfed by developing countries that hate us?

Economic recovery? Obama will just continue his do-nothing economic policy and hope our economic depression/recession will just end by itself. There are close to 20 million Americans wanting fulltime jobs today; the economy adds barely 1 million jobs annually and that largely is absorbed by population growth and producitivty gains. Opinion polls today indicate that 40 percent or more of voters indicate that the U.S. economy will get worse no matter if Romney or Obama win. Why vote for either of these bozos?

Housing recovery? Obama already bailed out the big banks and left 13 million, mostly lower income homeowners underwater, with 2-3 million evicted or foreclosed. Anyone talk about how to help this housing crisis from either major party? Nope.

Environment: Obama favors nuclear power, coal mining, offshore drilling, and has yet to take on the petroleum companies. Keystone pipeline–postponed until after the election, then Obama will approve it. Wind and solar energy, energy conservation; where does O stand?

Healthcare: Obamacare will still leave 20-30 million Americans uninsured, and many millions with inadequate health insurance. Moreover, this does nothing to address the outrageous cost of healthcare in the U.S. and our dropping life expectancy. Most reasonable healthcare economists recommend a single-payer system like Canada, the U.K. or France. Do you really think Obama will take on Big Pharmaceutical companies

Historically in the U.S. third parties like the Greens have thrived when the two major parties have lost touch with the needs and dreams of the American people. A similar crisis has swept across many EU countries where voters discovered that their two major parties are both corrupt and inept, and hopeless pawns of the corporations and rich.

Dr. Jill Stein our Green candidate for President has offered thoughtful proposals for a Green New Deal program for 20 milllion domestic jobs, a single payer health care plan, ending the oil wars abroad, debt relief for homeowners and college students, and environmental programs. Please consider voting for Dr. Stein.

The View From Over Here, Posted on September 25, 2012 by John Lovaas, the Reston Patch.com

http://reston.patch.com/blog_posts/the-view-from-over-here-5728eedf

No one would ever accuse George Allen, the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Virginia, of being anything but a hardcore conservative, a carrier of the corporate water, an agent of the wealthy one percent, and a guy with little interest in the economic well-being of most Virginians.

The same could be said of political newcomer Chris Perkins, the career military officer and now defense lobbyist running to represent us in Congress in the 11th District. OK, Chris may be more so. He has only disdain for public education (of which he is a product) and would have the Federal Government eliminate funding for nearly everything except the DoD, his longtime cocoon.

But, then look at their Democratic opponents: Ex-Governor, now candidate for Senate Tim Kaine and the gerrymandered Gerry Connolly, the “incumbent” candidate for Congress in our new 11th District. Their stances on issues of economic equity or fairness are barely distinguishable from their rightwing Republican opponents!

As governor, Kaine led the charge to do away with the fairest tax of them all, the inheritance tax. That was his gift to wealthy friends and campaign contributors, to protect them from having to pay tax on all that unearned income. Last week, Mr. Kaine said he was open to considering ways to levy income tax on all Virginians, by definition including the unemployed, those on social security, the disabled and all the others in Mr. Romney’s famous 47 percent. Kaine’s staff has tried to clarify his Romneyesque statement on income tax for all, but his record as a champion of inequality is clear.

With no other alternative for the U.S. Senate on the ballot, Kaine gets the nod from me on election day because he is more progressive than Allen on women’s issues, the environment, education, and health care.

Rep. Connolly’s record on economic fairness is less blatant than Kaine’s, but he also tends to favor the very wealthy. Last year, when President
Obama suggested addressing the national deficit in part by asking the wealthy—those earning over $250,000 per year—to once again pay a fairer share of the income tax, Mr. Connolly was aghast. He echoed Republican arguments for continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy-presumably to be paid for by slashing programs benefiting middle and lower income Americans.

As the 2012 election has drawn closer, Mr. Connolly has muted his public
statements on tax cuts for the wealthy in the face of a deficit he says he wants to reduce. But, don’t be fooled; he opposes the President on this issue. And, he is not alone among Democrats with campaign coffers to fill. When I wrote to him and encouraged him to change position, I got a classic non-response response.

What to do on election day? Mr. Perkins is no alternative for moderates, much less progressives. Independent Mark Gibson offers some moderation, but the only progressive in the race is rookie Green Party candidate Joe Galdo. Mr. Galdo’s odds of winning are slim, but the idea of voting for a genuine progressive committed to fairness and greater equality sure has a lot of appeal!