The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution calling on the Arizona legislature to pass a bill to keep halachah, Jewish law, out of the state's legal system and to ensure that it is not given official sanction.
"We must make sure that no courts decide to follow halachah instead of our own Anglo-American jurisprudence," said Pinal County Greens co-chair Richard Grayson. "I'm proud to be Jewish, but if courts applied Jewish law in domestic and business disputes, it would be unconstitutional and un-American. In other words, pure mishigass."
"In addition, we cannot put our cheeseburgers in jeopardy," Grayson said. "Okay, we're just kidding, but if the Arizona legislature is going to give in to Islamophobia and pass a law to ban Shariah, it needs to be an equal opportunity discriminator against all religious law. Better yet, we should follow George Washington's words in his letter to the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island and have a 'government, which to bigotry gives no sanction, to persecution no assistance.'"
The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, the second-fastest growing county in the United States.
Today the Pinal County Greens, a group of members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, urged the state party to hold a 2012 Presidential primary. As this story in Ballot Access News explained:
Arizona law sets the 2012 presidential primary on February 28, but the law also gives the Governor the authority to change that date. On July 21, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer suggested she is inclined to move the primary into January. . .
Although press stories focus on the impact this would have on the Republican presidential contest, the proposed early Arizona primary could also impact the Libertarian Party and the Green Party. Both are entitled to a presidential primary in Arizona if they desire one. In 1996, the Arizona Libertarian Party and the Arizona Democratic Party won a court order, saying that if a party doesn’t want the state to hold a presidential primary for itself, then the state should respect the party’s wishes and not hold one. Republicans also refused a presidential primary in Arizona in 2004. Arizona held no presidential primaries before 1996.
In 2008 the Libertarian Party declined to participate in the state’s presidential primary, but held its own party-financed mail presidential primary. The Arizona Green Party has never before been entitled to participate in a government presidential primary. Although the Green Party successfully petitioned to be a qualified party in 2000 and 2008, it didn’t qualify in time for its own presidential primary. For 2012, however, the Greens are already qualified so they could have their first presidential primary if they wish to.
The resolution passed by the Pinal County Greens respectfully asks the state leadership of the Arizona Green Party to agree to hold its first presidential primary in 2012.
"We hope the Greens will take advantage of Arizona law and use a 2012 primary to gain visibility for our state Green Party as well as the Green Party of the United States, especially at a time when many Americans are disgusted with the Democrats and Republicans for their failures," said Richard Grayson, Co-Chair of the Pinal County Greens.
"Holding an official Arizona Green Party next winter will highlight progressive issues and our candidates for national and state office and gain us publicity and clout," Grayson said. It would also allow party members to fully participate in the political process."
Noting that Democrats are likely to refuse to hold a primary to avoid any sign of opposition to President Obama from the left, Grayson said, "Without an Arizona Green presidential primary in 2012, "there would be no progressive candidates coming to campaign in our state."
The Pinal County Greens congratulate the well-known activist/author Randall Amster, graduate chair of humanities at Prescott College, on his article, "U.S. Greens work to stem anti-immigrant tide," posted on Friday on Green Pages, the national newspaper of the Green Party of the United States.
Randall Amster's article includes this excerpt featuring the good work of the Arizona Green Party leadership and its 2010 candidates:
In June of this year, both Alabama and South Carolina passed measures that are rhetorically competing for the misbegotten title of the “nation’s toughest immigration law.” According to Reuters, the South Carolina law will require police to check the immigration status of any individual they suspect is in the country illegally after they have stopped that person for another reason (akin to Arizona’s SB 1070); will allow the state to revoke the business license of any employer who knowingly hires “unauthorized aliens;” and will create a new (and pejoratively named) “Illegal Immigration Enforcement Unit.” Alabama’s new law, as reported by the Associated Press, “was modeled on Arizona’s” and contains additional provisions “requiring schools to find out if students are in the country lawfully and making it a crime to knowingly give an illegal immigrant a ride.”
The passage of these new draconian laws has prompted the U.S. Department of Justice to initiate a review and call for meetings with state law enforcement officials in order to ascertain whether the federal government will file lawsuits similar to the successful challenge it launched against SB 1070. Yet here in Arizona, well before the federal government stepped in, the state Green Party took a strong stance on immigration issues, as reported by the local FOX News station: “Besides its position on the environment, there is another issue the Green Party is very clear about and that is its position on immigration. The Green Party is the only party that supports amnesty. ‘We want comprehensive immigration reform. We do not support any of this legislation, whether it’s SB 1070, anti-ethnic studies legislation, employer sanctions, English only,’ says Angel Torres, AZ House candidate.”
During the 2010 election cycle, Arizona Green Party (AZGP) candidates for state office were outspoken about immigration issues, including AZGP co-chair Torres, who noted that “as a Puerto Rican/Xicano and life-long Arizonan, SB 1070 is an insult to me, my family and the entire Latino community. To scapegoat or racially profile an entire community does not solve the problem. Our economic and immigration policies need to serve the interests of all working-class folks, not the interests of the corporations.” Linda Macias, AZGP vice co-chair and 2010 State House candidate, added: “We need major federal reform of our immigration laws. Immigrants come to the United States in hope of a better life. We need to give them citizenship now and write immigration laws that are humane and just.” The AZGP further issued a press release asserting that “Arizona’s anti-immigrant legislation does not address the root causes of migration: poverty, lack of economic opportunity, war and political conflict, and environmental devastation…. The Arizona Green Party encourages all Arizonans to join the grassroots movement to overturn SB 1070, and organize for comprehensive immigration reform.”
As indicated by Leenie Halbert, AZGP and national Green Party co-chair, some important gains were made here, “In Arizona, we’ve been able to use our special status under the state’s Clean Elections laws, in which we participate in organized televised debates, to directly address issues like immigration and SB 1070, without parsing our words and hedging our positions like the Democrats do. We’re looking forward to the upcoming election cycle, as we prepare to field candidates who will represent our intention to become an electoral arm of a growing political movement against the state’s racist and draconian anti-immigrant laws. We are the only political party in the state that’s aligned with this perspective.”
"We urge everyone to read this article by Randall Amster," Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson said. The Pinal County Greens are a group of members of the Arizona Green Party residing in Pinal County, which according to the 2010 U.S. Census, is the second-fastest-growing county in the nation.
Today the Pinal County Greens, members of the Green Party in Pinal County, Arizona, passed a resolution regarding those Arizonans who object to meteorologists using the weather term "haboob," as documented in this New York Times article by Marc Lacey:
The massive dust storms that swept through central Arizona this month have stirred up not just clouds of sand but a debate over what to call them.
The blinding waves of brown particles, the most recent of which hit Phoenix on Monday, are caused by thunderstorms that emit gusts of wind, roiling the desert landscape. Use of the term “haboob,” which is what such storms have long been called in the Middle East, has rubbed some Arizona residents the wrong way. “I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob,” Don Yonts, a resident of Gilbert, Ariz., wrote to The Arizona Republic after a particularly fierce, mile-high dust storm swept through the state on July 5. “How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?”
Diane Robinson of Wickenburg, Ariz., agreed, saying the state’s dust storms are unique and ought to be labeled as such.
“Excuse me, Mr. Weatherman!” she said in a letter to the editor. “Who gave you the right to use the word ‘haboob’ in describing our recent dust storm? While you may think there are similarities, don’t forget that in these parts our dust is mixed with the whoop of the Indian’s dance, the progression of the cattle herd and warning of the rattlesnake as it lifts its head to strike.”
Dust storms are a regular summer phenomenon in Arizona, and the news media typically label them as nothing more than that. But the National Weather Service, in describing this month’s particularly thick storm, used the term haboob, which was widely picked up by the news media.
“Meteorologists in the Southwest have used the term for decades,” said Randy Cerveny, a climatologist at Arizona State University. “The media usually avoid it because they don’t think anyone will understand it.”
Not everyone was put out by the use of the term. David Wilson of Goodyear, Ariz., said those who wanted to avoid Arabic terms should steer clear of algebra, zero, pajamas and khaki, as well. “Let’s not become so ‘xenophobic’ that we forget to remember that we are citizens of the world, nor fail to recognize the contributions of all cultures to the richness of our language,” he wrote.
Although use of the term often brings smirks, Mr. Cerveny said the walls of dust could have serious consequences, toppling power lines and causing huge traffic accidents. Although ultradry conditions in the desert are considered one cause for the intensity of this year’s storms, Mr. Cerveny pointed to another possible factor: the housing bust that left developments half-finished and unmaintained, creating more desert dust to be stirred up.
The Pinal County Greens' resolution commended Mr. Wilson for his enlightened, intelligent views and named all the xenophobic Arizona residents who object to the term haboob as "ignorant morons." "Inshallah, these bigoted boobs will all leave the state soon so Arizona will no longer be, in Sheriff Clarence Dupnik's words, a mecca of bigotry and prejudice," said Richard Grayson, Pinal County Greens Co-Chair. "Maybe they'll all be swept away by a tsunami."
The Pinal County Greens today named U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake the Arizona Asshole of the Month for trying to turn the Grand Canyon into a toxic waste dump.
"There are a lot of assholes in Arizona politics," said Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Richard Grayson. "But this month Jeff Flake deserves being named Arizona Asshole of the Month because he's deliberately trying to destroy our state's greatest natural wonder and spoil it for generations to come."
The Obama administration has extended for six months a 2009 moratorium on new uranium mining claims on one million acres around the Grand Canyon. This is good news; even better is the promise from Ken Salazar, the interior secretary, that he will soon recommend a 20-year ban on new claims in the region. That is the maximum allowed under the 1872 mining law.
With uranium prices rising, the number of mining claims have jumped sharply over the last few years. There have been about 3,500 claims in the Grand Canyon-area alone. If developed, they would generate toxic wastes that would threaten the Colorado River — the source of drinking water for roughly 27 million people — the aquifer and the Grand Canyon ecosystem in general.
Mr. Salazar said he could not cancel valid existing claims, but there is likely to be little actual mining. The decision to “withdraw” the land from future claims creates new regulatory hurdles for existing claimants, who must demonstrate, among other things, that they had discovered actual mineral deposits before the 2009 moratorium. Only a handful have been able to do so.
There have been the usual complaints from mining lobbyists and their Congressional allies. Representative Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona, has threatened to use the interior appropriations bill to block Mr. Salazar’s plan. The moratorium will have little effect on the country’s uranium supply, most of which comes from Wyoming and New Mexico. It will protect a treasured national park and the drinking water for millions of people.
The Pinal County Greens, a group of members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, said Flake had carried through his threat and has written a rider, Section 445, that if enacted, will block the Grand Canyon protection plan.
Pinal County Greens Co-Chair Grayson said that he thought the Republican U.S. Senate candidate would welcome the honor: "In wanting to destroy a treasured national park and the drinking water of millions, Jeff Flake is truly the Arizona asshole par excellence."
Grayson noted that for his Grand Canyon desecration plan, Flake had also recently been named "Worst Person in the World" by Keith Olbermann's Countdown.
