Big Tech reeling from Congressional Anti-Trust Legislation ; National Security State Agencies Appeal to Senators to not break Big Tech Monopoly in the interest of National Security.

Green Liberty Caucus supports anti-trust legislation to end monopoly power of Big Tech, fight national security operations and media censorship.

The Green Liberty Caucus stands in solidarity with the efforts of Senator Klobuchar and others in Congress to limit the monopoly power of Big Tech. Legislation would limit Big Tech's capacity to control internet traffic to advantage its satellite business for profit at the expense of the free flow of information.

Google and Facebook hold monopoly power of media that impedes innovation and free flow of information, activity that needs regulation, say anti-trust proponents, such as Glen Greenwall in a recent substack post.

The Green Liberty Caucus invites our members to communicate with  Senators and Representatives in Congress to support anti-trust legislation.

There are two acts in the Senate: the Intercept reports: “The American Innovation and Choice Online Act aims to prevent the largest online platforms like Google and Amazon from favoring their own products and services against their competitors. The Open App Markets Act aims to stop Apple and Google from granting preferential treatment to their own products in the App Store and Google Play, respectively.”

Some teachers don’t feel safe teaching in an environment where they may catch Covid; that is the central issue at play between various school districts and teachers’ unions around the country.

However, in other districts, students are in the classroom wearing masks, some kids have taken the vaccine, as have teachers. Some states do not require masking. So one must ask if there is really anything to fear?

The emergence of the Omicron variants 1 and 2, has renewed fear because Omicron is showing up in the fully vaccinated. Now medical experts are suggesting everybody will eventually be exposed to the Omicron variant some day.

The fear of, caution about, Covid is because it can be fatal, and some people who get it are vulnerable for long haulers symptoms, but for the majority of the people, a clinical case of Covid mimics a bad cold or severe flu.

Understandably, teachers want to be safe and secure, but the nature of the job is such that some risk is unavoidable.

In theory, however, If teachers were confident that they won’t die from Covid, and that if they develop an infection that they will get treatment, then they shouldn’t be afraid, and schools could return to normal. But early treatment protocols need to be made available.

Though fully vaccinated, some teachers remain doubtful that they are fully protected, and the fear of the unvaccinated as being asymptomatic carriers, has turned healthy children into a perceived vector for transmitting SARS Cov2.

Enabling teachers to feel confident about being in the classroom with kids is paramount, but the Federal Covid Response has done nothing to alleviate these fears; instead, the response has only exacerbated the uncertainty surrounding SARS Cov2 / Covid infections.

Below is filing application essay to create Oregon Chapter of Green Liberty Caucus in the Pacific Green Party.

Register to attend the January 8 Convention and vote to recognize Green Liberty Caucus, Oregon Chapter and join up.

To: Pacific Green Party, Mr. Secretary
State Coordinating Committee

From: Chuck Fall, Charles Newlin, Suzia Aufderheid, Jack Dressser, Mariah Lueng, Dan Pulju.

Re: Application to form of statewide, non-geographical chapter; Green Liberty Caucus, Oregon Chapter, Pacific Green Party of Oregon:

Summary: Green Liberty Caucus, Oregon Chapter, founding members seek recognition from SCC as a state-wide, non-geographic chapter. We are a chapter with a mission, please read further for explanation and reason for forming this chapter.

Foundational principles upon which base our perspective:

(Bylaws Statement of Principles) “The Pacific Green Party recognizes that our society and government are plagued by inequality, militarism, poverty, and pollution. We envision and strive to create a local-based grassroots democracy that will overcome these societal ills.”

(Platform of PGP; War and Foreign Policy; Non-Violence) “We will work to dismantle the US war machine, including both the military-industrial complex and the global hegemony it expands and maintains. To do this, we must overcome our government’s exceptionalism and bring it into compliance with the norms of international law and diplomacy.” 

We the founding members request recognition from the State Coordinating Committee as an official chapter; we request our application be referred to the January 8 Convention for formal ratification.

We also seek resolution to request Green Party US National Committee to establish a Committee for Government Accountability, Transparency and Whistleblower protection.

Green Perspectives invites Greens to respond: What is Important? Consider stating your thoughts framed as “ From my Green perspective…”

What is important for us to remember and how does this apply to life today? Answer question in the style of an “I believe statement that is founded on Green principles, Constitutional principles, or Humanitarian Values.

By Suzia Aufderheide

The SARS Cov2 / Covid pandemic qualifies as a social and political catastrophe for the American republic because the vaccine mandate is dividing the country deeply and it undermines basic principles of liberty. This problem inspires my ‘Green’ perspective on what is important.

As a Green, I am inspired by the idea of Liberty as an overarching value.

Building intersectionality in the Climate Justice movement means Greens should should show our solidarity with others in the movement, including Greta Thunberg; afterall, she is a voice of reason and indignation.

She recently delivered a blistering denunciation of world leaders at the Youth4Climate conference in Italy. She said, ‘they,’ the adult authorities, our elected leaders and captains of industry, have had ’30 years’ to stanch the build up of carbon effluence to stop global warming, but have done nothing of any consequence.

Indeed, global warming is a fact, and human produced carbon effluence is the primary culprit; global warming denialism be damned.

Dismissing world leaders ‘words’ as ‘blah, blah, blah,’ meaning they lack meaningful action, Thunberg’s frustration was stark but rightfully so.

Greens should amplify Thunberg’s demand for climate justice at every opportunity for she speaks for the youth; she wants action, and the world leaders are not leading, in fact, they have been working against taking action.

Indeed, the United State government authorities have had well over 30 years to act on warnings. Action against global warming, and efforts to stem the use of fossil fuels have been stymied by a concerted effort from the Petro-Chemical industry, which has thwarted global warming mitigation and interfered with the advancement of sustainable energy systems.

Community Rights is the idea that ‘we the people’ in a local, a city, county, bio-regional area, have the right to make policies that serve the social needs of the people to live in dignity, and that policies should serve the ecological needs of nature to be respected and used sustainably.

However state preemption power, based on legal precedents, holds that corporate power trumps the rights of a community to influence policy and ultimately create law.

Community Rights holds that grass roots democracy will have to contend with a history of legal jurisprudence that favors corporations and commerce over community and the ecology. In my opinion, the Green Party is a natural trumpet for community rights.

Implicit in the Green Party pillar for grass-roots democracy is that ‘we the people’ will organize to engage in the democratic process of pushing ideas into actual policy, be it through the assembly, in the form of street protests, rallies; or petitioning grievances and advancing media messaging, or engage in more complicated and concerted projects involving ballot initiative drives, lobbying our representatives, or running candidates for elected office; even engaging in a general strike. All of these activities qualify as muscles within our civic body.

The idea of community rights and the rights of nature proposes that local communities should have the legal capacity for self-determination on social and economic issues, and have the ability to put nature first.

In solidarity, Greens have a natural affinity for community rights based on our value for grassroots democracy. In Oregon Pacific Green Party principles call on us to “work to create new types of political organizations which expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.” This ambition for “grass-roots democracy” can be achieved from an Oregon Community Rights Network constitutional amendment, which would empower the grass-roots.

The Oregon Community Rights Network is seeking from the Oregon legislature a ballot referral for a constitutional amendment that would enshrine community rights and the rights of nature in Oregon’s constitution. https://orcrn.org/legislation/3949-2/ aka, Legalize Local Democracy. The Oregon Community Rights Network is seeking legislative sponsors to help advance this request.

(Syracuse, NY – October 3, 2021) Howie Hawkins, the Green Party’s 2020 presidential candidate, blasted Democrats today for accepting token climate measures in the shrinking Build Back Better reconciliation bill.

“Biden’s original climate proposals in his $2.3 trillion American Jobs Plan last March were inadequate to begin with. Only about $100 billion a year in that proposal were climate- and energy-related spending. Its policies included counter-productive measures like further natural gas development,” said Hawkins who made a detailed critique of the plan’s climate provisions at the time.

“As the Democrats keep cutting the Build Back Better reconciliation bill, they are surrendering to climate collapse as the global climate summit prepares to convene in Glasgow at the end of this month. The climate movement needs to recognize this reality and demand an emergency Green New Deal to really deal with this existential crisis,” Hawkins said.

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday that Democrats should accept a bill that spends around $2 trillion, which is down from the 10-year $3.5 trillion budget blueprint that Congress agreed to in August. The $3.5 trillion plan was itself down from the $6.1 trillion that Biden had proposed in the spring in his American Jobs Plan for physical infrastructure, including climate measures, and his American Families Plan to expand the social safety net.

Let's stand in solidarity with the legislative call to institute a carbon fee, or price on carbon.

The NY Times reports Senator Wyden has been tasked with crafting carbon fee legislation, which is an encouraging sign that some kind of carbon tax will be included in upcoming legislation.

A carbon tax is a market driven means to “internalize” the cost of the carbon effluence, the ‘externality,’ in the cost of the product or service. Though it may make the polluter pay for the cost of carbon emissions, it is still the consumer that will bear the weight of the fee.

Progressive groups have opposed a carbon fee on grounds the financial impact will be most sorely felt by the low and moderate income strata of society.

Senator Wyden will have to navigate demands from President Biden to not raise taxes on families earning under $400,000.00, so in the final legislation a carbon fee may include a ‘dividend’ payment to offset the increased costs of fossil fuel based goods.

We need action now; send email messages to Senators Wyden and Merkely, and your representatives to support a Carbon Fee; I also call for economic equity to the LMI community.

I recently learned Oregon still has the death penalty, right after reading an outstanding update in The Atlantic on the case of Emmet Till, a tortured 14 year old boy who helped spark the Civil Rights movement.  Yet, his murder is already being forgotten (not taught) even though some of those responsible are still alive.

The very next day, I heard an expose on the execution of Troy Davis, in GA.  He was killed in spite of the fact that 7/9 witnesses recanted their testimony, with prosecutors also asking for a stay.  The week prior a social media post shared the history of the attack on Black soldiers in Europe, after WWII, by white soldiers who did not want Blacks to enjoy the freedoms afforded to all in Europe.