— by NormanB (“Deviations from the Norm”)
Announcing a new Green Party Caucus identity group working to Legalize Marijuana & end discrimination against its users, to promote the economic and environmental benefits of Cannabis Hemp, and to convince the Green Party of the United States to fully embrace and promote these priciples.

Today I renounce my lifelong membership in the Democratic Party, recognizing that what has been my Party increasingly panders to corporate elitists and, in serving as shill to those donors, works against the principles I hold dear. How much money would I need in order to have enough to bribe the Party leaders to turn honest? And even that wouldn’t work, because I don’t want Party leadership that responds so disgracefully to money. What I want politically is peace, freedom, human rights, economic justice, environmental protection, and honesty & accountability in Government. With the move I make today I hope to further these goals.
Here we stand at the precipice: Albert Camus’ existential dilemma as described in The Myth of Sisyphus: The most important philosophical question is Should I commit suicide? because, if the answer is Yes, then the other questions are irrelevant. Ignorance on climate issues is such a valued commodity that the US has advanced in this important field to Number One in the world. In many African countries and island nations, 90% of the populace knows how we get Global Warming. In the US, more than 100,000,000 people doubt the science. That confusion helps fossil fuel and chemical companies profiteer off pollution and market extinctions that will include our own, if we don’t stop climate change. The current Administration ignores the climate emergency: After promising responsible conscientious environmental stewardship, it has instead allowed increased emissions of every Greenhouse Gas, and has had its Environmental Protection Agency officially lie about Coal and Nuclear Power, reclassifying them as “Clean Energy.” President Obama this week endorsed corporate-sponsored superstition over science: He declared that he intends to fight Global Warming without limiting any Greenhouse Gases. But the fact is: Greenhouse Gases cause Global Warming: By increasing emissions of every Greenhouse Gas, we Cause Global Warming, not Fight it.
Sunday I attended the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party (GRP) Convention in Worcester. Because I was not a member of the Green Party, my name placard wasn’t colored green. GRP 2010 Gubernatorial nominee Jill Stein, co-chair of the state Party, asked me what she could do to change my placard to green. I do very much agree with Dr. Stein and Green Party concensus on issues. And during her campaign she spoke thoughtfully and forcefully about Legalization. Much more than other political candidates, she favors protecting my civil rights, as a medical user, as a religious user, and as a recreational user. In our informal group from Western Mass’s Pioneer Valley, I saw tireless hard-working dedicated activists in it for the long haul, committed to improving our country and our planet. I have long respected the work of a majority of individuals in the circle. These Are My People. I do belong.
100,000,000 US citizens have smoked Marijuana. The Democratic and Republican Parties do not want our votes. The Greens and Libertarians do want them, but no Party is doing what it takes to get them. Our campaign for Legalizing Marijuana carried 75% of the vote in Amherst, 65% statewide. Gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein only got 1.43% statewide. Both the Democratic and Republican Parties in Massachusetts are shedding members: Independents now outnumber both Parties in the state. 70% of people nationwide have said they don’t trust Democrats and 80% don’t trust Republicans. If only those two-thirds of Massachusetts citizens demanding Marijuana reform saw the Greens as allies, we’d control elections in this state. But people in the Marijuana/Cannabis/Hemp movement largely see the Greens as irrelevant, and are unaware of that plank in the Party’s official platform calling for Legalization of Medical Marijuana and protection of its patients.
Now, we the Green Party, stand at the precipice. Should we commit suicide? The Hemp movement is our natural constituency and its voters make up two-thirds of the state’s electorate. Most of us in the Hemp movement see the Greens as not caring about our rights or the rights of patients suffering and dying from lack of access to medicine. Greens are also seen as lacking important knowledge on the economic and environmental realities surrounding Cannabis Hemp, and in some cases are perceived as lacking working knowledge of Global Warming science needed to talk to certain voters. The Sticky Greens hope to correct these problems, by including on our homepage primers on the science, economics, and bigotry encountered by Hempsters.
At the Convention, our local Greens generated a list of concerns we can work on together locally that were cited in our circle. I made the first suggestion on the list, Legalilzing Marijuana. When emailed copies of the list of concerns arrived, I saw that Marijuana is included, at the end, separated from everything else, looking like an afterthought. This is the prescription for our Party’s extinction. The 20 items on the list above Marijuana all added together can get us 1.43% of the vote. Marijuana gets us 65% statewide and in Boston, 75% in Amherst, 82% nextdoor in Pelham, and 80% in nearby Wendell. I urge Pioneer Valley Greens, the entire Mass GRP, and Greens across the country to learn the language of Hemp activism immediately. And I urge the Green Party of the United States Accreditation Committee to quickly approve and accept our Caucus, as soon as we meet the requirements. We have a spectacular opportunity.
Shortly I’ll go downtown to re-register to vote, this time as a member of the Green-Rainbow Party. I’m posting these ideas to my firedoglake.com Diary blog The Daily Machine, and to MaMaMoJo, which is my partner Rachel Neulander’s non-commercial Massachusetts Marijuana Movement Journal. Beginning today, MaMaMoJournal’s left column is the Sticky Greens homepage. It will include political, historical, and scientific information about Cannabis and its integral relation to energy, climate, food production, health, human rights, and honesty in politics and business. We’ll note its relationship to LGBTIQ issues and racism. Most importantly, we’ll show how science can stop and reverse Global Warming using existing technology, and do it in time if we start right away.
I’m also sending it to our local Greens circle, to Jill Stein and her campaign staff with whom I worked, and to the Accreditation Committee of the Green Party of the United States. The Sticky Greens will quickly become an official local Green-Rainbow Party group when three of us agree to form it. To get Accreditted as a Green Caucus, better able to affect national Party policy, we’ll need 100 members spread throughout 15 states. Reaching 100 members seems easier than reaching 15 states. We’ll try.
To join the Sticky Greens just email shamanslibrary@yahoo.com & display “join” in the Subject window, and you will receive an email newsletter. But joining the Sticky Greens Caucus identity group of the Green Party of the United States requires a little more: (1) Email shamanslibrary@yahoo.com & display “caucus” in the Subject window; (2) if you are not a member of the GPUS, register to vote as a Green Party member within 7 days; and (3) in your email to shamanslibrary, include all of the following info that’s applicable: Your email address, your phone number, your name, your mailing address, and your voting address. Let's have a Party!
I have been a political activist fulltime without pay for decades, having consciously decided in 1978 to dedicate my life to the unending push for human rights, environmental integrity, economic equality, art, and culture. In the early 1990s I toured the country with the Cannabis Action Network at early Hemp Rallies on the early Hemp Tours. In that function I performed and spoke at rallies in 20 or more states, and at 30 or more colleges. Coming off tour, still in the early 1990s, I founded SPACE: The St. Petersburg [Florida] Alliance for Cannabis Emancipation. Two years and five Hemp Rallies later, we disbanded the group having achieved our objective: Educating the press and public on the issue: By our fifth Rally, both our local middle-of-the-road newspapers (the St. Petersburg Times & Tampa Tribune) published editorials favoring complete Legalization. That was in a Republican-majority city in conservative Florida. One of my fellow activists in the Massachusetts Hemp movement, John Leonard, did a study recently showing how Hemp voters can be influenced to vote for issues and Parties they knew little about.  We saw how it worked at our state convention, where Katelyn Golsby was the first speaker of the Party’s Campus Leaders. I had met Katelyn and her friend Eric Cameron at the local busstop and invited them to the Rock Opera I wrote and was soon to perform at the University of Massachusetts in an event sponsored by the Cannabis Reform Coalition there. Jill Stein spoke to begin the event, then took questions. Katelyn and Eric left carrying Jill Stein campaign signs. The Rock Opera was the most attended Jill Stein event of the entire autumn campaign. And as one student activist pointed out, we’d have had ten times as many attendees if we’d had two weeks to promote it.
Some other time I’ll discuss why the column is called “The Daily Machine.”