Todd Chretien - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Todd Chretien an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

activist. Chretien is a leading member of the International Socialist Organization

International Socialist Organization

The International Socialist Organization is a revolutionary socialist organization in the United States that identifies with the politics of International Socialism, a current of Trotskyism, and the Marxist political tradition that American socialist writer and activist Hal Draper called...

. He was the Green Party candidate for United States Senate

United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

in 2006.

Background

Chretien grew up on a horse farm in Gray and New Gloucester

New Gloucester, Maine

New Gloucester is a town in Cumberland County, Maine, in the United States. It is home to the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village, the last active Shaker Village in the U.S...

, Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

with his mother, Eileen, his father, Mike, and his younger brother, Joel. After graduating from Gray-New Gloucester High School, he entered Middlebury College

Middlebury College

Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college located in Middlebury, Vermont, USA. Founded in 1800, it is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the United States. Drawing 2,400 undergraduates from all 50 United States and over 70 countries, Middlebury offers 44 majors in the arts,...

in 1988, but after a year, left to spend eight months teaching English in El Salvador

El Salvador

El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...

and Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

. He returned to school in 1991, entering Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

. He left Columbia before graduating, after having been suspended for a semester for involvement in the protest occupation of a campus building. In 1994 he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area

San Francisco Bay Area

The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...

, where he graduated from San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers over 100 areas of study from nine academic colleges...

in 2003 with a B.A. in history. Chretien lives in Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

, with his wife, Jessie Muldoon, an Oakland public school teacher, and their daughter Isabela.

Early politics

In 1988, Chretien was elected as a delegate for Jesse Jackson

Jesse Jackson

Jesse Louis Jackson, Sr. is an African-American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984 and 1988 and served as shadow senator for the District of Columbia from 1991 to 1997. He was the founder of both entities that merged to...

to the Maine

Maine

Democratic Party

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...

convention. Soon after entering Columbia, he became active in the movement to stop the first Gulf War

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War , commonly referred to as simply the Gulf War, was a war waged by a U.N.-authorized coalition force from 34 nations led by the United States, against Iraq in response to Iraq's invasion and annexation of Kuwait.The war is also known under other names, such as the First Gulf...

, and joined the International Socialist Organization

International Socialist Organization

(ISO). As a student, he helped lead a successful campaign for need-blind admissions

Need-blind admission

Need-blind admission is a term in the United States denoting a college admission policy in which the admitting institution does not consider an applicant's financial situation when deciding admission...

, and an unsuccessful one to prevent Columbia from replacing the Audubon Ballroom

Audubon Ballroom

The Audubon Ballroom was a theatre and ballroom located on Broadway at 165th Street in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Upper Manhattan, north of Harlem in New York. It is best known as the site of Malcolm X's assassination on February 21, 1965....

, where Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...

was assassinated, with a biomedical research center. As part of the latter campaign, Chretien was involved in the occupation of Columbia's Hamilton Hall

Hamilton Hall (Columbia University)

Hamilton Hall is an academic building on the Morningside Heights campus of Columbia University in the City of New York. The building is named for Alexander Hamilton, one of the most famous attendees of King's College, Columbia's predecessor...

, for which he was suspended along with another member of the ISO and two members of the Black Students Organization.

Bay Area activism

Since 1994, Chretien has worked as a writer and a full-time activist and organizer for the International Socialist Organization. He has been active in movements defending affirmative action

Affirmative action

Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...

, promoting global justice

Global justice

Global justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern that the world at large is unjust.-Context:The broader philosophical context of the global justice debate, in both its contemporary and historical forms, is the issue of impartiality...

, and opposing war in Kosovo

Kosovo War

The term Kosovo War or Kosovo conflict was two sequential, and at times parallel, armed conflicts in Kosovo province, then part of FR Yugoslav Republic of Serbia; from early 1998 to 1999, there was an armed conflict initiated by the ethnic Albanian "Kosovo Liberation Army" , who sought independence...

, Afghanistan and Iraq. He was the lead rank and file organizer in the attempt to unionize the Cesar Chavez Student Center at San Francisco State University

San Francisco State University

for SEIU

Service Employees International Union

Service Employees International Union is a labor union representing about 1.8 million workers in over 100 occupations in the United States , and Canada...

Local 790. Chretien worked in 2000 as a full-time organizer for the Nader/LaDuke campaign

Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader is an American political activist, as well as an author, lecturer, and attorney. Areas of particular concern to Nader include consumer protection, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and democratic government....

as well as Medea Benjamin

Medea Benjamin

Medea Benjamin is an American political activist, best known for co-founding Code Pink and, along with her husband, activist and author Kevin Danaher, fair trade advocacy group Global Exchange...

's campaign for Senate as a Nader Super Rally coordinator and state-wide student organizer. In 2003, as a member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Campaign to End the Death Penalty

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty is a national anti-death penalty organization in the United States, built on the philosophy that death row inmates and their family members must be at the center of fighting to abolish the death penalty...

, he helped stop the execution of Kevin Cooper

Kevin Cooper

Kevin Cooper may refer to:* Kevin Cooper , inmate on death row in California* Kevin Cooper , English footballer* Kevin Cooper , English first class cricketer...

by the State of California in 2004 and worked unsuccessfully to stop the execution of Stan Tookie Williams in 2005. He organized a 2005 tour of the U.S. by antiwar British MP, George Galloway

George Galloway

George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...

. That same year, he wrote San Francisco's Proposition I/College Not Combat

Proposition I/College Not Combat

Proposition I was a ballot measure passed by residents of San Francisco, California on November 5, 2005, with 60% in support. This proposition, which does not carry enforcement power, declared the city's opposition to military recruitment in public high schools and universities and stated that...

and directed the campaign to collect 15,500 signatures in six weeks with an all-volunteer force to put it on the ballot. Prop I passed with 60 percent of the vote.

In 2006, he was the Green Party candidate for United States Senate

United States Senate

in California

California

California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...

. He ran on a slate of Green candidates dubbed "A million votes for peace," expressing an anti-war

Anti-war

An anti-war movement is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term can also refer to pacifism, which is the opposition to all use of military force during conflicts. Many...

view and the hope of receiving one million votes in the general election (Chretien received 139,425 votes, or 1.8 percent of the vote).

Chretien is a member of the National Writers Union

National Writers Union

National Writers Union , founded on November 19, 1981, is the trade union in the United States for freelance and contract writers: journalists, book and short fiction authors, business and technical writers, web content providers, and poets...

, and writes regularly for Socialist Worker
Socialist Worker
Socialist Worker is the name of several socialist/communist newspapers associated with the International Socialist Tendency...

, the International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review
International Socialist Review may refer to:*International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review *International Socialist Review...

, CounterPunch
Counterpunch
Counterpunch can refer to:* Counterpunch , a punch in boxing* CounterPunch, a bi-weekly political newsletter* Counterpunch , a type of punch used in traditional typography* Punch-Counterpunch, a Transformers character...

and other publications.

Articles by Todd Chretien

List of articles by Chretien on Socialist Worker
"Where are the Greens headed?"
"A message to the military" (with Ragina Johnson on Proposition I/College Not Combat)
transcript: "San Francisco Flap" (Todd Chretien on Bill O'Reilly
Bill O'Reilly (commentator)
William James "Bill" O'Reilly, Jr. is an American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television...

's Fox News show)
"Jim Crow Goes Fishing" (on immigration)
"B-Team of Corporate America," International Socialist Review 49, September-October 2006. (on the Democratic Party).
"Florida Comes to California." August 5, 2004
"A Reply to Norman Solomon & Medea Benjamin." July 26, 2004
"A Reply to Norman Solomon & Medea Benjamin." (alternate website at Counterpunch) July 26, 2004
"Nader, the Greens and 2008." January 25, 2008

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