The Justice Party was founded a year ago. And what a year it has been!

Millions of people have been exposed to the principles and activites of the Justice Party and its 2012 presidential candidate.

Here is just a sampling:

The response has been overwhelming. People across the political spectrum enthusiastically support a sustained Justice Movement:

• To eliminate the corrupting influence of money in elections and government [image]

• To provide effective leadership on climate protection and energy independence [image]

• To reduce our record incarceration rates and end the “war on drugs” [image]

• To provide equal protection under the law for all [image]

• To combat poverty and lack of health care for millions of Americans [image]

• To end illegal, tragic wars of aggression and abuses of human rights [image]

• To rein in the imperial presidency, restore the rule of law, and protect fundamental constitutional rights[image]

We’ve come this far in a short time, with lots of passion but few resources.  We continue to raise awareness, draw in new support, and organize people to push for change.

Help us continue the momentum.  We’re in great need of your financial support today.  Please don’t leave it for others.  Everyone can make a real difference.

We have no paid staff presently, but we still have expenses that need to be covered immediately: office rental (at a reduced rate), phones and internet, postage and supplies, other basic expenses.  We have no source for funding our ongoing expenses other than those who share our values and our mission.  That means YOU.

Please join the growing justice community – and help with your generous year-end contribution.  It’s easy, it’s quick, and it’s the right thing to do.   

Friends,

The election is over, but the battle has just begun. 

On election eve and the day after, I discussed on three nationally televised programs our nation’s challenges and how we can overcome them through a people’s movement (similar to the Labor, Women’s Suffrage, and Civil Rights Movements):

Watch Rocky's Democracy Now! Election Night Discussion here (Rocky's interview begins around 290:00)

I ran the race to heighten awareness and to inspire people toward effective action.  As demonstrated by third-party candidates in the past (e.g. Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Perot), a third-party effort can win far more than an election if it helps to catalyze a persistent, broad-based democratic movement for real change. 

Our campaign was immensely successful in getting out the word and inspiring action.  (For videos of interviews and debates on television, click here, and to listen to radio interviews, click here.) For those who helped us communicate our message, I am grateful.

Our campaign was a call for the people of the United States to take charge – because they must be the leaders, and we must build a broad-based powerful movement, if we are to

• overthrow the plutocracy – government that is up for sale to the highest bidder,
• end the imperial presidency,
• restore the rule of law and the most fundamental freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution,
• end the two-tiered economic and justice systems and achieve a republic where no one is above the law,
• respect civil and human rights, here and abroad,
• end the empire-building that serves only the interests of multi-national corporations and plutocrats,
• end poverty in a nation where our presidential candidates won’t even discuss it,
• end the corporate cronyism that has caused economic devastation for the vast majority of American people,
• end the deprivation of basic health care for tens of millions of people, and
• finally bring to an end the strangle-hold the two corporatist and militarist parties have on our electoral system and our government.

Please join other engaged citizens in this continuing movement for economic, social, and environmental justice.  If you are interested in working with me and others in carrying this movement forward, please send me a note, including your contact information, at rockyanderson.justice@gmail.com.

For now, I’ll stop writing to you and wait for you to write to me.

Best,

Rocky Anderson

PS If you can, please help us retire campaign debt.  Thank you!

Contribute here.

Rocky Anderson is the only presidential candidate who:

• Has for many years been a world leader in combating climate change:

  • Named by Business Week as one of the top 20 climate protection activists in the world. (read more here)
  • Received the EPA’s Climate Protection Award
  • Served on the Newsweek Global Environmental Leadership Advisory Board
  • Received the Sierra Club Distinguished Service Award
  • Reduced greenhouse gas emissions in city operations by over 31% while he was Mayor of Salt Lake City
  • Brought dozens of U.S. mayors together to learn about climate protection at the “Sundance Summit: A Mayors Gathering on Climate Protection” for three consecutive years
  • Received the World Leadership Award for his environmental programs while serving as Mayor
  • Received the Respect the Earth Planet Defender Award
  • Served as the only U.S. representative consulting on climate change with assistants to heads of state in preparation for the G8 Conference in 2005
  • Presented about effective climate protection actions at side meetings of three United Nations conferences on climate change (New Delhi, Buenos Aires, Bali), PowerShift ’09 (watch here); and a civil disobedience event, during which thousands of activists, organized by Bill McKibben and others, shut down a coal-burning power plant in Washington, D.C. (read more here)

• Has been a major anti-war and impeachment activist:

  • Referred to by Democracy Now! as “one of the most progressive mayors of any major U.S. city in recent years. During his two mayoral terms from 2000 to 2008, Anderson was an outspoken champion of LGBT rights, environmental sustainability and the antiwar movement in opposition to the Iraq War.” (read more here)
  • The only major-city mayor who advocated the impeachment of President Bush for his deceit in leading the U.S. into an illegal war of aggression against Iraq. (read more here)
  • The recipient of the Progressive Democrats of America Spine Award (which he’d like to present to them after they leave the Democratic Party!)
  • Debated Sean Hannity (watch here) and Bill O’Reilly (watch here) about impeachment and the invasion and occupation of Iraq
  • Pushed for and testified at a U.S. House Judiciary Committee Hearing on presidential abuses of power during the Bush administration (read more here or watch below)

• 

  Has opposed the failed “war on drugs”:

  • Killed the DARE program in Salt Lake City schools after conducting research demonstrating that DARE fails to prevent substance abuse
  • Spoke out against the failure of the two major parties to honestly address the “war on drugs” at the Shadow Convention concurrent with the Democratic Convention in 2000
  • Worked while Mayor to successfully obtain a presidential pardon for a first-time drug offender
  • Represented several pretrial detainees who were denied methadone in jail while awaiting trial
  • Initiated alternatives to punishment and retribution for people who violated drug laws
  • Received The Drug Policy Alliance Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award

• Has fought for years to vindicate civil and human rights, including the improvement of prison conditions, implementing alternatives to incarceration, challenging police abuse, and fighting against torture and for full accountability:

  • Served as President of the Board of the Utah ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union)
  • Founded and served as President of the Board of Citizens for Penal Reform
  • Successfully represented several incarcerated (or previously incarcerated) people, or family members of deceased incarcerated people, against jail and prison officials (see Bott v. Deland, 922 P.2d 732 (Utah 1996)
  • Successfully represented several victims of excessive force by police
  • Organized and led rallies for accountability for torture (read more here)
  • Researched, wrote, produced and narrated multi-media pieces on torture and the rule of law (watch below)
  • Founded and served as Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights
  • Received the Code Pink (Salt Lake City) Pink Star honor
  • Received the Morehouse University Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award
  • Implemented several measures while Mayor to provide protections and equal rights for members of the LGBTQ community
  • Recognized by the Human Rights Campaign as one of the top ten straight advocates in the U.S. for LGBT equality
  • Received the Bill of Rights Defense Committee Patriot Award
  • Implemented perhaps the most comprehensive restorative justice program in the nation while he was Mayor of Salt Lake City 
  • Successfully advocated in favor of improved treatment for mentally ill incarcerated people

• Has always been a major supporter of women's rights:

  • Served for several years on the Board of Directors of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah
  • Provided pro bono legal assistance to Planned Parenthood in successful federal court fight to obtain permit for local clinic
  • Successfully represented several women who were subjected to humiliating, invasive searches at a county jail
  • Successfully represented victims of sexual abuse by adoptive father and by prison guard
  • Adopted affirmative action program while Mayor to recruit, retain, and promote more women and ethnic minorities in city jobs

• Fought for Immigration Rights and for Equal Treatment for Ethnic Minorities:

  • Opposed the round-up and arrest by federal authorities of immigrants working at the Salt Lake City International Airport
  • Founded the Family-to-Family program to bring long-time native and immigrant families together for greater understanding and help to immigrants facing prosecution or deportation
  • Wrote and spoke at major rallies for rational, compassionate immigration reform, with a pathway for citizenship for all who have led law-abiding lives in the U.S.
  • Successfully challenged state English-only legislation
  • Dramatically increased hiring, retention, and promotion of ethnic minorities while Mayor of Salt Lake City
  • Founded, with Jon Huntsman, Sr., the Alliance for Unity, a non-partisan group of religious, ethnic, and community leaders working to build bridges between diverse people throughout Utah
  • Received the National Association of Hispanic Publications Presidential Award
  • Received the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Profile in Courage Award

In the aftermath of Sandy, the climate crisis is virtually ignored by the corporate media and the corporatist presidential candidates.  To ignore climate disruption caused by our reliance on fossil fuels is like dismissing the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. -- but with greater long-term consequences for billions of people.  (For an excellent analysis of the connection between climate change and Sandy, see Mark Hertsgaard's excellent article here at The Nation.)

How long will the causes and catastrophic consequences of climate change be ignored?

We must support leaders who understand the most urgent issue for earth and its inhabitants. 

We have the unique opportunity to support a real leader on this issue -- someone who received the EPA's Climate Protection Award and was named "Greenest Mayor" and "One of the 15 Greenest Politicians in the World."  Read more about Rocky's proven environmental record here.

A new campaign video, produced by an amazing volunteer, is now available.  Please watch and share:

Last week, Rocky gave a compelling presentation, ripping into the corporate news media and outlining the ways in which the media's mass deception degrades our democracy.  Watch here:

No matter your political affiliation, read this powerful interview in Truthout.

And don't just listen to what candidates SAY during a campaign (remember "Hope and Change"?).  Rather, focus on who they really are by examining their experience, their demonstration of commitment to the issues important to you, and their effectiveness at getting the job done.  No one compares to Rocky Anderson in terms of his lifelong commitment to economic, social, and environmental justice. See his Wikipedia page and compare his record with the other candidates.

Even if Rocky doesn't win the election, your support for him will loudly proclaim your demand for climate protection leadership, an end to government corruption, and media integrity.  It will also help keep up the momentum for a people's democratic movement far beyond the election.

What can you do?  Three simple things:

1.  Write a letter to the editor to your local newspaper so that readers will learn more about Rocky -- and about their power as voters to communicate their demand for real change in the public interest.

2.  Donate to the campaign today to keep up the tremendous momentum.  You'll see more bang for your bucks than in any other campaign.

3.  Share the good news:  Visit Rocky's Facebook page, "like" it, and share posts with your friends.  Also, go to Rocky's Twitter here, follow him, and retweet (RT) Rocky's tweets.  Finally, please forward this email to your friends, family, and associates. 

 Click here to see Rocky's first reddit AMA full of great discussion.

You might think the Vice-Presidential debate concludes tonight. If you do, you’re mistaken. Democracy Now! is presenting the first Vice-Presidential Expanded Debate Friday morning (8-9AM EDT) and HuffPost Live will air a conversation between Third Party Vice-Presidential Candidates late Friday morning (11:30-noon EDT).

Luis Rodriguez (Justice Party) and Cheri Honkala (Green Party) will be responding to the same questions tomorrow morning on Democracy Now! that Joe Biden and Paul Ryan are responding to tonight.

Following that, Rodriguez will be joined in the HuffPost Live discussion by Judge Jim Gray (Libertarian) and Ken Cross (Reform).

Luis Rodriguez, a leading Chicano writer, speaker, gang expert and interventionist, and activist for justice in urban peace, the arts, labor, and human rights, is the 2012 Justice Party VP nominee.

At just eleven, after his family resettled in the San Gabriel Valley, Luis joined his first street-gang. During the 60’s and early 70’s he was an active gang member -- but he also began his work as a community organizer and major Chicano activist, participating in the Chicano Movement, the 1968 East L.A. walkouts, and the August 31, 1970 Chicano Moratorium against the Vietnam War. Facing a jail sentence for a criminal conviction, members of his community sent letters of support. In turn, Rodriguez quit drugs and the gang life, and dedicated his life to his people and their community. 

By 1980 Rodriguez had become a writer, publishing ChrismeArte, a Chicano art journal, and has since become a leading figure in contemporary Chicano literature. He has fifteen published books in poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and children's literature, including the bestselling 1993 memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. and its 2011 sequel, It Calls You Back: An Odyssey Through Love, Addiction, Revolutions, and Healing. After a life of working as an expert in gang intervention to keep young people out of gangs, Luis J. Rodriguez is running for the office of Vice-President of the United States, sharing the Justice Party ticket with former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson.

Unlike most Vice-Presidential candidates, Luis is not a lawyer, a Congressman, or a millionaire. He came from the streets and lived the life many impoverished minority young people live. He knows first hand what it is like to be a teenager with no hope. He also knows what it is like to beat the odds and succeed in the world of literature. He has been an inspiration to thousands of young Latinos and all Americans can use a dose of inspiration from Luis.

Upcoming events you don't want to miss:

• Friday, October 12. 8–9 a.m. EDT: Democracy Now's "Expanding the Debate" series continues, airing highlights from the "official" vice presidential debate with Joe Biden and Paul Ryan, with pauses to get responses from Green Party vice presidential nominee Cheri Honkala and Justice Party vice presidential nominee Luis Rodriguez.
   
• Friday, October 12. 11:30-12 EDT: Huffpost Live: "Conversation Between Third-Party VP Candidates," featuring Justice Party Nominee Luis Rodriguez, Libertarian Nominee Judge Jim Gray, and Reform Party Nominee Ken Cross. Watch live or at any time after online at live.huffingtonpost.com.

• Wednesday, October 17. 8–9 a.m. EDT: Democracy Now's "Expanding the Debate" series continues with highlights from the second presidential debate. Green Party nominee Jill Stein and Justice Party nominee Rocky Anderson will join Democracy Now! live on the show to offer responses to the same questions asked to President Obama and Mitt Romney.

• Wednesday, October 17. 12-2 p.m. EDT: HuffPost Live, "Conversation Between Third Party Presidential Candidates." Watch at live.huffingtonpost.com

• Monday, October 22. Time TBA: We continue our "Expanding the Debate" series with a live broadcast during the third presidential debate with real-time responses from Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein and Justice Party nominee Rocky Anderson.
  
  
• Tuesday, October 23. 9 PM EDT: 2012 Free & Equal Presidential Debate in Chicago. Rocky joins Gary Johnson, Jill Stein, and Virgil Goode to debate. Watch online at http://freeandequal.org (and other stations TBA).

Democracy Now! broke the sound barrier by including candidates Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party and Jill Stein of the Green Party in the presidential debate. Stein and Anderson joined Democracy Now! for a live special just miles away from the Obama-Romney contest at the University of Denver. 

Rocky took on the real issues

On the imperial presidency:

"This race is also about whether our nation will continue down the road toward totalitarianism with an imperial presidency that has been made so much worse under both the Bush and the Obama administrations, which have shown utter contempt for the rule of law, due process, and the restrictions under the War Powers Clause of the United State Constitution."

 On jobs and trade:

"President Obama would like us to ignore what happened in the past four years. During the last 43 months we have had more than 8% unemployment. It is the only time in this nation’s history that we have had a president that has presided for more than three years of over 8% unemployment."

 "We need to renegotiate the outrageous free trade agreements and make sure they are fair trade so that we’re not discriminating against those employers who want to hire United States workers."

 On healthcare:

“We’re talking here about Obamacare and Romneycare. I would call it Insurance CompanyCare because they’re the ones who wrote it. They joined up with a very conservative foundation years ago to develop this plan, to make the American people buy this perverse product."

"The solution to Medicare is to provide Medicare for everybody. To make it a single payer system."

See a real debate on the role of government in protecting the American people. Rocky Anderson vs Gary Johnson.

Rocky is persuasively representing our views on the campaign trail. And he's doing it with dignity. Let's support him and do all we can to bring about real change. 

Keep the debate alive -- Donate today.

If a presidential candidate had embezzled government funds to pay off gambling debts to the Mafia . . . 

You do draw the line at times, don’t you?

For instance, if a presidential candidate had embezzled government funds to pay off gambling debts to the Mafia, that would be a deal-killer for you, right?  You’d refuse to vote for that candidate, wouldn’t you?

If a candidate lied repeatedly to the public about engaging in heroic deeds during a war and about receiving a Ph.D., you’d likely say there is just no way you could support such a candidate.  Right? 

Then why would you even consider voting for Barack Obama? 

He has engaged in horrific, unprecedented human and civil rights abuses, including:

• the targeting of U.S. citizens for assassination without any semblance of due process; 

• asserting the power to kidnap and imprison people anywhere, including U.S. citizens, for up to the rest of their lives, without charges, trial, legal assistance, or the right of habeas corpus; 

• overseeing the drone killings in at least four nations, which has entailed the murder of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent men, women, and children.

He has cow-towed to his major donors on Wall Street, bringing into his administration the same people who led the charge for the de-regulation of the financial industry that caused the 2008 economic melt-down.  And he refuses to even suggest breaking up the banks considered too-big-to-fail, possibly setting us up for another economic melt-down. 

He contented himself with adopting healthcare legislation drafted by the insurance industry.  Obamacare (which should be called “InsuranceCompanyCare”) will result in enormous premium increases for the American people, while denying basic healthcare coverage to 30 million people.  Many of those people will suffer and die as a result.

If you can draw your line at embezzlement of government funds to pay off the Mafia and lying about war experiences and one’s academic record . . . will you also draw a moral line at assassinating U.S. citizens with no due process; imprisoning people for up to the rest of their lives without charges, trial, legal assistance, or the right of habeas corpus; and killing innocent men, women, and children in other nations while creating more hatred and hostility toward the United States?

People find all sorts of reasons for not drawing a personal moral line when it comes to supporting Barack Obama. 

They say it’s because he’s the lesser of two evils.

Or they say his Supreme Court appointments will be better than those who would be nominated by his main opponent.

Please consider these three compelling points (then pass them along):

1. Obama is not the lesser of two evils – he’s the more effective evil because he gets away with doing things with no Democratic opposition that, if done by a Republican president, would generate outrage nationwide, including from the Democratic Party. 

Imagine, for instance, if Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld were sitting around in the Oval Office deciding which suspected “militants” were to be killed in at least four other nations, knowing that hundreds of innocent civilians would be killed in the process. 

The Democrats would go nuts, with congressional subpoenas and hearings, demonstrations, and calls for impeachment.  However, simply because the president has a “D” on his jersey, many Democrats just complacently line up behind him. That’s the kind of blind partisanship, at the cost of core principles, that led George Washington to fear the creation of political parties in the United States.

2. It’s about the President far more than about the Supreme Court!

The Democrats (many of whom are making the “lesser-of-two-evils” argument) can be thanked for confirming Scalia (unanimous in the Senate), Roberts, Thomas, Kennedy, and Alito. And now they complain we might be stuck with more right-wing justices?

It is the President, not the Supreme Court, who is shredding the Constitution, the rule of law, and human and civil rights.

• It's not the Supreme Court who is refusing to apply the law to the rich and powerful (Wall Street fraudsters), war criminals (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others who approved or perpetrated torture), and those who engaged in felonious spying on U.S. citizens' communications. It's the President.
• It's not the Supreme Court that is targeting U.S. citizens for assassination without due process. It's the President.
• It's not the Supreme Court that has asked for, and signed into law a bill providing, the authority to round up people (including U.S. citizens) and have them imprisoned for up to the rest of their lives with no charges, no trial, no legal assistance, and no right of habeas corpus. It's the President.
• The Supreme Court is not sitting around in the oval office deciding who will be killed by drones in at least four other nations (without the consent of those nations and in violation of those nations' sovereignty), while knowing that hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent men, women, and children will be killed in the process. It's the President. 

3. Draw your own moral line. Either you support Obama and what he's doing, or you don't. I don't -- and will do everything I can to restore the rule of law, an effective system of checks and balances, due process, the constitutional limits of war-making, and the right to be free from governmental tyranny and the horrendous abuses of civil and human rights committed during the Bush/Obama administrations.  

Click here to help us get to today's goal of $5,000.

Thank you for your support – Rocky Anderson 

P.S. After the election, let’s keep up this fight in a broad-based people’s movement for the restoration of our democracy.

Rocky on The Young Turks, Third Party Candidate Series

Monday October 1, 2012 -- 7:00-8:00pm ET
Watch Rocky and Cenk Uygur discuss third-party politics and the presidential debates on Current TV's The Young Turks.

Democracy Now! Live in Denver, CO

Wednesday, October 3, 2012 -- 9:00-10:30pm ET
Rocky Anderson is joining Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman with Jill Stein for a third-party debate streaming live and running concurrently with the Obama-Romney debate.

2012 Free & Equal Presidential Debate

Tuesday, October 23, 2012 -- 9:00pm ET
Rocky joins Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, and Virgil Goode to debate the duopoly at University Club of Chicago. You can learn more at their website here -- there will be a live video feed available on their website.

Keep the debate alive! Donate today.