Tomorrow, November 6th is Election Day
…and HUSH has provided this handy-dandy election guide:

FOR UNITED STATES PRESIDENT:
DR. JILL STEIN/ CHERI HONKALA
Dr. Jill Stein’s 2012 presidential campaign is what inspired me to finally join the Green-Rainbow Party. Here is a caring, compassionate and sincere candidate whose knowledge of the various issues and their consequences is unimpeachable and whose presence in debates past and present has shifted the parameters of political discourse in the Commonwealth during her 2002 gubernatorial run and have hopefully helped us make greater strides towards shifting the parameters of political discourse throughout the United States. This is a contest about clean, environmentally responsible, and community responsive politics and the fundamental system-wide change desperately needed to bring us there. Vote your values, not your fears. Vote for universal healthcare, not universal warfare. President Obama has engaged us in more military combat operations than any prior US President in history; supported off shore drilling, fracking, and mountain top removal mining; and has beyond doubt the most draconian and Orwellian civil rights record of any US President since I dare say World War II – while former Governor W. Mitt Romney has surrounded himself with the most frighteningly neo-conservative band of foreign policy advisors since President George W. Bush, while enunciating positions regarding the social safety net that I quite frankly find abominable.
https://www.facebook.com/drjillstein
http://www.jillstein.org/
FOR UNITED STATES SENATOR:
WRITE-IN: MARISA DIFRANCO
The so-called “centrist” stance of the would be Modern Whig Party holds very little appeal to me. The movement has adopted stances regarding the national debt that I believe would invite economic contraction, a “Constitutionalist” attitude regarding federalism and separation of powers that I believe to be dangerous and ill advised, national defense fetishism. a stance regarding affirmative action that I believe backward and ignorant of how problems of institutional racism still affect us, and a cavalier disregard for the health care rights of women. Therefore, despite rather progressive positions that Bill Cimbrelo has otherwise adopted regarding immigration and universal health care, his write-in candidacy holds little appeal for me. The campaigns of both Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, have revealed foreign policy platforms still embracing a United States imperial mission and saber rattling against Iran each on the basis of misinformation; and neo-liberal education and economic policies I can in no way support.
Marisa DiFranco was the one truly progressive candidate this year seeking the US Senate seat, and yet the Democratic Party state convention in its infinite wisdom declined the voting public opportunity to debate and hear her stance on issues out of fears that she might reveal how truly far to the right the politics of Elizabeth Warren in fact are. We therefore had a Senate campaign highly detailed in terms of how the major candidates each could hurl mud at the other, but far less so dealing in the truly substantive issues that each campaign either lied about or neglected. If the Democratic Party has hopes to finally gain this Senate seat back again, they will have to nominate a genuine progressive like Marisa DiFranco to have the slightest bit of assistance from me.
FOR REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS, FIRST DISTRICT:
WRITE IN: BILL SHEIN
Bill Shein, of Alford, is the candidate whose steadfast embrace of progressive politics has impressed me the most during the Democratic Party primary contest – and although he has not apparently carried over his campaign as an independent challenger like I had hoped, I shall certainly make it a point to write him in. He refuses to find himself beholden to monied interests in Washington, opposes corporate personhood, and embraces a genuine environmentalist platform. Here’s a candidate who would have opposed vociferously the neo-liberal policy prescriptions that the Massachusetts Democratic Party leadership sadly has embraced wholeheartedly. Why vote for Richard Neal, who now runs unopposed? Please consider writing in the name of Bill Shein.
FOR SENATOR IN THE GENERAL COURT, SECOND HAMPDEN AND HAMPSHIRE
WRITE IN: RICHARD PURCELL
Richard Purcell is among the most energetic, gifted, determined and extraordinary social and economic justice activists and advocates I have ever met, and he’s the former Green Party candidate for Lt. Governor. Within this state Senate district, the Republican incumbent Michael Knapik is running unopposed, without even token Democratic and independent opposition. We can, and we must, do better. Rick Purcell would unquestionably do better. Write him in.
REPRESENTATIVE IN GENERAL COURT, FIFTH HAMPDEN DISTRICT
AARON VEGA
While I may have disagreed with Aaron Vega on a number of issues and have been critical of his lack of voice in the council on some other issues where I expected him to be a leading voice of forward thinking progressive ideas and he was not; he is the best choice on the ballot to be our representative in this election. I also believe that with what was political pressure here that might have had him more concerned with image and political capital that he’d would best serve us away from all that in Boston rather than city council. I do believe that he’ll work for Holyoke’s best interests in this role. On top of that his competition is absolutely absurd. Linda Vacon is a paranoid Tea-Party / Glenn Beck 9-12 patriot that is not fit to lead in any capacity – and not because of her politics; but because she is a legitimate simpleton. Yes, you can have an MS in Nursing (or anything) and be a complete fool. The other candidate, Jerome Hobert, began his career in a blatant fraud. You can find his name on the Green Party line but he is by no way a representative of Green Party values nor is he endorsed by the Green Party – in fact, the party has filed a complaint with the State Election Commision against Mr. Hobert. More details here.
FOR COUNCILLOR, EIGHTH DISTRICT
WRITE IN: PETER VICKERY
Peter Vickery, who was by far the most very progressive Councillor the body has yet seen, has continued to champion a long laundry list of social justice issues and progressive causes – and it is my fondest heart’s desire to see him seek office again. Michael Albano, beyond doubt, is a social liberal of the sort we should certainly hope to continue holding this seat. However, his political history within Springfield as Boss of one of the most thoroughly corrupt political machines in recent memory shall never sit well with me. Michael Franco, meanwhile, has an unfortunately quite homophobic and misogynist advocacy track record marking him as by far one of the most frighteningly far right candidates ever to seek office throughout the whole of Western Massachusetts.
BALLOT QUESTION #1: “RIGHT TO REPAIR”
MY VOTE IS NO
My belief is that “Right to Repair” remains a trojan horse for chain auto parts stores to duck regulations and unfairly compete with mechanics. I had read much on both sides of this issue and was not certain where to stand until I spoke to the folks at my favorite shop, Garvulinski Service Station here in Holyoke which was postering for the “NO” stance. In this case, however, the ballot measure remains in many ways moot as the State Legislature has already passed into law similar such legislation.
https://www.facebook.com/saynotoSB2204
BALLOT QUESTION #2: “PHYSICIAN ASSISTED SUICIDE”
MY VOTE IS NO
For what I believe to be very powerful and well reasoned arguments against the measure as written, I refer the reader to the following:
https://www.facebook.com/SecondThoughtsMA
http://www.second-thoughts.org/
BALLOT QUESTION #3: “MEDICINAL MARIJUANA”
MY VOTE IS YES
For what I believe to be very powerful and well reasoned arguments in support of the measure, I refer the reader to the following:
https://www.facebook.com/CommitteeForCompassionateMedicine
http://www.compassionforpatients.com/
NON BINDING: FUND OUR COMMUNITIES NOT WAR QUESTION:
MY VOTE IS YES
Full text of the question: “Shall the state representative from this district be instructed to vote in favor of a resolution calling upon Congress and the President to: (1) prevent cuts to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans benefits, or to housing, food and unemployment assistance; (2) create and protect jobs by investing in manufacturing, schools, housing, renewable energy, transportation and other public services; (3) provide new revenues for these purposes and to reduce the long-term federal deficit by closing corporate tax loopholes, ending offshore tax havens, and raising taxes on incomes over $250,000; and (4) redirect military spending to these domestic needs by reducing the military budget, ending the war in Afghanistan and bringing U.S. troops home safely now?”
There is no reason not to get behind these proposals. Of the top developed / industrialized nations the USA ranks bottom in almost every indicator concerning health, welfare and happiness. We also rank #1 for disparity in wealth. 2011 was the largest profit year in history for oil companies and the military industrial contractors and manufacturers. This is largely do to our efforts in Imperialism & nation building and our piss poor energy policies. We need to work towards a renewable and post scarcity energy policy. We need to get on a new path and take the $1 trillion (and growing) annually that we spend in our war efforts and put it better use. Send a message to our leadership that we demand that elusive “change” .
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I’d like to thank Mr. Broadhurst for the lion’s share of the above text. I’d also like to remind voters that when you go to the polls vote for that person that most represents you. If you choose “lesser of evils” and select the candidate that you might disagree with on foreign policy issues like the murder of innocent people in the name of “security”; that despite your dislike of such policy your vote for that candidate is indeed approval for that policy to continue. The duopoly and the illusion of choice that the RNC/DNC provides is indeed intentional. The only people that benefit from their leadership in the executive and in congress is those that are their masters – and it is not the voting public… it is those CEOs and shareholders that profit the most from US Imperialism and War. The only way we can mend this nation (and, I believe, work towards survival of our species) is to end the two-party strangle-hold. No matter who wins of the two mainstream it is a continual shift towards an imperial fascist-coroptocracy police surveillance state. We need to take the power away via electoral politics before we see what is happening in Greece and Spain make it to our shores. We are indeed headed in that direction and if that becomes the catalyst for change then so be it. I just wish that the voting public would wake up before it comes to that. We should look to Iceland for inspiration.