Dear Editor,
I must take issue with some statements presented in your article,”Split among Greens Threatens Party’s Future”. It is true that a committment to process has been a strong hallmark ofthe Green Party. Unfortunately, that process had flaws which are largely only now coming to light for rank and file Green Party members.The California Green Party has processes to cope with rectifying theseflaws.
The California Green Party Coordinating Committee has thepower to hold a referendum among California Greens and nominate its own candidate to run for the presidency. Your article failed to mention that in the California Green Party primary, Peter Camejo and Lorna Salzman (both committed to seeingNader get the Green Party endorsement) won about 80% of the votes. Your article stated, “A major factor in Cobb’s success was his strategyfor preventing Greens from handing a second term to George W. Bush.”
Is that a prediction? Does that also imply that the Greens handed Bushhis first term? I expected better from Beyond Chron.Ralph Nader, Peter Camejo, and the majority of Greens in California (wemight only know if a referendum were taken now) believe that John Kerryhas a distinct possiblity of losing the election in the fall because hehas failed to speak on behalf of their interests. For much of the country David Cobb is an unknown.
Without the Nader / Camejocampaign, there is no consequential voice against the collusion between corporations and government to pursue war and an assault on ourliberties. Assault on our liberties?
When a publication can casually label a businessman like Peter Camejo as a “Leninist true-believer”, then we have cause to worry about a return of McCarthyism.The statements in the article appear as unsubstantiated and no less laudatory of Cobb and his cabal than the articles you decry finding inthe San Francisco Chronicle about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
If there was any news of record here it was about how Medea Benjamin fears federal money might go to Nader and not to the Green Party.
Robert B. Livingston
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