Support Action to Abolish the Death Penalty

The Green Party of Washington State has joined a coalition of organizations calling on President Biden to act on his pledge to end the federal and military death penalty.

We stand in solidarity with all concerned citizens and call on President Biden to:

  • Commute the sentences of those currently on federal and military death rows;
  • Order a halt to new death sentences in federal prosecutions;
  • Order the Federal Bureau of Prisons to demolish the federal execution chamber and the building in which it is housed at the Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute;
    • Consider replacing it with green space for use by inmates and prison staff;
  • Pledge to support and sign H.R. 262/S.B. 582, the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act, which abolishes federal and military death penalty laws, removes the possibility of death sentences, and mandates fair re-sentencing of those currently on federal and military death rows.

We encourage individual supporters to write to their members of congress, sign the petition to President Biden, and find additional resources for action at http://deathpenaltyaction.org/federal-death-penalty

This will be an ongoing effort until President Biden fulfills his campaign promise to abolish the federal death penalty. The ask may be modified at times as appropriate. The list of endorsing organizations will be updated regularly. The first presentation of this list will occur in mid-November, 2022. All of the organizations signed on by November 11, 2022 will be included in the congressional “dear colleague” letter inviting Members of Congress to sign on, and in press materials disseminated at that time. This list will continue to grow and be used by the members of congress and this ongoing campaign, as needed.

The Evergreen Newsletter September 2022

The Evergreen – September 2022

Volume 4, Issue 1


Welcome to your Green Party of Washington State quarterly newsletter. If you have information to submit for the Newsletter, please send it to newsletter@greenpartywashington.org.


Green Party Lolita by Bill Walker

Many of you probably have never seen or heard of a TV show called Flipper. I’m sure that there are probably clips of the show on YouTube if you’re interested in checking it out. This program aired back in the sixties and unfortunately was a huge hit for the three seasons it was on. Basically, it’s Lassie except with a porpoise instead. The unfortunate part was that the audience couldn’t get enough of these three trained porpoises’ that played Flipper in the show. Aquariums throughout the world soon wanted and acquired porpoises, dolphins and smaller whales as attractions. These animals proved to be extremely smart and could learn any number of tricks that would astound an eager public to spend their hard-earned money to see them perform.

Back in the seventies, a great injustice was done to the orcas of Puget Sound, also known as the Salish Sea. A round-up commenced of J, K, and L pods in Penn Cove near Coupeville Washington. The purpose is to separate the young killer whales from their pod families to be eventually sold off to entertainment parks and aquariums around the world. A few of these whales died from the trauma brought on by this horrible act of greed on that day. READ MORE HERE


Help us Win Universal Healthcare in Washington State!
By Keene Short, Whole Washington volunteer

Unlike most countries whose development has gone unhindered, the United States has an exclusively privatized health insurance industry. This means that private corporations are legally allowed to decide a patient’s fate based on the profitability of their continued existence through even the most inexpensive procedures, even in the most progressive states.

Fortunately, there are grassroots organizations, both local and national, working to overturn this unjust system from the ground up. Whole Washington currently seeks to establish the Washington Health Trust through a grassroots ballot initiative in Washington State, using the same political tool that led to the legalization of statewide recreational cannabis.

This is one of the most radical approaches to universal healthcare, but of course we need to frame this in the context of the nationwide healthcare justice movement. As advocates like Tim Faust, Bernie Sanders, and many Green Party candidates and organizers have intimated, and as countless Americans have testified, the for-profit health insurance regime is a form of relentless exploitation, bleeding people of financial resources and social and emotional security. READ MORE HERE


A Green Challenge by Bill Walker

I’ve been a Green Party member for many years. And in some of those years I remembered to pay my annual dues and in other years I was never sure when my dues were actually due. I must admit, my failure to remember is pretty much because of advancing age. My memory needs a tune-up from time to time.

And unfortunately, the Washington State chapter did not have my email address to remind me when the time came to pay up. Now they do! As many of you are aware the Green Party does not accept corporate donations. We don’t want to be beholden to any corporate sponsor who expects political favors in the future. In essence we, the members, are our own PAC. I guess you could refer to us as the GPAC. And I’m sure you are also aware that running a political party is extraordinarily expensive.
READ MORE HERE  |  JOIN GPWA


RANKED CHOICE VOTING INFORMATION

Upcoming Legislation for RCV” from the FairVote Washington Website

Current law prevents many local jurisdictions in our state from adopting RCV. We are working to change that.

The RCV Local Options bill will give localities the option to adopt ranked-choice voting if it is right for them. This bill is due to be reintroduced in 2023.

In 2022, Clark County and San Juan County residents will have the chance to pass a charter amendment that would implement RCV.

Seattle residents will have the chance to adopt Ranked Choice Voting this November.

The RCV for Presidential Primaries bill would bring RCV to presidential primaries in Washington State. Introduced in 2022, it will be reintroduced in 2023. READ MORE


LOCAL CHAPTER NEWS

Come meet other Greens and find out how you can promote the presence of Green Values in your community and your local government!

Green Party of Seattle

This chapter holds membership meetings on the third Wednesday of the month, 6:30-7:30 PM in Seattle and online. Find out more at GPSEA.org or check out their Facebook page for meeting details. All Greens, as well as friends and allies for sustainability, are welcome to attend.

Green Party of the Mid-Columbia

Find them on Facebook by joining the discussion at Green Party Friends of the Mid-Columbia.

South Sound Greens (formerly Green Party of South Puget Sound)

This chapter is focused on initiative campaigns, solidarity efforts, mutual aid, and building left unity. Please contact Noah Martin for information on meetings and other activities and check out their website (southsoundgreen.party) and Facebook group for updates.

Green Party of the Olympic Peninsula

We are hoping to form an active chapter on the Olympic Peninsula. For more info and to get involved, email hello@greenpartywashington.org. You may also join the Facebook group at Green Party Olympic Peninsula.

Green Party of Snohomish County

This chapter is currently inactive. We hope to be able to restart it when we have more active members in Snohomish County. For more info, check out their Facebook group or email hello@greenpartywashington.org.

Green Party of Whatcom County

For more information, contact Stoney at whatcom@fairvotewa.org.


GPWA VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

Interested in helping with Social Media or doing Graphic Design? Please email to let us know!


GPUS VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES

There are many committees of GPUS that need volunteers to help achieve their goals. Members don’t have to be elected as a delegate to the National Committee to serve on these committees. You can go to gpus.org/committees to see where you might be able to lend your talents. Then send the GPWA Coordinating Council a short bio with your request to join the committee, and your request will be added to our next agenda.


LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

(Views expressed in Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the views of the Green Party of Washington State. Please note that letters may be edited for content, grammar, and length. Letters should be signed by the person submitting the letter.)

No letters were received this time…

Green Party of WA State Coordinating Council

Elected Members:

Daniel Bumbarger – Secretary

Lisa Canar – Treasurer

Margaret Elisabeth – Chair

Matthew Villata – Member at Large, Snohomish County

Starlene Rankin – Member at Large, South King County

Local Chapter Representatives:

DANIEL BUMBARGER – South Sound Greens

LISA CANAR – Green Party of Seattle

STONEY BIRD – Green Party of Whatcom County

Forming Chapter Organizers:

BOB CONE – SW Washington

DARRIAN BLACK – Central Washington

FRANK LOCKWOOD – Mid-Columbia

ISAIAH MOTTA – Spokane County

KRISTA PARADISE – Olympia Peninsula

STARLENE RANKIN – South King County

WOODY DERYCKX – Skagit County

Don’t see your chapter represented? Give us a holler. We aim to have an elected representative from each chapter on the State Coordinating Council. We meet online at 7 PM on the 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month.


Contact Us

https://greenpartywashington.org

hello@greenpartywashington.org

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/GreenPartyWA

Green Party of Washington State: Grassroots Organizing & Discussion Group

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/GreenPartyWA

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/greenpartyofwashington/


The End!

But wait! No, it’s not! There’s plenty of room for more!

Send in your pictures, stories, and ideas to Starlene at newsletter@greenpartywashington.org.


We hope to publish this newsletter every 3 months with the start of each new season. Send your Newsletter submissions to newsletter@greenpartywashington.org.

Green Party of Washington State, PO Box 70493, Seattle, WA 98127

#WeAreGreen

Green Party Lolita

By William Walker

Many of you probably have never seen or heard of a TV show called Flipper. I’m sure that there are probably clips of the show on YouTube if you’re interested in checking it out. This program aired back in the sixties and unfortunately was a huge hit for the three seasons it was on. Basically, it’s Lassie except with a porpoise instead. The unfortunate part was that the audience couldn’t get enough of these three trained porpoises that played Flipper in the show. Aquariums throughout the world soon wanted and acquired porpoises, dolphins, and smaller whales as attractions. These animals proved to be extremely smart and could learn any number of tricks that would astound an eager public to spend their hard-earned money to see them perform.

Back in the seventies, a great injustice was done to the orcas of Puget Sound, also known as the Salish Sea. A round-up commenced of J, K, and L pods in Penn Cove near Coupeville Washington. The purpose is to separate the young killer whales from their pod families to be eventually sold off to entertainment parks and aquariums around the world. A few of these whales died from the trauma brought on by this horrible act of greed on that day.

The Lummi Indian tribe of western Washington considers killer whales as their ancestral brothers and sisters. And has grieved over the loss of these members of their tribe ever since. The captured whales on that day are all gone except for one. Her stage name at SeaWorld in Orlando Florida is Lolita. Her Lummi name is Tokitae And she has been a captured ambassador of her species ever since.

Being a Green Party member also means being spiritually green for me as well. And as a writer for the Green Party, I hope to incorporate ideas that I feel can help to bring back balance and natural harmony to our shared experience. In this case, that means joining the Lummi Nation and all the tribes of Washington state in righting this injustice. And that injustice is to bring Lolita/Tokitae back home to live out the rest of her years in her ancestral waters where her maternal mother is still very much alive and still swims to this very day.

I propose an alliance between the Lummi Nation and the Green Party in an effort to make this happen. A nonbinding initiative in 2023 be brought to the people of Washington state demanding the return of Tokitae to the Salish Sea.

An initiative such as this, though lacking any enforcement power of its own, would still bring the matter of Tokitae’s forced entrapment in Florida to a national audience, and perhaps even a world audience at the same time. She deserves our support and the chance to live out the rest of her life, no matter how short or long, with her Salish Sea family. I know that we can make this happen for her so I’m asking for your support!

A Green Challenge

I’ve been a Green Party member for many years. And in some of those years I remembered to pay my annual dues and in other years I was never sure when my dues were actually due. I must admit, my failure to remember is pretty much because of advancing age. My memory needs a tune-up from time to time.

And unfortunately, the Washington State chapter did not have my email address to remind me when the time came to pay up. Now they do!

As many of you are aware the Green Party does not accept corporate donations. We don’t want to be beholden to any corporate sponsor who expects political favors in the future. In essence we, the members, are our own PAC. I guess you could refer to us as the GPAC. And I’m sure you are also aware that running a political party is extraordinarily expensive.

And that leads me up to my Green Party challenge. I recently paid my 2022 dues of twenty-five dollars for this current year. And, as I said above, I have no idea how many years of dues I actually missed. With that in mind I recently donated one hundred and fifty dollars to the Washington State chapter of the Green Party. My challenge to the rest of the members in this state who may have also missed a few payments is to donate one hundred dollars between now and the end of October.

I realize that times are tough right now and that money is tight for almost all of us. And this is true for me as well. But though I am on disability I feel that the cause and our core values must be expanded to a wider audience. If we don’t get our message out and support the cause then we aren’t fulfilling the needs of the people who stand to gain from our efforts.

Please show your green heart and help fund our state chapter. Gaia needs us as well now more than ever. Her environmental needs are being dismissed and belittled. We can’t wait any longer to take action!

Thank you!
Bill Walker

Help us Win Universal Healthcare in Washington State!

By Keene Short, Whole Washington volunteer

Unlike most countries whose development has gone unhindered, the United States has an exclusively privatized health insurance industry. This means that private corporations are legally allowed to decide a patient’s fate based on the profitability of their continued existence through even the most inexpensive procedures, even in the most progressive states.

Fortunately, there are grassroots organizations, both local and national, working to overturn this unjust system from the ground up. Whole Washington currently seeks to establish the Washington Health Trust through a grassroots ballot initiative in Washington State, using the same political tool that led to the legalization of statewide recreational cannabis.

This is one of the most radical approaches to universal healthcare, but of course we need to frame this in the context of the nationwide healthcare justice movement. As advocates like Tim Faust, Bernie Sanders, and many Green Party candidates and organizers have intimated, and as countless Americans have testified, the for-profit health insurance regime is a form of relentless exploitation, bleeding people of financial resources and social and emotional security.

In other words, our fight is rooted in solidarity. Our fight is grounded in and necessarily tied to solidarity with others fighting against the private insurance regime. Whole Washington wages a battle that is politically specific but not ideologically unique, as healthcare justice advocates have fought similar battles from California to Maine, and similar movements have made strides in even the reddest of states like Idaho and Missouri.

Ours is not a fight of values, nor ideology, nor political leanings, but material conditions. We are fighting for what we need to survive, which is the freedom that healthcare justice will bring.

We need 400,000 signatures from Washington state citizens by December to put I-1471 on the ballot in November of 2023. This will give us a year between the Midterms and the Presidential election to focus exclusively on healthcare, giving us a chance to highlight the benefits of universal healthcare, ultimately giving us a chance to prove, not just locally but nationally, that healthcare justice was the way of the future decades ago.  

We can win this fight, but we need to win this moment first and foremost. We need all hands on deck to help us collect signatures. This is not a matter of political expediency or endorsement. This is the moment for solidarity. Please join us in our fight as a volunteer or a donor. Together, we can win one of the most crucial and current battles for healthcare justice in a country nearly ruined by privatized health insurance.

Here are three things YOU can do to help us reach our goal together.

  1. Volunteer to collect signatures. This is THE MOST URGENT task right now. We have until December to reach 400,000 signatures from across the state. Right now, this is the name of the game!
  2. Host a bin or host a petition at a business. We’re distributing blank petitions and receiving filled petition sheets in bins, which you can keep at your home, so volunteers can pick them up and drop them off as needed. Another alternative is to hold petition sheets at your business, if possible, so customers can sign as they come and go.
  3. Spread the word! Take a petition sheet to work, or a family barbecue. Spread our posts on social media. Make sure your fellow Washingtonians know that Whole Washington is fighting for their freedom from the health insurance lobby, and we can only do this together.

Visit the Whole Washington Get Involved Page to find information about all the above and more. We can win this fight, but we need to act NOW more than ever.

2022 General Election and Green Party Voter’s Guide

Federal Candidates

U.S. Senator: The Green Party has no preferred candidate in this race.

U.S. Representatives: The Green Party has no preferred candidates in these races.


Statewide and Legislative Candidates

Secretary of State:  While not a Green Party member, Julie Anderson is running as an independent (nonpartisan) candidate and is aligned with the Green Party in her support of Ranked Choice Voting, multi-member districts, decentralized voter outreach programs, designating the SoS a nonpartisan office, public ballot auditing, allowing independents to vote in the Presidential Primaries, and a nonpartisan observer corps. The Green Party encourages a vote for Julie Anderson for Secretary of State.

State Representative, District 14, Position 2:  While not a Green Party member, Liz Hallock is running as a community organizer and is aligned with the Green Party’s 10 Key Values. The Green Party encourages a vote for Liz Hallock for State Representative.

Other State Legislative Positions: The Green Party has no preferred candidates in these races.


Other Candidates, Initiatives, and Resolutions

The Green Party supports the enactment of Ranked Choice Voting in Seattle. If you live in Seattle, vote YES on 1B for Ranked Choice Voting.


Consider endorsements and supporters of the following organizations:


Looking for endorsements or Green Party write-in candidates?

Currently, the Green Party is focused on initiative campaigns (Universal Healthcare, Ranked-Choice Voting), solidarity efforts, mutual aid, and building Left Unity. While we have no Green Party members actively campaigning for federal, statewide, or legislative office at this time, we hope to have candidates running for City Councils, Conservation Districts, and other local offices next year in preparation for building a serious statewide run in 2024, especially if we can get Ranked Choice Voting enacted soon.

If you or someone you know is interested in running for office in 2023 or 2024, now is a good time to start thinking about it and to get involved!

Green Party of Washington State, PO Box 70493, Seattle, WA 98127

#WeAreGreen

July 30th – Seattle March for #HealthcareJustice

On July 30th, the Seattle March for #HealthcareJustice will take place on the 57th anniversary of the passage of Medicare!

You are invited to attend!

Please RSVP here.

Details are still being worked out, so be sure to RSVP to stay up to date. There are so many reasons to march for healthcare justice this year:

  • We are still deeply impacted by the COVID pandemic. A new study estimates that more than 330,000 lives could have been saved by universal healthcare.
  • We just lost Roe v. Wade – now is the time to DEMAND universal healthcare with full coverage of abortion be passed immediately to remove all financial barriers to reproductive care.
  • Medicare is currently under the attack of privatization through the REACH program – we need the Biden administration to know that we see what’s happening, and we won’t stand for it.
  • We have a serious chance at getting statewide single-payer healthcare on the ballot for Washington state!
  • The midterms are coming up soon and we need Medicare for All to be a non-negotiable electoral issue!

As with all marches, promotion and turnout are essential. Please share this action with as many people as possible and invite a friend or two to join you. We have just a few weeks before we march so this is an all-hands-on-deck moment!

This event is co-sponsored by Medicare for All EVERYWHERE, Whole Washington, the Seattle DSA Healthcare Working Group, and the Green Party of Seattle, and we expect this coalition to continue to grow. Last year’s event was an incredible success featuring fantastic speakers like Stephanie Gallardo, Nikkita Oliver, and Kshama Sawant!

We know that the community will come out again to march for healthcare justice! See you on the 30th!

I Am Not Your Ally

Below is the text of the speech given by South Sound Green Party Chair Colin Bartlett on June 18th, 2022. This speech, titled “I Am Not Your Ally” was given at the 5th Annual Olympia Witch’s March at Heritage Park, Olympia, WA.


Hi there!

My name is Colin Bartlett. I’m here on behalf of the South Sound Greens, an eco-socialist political party I chair, though my responsibilities and attachments in this beloved community go beyond that. I am a worker-owner in a queer cooperative cafe. I am a trained street medic and de-escalator. I am a proud union member through IWW IU 640. I am a member of the Puget Sound Socialists. I am a trained evolutionary biologist. I am queer who fought hard in two states for the right to marry my husband. I have met many of you before, in one of those other capacities. I view this multiple identity as a source of great strength for me, each part helping focus my vision and gaining me fellow fighters who have my back.

That said, I am going to start this speech with a confession: I am not a witch. The Green Party that I am speaking on behalf of includes profoundly spiritual people -spiritual agnostics, deists, pantheists, satanists, witches and pagans of all sorts, people who have invented their own faith, people practicing their traditional indigenous spirituality, Hindus, Sikhs, Jainists, Muslims, Jews, a lot of Buddhists and Unitarians – shout out to my UU buddies, hosts of every queer youth support group I ever went to – and even, bless their hearts, some Christians. The Green Party also has many non-spiritual atheists, be they soft secular humanists or hard antitheists. I tend toward the latter: I believe we can best build a life for each other when we use a critical, evidence-based scientific approach, whether that is modern, “western science”, or the twenty thousand years of indigenous science we can benefit from here on the Salish Sea.

This leads me to a second confession: I am not your ally.

My liberal friends love to be people’s allies. Being an “ally” as the term tends to be used is largely a rhetorical stance. It’s a Statement, that you will, passively, be there for people when they ask you for help. It’s an “In this house, we believe” sign. An ally is a power relationship: it’s a statement in favor of the tolerance or inclusion of a more marginalized Other whose survival depends on it. Don’t get me wrong: I love my liberal allies. As a queer and as a non-Christian, I have always relied on the kindness of these strangers.

But allies are not what I need most right now. Not now, as the inherent contradictions of Christian colonial capitalism tear our world apart – as the earth we depend on melts, burns, and floods; as our courts try to seize control over my own means of reproduction; as states once again make showing my love for my husband a crime; as heavily armed self-declared Christian fascists state their intention to commit genocide against all deviants and non-Christians; as witches are once again being burned. What I require is the relationship I am here to offer. I need an accomplice. I need a comrade.

An accomplice is someone who is guilty of the same crime that I am. That crime is threatening Christian patriarchy. That crime is resisting colonial capitalism. A comrade is someone who is engaged in fighting for the same liberation against the same foes that I am. That liberation is one where our bodies and our minds are our own. That liberation is one where our communities can find a path together toward a livable world, where we thrive together as equals. Our enemies are the bosses and landlords, priests and politicians, owners and talking heads, who profit off the power relationships that are killing us. Some of them may call themselves atheists or pagans, but their good is not our good, and their power is not our power.

The same forces that endanger my survival as a queer, as a worker, and as a non-Christian, are the forces threatening your own. Our struggles are materially related. We depend on the same planet, and we depend on the same freedoms. A nation that burns witches burns queers and atheists, too.

We can survive only by joining each other as comrades, as accomplices, as partners in thought crime. Those who follow traditional narratives that built this system – the belief that wealth is a sign of god’s blessing, that we own the earth and have a right to own each other, that our rewards lie in heaven and not in what we create with each other, that borders are real and people belong on one side of them or the other, that we can mine the future to enrich the present – these belief systems are doomed. We can choose to die along with them, or we can choose to grow in partnership with each other.

My party, the Greens, founded by an alliance of the secular and spiritual, of settlers and First Nations, of environmentalists and gender, race and class revolutionaries, is an eco-socialist party. That means that we recognize that the seed of my oppression, and my liberation, lies within your own. If I am to remain free from self-described Christian Fascists, I am going to need to work with a lot of people to kill the heart of their power: fear and isolation. That means universal healthcare, housing, education, utilities, food, and communication, to ensure that no patriarch can hold me hostage through them. It means free and publicly managed transportation and opening borders so I can flee my abusers and build a supportive found family. It means democratizing our economy and ecology so that religious institutions, landlords, and bosses can’t keep us fighting each other when we should be fighting them.

In the end, alliances with people who hold power over us cannot be depended on. The moment it becomes too unprofitable to let us live, they turn on us, again and again. We have all seen this on the streets of Olympia, Portland, Seattle, Baltimore, Chicago, New York, and Minneapolis: people who tell us to invest in their campaigns, in their party duopoly, in their police, and then use what we give them against us tenfold when we demand the change they promised. We have also seen the change we can make when we stand against them, the good we can do for each other outside of their game. It is time we stopped playing along. It is time we recognized that their help is not coming. Only we can protect each other, but through each other we will win, and the green world we can build with each other is a beautiful one.

I am going to end this by reading my favorite passage from my favorite religious text. As might be expected, it’s a fictional religion, for our very real world. It is from Earthseed, the faith of the protagonists of Octavia Butlers’ prophetic science fiction novel, Parable of the Sower. I used this passage in my wedding. It’s about the kind of relationship I want to cultivate, with all of you, too.

 

Partnership is giving, taking, learning, teaching, offering the greatest possible benefit while doing the least possible harm. Partnership is mutualistic symbiosis. Partnership is life.

 

Any entity, any process that cannot or should not be resisted or avoided must somehow be partnered. Partner one another. Partner diverse communities. Partner life. Partner any world that is your home. Partner Change. Only in partnership can we thrive, grow, Change. Only in partnership can we live.

Remembering Stonewall Today and Everyday

On this day, 53 years ago in the early morning, “Public Morals Squad” officers waited outside a small bar in the New York City neighborhood of Greenwich Village. The roughly 200 patrons inside were doing what most folks do at bars, drinking, dancing, and trying to have a good time. It wasn’t a nice bar. It didn’t have running water behind the bar, it was owned by the mafia, and the patrons were all criminalized by the society at the time. It was, however, a place where these folks could be themselves, if only for a few hours.

 What followed is, as they say, history. The subsequent police raid and eventual violent uprising would go on to be memorialized to this day as one of the sparks that ignited the modern queer rights movement. For years now, we’ve used this day to look back and comment on how far we’ve come, but this year it feels like we’ve never been so close to returning to that time as a society.

A society that treats drag performers as dangers to children and the public. A society that treats queer people as existential threats to society and tries to legislate away our rights to healthcare. A society that looks once again to criminalizing our love, our bodies, and our existence.

Having pride in this climate is hard. It’s easy to feel demoralized when everything we’ve fought for over decades seems so fragile – so close to disappearing. It’s times like these we need to remember Stormé DeLarverie, standing handcuffed in police custody outside the Stonewall Inn in the early morning all those years ago.

“Why don’t you guys do something?” she shouted at the bystanders.

She was under attack, and together with her queer community they demanded their rights and stood up to a society that saw them as less than, deviant, and immoral. For days they rioted in the streets throwing bottles and dropping bricks through windshields of police cars. They marched in the streets. They confronted oppression where it lived and made themselves unavoidable.

It’s that activism that lives at the core of who we are as Greens. When the climate is threatened and the duopoly is standing by impotent, we’re shouting “Why don’t you guys do something!?” When our black and brown siblings are victimized by police violence, we are marching in the streets shouting, “Why don’t you guys do something!?” When queer rights are threatened we confront those enabling it and set forth our vision for a more just society.

The Green Party of the United States has centered LGBTQIA+ rights since its inception. It has stood arm in arm with the oppressed across this country and demanded justice. On this anniversary, we ask you to continue that fight with us in any way you can, whether that is with your activism, your time, or your generous donation.

Our mission has never been more important, and your support has never been so needed.

Will you give $53 to honor this anniversary?

In Solidarity,
Daniel Bumbarger & Margaret Elisabeth
National Lavender Green Caucus Co-Chairs

Coordinating Council, Green Party of Washington State

Please help us start the summer with momentum!

We could really use your help. If you are able, I hope you will consider making a mid-year donation to the Green Party of Washington. For the past six months, I have been working hard, along with our GPWA Coordinating Council, to strengthen our local Chapters and increase our membership across the state.

One of our biggest expenses each summer is for our Website and our Database. We use a content management and customer relationship management (CRM) software called NationBuilder. Your donation will help us make our annual payment to them in mid-July. Any amount is appreciated.

As Greens, we are actively marginalized and scapegoated by people that see our existence as a threat. Your donation today will help us keep moving forward, looking beyond our current political paradigms.

I’m so thankful to be in a party that has vision! Thanks for being on this journey with us and thank you for your donation!

Peace, 
Starlene Rankin, Organizer GPWA

PS: Become a GPWA member, check your membership status, or renew your membership today!

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