There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear … and I think the confusion is quite deliberate.
So Jennifer Sullivan has been obsessively posting about the evils of vaccines (not that she’s against them) but casts it in terms of being “pro-choice.” Please contain your mirth. (As an aside, I think ritual sacrifice by tossing children into a volcano has many negative side-effects, but I think the important thing is that parents should be able to choose not to do so.)
Now, she and her small cabal of Florida’s Anita Stewart and Jerome McSkippy, Marcy Jacobs and Eric Brooks are promoting as “science” the rantings of the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) to condemn vaccinations. Among the AAPS’ positions are:
- Opposition to Social Security, and Medicare, as “the effect of the law is evil and participation in carrying out its provisions is, in our opinion, immoral.”
- Opposition to investigating Rush Limbaugh’s illegal drug addiction.
- Global warming will be beneficial and thus not a cause for concern.
- HIV does not cause aids.
- The “gay male lifestyle” shortens life expectancy by 20 years.
- There is a link between abortion and the risk of breast cancer.
- And oh yes, there are possible links between autism and vaccinations.
I wouldn’t really call them “pro-choice.”
This and countless other absurdities make it all-too-easy to dismiss Sullivan as an obsessive, shallow, one-note crank (and nasty to boot). Or to be more precise, JUST an obsessive, shallow, etc., etc. That would be a very serious mistake.
The players.
Sullivan has become a significant player in a concerted drive to force the GPUS to the right. Apart from supporting the AAPS, she has stated during a discussion of the Green Party of Florida (GPFL) that socialists should not be ALLOWED to be representatives or hold positions of leadership in the Green Party in any capacity. She is very close to the Libertarian Party, and recently vehemently opposed a “penny tax” that would have provided computers for Hernando County schoolchildren.
Her close ally McSkippy is a staunch opponent of government regulation of the banks, the $15/hour minimum wage, socialized medicine, and strengthening the social safety net. His libertarianism is more extreme than Sullivan’s. When pressed, he responds with a torrent of abuse, and when pressed harder, he responds with threatening to punch people in the face, or subject them to “construction worker justice.” (See his recent posting, at left, of a belligerent Mr. T, “I pity the GP fool who tries to stick me” and his rant on Dan Wilson’s GPUS Discussion page post of 2/28/15). In a recent discussion of purging his opponents from the GPFL, he contemplates “taking some tea party people and including them into the local. Because that is what real governing is like. A real tough task. Gotta deal with this stuff. Everyone simply staying in their corner is only delaying the inevitable. And then the sociopaths run rampant. Corruption only needs for good people to stand by quietly and do nothing, right?”
Then there is Anita Stewart, the disgraced former co-chair of the GPFL, who resigned one step ahead of her being recalled for any number of failings and offenses. She supports militia leader, Clive Bundy (see her January 7 Wise Women Media radio show), who says he doesn’t “recognize the United States government as even existing.” Bundy has stated about the Black community, “they were basically on government subsidy, so now what do they do? They abort their young children, they put their young men in jail, because they never learned how to pick cotton. And I’ve often wondered, are they better off as slaves, picking cotton and having a family life and doing things, or are they better off under government subsidy?”
She is also reportedly a supporter of Merlin Miller (“Everything this guy says here is true”), formerly of the American Freedom Party, who seeks to broaden its scope:
“What is needed is a populist political movement or party which will represent American nationalist interests. So many critical issues; ending the wars/occupations, restoring our economy, and protecting individual liberties should be the focus of true nationalists – not falling victim to the deceits and divisions created by these Globalists/Zionists and their agents. The American Freedom Party had some good prospects, as does the Constitution Party, the Libertarian Party, the GREEN PARTY AND OTHERS. However, isolated none can hope to successfully challenge the Republicans and Democrats. United, as a ‘nationalist/populist/patriot’ coalition, they could! This is certainly worth exploring, especially by those capable of bringing together divergent interests, to support the common good.”
The “plot.”
Not as kooky as the overly white supremacist American Freedom Party, you might ask? More dangerous, I say. There are those in the GPUS who have grown weary of the party’s minority status, its failure to be serious players on the American political scene. Let us not deny that Miller has his attractions, that it offers some a shot at the big time. Let us not forget that this would also characterize another “minor” party of the 1930’s.
So the bombardment by this Florida based clique, their bullying, their bombardment with the same posts over and over and over again, the same argument over and over and over again, may be cause for derision, ridicule and scorn. But let us not forget that this fringe radical band based in Florida has come to dominate the GPUS Issues and Discussion page very thoroughly. Let us not forget that “style” aside, this clique has a right-wing politic that their rudeness deliberately obscures. People warn, this fringe kookery may be driving people away from the Green Party.
But one might consider that this is their intention.
— submitted by Jeff Roby
03/01/15
