The Green Party of Philadelphia City Committee (GPOP, www.gpop.org) continued its support for Divest Philly from the War Machine by calling on people to join a campaign to divest the Philadelphia Board of Pensions from the nuclear weapon industry.

By Justin Bell, member of the Green Party of Philadelphia City Committee

I was sitting in traffic today on Roosevelt boulevard when the verdict came in: Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering George Floyd.  When I heard it I had trouble processing it.  It wasn’t until my wife called me crying because she couldn’t believe it was real, that I started to believe it was real.  After I got off I looked around to see if any other cars were listening or having reactions.  I was disappointed that everyone looked miserable and wasn’t honking.  For a moment I felt victorious.  Overwhelmed by the power of the people who refused to get out of the way when the police told them to move.  I saw two older ladies flanked by the National Guard during the height of COVID.  One pushing the other in a wheelchair.  They had put themselves in a situation of great risk and they had won.

[These remarks were given on March 20, 2021, by Hillary Kane, Green Party of Philadelphia Treasurer, at a rally in support of Amazon workers trying to unionize in Bessemer, AL. Pictured above are rally organizer and Green Party member Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture (left) and Green Party members Charles Sherrouse and Hillary Kane holding the GPOP banner at the rally (right).]

Thank you to the organizers of today’s march and rally for allowing me to speak.  I represent the Green Party, an independent political party.  The Green Party often co-sponsors rallies such as these, joining in the fight for better working conditions, but we rarely get invited to share the podium because of deep seated fears of independent politics.  Politics that doesn’t go along with the status quo - the two-party system, or in this city, let’s be real -- a one-party system.

Beginning in 1970, the early years of Earth Day were political. Participants made spider webs from yarn to revere the world’s interconnectedness. After a few years, Earth Day became less about politics and more about activities such as cleaning up litter. We also stopped thinking like an ecosystem.

Sunday, November 1, 2020   

To Anthony “Ant” Smith and family and the members of the Philly REAL Justice Coalition,

We the Green Party of Philadelphia wish to express our support and warmest solidarity with all of you at this time.

We, the Green Party of Philadelphia (GPOP), wish to express our deepest, warmest condolences to the family and friends of Walter Wallace Jr., another young Black man mercilessly gunned down by officers of the Philadelphia Police Department (PD).

We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Philadelphia PD’s over reliance on lethal force, and we unapologetically support the constitutionally protected right of protesters to rise up against yet another police murder. Despite the fervent efforts of Walter Wallace Jr.’s mother to calm her son, the whole world witnessed how Wallace Jr. was shot and killed in front of his mother, as she begged them not to shoot.

GREEN PARTY OF PHILADELPHIA ENDORSES AND PARTICIPATES IN SATURDAY PROTEST

The Green Party of Philadelphia co-sponsored and also participated in the Defund the Police rally on June 13th. Led by the Philadelphia chapter of Socialist Alternative, the rally and march began at Broad and Callowhill at the site of old Philadelphia Inquirer building, currently undergoing a $300 million renovation to become the new police headquarters.

On the second new moon after the winter solstice, Saturday January 25th the outgoing yin year of earth pig (己亥,  jǐ hài) begets the yang year of metal rat (庚子  gēng zǐ).  This transition is the beginning of the fourth 12 year zodiac cycle of the sexagenary lunar calendar.  The last year of yang metal rat was in 1960.