Vote Your Values: An Interview with Rosa Clemente

By Adele Nieves at ZNet

Rosa Clemente is one of the most prominent activists of our generation. She is a nationally renowned speaker, writer, and journalist - one of the most important independent journalists covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina - and in 2001 was a youth representative at the United Nations World Conference against Xenophobia, Racism, and Related Intolerance. She continues to organize conferences focused on the empowerment of young people of color, working in colleges, community centers, and prisons. In 2008, she accepted the Green Party nomination for vice-president on the Cynthia McKinney presidential ticket. This is an interview conducted by Adele Nieves in mid-October.

AN: Tell me how the Green Party is different from the Republicans and Democrats?

RC: Our core principles: democracy, social justice, ecological wisdom, and economic sustainability. Right there, our priorities are different in principle. Concretely, our party does not take any corporate or lobbyist PAC money. The Green Party was founded 30 years ago with the intention to break up the two-party system, and promote visionary environmental strategies and social justice.

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