The Green Party of Mendocino County has experienced a brief resurgence with Carol Wolman's unopposed nomination for the First Congressional District general election.

     Meetings were held in Ukiah in February and Mendocino in March, in Boonville in  April, and in Willits in May. Most of the people at the early meetings were either family members or employees of David Crowningshield who was at that time campaign manager for Carol's campaign. However the two have had a falling out and David was removed from that position. His cohorts did not come to the April or May meetings.
    The principle business has been support for Carol's candidacy and teaching the newly active Greens who had largely mobilized by her supporters about our bylaws, our unique consensus method of conducting meetings, and the Ten Key Values of the worldwide Green Party.
    The next meeting will be on Sunday, July 18 at 3pm at the headquarters, 892 N. State Street in Ukiah.

Proposition 14:
    The passage of Proposition 14 in the June primary means there will be no more separate party primaries in California. All candidates from all parties will run in a single primary from which the top two vote getters will go on to the general election. In the First Congressional District, the Democrat incumbent Mike Thompson got 55,000 votes, and the leading Republican got 21,000 votes. Carol got 1,200. In such a primary, only Thompson and the Republican would to on to November. This means that minor parties are longer an avenue to the general election for candidates seeking exposure for radical ideas.
    More than that, the state's voters have rejected the concept of political parties. At a very deep level, this violates our rights to organize voters around political principles, like our Ten Key Values and voting our hopes not our fears. It's not just a flushing down the toilet of  crucial issues in favor of personal popularity, but a renunciation of the importance of political philosophy. It reflects the dumbing down of society's consciousness and the brutalization of politics.

            

Carol Wolman, the last Green for Congress
    Carol is a member of the Longhouse Coalition which is a nationwide network of candidates for federal, state and local office. The coalition includes candidates and members from a variety of political parties and an elaborate platform which has not been adopted by the Green Party of Mendocino County.
       Carol ran for Congress two years ago and got 22,400 votes in the general election or 8%. She got 28% of the votes in Mendocino County. She says this shows she was able to get non-Green votes. Part of her stump speech is that parties aren’t working and that 42% of votes are decline to state.

            Carol has organized a new initiative called Town Hall meetings of which there has been one in Fort Bragg and one in Ukiah, nonpartisan in nature and aimed at promoting Carol’s candidacy and the Longhouse Coalition platform.

            At the Fort Bragg Town Hall meeting, the LHC decided to back a Libertarian running for school board, but Carol later repudiated the candidate.

            At the Boonville Green Party meeting Carol announced her campaign and the Longhouse Coalition would sponsor a free two day music festival at the Navarro Store June 5-6 with a dozen or so Northern California bands. The event was coordinated by Jon Anderson. The event did come off without a hitch, and while Saturday's attendance was very thin, the venue was reportedly jumping on Sunday. Most of the Saturday participants were aged bikers and groupies of the musicians. There were a lot of tatoos in evidence. Not much support for the idea that Carol and Jon could mobilize youth through music to get active in radical politics.

            Carol has clearly stated that her loyalty is not to the Green Party, but to the US Constitution, and the aim of the Longhouse Coalition is to get people to disassociate from political parties and unite around its platform which is claimed to include the Ten Key Green Party values plus reparations to to Native Americans, African Americans and Mexican Americans.

The County Council

    As only three Greens obtained signatures to be candidates for County Council, they are all elect. They are Ruth van Antwerp, David Crowningshield and Richard Johnson. Carol Wolman continues on the County Council by virtue of her nomination for partisan office. The new county council officially takes power in July.
    For more information, see www.cagreens.org  • www.gp.org • www.greens.org

For more information, see www.cagreens.org  • www.gp.org • www.greens.org