and what chance does she have to win?

McKinney's bid for the presidency is unlikely to do enough damage to stop Obama but she'll get my vote. At least someone is standing against the onslaught of immorality of Obama's campaign which has moved to the right. A vote for McKinney is a vote for progressive values.

Yet, I'll vote for McKinney. I had hoped for years that she'd break with the Democrats, the second party of exploitation, racism and imperialist war.

As for Obama, he never did represent "progressive values," has always been a candidate of corporate America.

The important thing is the movement, to push it in an anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist direction. Revolution will not be on any ballot.

GO CYNTHIA!!!

. . . to have a strong McKinney vote here in Illinois, right in Obama's back yard. A very nice repudiation of Obama's disgusting gallop to the right.

For those old enough to remember, Kerry's similar rightward gallop ("Kerry for a Strong America") arguably lost him the 2004 election, as it served to demobilize the Dem's traditional bases while at the same time Bush was able to more convincingly pander to right wing voters.

In the early years of the first Clinton term, his rightwards gallop, far from stealing the Republican rights' fire, only encouraged it, leading to a bevy of rightwing legislation such as the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Defense of Marriage Act.

As a great statesman once said, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."

With Barack's overwhelming support in Illinois, there is no practical reason not to vote green. A vote for Cynthia here is not a vote for John McCain - this is a "safe state".

The Dem's standard bearer has just spent the last several weeks consciously spitting in the face of every base constituency they might have claimed to represent, from Lesbians and Gays ("faith-based funding"), to anti-corporate civil libertarians (FISA bill), to the peace movement ("re-evaluating" his position on Iraq after talking with the generals), to name just a few.

Not that his previous positions were anything to get excited about. Whatever you think about the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Jr., his recent colorful comment was borne at least in part from frustration with an African American candidate who seems to think that racism is merely a matter of bad feelings, that institutionalized racism isn't embedded in every major American institution (including the Democratic Party), and that African Americans should just suck it up and lift themselves up by their bootstraps. 21st Century Booker T. Washingtonism is no more help than the last version.

Obama's supporters among the white liberal glitteri have until recently skated over their candidate's voting for every major Bush war funding bill, his threats to bomb Iran and invade Pakistan, etc. etc. As a result, Obama's taken this blank check written by his liberal friends and galloped to the right. Eminently predictable.

Until the Dem's feel some real pain for their PATRIOT Act-loving, Iran war resolution-supporting, FISA bill passing crap, they will continue to treat every progressive social movement in this country as their hobby toy and pander only to the right. We saw the same thing through the course of the Clinton administrations, which only paved the way for W and sh—.

Vote McKinney, safe state or not. Until we have a real 3rd party in this country, we'll just keep getting warmed over Clintonism, which was a disaster for every progressive movement.

Probably the most interesting development is the impact that McKinney and Clemente's "Power to the People" campaign may have on changing the composition of the Green Party in cities like Chicago. Last night McKinney spoke to a gathering of Black community residents and activists at Ms Sis Place on E. 75th St. -- where they announced plans to open a GP local volunteer office for that neighborhood. Earlier in the evening, Clemente spoke at the PRCC in Humboldt Park to a gathering organized by Batey Urbano. Word is that she is scheduled to speak again there again on Sunday.

Check out the transcript of Clemente's acceptance speach. Worth the read. [ www.rosaclemente.com/id8.html ]

In this age of political discontent, it seems clear that many Americans who plan to vote are voting for "change".

Just what kind of change is an open question. Will that change bring the first woman to the Oval Office? Or will it bring a Black man (or ,to some, a 1/2 Black man?)

Whatever, it is interesting that the nation's punditocracy, the talking heads who act like verbal sheepdogs of the American fleece, have almost totally ignored one candidate who can, in her single self, embody, not just the illusion, but the reality of "change", experience, a demonstrated stand against the Iraq War, and a life of living female.

I speak, of course, of Cynthia McKinney, the bold, outspoken former congresswoman from Georgia, who spoke out against the Iraq War when it wasn't popular.

She is running on the Green Party, according to published reports, but the media has virtually ignored this fact.

Her record of speaking out against the U.S. war machine, the military-industrial complex, and other issues of concern is head and shoulders above any of the other candidates running for office, on either party.

But, without the paid imprimatur of the corporate powers that be, it can be little more than an insurgent campaign, one kept safely to the margins of American politics, off the stage, and off the screen.

This is our loss, for the major candidates (or those supported by the corporate status quo) are, by their very nature, designed to split the votes of two significant blocs in the Democratic Party, which can only leave the loser feeling embittered.

Why not a real Black woman as a candidate?

Wouldn't that be a change?

And although all politics is symbolic, McKinney really is a woman of substance.

She has been politically courageous in many of her stands, which has made her persona non grata among both Republicans and Democrats.

That's because she's not a corporate candidate. She's proven in her career as a member of Congress that she won't be bought off. Of who else running today can the same be said?

People say they want 'change', but do they really?

Many people are terrified of change. They want the safety of the routine, the comfort of predictability.

That's because many people fear losing their already tenuous grip on their lifestyle.

But with millions of people facing foreclosure, and with the rest of the economy on the brink of free-fall, how much safety is apparent?

That's only an economic concern, what about foreign policy?

Foreign policy, for at least the last decade, has been handled (or should I say, mishandled?) by an array of incompetents who have succeeded only in making bad situations far worse.

Do people want change, or are they merely claiming that they do?

Cynthia McKinney would certainly represent that, in a way far more substantial and meaningful than anybody else out there.

Politicians should be far more than paid agents of the wealthy. They should be far more than millionaires working on behalf of other millionaires

Why are we not surprised that the U.S. Senate is a millionaires club?

How could such people have an appreciation of working people?

What do they really know about the poor?

Wouldn't Cynthia McKinney be a significant change?

Are the Greens as a party truly committed to contesting the presidential election this year, or are their leaders still following the same detestable "safe state" policy as in 2004, which made them only the loyal opposition to the Democratic Party. Realistically, though, Ralph Nader has much greater name recognition than McKinney, and a much longer record of public support, untainted by any association with Democratic Party politics.

Ralph Nader has failed miserably. Let's give Cynthia a chance.

McKinney was treated like a piece of s**t by the Democratic leadership and by most of the Congressional Black Caucus. It took her a while to get there, but I think she's made a sharp break with the Democrats. In her acceptance speech she spoke of building a "movement" with the Green Party being at the center of this effort, but embracing other forces as well.

The Green Party appears eager to get the numbers that will guarantee it ballot access in many states, and this means pushing its candidates and not caving to any "safe state" stragegy. Time will tell.

A platform of compromise backed by the party's Old Guard was defeated, with the reportedly more progressive 2004 document reaffirmed.

Nader continues to define himself as an elitist, above party and movement. Hopefully, his time has come and gone.

Cynthia McKinney is a credible candidate due to program and status as a firm breaker from the Democrats. As one who belives there can be no electoral solution to the crisis of capitalism, I see McKinney's Green Party campaign as a part of movement building that can point to the solution: revolutionary overturn.

"I see McKinney's Green Party campaign as a part of movement building that can point to the solution: revolutionary overturn."

Of course, you understand that an effort for a "revolutionary overturn" WILL entail rivers of blood. Are you polishing your gun skills?

Vote for McKinney, Obama, McCain, Whoever? Why? Why debase yourself by voting for this system of wage-slavery and war? If the state does, indeed, derive its powers from the consent of the governed then voting, for any candidate, gives consent to be governed. By participating in this circus you take responsibility for the outcome, which is more war and oppression. Non-voters are usually chastised with "If you don't vote you can't complain." In reality it should be the other way around, "if you do vote you have nothing to complain about." Instead of "voting for change", how about organizing for a General Strike! Don't Vote, Revolt!

All nice and dandy what you have to say... but time to grow up (and away from utopia). The mob wants democracy and only through democracy can we do something.