PHOENIX, Apr. 24 - The Arizona Green Party (AZGP) today expelled the Pinal County Greens from the state party and revoked the group's membership in the AZGP. "The so-called Pinal County Greens were never an official organization of the Arizona Green Party like the Maricopa Greens, the Pima Greens, and other county groups," Angel Torres, AZGP state co-chair said. Claudia Ellquist, the AZGP delegate to the Green Party of the United States said in a statement: "No such local party ever existed in Pinal County. Nor does a 'Pinal County
Green Party' exist under the AZGP banner. This group is a sham, just as Richard Grayson, the group's purported co-chair, was a sham Green candidate for Congress in 2010 whom we opposed and whom we sued -- unsuccessfully, sadly -- to remove from the Green Party ballot."
Torres added that Grayson's running for office in the 2012 Green Party presidential preference election in February, in which Grayson finished in a tie for third behind Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay, was also a sham campaign, as was Grayson's write-in candidacy in the special Green Party primary election for Congress in the Eighth Congressional District last week.
"We have been more than tolerant with these fraudulent Arizona Green Party members," said Ellquist. "But the Pinal County Greens' recent endorsement of President Barack Obama for re-election forces us to formally expel the Pinal County Greens, co-chair Richard Grayson, and all its members, if there are any, from the AZGP." Grayson said that at present he had no comment on the Pinal County Greens' expulsion from the Arizona Green Party.
The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution recommending that citizens read Andrew Ross's Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City as "a handbook for the possibilities of green democracy in the Valley and similar Sunbelt suburban sprawl communities." In the recently published book, the author, an eminent New York University professor of social and cultural analysis,
focuses on the prospects for sustainability in Phoenix--a city in the bull's eye of global warming--and also the obstacles that stand in the way. Most authors writing on sustainable cities look at places like Portland, Seattle, and New York that have excellent public transit systems and relatively high density. But Ross contends that if we can't change the game in fast-growing, low-density cities like Phoenix, the whole movement has a major problem. Drawing on interviews with 200 influential residents--from state legislators, urban planners, developers, and green business advocates to civil rights champions, energy lobbyists, solar entrepreneurs, and community activists--Ross argues that if Phoenix is ever to become sustainable, it will occur more through political and social change than through technological fixes. Ross explains how Arizona's increasingly xenophobic immigration laws, science-denying legislature, and growth-at-all-costs business ethic have perpetuated social injustice and environmental degradation. But he also highlights the positive changes happening in Phoenix, in particular the Gila River Indian Community's successful struggle to win back its water rights, potentially shifting resources away from new housing developments to producing healthy local food for the people of the Phoenix Basin. Ross argues that this victory may serve as a new model for how green democracy can work, redressing the claims of those who have been aggrieved in a way that creates long-term benefits for all.
Bird on Fire offers a compelling take on one of the pressing issues of our time--finding pathways to sustainability at a time when governments are dismally failing their responsibility to address climate change.
Richard Grayson, co-chair of the Pinal County Greens, said that Bird of Fire is "not simply an indictment of our current unsustainable community but provides suggestions that can lead to a blueprint for creating a true green democracy in the Valley of the Sun through political and social action." Grayson said he was long familiar with Andrew Ross's work since the late 1980s, when his friends who were Ph.D. students in American Studies at NYU were students of the professor's and called him "an astute, thorough and often prescient scholar." Like many others, Ross has recently been active in the Occupy Wall Street movement; here he is speaking on debt at Washington Square Park:
Last month, Grayson attended a discussion on Bird of Fire at The Center for Place, Culture and Politics at the City University of New York, where Grayson is spending the fall semester teaching at Hunter College and Borough of Manhattan Community College before returning to Pinal County in December. The Pinal County Greens are members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, one of the fastest growing counties in the United States.
UPDATE, Dec. 21 - Please read Tim Hull's insightful review of Bird on Fire inTucson Weekly.
The Pinal County Greens today passed a resolution announcing "full support" for #Occupy Phoenix and its protests. The resolution urges others to support #Occupy Phoenix at Cesar Chavez Plaza and to take part in the Occupy movement's events, such as Friday's march to the corporate headquarters of Freeport-McMoRan to protest the recent killing of striking miners in Indonesia and the egregious environmental damage caused by the world's largest publicly traded copper company, and Saturday afternoon's Feast of Financial Fools, a celebration of Halloween and the terrifying economic and social horrors caused by greed and corruption. The Pinal County Greens, members of the Arizona Green Party in Pinal County, America's second-fastest-growing county, have been a presence at the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations at Zuccotti Park (Liberty Plaza) in New York's financial district. Richard Grayson, co-chair of the Pinal County Greens, thanked the #Occupy Phoenix movement "for providing much-needed leadership in the Valley for the fight against inequality and in favor of a much more equitable economic framework in American life." PHOTO_ID_5672656918999209346" /> In their resolution, the Pinal County Greens also noted the leadership of the Maricopa Greens, who joined in the October 15 Day of Action with #Occupy Phoenix at Cesar Chavez Plaza. Finally, the Pinal County Greens resolution asked everyone to keep abreast of developments regarding #Occupy Phoenix
and the loose Occupy Together nationwide movement spurred by Occupy Wall Street. "The people of #Occupy Phoenix have our full support and our admiration," said Grayson. "Today's report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showing that in the past thirty years the top one percent of Americans with the highest incomes have seen their incomes grow by an average of 275 percent, showing irrefutable evidence that our system has become skewed to reward this tiny elite minority with the highest gains, leaving the other 99% sharply behind." "In light of the brutal police attack on Occupy Oakland," Grayson said,
"it is even more important for us to express solidarity with #Occupy Phoenix, Occupy Tucson, and other Occupy groups fighting for economic justice and political reform in cities around the United States." "In a saner America, we wouldn't have Gestapo tactics in the streets of Oakland."
