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THE CAMPAIGN CONTINUES...

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Tuesday November 2nd, 2010

Arrested!

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Tuesday October 12th, 2010

I was arrested tonight at the gubernatorial debate in San Rafael, with a ticket to the debate in hand, for allegedly trespassing on private property. The real crime is what's happening to California. The perpetrators of this crime include the Democratic and Republican parties who keep trading off the governorship, and the Dominican University, for closing the doors to real dialogue and debate.

California has always been special and there's no reason for it to be in the state it's in, begging Wall Street for loans, watching our schools, environment and job opportunities spiral down. In all my activism I have never been arrested and I never wanted to. I understand it now. My comfort zone is not important. We cannot stand by and let this happen to California.

The Titanic Parties are heading straight for the iceberg, and their leaders are busily closing the doors to the people on the lower deck!

The polls are a fraud against the voters. I received a letter that congratulated me on my primary win and invited me to the debate, if I received 10% support among California likely voters. They didn't tell me what the survey question was. If it were, "Do you want debates with only the Republican and Democratic candidates?" a huge majority of voters, especially this year, would say, "No!"  But a couple of my supporters were surveyed and they told me the survey question: they were asked whether they preferred Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman. Not even other. And then when the pollsters report the results, they still didn't say other, they say undecided. As if the only choices were Pepsi and Coke, not something we might like that's healthy, like crystal clear water, or juice, smoothies or red wine!

We hear all the time about how much money the candidates are spending, but you know what? Give my campaign and our Green ideas the same no-charge media coverage that Meg and Jerry get, and it wouldn't matter how much money my campaign has. Californians are sick of the same old status quo parties. Californians recognize real talk and real solutions when and IF they hear them. This debate should have been about giving the voters a chance to hear all parties and getting the real issues on the table.

There are solutions, and independent parties like the Green Party need to have our voices heard so we can correct our course!  Keep the focus where it belongs, the destructive forces of "divide and conquer" strategies, and Wall Street casino games.

* Stop blaming immigrants. "Yo soy Nicky."
* Guarantee marriage equality.
* Legalize marijuana, and then industrial hemp.
* Preserve our great environment, our educational systems, and our economy.

We can implement  a State Bank for California, and fair taxes for a change. We – the middle class, lower income, and even the relatively affluent – have been paying taxes. The richest 1% and 5% mega-corporations and mega-millionaires have not been paying taxes, nor creating jobs! Let's stop coddling them, and let's create jobs in the things California values – in the Green economy, in healthcare, in education. Give ourselves and our kids a chance.

Ballot Statement sent to Sacramento

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Tuesday July 20th, 2010

You – and every California household with registered voters – will get an official voter pamphlet before the November 2 election.

Candidates may “purchase space” for a ballot statement if we agree that between the primary and general elections we will not spend more than $12,946,000. That’s me!

We know that the Birthright and Billionaire candidates have agreed to spend much more than that. Mega-bucks Whitman has spent more than – whatever, it always seems to be $10 million more than I heard the last time – $80,000,000?

The cost of the ballot statement, which was free in 2002, jumped to $20 a word in 2006, and to $25 a word now. The limit is 250 words, but my team and I tried very hard to keep it short for two reasons: so people would read it, and so it wouldn’t cost so much! If you are able to purchase a word or two, or a sentence or paragraph, your help will be most appreciated. But don’t contribute too much, Along with agreeing to the voluntary spending limit of $12.9 million, I have agreed to accept no more from each person than $25,900.

Please, only donate if you are a real person; the Green Party is doing everything we can to counteract the power and influence of “corporate persons.” We refuse corporate campaign contributions. They come with strings, and should be called what they are: bribes.

Here’s my ballot statement. Feel free to tell me what you think - we’re having a debate about how strongly to state the case for both spending wisely, and taxing people fairly for a change. And, if you are a real person who is able to contribute, tell me which words you’d like to be yours! 

BALLOT STATEMENT

There are solutions! For great schools, health, environment, jobs, and justice. We can stop coddling mega-corporations and billionaires. They’ve gotten filthy rich, and left California flat broke and unemployment sky high.

We can create a State Bank and invest in California not Wall Street.

Let’s expand the good parts of old Prop 13 to keep people in their homes, and fix rotten parts like the 1/3 minority that has veto power over taxing the rich. Let’s implement fair taxes, and give ourselves and our kids a chance. See LauraWells.org.

Building a Movement

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Sunday July 18th, 2010

Those three words are in my mind every day. We are living in times of powerful movements.

The persons in one movement are corporations, and those who profit mightily from them. Through a twisted path, corporations got themselves categorized legally as persons. This year the Supreme Court (which we might rename the Abysmal Court) opined that these “persons” had a right to free speech, and that money spent on elections equaled free speech. The vast majority of living, breathing persons in the U.S. curled their lips and said, “I disagree!”

The persons in our movement are living breathing people. This people’s movement has a wide variety of focuses. Not everyone in the movement agrees with everyone else, but the different parts of the movement are unified by the will toward living and breathing! Toward more fairness, toward more health, toward a sense of more fulfillment in life, toward a better future for ourselves and the next generations.

And the movements are taking to the streets (and to the tweets!). If anyone knows of any big shift in power in the history of the world where people did not gather and take to the streets, please email me to let me know.

This constructive people’s movement is building, and it is what is needed to counteract the destructive corporate movement. Corporations are good for making profits (for some folks) and that’s why they were created: so that groups of people could have an enterprise and have limited liability. While corporations are good at making profit, they’ve been bad at increasing fairness, health, fulfillment, and a better future for ourselves and our kids. People’s movements are good at those things, and this people’s movement is building power to take back our state and country.

When I consider the Green Party’s role in this movement, I see three important contributions: values, no corporate funding, and a ballot line. To be specific:

Values: the Green Party is an international political party with values that are explicitly stated and based in Grassroots Democracy, Social Justice, Ecological Wisdom, and Nonviolence.

No corporate funding: this affords Green Party candidates and elected officials the good fortune of being to keep our “people values” intact since we do not accept corporate campaign contributions and don’t have to behave like the Titanic Parties. At the end of the day, the Titanic Parties cannot alienate their corporate sponsors.

Ballot line: Even with the passage of the devious party-pooper Prop 14, the Greens still have a ballot line. Sooner or later – and in these times the sooner the better – this people’s movement will build into a force that will take political power. We will have a people’s ballot line, and we will retain our positive values as we build a better world.

Thanks for reading, and for being a part of the movement.

Laura