By Richard Gomez
Green Presidential Candidates Forum – January 23, 2016 Saturday in San Diego, California 3-6 pm
You’ve heard the rest, now hear the best! Come hear Green party candidates seeking the 2016 GPUS Presidential nomination. The forum is open and free to all registered Greens on a first-come, first-served basis. Space is limited, so please RSVP below to ensure a spot.
RSVP at: http://cagreens.nationbuilder.com/gpca_2016_prez_sd or go to the website at: www.cagreens.org.
The forum and reception will be held at the Grassoots Oasis activist space just a ten minute walk from historic Old Town San Diego. To be followed by a Saturday evening courtyard dinner and reception with the presidential candidates, all in conjunction with the GPCA General Assembly that weekend. The Saturday afternoon presidential candidate forum will also be live-streamed to Greens across the U.S.
Candidates that have fulfilled proper state requirements to run for president of the United States are scheduled to appear: Darryl Cherney, William Kreml, and Jill Stein. There may be others candidates also there who qualified and attend after this writing.
All candidates mentioned above are expected to be on the June 7th, CA Primary Election. Registered voters of the Green Party in California will be asked to vote for their best choice and from the result, delegates will be chosen to represent their candidates at the Green Party National Convention in Houston TX where the best candidate will be chosen to represent the Green Party in the United States for the Presidential General Election in November 8, 2016…
SHAMAKO NOBLES running for California Senator:
After finishing as a National Coordinator for the US Social Forum, Shamako Nobles began an exploratory campaign to decide whether to run in 2016 for CA Senator Barbara Boxer seat in the US Senate who is retiring from after 23 years. The Fresno County Green Party will be working to bring him to the Central Valley soon. What follows is a compilation of his answers about him and his campaign to questions from the CA Green Party Campaign Support fund.
Shamako: I have been a registered in the Greens since 2012. I have not ever sought office before. To be transparent I am not sure that I am qualified for this office. Nor given the complexity of the situation our population faces what one person is. I do believe that we, collectively, hold within us the keys to bright, healthy and evolutionary future for generations to come. And it is my hope that this campaign is successful in crafting a space for that conversation within the Green Party, Hip Hop, California and anywhere else that it can reverberate.
That said I will be begin by saying I spent half of my life “middle class” in a community that was both diverse and racist in a severely abusive household where capitalism and patriarchy allowed my father to hide his illness from the rest of the world. The second half is a much different story, but I was both blessed and cursed in that way, and it also plays a deep role in my political outlook. I would say that my first accomplishment is surviving that without being destroyed, destroying myself or others, and having the opportunity to do what I am doing today.
That said, I have been involved in politics and organizing since I was in elementary school. I lost the 6th Grade presidential election to Mandy Koscesbeger. I was elected 7th and 8th Grade president after that.
In high school I help created Muslim and Hip Hop Clubs, and participated in Academic Decathlon and Mock Trial. In 1997, I received the Judge J. Skelly Wright Award for Constitutional Law Advocacy at the state competition for my performance as a pre-trial attorney. We are currently double checking, but currently we believe that it is the first time in California history that that award was won by an African American. I credited my success in this competition to my work as a freestyle emcee.
I dropped out of college, but before doing so I participated in Forensics, (Speech and Debate) where I would compete and win in informative and impromptu speaking. My informative speech was on why Hip Hop was a culture.
I was introduced to Hip Hop Congress by a man named Real Robinson shortly after I graduated from High School in 1997. (For note, my graduation paperwork is up for debate because of a paperwork error but please note that I did speak at Graduation, Walk and receive a diploma). Mr. Robinson drove up to San Jose to meet with some of the artists that I worked with there and we launched the Nor Cal chapter of Hip Hop Congress. A whirlwind adventure would ensue, and several years later I was elected president ((2005). Because we at were a certified non-profit by that time, I extended my title to Executive Director and have remained in that position off and on since that time. I have just recently resigned where I was replaced by Rahman Jamaal of Rap Force Academy.
To be put in perspective my history and qualifications I will list some of the titles that I have held in the past for better or for worse: Operations Coordinator, Blowing Up Underground Productions; Organizer, South Bay Labor Council; Executive Director, Rel Education for Urban Growth Enterprises; Promotions Director for KSCU; Racial and Economic Justice Coordinator, Jill Stein Campaign; Community Outreach and Development Director; Director of Education, Hip Hop Association Education Coordinator, Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign; Secretary of Culture, Green Shadow Cabinet, Editor, People’s Tribune; Community Organizer and Political Analyst: Silicon Valley De-Bug, National Coordinator for the US Social Forum.
I have balanced budgets and helped grow and manage organization large and small. I have in various industries, and understand up close and personal the struggle of the precariat – a social class formed by people suffering from an existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare and hence sell their labor to live.
I have mentored under some of our nation’s most formidable organizers and I have studied Black Nationalism, Marxism, Capitalism, Business Management, Technology, Military Strategy, Philosophy and Spirituality (Both religion and non religion).
I am a parent, a son and a sibling. I want the best for myself and my family. I care about the future of our planet. I have many flaws. I am willing to learn.
While I have been inside of the music industry, the non-profit industrial complex and the democratic party, I have never been bought or owned by any of them. I hope to keep it that way.
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Shamako Noble can be contacted by:
Email: soulcircutry@gmail.com or Website: www.shamako4senate.com
Campaign Committee and Treasurer to Receive Campaign Fund Support: Dione Johnson2611 60th Ave., Oakland, CA 94605.
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ARE YOU READY TO GO GREEN; FRESNO COUNTY GREENS.
As a Green Party member in the County of Fresno, you’re eligible to run for the Green Party County Council– an opportunity to act locally, while thinking globally.
The County Council is the legal body of the state Green Party (GPCA) on the county level. It is generally responsible for organizing and coordinating Green Party activity within the county, including party building, internal and external communications, and supporting local Green candidates and representing county Greens to the state Green Party. Also holds public meetings and are governed by their own county bylaws.
County Councils are elected in the June presidential primary election every four years by registered Greens. To run for the Fresno Green Party County Council, one must be a registered Green anywhere in Fresno County and have been registered Green at least three months prior to the opening of the nomination filing period, which begins in 2016 on January 4th. (If you live in Merced County, Tulare County, or another please contact me at (559)408-3320 or richardgomez136@yahoo.com to direct you further)
A potential County Council candidate must gather twenty (20) nomination signatures from registered Greens in Fresno County. This signature gathering period begins January 4 until March 11, 2016. Signatures are then checked for validity by the Fresno County Elections Department. If enough are valid, then your name is placed on the ballot for a public vote of registered Greens in the June 7, 2016 primary. We have only seven (7) seats available so if we have less than seven candidates who qualify, they are all are declared elected, and no election appears on the ballot.
To begin, one must go to the Fresno County Elections Department office at 2221 Kern Street, to fill out the declaration of candidacy, obtain the official signature gathering forms and then later, hand them in upon completion. You can contact Fresno County Elections Department at (559) 600-VOTE or (559) 600-8683.
If you’re also considering running for State Legislature or the US Congress in 2016, the signature gathering period for both starts at the same time as for County Council, so you can gather signatures for both at the same time – that is the result of a 2012 change in state law lobbied by the Green Party.
It is also possible this year to gather signatures for a group of County Council candidates on the same petition, as a result of additional Green Party lobbying efforts which led to the state legislature’s passing of a Green Party section in the state Elections Code.
We hope you will consider getting active in the Green Party through the Fresno county council — and help build a strong and independent Green electoral option in California.
Richard Gomez is a council member of the Fresno County Green Party. Feel free to contact him at (559)408-3320 or richardgomez136@yahoo.com On Facebook at: richard.gomez.9843@facebook.com or the Fresno Green Party’s website at: http://FresnoGreens.localgreenparty.org
