2015-02-06
by
Eleanor Goldfield
Remember when that Presidential Candidate was taken to a black site, cuffed to a chair and forbidden to attend the Presidential Debates?
For those of you who don’t, that was Dr. Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party Presidential Candidate.
The powers that be didn’t want her meddling in the two-party duopoly that corporate America helped build and now controls. After all, the Green Party is the only national party that isn’t steered by corporate dollars.
So, the monied muscle had her disappear just long enough so no one would hear about her and divest from the elephant and donkey circus display.
Despite their efforts, however, the Green Party emerged as the nation’s leading progressive party in 2012. And today, Dr. Stein seeks to build on that momentum.
This morning at the National Press Club in Washington DC, Dr. Stein announced an exploratory campaign for the 2016 Presidential race.
In front of a small group of local press, activists and Green Party members, Dr. Stein outlined the reasons for this campaign.
“We’ve had enough of rule by the economic elite with their cult of cut-throat competition and their religion of greed. We’ve had enough of corporate capitalism that puts profits ahead of people, planet and peace. These deranged values have dominated media, politics and the economy for decades and it’s now clear for all to see where they lead: to extreme inequality, to economic despair, to racism, endless war and climate catastrophe.”
“It’s time for a new way forward with a new society, a new economy, a new energy and food system and a new era of racial justice,” she said as the crowd cheered in agreement.
“The voices of resistance and transformation deserve to be heard loud and clear, and that is why I am announcing today the formation of an exploratory committee for the 2016 presidential election.”
With a history firmly rooted in grassroots organizing, healthcare (she has a PHD from Harvard Medical School), the environmental and social justice movements, she spoke not only of the rampant corruption in this system but how she intends to use this time to work with people in creating and actively pursuing solutions.
“We will use this exploratory campaign to reach out to young people, workers; employed, underemployed and discouraged, to front line communities, to immigrants, communities of color. We’ll reach out to women and seniors, indigenous nations, the LGBT community and all who have been neglected, abandoned or betrayed by the Democratic and Republican parties. And we’ll offer a campaign in service of the justice that they deserve. We will lift up the bold solutions that the American people are calling for: 20 million living wage jobs and an emergency green New Deal to enrich our communities, not corporations, to reign in climate change and to make wars for oil obsolete,” she explained.
“We call for healthcare as a human right, not as a subsidized profit center for predatory insurance companies like Obamacare, but a medicare-for-all system to provide quality care for everyone while saving trillions of dollars simply by streamlining the massive, private health insurance bureaucracy. We call for quality free public education as a human right and an end to runaway public school privatizations and closings, high stakes testing and student loan debt. We call for an emergency transition to a green economy powered by 100% wind, water and sun by 2030. We call for a welcoming path to citizenship for immigrant residents and an end to the predatory trade deals and political interventions that created the surge of mass migrations to start with. We call for an end to the racist war on drugs, the school-to-prison pipeline, militarized police, the surveillance and prison state and a radical reduction of america’s prison population. And finally, w call for a foreign policy based on human rights, international law and diplomacy rather than global military and economic domination.”
She made it clear that as the illusion of democracy continues to fade, perhaps no more evident than in the record low voter turnout in the past midterm elections, now is a “moment of historic possibility.” Now is the time for a candidate who actually means what they say, and has the social justice resume to prove it. Now is the time when people can connect to someone willing to get chained to a chair and come back 4 years later daring the power elite to do it again.
“This is the time to come together,” she said, in closing. “Solutions are in our hands. Justice is in our hands. Democracy is in our hands. Together we can create a world that works for all of us and ensure that people, planet and peace will prevail. It’s in our hands.”
For more information on this exploratory campaign, visit jill2016.com .
She appeared on ABC News this morning and will appear on Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp this evening at 8pm EST.
#ItsInOurHands
@DrJillStein
