Dr. Lenora Fulani and Former NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson in Harlem This Friday

This Friday, April 15th - 6pm  Dr. Fulani Interviews Bill Thompson, Former NYC Comptroller  Join us for an interesting conversation about politics and the civic life of the city -- a great opportunity to take an inside look at the city and state government.         Harlem State Office Building 163 W. 125th Street, second floor If you haven't yet, please RSVP by calling (212) 962-1699 It's Friday night, you're in New York City, and you're looking to meet some interesting people. You can go to a museum or have dinner with friends, you can go see a Broadway play or an Off-Broadway play, AND..... if it's the 3rd Friday of the month, you can take a step off the beaten path and step into the world of Lenora Fulani. Dr. Lenora Fulani is one of the country's most significant black leaders and the leading black independent. She helped establish the current independent movement with her 1988 independent run for President of the United States in which she became the first woman and first African American to be on the ballot in all 50 states. She also qualified for federal primary matching funds. Fulani hosts a monthly forum called Interviews by a Black Independent (on the 3rd Friday of the month) at the Harlem State Office Building (you'll need picture id to get in) on 125th Street in Manhattan. She interviews her guests in an intimate setting on the 2nd Floor Gallery with a diverse audience of political and cultural independents.  Introductions are made, interview ensues, and Q&A from the audience makes for a really interesting and important community dialogue where you can get to know some of the movers and shakers in the NYC intellectual community. Last month Dr. Fulani interviewed New Federal Theater founder Woodie King, Jr. (see below) and this week we are treated to a conversation with former NYC Comptroller and recent candidate for Mayor Bill Thompson. Look for me and say hello!! See you there! NH Here are a couple of photos from the March event: Lenora Fulani talking with young people who attended the Woodie King Jr. interview in March 2011 Did you miss last months Interview with Woodie King Jr?   Actor Moshe Yassur, Woodie King, Jr., and Jim Horton, Assistant Managing Director of Castillo Click here to listen to it, or here to download it on iTunes! Woodie King, Jr. is the founding director of the New Federal Theater, a pioneer in Black theater and a progressive with a long track record of speaking out on behalf of the poor and excluded. Mr. King directed Fred Newman's Mr. Hirsch Died Yesterday at the Castillo Theater (in which Lenora Fulani made her stage acting debut)

LEGENDmag -- Purple State: 17 politically independent websites (links)

From cultural indie Rai-mon Nemar at LEGENDmag:

So we’ve been getting asked more and more about independent politics. Thanks to our friends at CUIP and No Labels we’ve had alot of answers and solutions to send people. Today we attempt more of the same by giving a solution to the the “where do I look for independent political news stories”. We asked our friend Nancy Hanks of The Hankster to put together a list of websites to make it easier for you. We hope you enjoy and tell us what you think.

Dr. Omar Ali: "All Power to the People" 2010 Anti-Corruption Award NYC

Dr. Omar H. Ali, an associate professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro, received one of the NYC Independence Party's 2010 Anti-Corruption Awards.

Dr. Ali has been an independent grassroots political organizer and activist with independentvoting.org for nearly 20 years. The author of In the Balance of Power: Independent Black Politics and Third Party Movements in the United States (described as a “landmark work” by The National Political Science Review) and In the Lion’s Mouth: Black Populism in the New South, Ali is a contributing author to History in Dispute: American Social and Political Movements, among other publications. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he received his Ph.D. in history from Columbia University.

Also see Dr. Ali here: "Black Populism in the New South, Transforming America" on PBS... and here: Open Primaries on independentvoting.org

Marian Rich: How I became an Independent

by Marian Rich

NYC Independence Party activist Bryan Puertes asked me to write about how I became an independent so here goes…

I grew up in the Sixties on the Upper West Side of Manhattan – a bastion of political liberalism – in a household of staunch Democrats.  In our home, politics was always a topic of discussion. I remember going into the voting booth with my mother and pulling down the lever for JFK (I was 4).  My father was blacklisted in the 50s for his support of the Civil Rights movement within the Actors Equity union – I was taught from an early age that racism and poverty were not be be tolerated.  My mother was a working woman and she made no attempt to cover over the oppressive nature of her roles as wife and mother.  It was a no-brainer – our family was supportive of all of the liberation movements of the Sixties, and we were - quite naturally - Democrats.

By the time I was 12 (1968) I found myself in the highly politicized Jr. High School 44.  Our teachers were dodging the draft, the school was racially polarized, and in social studies we were debating the war in Vietnam and who we were going to support in the Democratic Party primary (the Republican Party didn’t seem to exist).  Many of us kids were for McCarthy but I stood with my family tradition of supporting the Kennedys and campaigned for RFK.  I used to do street work for him outside of the Democratic Party office on Broadway and 72^nd Street. The campaign got a kick out of me since I was their youngest volunteer.

Then in 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated and shortly thereafter Robert Kennedy.  It was a horrible time – we were deeply sad, angry and fearful.  I campaigned for Hubert Humphrey because he was not Richard Nixon. I suppose it was that year that I began to question my allegiance to the Democratic Party or any political party – I started to see that something was terribly wrong with “the system.”  Richard Nixon won the 1968 election and I remained politically engaged but no longer identified as a Democrat.  I was disgusted with business as usual politics.

In high school I started to identify as a leftist.  I didn’t know to call myself an independent but I was.  I was an independent leftist.  I remember that as a freshman at Syracuse University there was a rally against Nixon during the Watergate hearings and hardly anyone else was there.  That worried me.  I wondered why, on a campus with thousands of students, we couldn’t pull out a crowd to protest.  I questioned if protest alone was ever going to change anything.  I took some time off from college and traveled and finished as a transfer student at Sarah Lawrence College.  I studied Marxism and Women’s History and theatre.  I started to think about the role of culture in changing the world.  I attended No-Nukes rallies in the early 80s.  I got married and my husband Steve and I would spend weekends “shopping around the left” – trying to find a place to hang our political hats.

We lived on the Upper West Side and we kept running into organizers in the neighborhood who were engaged in a variety of appealing efforts – the Coalition of Grassroots Women stands out - I always stopped at their table.  We were intrigued by posters in the neighborhood about an African American woman named Barbara Taylor who was exposing the political corruption in the Democratic Party.  Then one day in 1982, I saw this green bus in the neighborhood; on the back of this bus were two women who were campaigning as independent candidates for Governor and Lt Governor – one was Jewish (Nancy Ross) and the other was Black (Lenora Fulani).  I thought I had died and gone to (political) heaven. Who were they and what was going on?  Shortly thereafter I met two organizers on the corner of 110^th St. and Broadway and they asked me to sign a pledge card to pledge my vote to Ross/Fulani in order for an independent party, the New Alliance Party, to get ballot status in New York State.  I signed.  And I guess that was the “official” day that I became an independent.  That was 28 years ago and today I am a proud member and builder of the NY Independence Party.

Marian Rich is a long-time independent political organizer, an Artistic Associate of the Castillo Theatre, and one of the members of the Castillo Theatre's Brand New Improve Show.

Friday Nite Hankster Chat: Fourth of July Independent Style!

Just got home from a petitioning shift with Bronx IP activist Michelle Pepe (recent graduate of Iona College in New Rochelle, NY) in Queens County Council District 31. VERY successful shift - we brought home 9 in 4 hours!

James Tkacen, a volunteer for Eric Ulrich's City Council race (he won the Feb. nonpartisan special election and has gotten support before from the Queens IP County Committee) -- and by the way a college mate of Michelle at Iona College (small world!) -- was our district guide today! Thanks for the ride, James!!

Video coming up....

There was so much support at the grassroots for independent politics on the eve of Independence Day, I just have to share it! I'm working on video now, so stay tuned...

And, let me know what you're thinking about right now about independent politics, the country, the world...

Talk to you soon!

-NH

Talk Talk: Fuzzballs and Foreign Policy

Sunday, March 8, 2009

Every weekend CUIP's president Jacqueline Salit and strategist and philosopher Fred Newman watch the political talk shows and discuss them. Here are excerpts from their dialogues compiled on Sunday, Fuzzballs and Foreign Policy, March 8, 2009 after watching selections from "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," "Hardball with Chris Matthews," and a Charlie Rose interview. Newman: That's who Limbaugh is laying down the gauntlet to. Limbaugh's message is We got creamed. And I'm saying we got creamed because we wouldn't go all the way with conservatism. And we can't take them on - the Democrats, the liberals, whomever - unless we are willing to go much further with that. And he might be right. I'm not supporting that. I'm not a Republican. But, he might be right.   Salit: He might be right that you can't compete with the Democrats by trying to play at the middle?   Newman: Yes. Limbaugh's advice is Don't go back to New England-style moderate Republicanism. That's exactly the wrong direction. We have to go the other way. Who was it who said today - and they're right - that Limbaugh doesn't represent the Republican Party?   Salit: Larry O'Donnell said it on Hardball.   Newman: Right. Limbaugh represents conservatism. And a conservative regime, which lasted eight years, did disastrous things to the country. Limbaugh's point is that conservatives have to go even more firmly to the right, and likewise for the Republicans, to be major players. Going to the center is futile, in his view. I think that's what he's doing and that's a fun fight to watch.   Salit: I liked when he called himself a "fuzzball."   Read Talk Talk in its entirety here.

PTW 2008 Blogging the World Independent Youth

Omar Ali and Sal Peralta: Independents to watch out for

Hankster readers, FYI:

Omar Ali is a close friend of mine. He is a professor of history at Vanderbilt University, and a prominent historian of the independent and third-party movements, specifically about the impact of African Americans on and in third party movements. He's a GREAT speaker. You can read about his new book In the Balance of Power -- 2008/Independent Black Politics and Third-Party Movements in the United States

Sal Peralta, who I mentioned on today's Blog Bunker with Joe Salzone (Channel 110 if you're SIRIUS....), blogs at Independent Oregon. You can also check out the competition (NPR) here: Sal Peralta, Secretary of the Independent Party of Oregon, appeared on KLCC's "Sunday at Noon" show on Oregon Public Broadcasting. Topics included the Independent Party's cross-nomination of candidates, third party politics in a two party system, and campaign finance reform.

If you want the latest, you need to check out Omar and Sal -- probably on either SIRIUS or NPR....

Ryan Christiano -- independent thinker

Please visit Ryan Christiano -- "A Political Scientist with a concentration in Political Philosophy and International Relations. I am a fierce Independent who believes Political Parties create group thinking rather than good thinking. I love to write and I am an Inductee of The National Political Science Honor Society. This honor is most likely due to a fortuitious clerical error."

(Now on The Hankster sidebar!)

If you're an independent, you need to know who Fred Newman is!

... And now there's a website so you can...!

"Fred Newman is the public philosopher who for 30 years has translated the mostprogressive ideals of the 1960s into effective instruments of social and personal transformation. The centerpiece of Newman’s work in culture, psychology and politics is our capacity to create the conditions for our own development.... "

Fred Newman Ph.D. is highly recommended by The Hankster! (now on The Hankster sidebar)

Watchblog writers shift to PoliWatch

Poliwatch Indies: A message from David Remer

Dear former WatchBlog visitor,

Some of the writers from WatchBlog have set up a similar web site called PoliWatch. Unlike WatchBlog which is currently down, and has not seen a software upgrade or single additional feature added in years, PoliWatch has pulled out all the stops in purchasing licensing and hosting to provide the latest in blogging technology, software, and services for writers and visitors, alike.

We are adding one or more new features every week. We intend, over the next several months, to achieve a true social networking web site, centered around the liberals, independents, and conservatives 3 column format.

We hope you will check PoliWatch out, and become a participant in our comments or even perhaps, as a featured writer at some point in the future. We want your ideas, your feedback, your involvement, and participation.

PoliWatch's focus and purpose is to bring citizens who want better government together to discuss that way forward.

Hope to chat with you at PoliWatch.

Thank you, David R. Remer
Manager, PoliWatch