Thursday, January 28, 2010
For Immediate Release:

Response to President Obama: The Green Party is the Clean Party

During his State of the Union address to the joint US Congress Wednesday night we couldn't help but notice how much emphasis President Barack Obama put on the importance "Green" policies could play in solving many problems America faces in building a better future for job creation and for America’s children. During what many deemed the speech of his life, Obama said, "We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow, … There's no reason Europe or China should have the fastest trains, or the new factories that manufacture clean energy products. … We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities, and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient, which supports clean energy jobs, … You can see the results of last year's investment in clean energy - in the North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide helping to make advanced batteries, … or in the California business that will put 1,000 people to work making solar panels."
Bravo, Mr. President, but we here in the Green Party have proposed those ideas since our beginnings.

Here in Texas, as in other states, Greens will continue to push these issues and feel mighty proud the President of the United States has finally joined us.

After spending much of his first year going back on campaign promises for carrying out universal health coverage, rebuilding New Orleans after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, closing Guantanamo Bay Prison, giving us open and transparent government, stopping torture of prisoners, ending the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and instead continuing the use of former President George W. Bush’s roving spy taps, secret renditions, secret courts, secret prisons, illegal Drone plane bombings, providing sweetheart deals and tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans, President Obama says he finally gets it!
President Obama’s first year has been so disappointing, many of his core supporters, like popular film maker Michael Moore, are openly beginning to break ranks with him and the Democrats. “He should acknowledge why he got elected. He should acknowledge why he took the job, to serve the American people and then to lead, and why those American people wanted him there. And he should apologize, should apologize for this first year. … And what he said last week to the banks and to Wall Street, if that was any indication of the change of heart he may be starting to have, I’d like to hear more of that this week at the State of the Union address.”

We don’t know if Mr. Moore heard what he needed to hear from Mr. Obama’s address; we’ll leave that to him. But we Texas Greens welcome Mr. Obama on his new-found desire to save America through good clean “Green” living. And we say to Mr. Moore, if you weren’t satisfied with what you heard on Wednesday, you’re welcome to join the Green Party. We’d love to have you.

Our party has been talking Green for decades so much so that we named our party Green. Our party founders clearly understood that taking care of our environment should be our nation’s first priority if we are to see our generations survive. They believed a clean environment was the best solution and that offering sustainable environmental policies will provide true security not only for Texans, but for all who live on Planet Earth. That any and all safe ways of making this happen should be explored/experienced, e.g. wind energy, clean water, new water sources, such as rainwater harvesting, investing in our children’s education, growing backyard and neighborhood gardens, promoting transportation alternatives, such as cycling and passenger rail, recycling our waste materials for reuse, keeping clean open air spaces for family parks and children’s recreation. Yeah, we were Green when it wasn't cool, so in this eye-opening moment for both the Democrat and Republican parties, we say, welcome to the Green Movement! In Texas we’re offering a wonderful list of Green candidates that will carry our Green message throughout our state in 2010. For more, visit txgreens.org. We encourage others to come join us as we work to Green the entire state of Texas, America and the world.
Go Greens!

Thomas Muhammad & Christine Morshedi
Co-Chairs Green Party-Texas