Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 16:11:44
From: Mitchel Cohen <mitchelcohen-AT-mindspring.com>
Subject: NYC: WRITE-IN Mitchel Cohen for Mayor



What do Grandpa Al Lewis,

Dr. Manning Marable,

journalist Peggy Dye, 

and artist Robert Lederman 

have in common? They've all endorsed Mitchel Cohen, who is running a
WRITE-IN campaign for Mayor of New York City on the Green Party ballot.
Enrolled Greens: Please WRITE-IN "Mitchel Cohen" for mayor on your paper
ballot, and fill-in the little box right next to the "write-in" area. (We
can see it already: Welcome to Florida!)

Here's a statement from Robert Lederman, the president of A.R.T.I.S.T.
Robert has been arrested more than 40 times by the Giuliani administration
for displaying his political art, and is a plaintiff, along with Mitchel
Cohen, in the lawsuit filed by the No Spray Coalition and other
organizations to stop the indiscriminate spraying of toxic pesticides in
New York City. Robert has NEVER been found guilty. Just a few weeks ago
Robert WON a federal lawsuit against the Mayor and the City on behalf of
all artists. He has 3 more federal lawsuits pending against the City for
abridgement of First Amendment rights. 

Here's what Robert Lederman writes about Mitchel Cohen:

"As an activist for First Amendment freedom and against the misuse of
pesticides in NYC I have found Mitchel Cohen to be courageous and tireless
in his willingness to stand up to the current administration's misguided
efforts concerning human health. While other candidates for Mayor remain
virtually silent about this repeated massive pesticide exposure which is
damaging the health of every single living being in the City, Mitchel Cohen
has been dedicating his every waking hour to protecting our health and
safety. What better qualification could there be for a candidate for public
office?" (-Robert Lederman, President of A.R.T.I.S.T. -- Artists' Response
to Illegal State Tactics)

And now two messages, one from Mitchel Cohen and another from Cathryn Swan

**************************************************
Dear Greens,

Voting for a Democrat or Republican is like choosing between syphilis and
gonnorrhea. We have the right to write our own prescription, our own future.

And we have the opportunity to field candidates who will sharply articulate
the issues that Greens are working on all over the world, and give the twin
parties of corporate greed hell!

Tuesday is Primary Day, in which you get to choose which candidates to
represent the Green Party in the General Election in November. I am urging
you to WRITE-IN longtime Green activist "Mitchel Cohen" for Mayor. You do
this by writing "Mitchel Cohen" in the space that says "Write In" on the
paper ballot, AND THEN FILLING IN THE LITTLE BOX NEXT TO THE NAME YOU HAVE
JUST WRITTEN.

The choice is increasingly coming down to the capitalist system vs. the
immune system. Won't you stand with me, and with the Brooklyn Greens,
Manhattan Greens, Roosevelt Island Greens, East New York/Cypress Hills
Greens, Orange "Radical Fanatical" Greens, and with such notables as
Grandpa Al Lewis, professor Manning Marable, journalist Peggy Dye,
artist/organizer Robert Lederman, and Green activists Jennifer Jager, Paul
Gilman, Bill Hagel, Pete Dolack, Maris Abelson, Afrime Derti, Frank Carr,
Mike Montella, Deeadra Brown, Sandi Miller, Marcey Gayer, Alice Shields,
Howard Brandstein, Cathryn Swan, Gloria Pasin, Dorothy and Darryl
Williams-Pereira, Robert Gold, Annette Averette, Gary Davidson, Richard
Hirsh, Karen Ingenthron, Neysa Linzer, Bobbye Butler, Mark Palumbo, and
Tzvi Mackson among many others, on the side of the "immune system"?

Those are some of the people who have endorsed "Mitchel Cohen for Mayor." I
am writing to ask you to join them, by WRITING-IN "Mitchel Cohen" for Mayor
of New York City on your Green Party mayoral ballot on Tuesday, Sept. 11.
In addition, you can email me directly at <mitchelcohen-AT-mindspring.com> or
check out our website at www.mitchelformayor.com.

The need to write-in my name was made necessary by several Greens who are
campaign managers for another candidate. They decided they wanted a "clear
sailing" for their candidate and tried to throw all other Green mayoral
candidates off the ballot. Unfortunately, they succeeded with three of the
four Green candidates they challenged, including me. Consequently, the
expense of notifying enrolled Greens about the "Mitchel Cohen for Mayor
write-in campaign" has, as you might imagine, skyrocketed both monetarily
and in terms of labor. Contributions, as well as volunteers, are greatly
appreciated. (You can send checks to "Friends of Mitchel Cohen," 638 East
6th Street, NYC 10009, att: Annette Averette, Treasurer.)

It is only because of the energetic work of all the volunteers who have
been disenfranchised by a few misleaders in our Party that we are in a
position to engage in this quest. We are fighting not only the twin
corporate parties (Ralph Nader calls them the "Duopoly") with their
terrible record on environmental and social justice issues, but against
attempts to squelch democracy in our own party! An inclusive primary would
highlight Green issues and hammer the Republicrats for their promotion of
corporate bailouts, genetic engineering, pesticide spraying,
criminalization of marijuana and the Rockefeller drug laws, and failure to
meaningfully address such issues as waste disposal, the large number of
sweatshops and exploitation of all labor, but particularly that of
immigrants, the worldwide movement which we are part of against toxic
pesticides, and dozens of others enumerated below. Where else can we hear
about Instant Run-off Voting and Proportional Representation? Where else
can we find candidates staffing the front lines to Free WBAI/Pacifica from
the throes of corporatization? Certainly not from the Republicrats.
Thankfully, the NYC Voters' Guide published ALL of the Green Party
candidates' statements, and mailed them to over two million voters.

The Write-In "Mitchel Cohen" for Mayor campaign has become, in part, a
struggle for the very soul of the Greens, for what the Green Party -- OUR
party, all of us -- could be about.

Please SPREAD THE WORD! This is a totally GRASSROOTS EFFORT, underfunded
(to put it mildly) and dependent on each of us to represent the campaign.
We each have the right to write our own future! Give us a crack at the
Republicrats in the televised debates -- the winner of the Green Party
primary is guaranteed a place! Give activist Greens a chance to articulate
the Green vision of a different world on behalf of our Party.

Squash the State!    

    Grow the Greens / Overgrow the Government!    

        Give Peas a Chance!

                           - Mitchel Cohen

*******************************************
An Open Letter to the Ecology Movement, from Cathryn Swan

Dear Colleagues in the Ecology Movement, 

I am writing to urge you to write in “Mitchel Cohen” for Mayor in the Green
Party primary on September 11th. Please be sure to also fill-in the box
next to the Write-In area on the paper ballot.

I am also writing to ask you to send much-needed funds to help pay the
costs of this important collective effort, which has given us a rare
opportunity to refocus the entire framework for political debate in this city.

Mitchel is waging an aggressive campaign around issues that the other
candidates are ignoring. Where are the Democrats and Republicans on such
critical issues as the mass-spraying of toxic pesticides over the City? All
Republicrats, except Ferrer and Spitz, have endorsed the spraying and would
continue it into next year (yes, that includes Mark Green). Not Mitchel!
Through the No Spray Coalition, which Mitchel Cohen co-founded and through
which he continues to organize, Mitchel has worked closely with the Sierra
Club, The Audobon Society,  and with many Green locals in opposing the
spraying. 

With the lone exception of Democratic candidate George Spitz, the Democrats
and Republican mayoral candidates also endorse the expansion of genetic
engineering facilities in NYC as well as $1.1 billion in corporate welfare
for a  new stock exchange. In fact, Peter Vallone accepted contributions
from the Monsanto Corp. during his last campaign. Shortly thereafter,
Vallone tied up in committee crucial legislation that Mitchel had worked on
along with Maris Abelson, which was introduced by then-City Councilperson
Tom Duane that would have required the labeling of genetically engineered
foods. Another bill would have banned public school milk -from cows
injected with genetically engineered bovine growth hormone manufactured by
-- you guessed it! -- Monsanto. Except for Spitz, ALL the Democrats and
Republicans have come out in favor of genetic engineering, with Hevesi,
Ferrer, and Vallone making its development it a central theme of their
campaigns.

Mitchel is an anti-genetic engineering, anti-pesticide spray environmental
activist who is also deeply involved in social justice issues. He just
completed a year’s probation after being arrested at a non-violent civil
disobedience action at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, demanding a new
trial for political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier. Mitchel
was also a member of the Save the Audubon Ballroom Coalition in northern
Harlem. That coalition brought community residents and environmental
activists together in  
attempting to save the magnificent building in which Malcolm X gave some of
his greatest speeches and was murdered. The City eventually gave the
building to Columbia University, which turned it into a major biotechnology
facility.

Mitchel, who grew up in the Marlboro Housing projects in Bensonhurst,
Brooklyn, is an organizer and poet, not a politician. He works with Save
Organic Standards-NY, Northeast Resistance to Genetic Engineering (NERAGE),
and the Direct Action Network/anti-globalization movement. Mitchel’s
first-hand reports from Seattle in November, 1999, were printed in
newspapers across the country and helped expose the brutality committed by
the police there, as well as the issues concerning the globalization of
capital. A frequent contributor to "Z" magazine, "Fifth Estate" and other
periodicals, Mitchel's essays in a new anti-GE book edited by Brian Tokar,
“Redesigning Life?” (Zed Press, distributed in the US by St. Martins), and
his infamous pamphlets “What Is Direct Action?,” “Biotechnology and the New
World Order,” and “The Politics of World Hunger” are used by activists all
over the world to fight the pharmaceutical giants and their attempts to
privatize indigenous plants, knowledge and genetic sequences as
“intellectual property rights.”

Imagine making all of these issues part of the Mayoral debate! Imagine
tying the privatization of the earth’s genetic heritage to the attempts to
privatize NYC’s water supply, hospitals and waterfront and exposing that
framework, which is wrongly portrayed by the Republicrats as “progress,” to
 the public scrutiny and ridicule it deserves. We need REAL parks,
community gardens AND affordable housing along the Hudson River and the
Brooklyn waterfront, not corporate-driven “enclosures” of public space and
giveaways of public resources for private stadiums and luxury condos.

As an example of how to run a grassroots campaign that aims to involve
people in coherent projects that community groups are working on, Mitchel
used his entire page in the just-released NYC Voters’ Guide -- --
distributed free by the City to 2 million voters -- to issue a stinging
indictment of the toxic pesticide spray program. He called on New Yorkers
to support the No Spray Coalition’s lawsuit against  the City’s spraying,
in which Mitchel is a plaintiff. He has also been an organizer of
demonstrations at the Botanic Gardens with the Brooklyn Greens to roll back
the entrance fees and make the Gardens free for public use once again.
Mitchel is a stalwart in the fight to save community gardens. He works
vigorously to oppose cosmetics testing on animals and involuntary
electro-compulsive “therapy” (ECT) on people which, unfortunately, is
making a comeback in New York. (Mitchel recently spoke at a demonstration
against ECT organized by Gary Null, on Wall Street, and remains visible in
the animal rights movement as well.)  
 
Should Mitchel win the Green Party primary, he would be included, under
Campaign Finance Law, in at least two televised public mayoral debates. As
Mitchel says: “I know I am not going to WIN this election in November. What
I care about is speaking truth to power, fighting for free universal health
care and against the Quality Housing and Work Responsibility Act, and
mobilizing all of those new Greens who will hear a radical environmental
and social justice analysis for the first time, presented in a way that
excites and unifies most of us against the multinational corporations and
their bought politicians seeking to privatize every aspect of our lives.”

The WRITE-IN “MITCHEL COHEN” FOR MAYOR campaign needs funds. We have an
opportunity as an ecology movement to make sure these issues are raised in
a dynamic way in this Mayoral campaign. What matters is that we start
talking about Asthma and air pollution; lead-poisoning, Vallone and
landlords; clean water and public health; cancer, power plants and
pesticides. What matters is that no one else is saying: “shut down all
nuclear power plants,” “stop police brutality,” “fight against the
institutions of White Supremacy,  environmental racism, and anti-Semitism,”
“end the Rockefeller Drug Laws,” “support lesbian, gay, bisexual and
transgender liberation,” “Free Tuition and Open Admissions at all City and
State universities,” “Free all political prisoners,” “NO to the death
penalty,” and “legalize marijuana.” No one else is raising the ecological
and social justice agenda in any meaningful way as part of the Mayoral
campaign. Here, with Mitchel’s campaign, we have the extraordinary
opportunity to refocus the entire discussion. But we need your vote, and
your assistance. 

Won’t you please join with such notables as “Grandpa” Al Lewis, Professor
Manning Marable, Writer/Journalist Peggy Dye, artist Robert Lederman (along
with all sorts of sundry activists) and support Mitchel Cohen’s --
actually, all of ours -- ecology/social justice campaign for mayor?* To do
so, you need to WRITE-IN “MITCHEL COHEN” on the Green Party mayoral ballot,
and fill-in the little box next to his name once you write it in. Let’s
help Mitchel be in a position to raise these issues. 

Please help us take advantage of this opportunity and ensure that these
issues get the airing they deserve, by writing in Mitchel Cohen’s name on
primary day, September 11th, and by donating whatever you can to the
“Friends of Mitchel Cohen,” 638 East 6th Street, NYC 10009 (Annette
Averette, Treasurer). We need to raise around $5,000 to fund the mailings
we just completed, informing Green primary voters about  
this exciting and important write-in campaign. Please send a contribution
today.

Thank you so much. 

Cathryn Swan  

* Mitchel Cohen has also been endorsed for Mayor by the Brooklyn Greens,
Manhattan Greens, Roosevelt Island Greens, East New York/Cypress Hills
Greens, Orange "Radical Fanatical" Greens, and other grassroots
organizations. 

Please send your contributions to: 
Friends of Mitchel Cohen 
638 East 6th Street 
New York City,  NY 10009 
    (212) 726-3455