St. Paul, MN – On October 19, Jill Stein, presidential candidate for the Green Party, stopped by the weekly Women Against Military Madness (WAMM) Solidarity Palestine bannering. Stein stopped by to show support for the Palestine solidarity movement on the way to her Green Party fundraiser.

For over a year, every Friday, community activists have steadfastly came to the busy intersection of Summit and Snelling Avenues in Saint Paul to call for an end to the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza and for a free Palestine.

The intersection was filled with chants like “They call it a war, that’s a lie, it’s systematic genocide.” Protesters held Palestine flags and signs calling for divestment and an end to U.S. support for genocide. Passing motorists responded resoundingly positively with their unending honks.

Meredith Aby, a member of the MN Anti- War Committee and an educator, closed out the rally, stating, “We have a task. We have to raise the level of consciousness in this country about the genocide. The media won’t do it. We have to do it. Genocide is not a single issue voting issue. The money I need to teach my kids is being spent on the other side of the globe killing kids.”

WAMM organizers pledged to “continue to come to this corner every Friday not only because it’s right thing to do but because their fight is our fight.”

#StPaulMN #MN #AntiWarMovement #JillStein #Palestine #WAMM #GreenParty

Caracas, Venezuela – “A PSUV victory is the most important present for Commander Hugo Chavez. Today, July 28, is the anniversary of his birthday, the same day as the popular triumph of the people,” says international observer Diakaridia Diakita, the president of the youth of the Yelema party in the Republic of Mali. PSUV stands for the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.

Over 800 international observers from around the world are in Venezuela to observe the historic elections between the Chavista PSUV leader Nicolás Maduro and the opposition pro-imperialism parties.

The main opposition candidate is Edmundo Gonzalez, who supports the privatization of the oil companies, schools, healthcare, and the removal of social programs that former President Chavez started.

These international observers come from unions, left parties, newspapers, and organizations from around the world. The grandson of Nelson Mandela, Nkosi Zwelivelile, is also observing this important election. Observers talk about the importance of this election for Venezuela, Latin America and the world.

Observers from Africa, Latin America, Europe, North America, Asia, Australia, and all over the world will be monitoring today’s election.

“Venezuela has been strangled by sanctions for over a decade. This election will show us if Maduro has been able to lead his country to persevere, or if smear campaigns and national betrayal of the opposition will bring the country back down into vassal status. The fate of Venezuela rests on July 28,” says Ahmed Eltouny, the former cochair of the Green Party in the U.S.

Booker Omole, the vice president of the Communist Party of Kenya, says, “I am here in Caracas to attend this very important event of the revolutionary history of Venezuela. Particularly, the Communist Party of Kenya is an internationalist organization, and we support the Bolivarian Revolution. Also, there are certain commonalities between the Venezuelan revolution and the ongoing processes in Kenya, which is still a neocolonial entity.”

Omole continued, “In 1989, in Caracas and major cities in Venezuela, there was a social explosion in the streets, where the IMF and World Bank had imposed austerity measures, the anti-people policies. In Kenya today, the masses and the working class are also resisting. We have seen millions of people pouring into the streets to resist the puppet regime that is sponsored by the USA imperialism. This reminds of similarities where the IMF has designed policies, particularly here in Venezuela, that took ten years after the social explosion for the Bolivarian revolution to materialize. Hugo Chavez still lives among us, not only here in Caracas, but also in Kenya.”

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Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther Party leader, decided to run for mayor of Brunswick after attending an anti-globalization protest on nearby Sea Island, where the G-8 ministers met to divide up the world economy. The contrast between Sea Island and Brunswick is stark: rich whites with political power versus working poor Blacks given little choice in local elections. The most recent mayor of this majority Black town was a Lieutenant Colonel of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Brown ran on an agenda of Black political empowerment, including a plan to create a local port authority that would benefit the majority of the people in the area. The current port is run by the State of Georgia and benefits the wealthy and powerful, with little benefit to Brunswick. Elaine Brown’s candidacy represented the democratic desires of the majority of the 16,000 people in Brunswick. It exposes the lie about the U.S. government 'spreading democracy overseas in Iraq,' while showing how little democracy there is down home in the South.

Brown is now backing African American mayoral candidate Otis Herrington. She states, “It is very important that an agenda that serves the needs of all the people be preserved and advanced. This is why I'm supporting Otis Herrington. I believe he provides the only other opportunity to marginalized voters to save our communities from a takeover by rich and powerful outside forces.”

#BrunswickGA #News #AfricanAmerican #BlackPantherParty #GreenParty #GlynnCountyBoardOfElections

Brown’s post-election press release stated: “Even though the racist, Republican-backed opposition to Elaine Brown’s campaign for mayor of Brunswick, Georgia, succeeded in removing her name from the Nov. 8 ballot – and taking away her right to vote! – a federal court judge, at the eleventh hour, on Nov. 7, ruled the local Board of Elections had to count her votes! In other words, Elaine had only hours to mount another campaign to convince blacks their votes for her would now be counted.”

“By then, of course, the majority-black population of Brunswick, slated to vote for Elaine and make her the City’s first black mayor, had already sat out the five-day advance voting period and really didn’t know or believe they could vote for Elaine on Election Day. Her name was still not on the ballot. So, black voter turnout was low, and the Republican-backed candidate was declared the winner,” the statement continued.

Brown plans a challenge in Federal Court with the aim of a new election.

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