Oregon Greens featured at national convention

Oregonians stepped into the spotlight at the national Green Party convention Aug. 16-17. During a press conference featuring elected officials:

Josiah Dean (Dufur city councilor):  My name is Josiah Dean and I am honored and humbled to be a part of this and a part of the Green Party movement in the world today.

[00:00:22] My background, just real quick: I’ve been in the hospitality industry for 25-30 years, 35-40 years? Anyway, long time. About 10 years ago, my wife and I bought a hotel in the small rural town of Dufur, Oregon. And so when people hear Oregon, they think, ‘Oh, Green Party, everybody’s liberal. It’s no big deal.’

[00:00:43] But what you may not know is that Oregon is much like a lot of states, that most of the state is rural with a big urban population. Oregon is indeed that. Portland is very liberal, Democratic. But once you get, we’re about 100 miles from Portland, and I kind of call it ‘the frontier of the urban growth boundary,’ so to speak.

[00:01:05] So definitely a red town. Dufur’s about 600 people. And so it’s a small town. I’m on the city council there.

[00:01:15] I got my start in the Green Party back in the year 2000 when Al Gore, I just watched Al Gore take too many steps to the right and said, ‘You know, I’ve got some values that I need to hold on to.’ And so I’ve been in the Green Party since then, 24 years now.

[00:01:31] But again, living in Dufur, owning a ‘major’ business in town (‘major’ being in quotes), I’ve really gotten involved with the community and looking to do a lot of the things for the future…So I’m just here looking at the future of Dufur and trying to do good governance.

[00:01:50] We’ve got a sewer project that we need to get funding for. So I’m working, you know, with my councilors on that. But, you know, having a vision for the community, working with folks that may have a different opinion than I do.

[00:02:03] But everybody wants to have a good community and so my idea is that having a good community, having good governance, is the key, and so things like infrastructure and getting federal funding to upgrade our sewer system, that’s been a major project that we’ve been working on. But in the meantime, we still have to make sure that the water bills are paid and the potholes are filled.

[00:02:28] And then things like we had a goat ordinance that raised a big ruckus in town. And it’s that kind of thing where people will show up at the meeting and think that we’re these big power-hungry folks. And I’m like, ‘You realize this is volunteer and there’s 600 people in this town. It’s not like it’s a big power move.’ But you get a really good insight into people’s fears.

[00:02:53] And again, my focus is to just earn trust by doing things and getting things done that people enjoy. And yeah, so that is my quick little story.

[00:03:05] John Q: Another press conference focused on Green Party candidates in 2024. Of six candidates featured, two were from Oregon.

[00:03:13] Nathalie Paravicini (Oregon secretary of state candidate): My name is Natalie Paravicini and I’m running for secretary of state in Oregon. The reason I’m running is, the secretary of state is in charge of elections, and one of our big, one of our principal platforms in the Green Party is grassroots democracy, making it easier for people to have an impact in their elections and to run for office.

[00:03:38] In Oregon, we’re going to have ranked choice voting on the ballot in 2028, but it’s going to be only—and there’s a huge support, so we will very likely pass—but it’s only for statewide and federal elections, starting in 2028.

[00:03:53] We have several local localities that have implemented ranked choice voting, like Multnomah County, Portland, but as a Secretary of State, I would facilitate additional localities and local communities and counties to pass and implement ranked choice voting.

[00:04:12] Ranked choice voting is a method that increases participation and focus on the debate from other than corporate big money voices. Another major reason why I’m running for Secretary of State in Oregon is because it took us close to 30 years to finally pass campaign finance reform in Oregon.

[00:04:34] Oregon was one of the last states without any campaign finance limits. But the only reason we have the law is because the grassroots Honest Elections Coalition was about to put a ballot measure, which was actually an excellent measure, but would have been very much fought. And at the very last minute, legislators and big business and also large union leaders finally negotiated with us to pass campaign finance reform, but the bill has big loopholes. So I’m running to educate the public about the loopholes and to make sure that our legislative elected officials are aware that we’re keeping, that we’re continued to organize and to keep their feet to the fire.

[00:05:15] And I’m a very longtime Green Party member. I’m over 20, 25 years in the Green Party. And during this whole time, in spite of having elected Bill Clinton, Obama, or having even Kamala now, what I have seen is just an increase in the military budgets, an increasing militarization, a worsening of climate change, and a defunding of education, health care, infrastructure development.

We have crises in housing everywhere, behavioral health they and that is because our money, our tax monies, are going to the military instead of going to productive investments in the community. And in 25 years I have not seen any change, it’s getting worse. And what I have seen getting worse.

What the two major parties have focused on is to make sure the Green Party and alternative voices do not have access to the ballot, do not have a voice in the elections, we’re not invited to the debate, we’re removed from ballot lines because the states are making requirements to be on the ballot more and more and more difficult. They have created challenges that were ridiculous and were thrown out, of course, wasting our time and resources in useless arguments. I mean, they have done, the major corporate parties have done everything they can to keep us out of the ballot and to keep us out of the public discourse.

[00:06:49] But in spite of that, the Green Party is persevering because we need an alternative voice and the Green Party is the only party that has platform, ballot lines, and organized parties in most states.

[00:07:01] We may not be perfect and we need people’s involvement, but it is really the only valuable alternative that has endured for 20-25 years, and that’s what gives me hope. And that is why I’m running to ensure that we keep the electoral process focused on solutions that work for people and not for the very rich and the very few.

[00:07:23] So that is basically what I’m running for Secretary of State, basically on issues on democracy and access.

[00:07:30] Justin Filip (Oregon CD-4 candidate): I’m Justin Filip, I’m running for the (U.S.) House (of Representatives) in District 4 here in Oregon, where Val Hoyle, a Democrat, is currently the incumbent and receives money from AIPAC.

[00:07:41] So I’m proud to say that I’m a recommended candidate of the grassroots organization Track AIPAC that sort of tracks all the donations that politicians across the country receive and, yet again, the influence of big money in our government, which I think is sort of at the root of a lot of our problems.

[00:08:01] But yeah, Val (Hoyle) is very symbolic of, you know, a lot of the Democrats that a lot of us are running against, or Republicans for that matter. You know, she’ll express sympathy for the Palestinians.

[00:08:15] And I’ll take one step back and just say, I decided to run after the campus protest at the University of Oregon. And, you know, we’re trying to apply pressure to stop all the killing that’s going on over there in Palestine, Gaza.

[00:08:29] So, you know, longtime Green. I’ve been involved with the Green Party for a while: 26-year-old Justin voted for Ralph Nader back in 2000. So I’ve been a big fan of the platform for a long time. And in the wake of 2016, 2020, I decided to get more involved in the party. I figured, you know, I’m not going to just be someone to talk about it on social media. I need to be about it. So I need to get out there and do something because, ‘If I don’t do it, who’s going to?’ kind of thing.

[00:09:01] You know, the Green Party is made up of people like myself that just feel like we need to get out there and make a difference in the world. So that’s what we’re trying to do. So I’d already been involved with the Green Party when the campus organizing started happening.

[00:09:16] And a lot of us, faculty and staff, you know, just sort of rallied to support the students, protect the students. It was right after UCLA had their encampment violently broken up by police and rubber bullets and all that, and we sure didn’t want that happening to the students here at U of O.

[00:09:34] So, fast forward to, let’s get into Val Hoyle’s record on Palestine, and it’s not great. I think if you go to the Track AIPAC website, they have a nice little spreadsheet that they put together that sort of tracks all the, not just the money they received, but the votes that they’ve made.

[00:09:50] And they’ve got them color-coded, red and green, based on if it’s considered a good vote or a bad vote, and Val’s row is just littered with red cells. So she’s just not been good on this.

[00:10:03] And so this campaign is just another way to apply pressure to hopefully stop what’s going on over in Gaza. But obviously that’s not the only issue.

[00:10:11] Eugene, where I live, per capita (last I checked), we have more homeless folks in Eugene per capita than anywhere else in the United States. So while this is an issue that’s big all across the country, it’s especially a big issue here in our district. And Val’s done virtually nothing to support these people either.

[00:10:34] We’ve seen increased criminalization of homelessness in the wake of the Grants Pass decision with SCOTUS. And so not only are we looking out for Palestinians, but we’re looking out for our unhoused people here. I mean, this is sort of a campaign built on morality, quite frankly. So, and these are two of the biggest pressing issues of our time, both at home and abroad.

[00:10:55] So, yeah, (Rep.) Val (Hoyle)’s never met in an arms package she’s not willing to fund. But if you talk about the United Nations relief folks on the ground helping Palestinians, she had no problem voting to defund them. So her priorities are not great.

[00:11:11] The Democrats will tell you that they’re here to save democracy, but the presidential nominee that they have never received a single primary vote. In fact, she had to drop out of the race in 2020 because she was so unpopular due to lack of vote support.

[00:11:24] As we’ve seen, the Democrats are trying to sue us in various places: in North Carolina, the Matthew Hoh campaign in 2020. We’ve got Nevada. We just won that court case, thankfully. I think I just saw the news now in Wisconsin, they’re trying to sue us off the ballot. So this is a pretty regular thing that the Democrats try to do. I don’t know why they think they’re entitled to Green voters’ votes, but they seem to think that they are. It’s just kind of a farce that they think that they’re here to save democracy. So I just wanted to point that out.

[00:11:57] I just want to real quick end with why I’m a Green. So I’m a Green because they have a long track record of being on the right side of history. The Green Party has consistently opposed the military-industrial complex. They’ve championed gay rights and marriage equality before it was cool. They developed the original Green New Deal. They understand the problems we face and they know what needs to be done to address our issues. Greens also supported Palestinians and the BDS (boycott, divest, sanctions) movement since its inception in 2007.

[00:12:27] We know from the boycotts and Birmingham bus system and South African government that economic pressure can topple oppressive regimes. It’s also why I tried to exert financial pressure on the University of Oregon to divest from any investments that they might have to support the oppressive government of Israel.

[00:12:44] And rather than take our concerns regarding the ethics of the University’s investments seriously, they moved to terminate me from my position.

[00:12:53] Without any self-awareness whatsoever, they’ll read land acknowledgments before every meeting, but fail to act when there’s a land grab and genocide happening in real time. I was willing to stand up for what I believe in, and it cost me my job.

[00:13:08] Val Hoyle has no political courage. Email, phone calls, sit-ins at her office have done nothing to sway her. But perhaps someone coming to take her job will move her toward the right side of history. I’m hoping.

[00:13:21] John Q: Oregon Greens take the spotlight at the party’s national convention.