Cynthia McKinney was nominated to
stand for the Green Party in the US
Presidential election. An experienced politician, Mckinney had served a total of six terms in Congress as a member of the Democratic Party. She was the first black woman to be elected in the state of Georgia, and soon became the first black woman to be elected by a white majority after a Supreme Court ruling called for boundary changes to her district. In Congress she served terms on the National Security Committee and the International Relations Committee. She had attracted much publicity around controversial issues during her years in office (9/1I, Iraq, Hurricane Katrina) for which she was hounded by a sensationalist press. However, having left the Democrats and accepted an invitation to join the Green Party, she failed to gain any serious coverage for her Presidential challenge. This was despite the fact that race issues were being hotly debated and Cynthia McKinney was a black woman of African descent, with a running mate, Rosa Clemente, a black Puerto Rican woman. The Obama-McCain bandwagon was the news that the American media wanted to cover. McKinney had to make good use of her website to share her policies on health care, economics, peace, justice President Barack Obama, who literally billions of people around the world now look to for US leadership with a human face, will inherit an empire that the United States economy in its current condition can't afford to maintain. He has no intention, however, of downsizing American imperial reach. He has promised to send more troops into Afghanistan. His foreign policy team are the same Clintonera figures who promoted 'free trade' agreements, who happily enabled Israel's and environmental 'wisdom'. A set of ten videos were available and she had leaflets on all main campaign issues. The Greens fought the election with a progressive, anti-war, social justice and ecology platform. Attracting about 0.1% of the vote at this time, how can the party play a relevant political role in the future of America? Noam Chomsky was thanked for his endorsement and McKinney agreed with his view that a Green vote at this time should be seen as an investment in an 'institution' that will continue on after the election. If the Greens are to succeed in building from the margins of electoral politics, they will need to continue to work at the grassroots level, to organise within communities and in the workplace. There are millions of Americans who want a
USA strangulation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories under cover of the never-ending "peace process, and who proclaimed that the deaths of Iraqi children under sanctions were 'worth it. The continuation of empire, while the domestic economy slides downward, poses just another set of contradictions getting ready to explode, with unforeseeable consequences, if the polar ice caps don't melt first. real alternative to the current two party system. They need the confidence to vote for this change. The defeat of the Republicans and the election of the first black President does represent a major social and psychological advance for the USA. That millions around the world received the news with relief is understandable. However, the degree of optimism expressed by many on the left seems strangely naive. The Greens need to hold Obama to those radical promises that he has made, and expose him when he fails. They must also prepare to continue their work with the peace movement and to demand sustainable and just solutions to economic crisis and climate change.