Green Party of Monmouth County

The Green Party of Monmouth County, NJ has a broad platform that ranges from protecting the environment to our Blue-Green pro-labor agenda to human rights and social justice. We not only run candidates for office, but work consistently in between elections on issues of concern here in Monmouth County. This kind of activism is fundamental to our grassroots values and keeps us grounded on local issues, building the support networks needed to run candidates for local office first, followed by higher offices later. In keeping with our values we don’t accept any corporate funding/influence whatsoever.

Our website is still growing. You can contact us via email: info(at)monmouthgreenparty.org

Freehold, New Jersey - For Immediate Release
Press Contact: Rich Fuller, County Coordinator rfuller@monmouthgreenparty.org

The Green Party of Monmouth County recently became aware that
disgraced real-estate mogul Solomon
Dwek allegedly falsely claimed to be affiliated with the “Green Party”
while committing serious criminal acts of corruption with public officials,
according to an Asbury Park Press article that stated:

“On more than one occasion, the FBI witness [Dwek] joked with the
public officials that he was neither a Democrat or Republican, but a
member of the “green” party — and he wasn’t talking environment. That
line apparently closed the deal for many of them.”

In response to this libelous comment we have a simple message. The
Green Party of
Monmouth County has zero tolerance for
corruption. Under a Green Administration we will vigilantly weed out
corrupt officials; seize their assets, strip them of their pensions
and make sure they spend the rest of their days in a State Prison for
their crimes against the honest, hard-working taxpayers of Monmouth County.
“A Green Vote truly is a Clean Vote in every way” said Rich Fuller,
County Coordinator for the Green Party and a former High School
teacher.

Whenever you rent a movie, the multinational media industry forces you to watch their propaganda. They claim that downloading movies is the same as snatching bags, stealing cars or shoplifting. That’s simply not true – making a copy is fundamentally different from stealing.

The media industry has failed to offer viable legal alternatives and they will fail to convince consumers that sharing equals stealing. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in another area – lobbying to adapt laws to criminalize sharing, turning consumers into criminals. They argue that their laws are necessary to support artists, but in reality all they’re protecting is their own profits.

The Greens worldwide have been opposing these laws. We believe that consumers are willing to pay if offered good quality at a fair price. We also believe that sharing is expanding culture – not killing it.

Obama Wants Spain to Ban BitTorrent Sites
http://torrentfreak.com/obama-wants-spain-to-ban-bittorrent-sites-090507/
Written by enigmax on May 07, 2009

Every year the United States releases the Special 301 Report, which examines the intellectual property laws of important trading partners. One of the countries heavily criticized in the 2009 edition is Spain - largely because it views file-sharing for personal use and non-commercial BitTorrent and file-sharing sites as legal. Obama wants to change all that.

In recent months we’ve reported several times how Spanish courts have ruled that not only is personal use file-sharing legal in Spain, but file-sharing sites that do not directly profit from infringement are also protected under the law. This allowed the admins of sites like Sharemula to walk away from legal action without a scratch.

Of course, as far as the United States and its piracy watch-lists go, this is an unacceptable situation and one which needs to be changed as quickly as possible.

According to the United States, Spain has one of the worst file-sharing “problems” in the world. The US claims it is consistently among the top five worst countries in terms of overall downloads and that it regularly takes the top position for movie downloads per capita. The MPA(A), who can hardly be trusted to report unbiased stats, says movie downloads by Spanish citizens reached 350 million in 2008.

While video game publishers claim that 50 million games were downloaded illegally last year, it is the music industry that says it suffers most from file-sharing in Spain, claiming that users downloaded around 2 billion tracks in 2008, up 80% compared to 2007. This is blamed mainly on BitTorrent and eDonkey sharing, but there was also a reported increase in sharing via Rapidshare-like file-hosting sites. According to figures cited by the report, 67% of all Spanish Internet users download unauthorized content, raising to 81% in the under 24 years old group.

Of course, the Spanish authorities have taken action against various torrent and sharing sites in the past, but because of Spain’s laws, the prosecution has failed to gain any significant convictions - the admins, as in the case of Sharemula, simply walk. Under Spanish law there is no infringement and this situation, says the US, means that rights holders don’t have the weaponry to go after ‘infringers’. Obama wants to change all that.

The US charges that the Spanish government has done little “to change the widespread misperception in Spain that peer-to-peer file sharing is legal,” referring to the 2006 “decriminalization” notification from the Office of the Prosecutor-General as “problematic”.

Of course, no article on bringing in tougher restrictions on file-sharing would be complete without the obligatory calls for pirates to be disconnected, and the Special 301 Report doesn’t disappoint. The United States says that part of Spain’s “priority action” should include an agreement between ISPs and copyright holders to prevent infringing content being available on the Internet and should include “the immediate and effective implementation of graduated response [3 strikes] procedures.”

If the law doesn’t currently allow such action, the US advises Spain it should takes steps to change it, including rescinding the Chief Prosecutor’s May 2006 official instruction that effectively decriminalized file-sharing.

On Wednesday, May 6, 2009 at 7:00 pm, the Babylon Green Party Gathering will feature former Green Party of New York State Co-Chair Ian Wilder who will review Obama’s First 100 days from a Green Party Perspective.

The US District Court for the District Columbia has issued a ruling that, while dismissing the plaintiff for lack of standing, did not reject the validity of his arguments challenging the Electoral College based on the Mal-Apportionment Penalty clause of the 14th Amendment.

A legislative effort to all but end the practice of “slating” in Illinois has drawn the ire of Green Party leaders. House Bill 723 would make it so that when no candidate of an established party runs in a primary for a particular office, that party can only fill the vacancy in nomination if the candidate they “slate” collects a large number of signatures.

Green Party leaders condemned legislative attempts to repeal the Illinois moratorium against new nuclear production. House Bill 875 and Senate Bill 2162 would delete the provision in state law prohibiting the construction of new nuclear facilities until the nuclear waste storage issue is resolved.

Thirty years ago this Saturday, the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania malfunctioned, sparking a meltdown that resulted in the release of radioactivity. It was the worst nuclear accident in US history. The accident at Three Mile Island fueled the nuclear debate in this country that continues to rage to this day. Democracy Now! speaks with anti-nuclear activist Harvey Wasserman. [includes rush transcript]

In a new article in Rolling Stone Magazine, journalist Matt Tabbi takes an in-depth look at the story behind AIG. “The reality is that the worldwide economic meltdown and the bailout that followed were together a kind of revolution, a coup d’état,” writes Taibbi. “They cemented and formalized a political trend that has been snowballing for decades: the gradual takeover of the government by a small class of connected insiders, who used money to control elections, buy influence and systematically weaken financial regulations.” [includes rush transcript]

Green Party leaders challenged the Obama Administration to reverse the failed policies and reject the agenda of the Bush Administration, citing as examples the war on drugs; torture, illegal surveillance, and other Bush-Cheney abuses of power; and cuts in Social Security.