This article shows us, that by supporting something other then the two headed RW Corporate Party, we can drag the system back to the left, and or at least do better damage control against them then has ever been accomplished by remaining within the Demopublican Repocratic party.
When your Progressives Candidates and ideas are crushed by the Demopublicans, you then have to vote for the Corporate Candidate's, as the only 'viable choices', as per the Corporate media.... or the other evil party will win........... "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it." Eugene V. Debs http://www.marxists.org/archive/debs/ Scott -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Green Party candidate Jill Stein: 'Political silence has not been an effective strategy' by Joshua Holland AlterNet.org 4/17/12 For over a century, the United States has had a defacto two-party system. Our electoral rules are set up to stifle upstarts and maintain the dominance of two major parties. But while they have very rarely won seats at the national level, third parties have played a role in shaping our politics â and our society â by promoting policies that have been ignored by the big two. Women's sufferage, the progressive income tax, child labor laws, Social Security and limits on working hours were all ideas promoted by third parties before being embraced by the public at large (third parties have also been incubators for more destructive policies like the âwar on crime,â which George Wallace championed as head of the American Independent Party in 1968). But it's hard to articulate their visions given the corporate media's tendency to ignore them. That's why we invited Jill Stein, a candidate for the Green Party's presidential ticket, to this week's AlterNet Radio Hour. Below is a lightly edited transcript (you can listen to the whole show here). Joshua Holland: Why donât we just start by telling our listeners a little bit about yourself. Introduce yourself to the electorate. Jill Stein: Sure. Iâm a medical doctor and a mother who got really worried about what I was seeing as a healthcare provider. Going way back, maybe 15 years, I saw that the healthcare system was broken and also saw that I was handing out pills and pushing people back to the things that were making them sick â everything from pollution to poverty and homelessness, a lousy food supply, and all the rest. I became involved with my community trying to improve those things, and I found out very quickly that having solutions is what counts. Things like turning our polluting incinerators into recycling facilities to keep our air clean and create jobs, or phasing out our coal plants and instead creating jobs in weatherization and conservation, clean energy. In short, I had the lesson that lots of advocates and concerned citizens have â that when we go to our elected officials, itâs not about good solutions, itâs money you bring in campaign contributions and the lobbyists around you that make the difference. I basically got recruited a ways back for office with the Green Party, and in the process I went from desperation to inspiration seeing how ready the public is for a politics of integrity and to get beyond the divisiveness and the labels down to a politics of, by and for the people -- moving for solutions that people are desperate for. I was then recruited into this race, my first experience in national politics, because Iâve mostly been focused on what we can do locally, but I hit my breaking point as so many others did when the president began to put Medicare and Social Security on the chopping block as the solution to this concocted debt ceiling crisis last year, which could have readily been avoided. JH: Youâre running in a primary against Roseanne Barr. Whatâs the Greenâs process for selecting a candidate? There are no statewide primaries. Is there a convention? JS: Well, there actually are statewide primaries. So far, there are something between seven to 10 of them altogether. In addition, we have statewide conventions and caucuses. So itâs much like the major parties except that there are fewer of the statewide primaries. Iâm glad to say that my campaign has won all of them so far. Eleven out of 11 by major landslide margins. JH: So Roseanne, I assume, has a much higher name recognition than you do, but thatâs not creating a barrier for you, given that itâs a party with an activist base where everybodyâs paying close attention? JS: Exactly. Itâs an activist base thatâs fairly informed and engaged. Itâs a party of grassroots politics and grassroots organizing. I come to it with a long track record in that capacity. What I found running a statewide campaign was that was the best way to build our local organizations. So I entered into this race in order to really build an organization for the long haul that can challenge this incredibly deadly path that we are on in terms of downsizing and offshoring our jobs, the declining wages of workers, the continuing and ongoing Wall Street bailouts, the catastrophe of the climate that we continue to rush towards headlong, the breakdown of our healthcare system and this pseudo solution with the Affordable Care Act, which unfortunately doesnât do the job. There are so many good solutions out there that people are really hungering for. That was really my inspiration in running this campaign â that there is a movement out there in the grassroots. It needs a voice in this election and a choice at the polls come November. JH: My guess is that when it comes to ideology, when it comes to policies, there are a lot of people within the Democratic Party base -- not the conservative Democrats and not the establishment, but the progressive base â who would fall closer to your views than the views of the Democratic Party leadership. I think a lot of people donât necessarily understand the kind of barriers to entry that third parties, not just the Green Party but Libertarians and the Constitution Party on the right, face. Tell me about the structural realities that have kept third parties, with a very small number of exceptions throughout history, from really gaining a foothold in national politics. JS: The real barrier isnât so much that people donât understand third parties or donât understand the technical barriers. I think the real stumbling block is fear. There has been an incredible fear campaign, certainly over the past 10 years and more, that if we stand up and actually vote our values -- we can't actually vote for ourselves, vote our ideals and our solutions that are right there and ready to be implemented. Weâve been hammered with this fear campaign, but I think itâs worth a fresh look. Iâm finding it so exciting to have this discussion with people now because people are incredibly frustrated now and are incredibly distraught, feeling like they just worked themselves to the bone in the last presidential election and what did we get for it? We continue to have the expanding wars, the meltdown of the climate, the continuing, ongoing bailouts for Wall Street. We had the attack on Iraq and the launching of the Afghanistan war under Bush, but in the Obama administration weâve had the surge and he doubled the size of the Bush force in Afghanistan. You had Obama withdrawing from Iraq on George Bushâs withdrawal date because he couldnât negotiate immunity for our forces, or the Iraq war would have been longer. One of his first acts was initiating greater bombing into Pakistan and then into Yemen and Somalia. Weâve been told that we had to be quiet and sort of hold our noses and vote our fear or terrible things would happen. What we find 10 years later is that political silence has not been an effective strategy. The politics of fear has delivered everything that we were afraid of. I think thereâs a whole new openness, considering new solutions and acknowledging that the politics of fear leads to more fear. We need to answer that fear with the politics of courage. Look back over history, because while independent parties have been small, they have served a critical role in driving a progressive agenda into the dialogue. In the words of Frederick Douglass, âPower concedes nothing without a demand. Never has, never will.â To my mind thatâs exactly what independent politics does. It brings that demand into the political arena, because without that demand we continue this landslide to the right without any kind of a backstop. I think people are really beginning to see that itâs not only ok to vote third party, but in fact it may very well be the only hope. JH: Can you just discuss briefly the catch-22 in that there are legislative approaches that could certainly do a lot to open up our political system? Thereâs proportional representation, which is a probably a stretch. Thereâs instant runoff voting, also called ranked voting, that could make it so people could vote their consciences and not worry about the so-called âspoiler effect.â But you have this fundamental problem that in order to pass those measures you would need to first have some power. The power of the legislature right now is of course entirely in the hands of the Republicans and Democrats. So we have this catch-22 where we end up with the oligopoly of the two-party system. While weâd like to see it opened up we bump into a wall. How do we square that circle? JS: Believe me, I have done my share of work on the legislative fixes here, particularly on ranked choice voting. Itâs very hard to get peopleâs attention on voting reform when they donât have jobs or the jobs that they have donât pay a living wage, or when youâre a student and youâre up to your eyeballs in debt and are virtually an indentured servant going forward. Weâve got to move the democracy reforms, but they need to be piggy-backed on the bread and butter things that people are so very concerned with and very focused on right now. To my mind, there are legislative solutions, but in order to exert them we need to stand up. This is where the larger circle gets squared. How do we ever move forward as a society, as concerned citizens and residents, and members of not only a nation, but the planet? We donât have a lot of time by many indicators, particularly if youâre watching climate development. For me the words of Alice Walker keep coming to mind, which are, âOne of the biggest ways people give up power is by not knowing they have it to start with.â To look at what happened in Tunisia or Egypt -- not that those struggles are over, but enormous progress has been made, far more than anyone ever considered in their wildest dreams -- by people basically hitting the wall. Thereâs no doubt that we are hitting the wall in this country as well. In the Middle East, the role of young people who had no future, who had no jobs or didnât have decent wages, thatâs really what kindled these amazing breakthroughs. Those circumstances very much apply here in the US as well. Weâve got 30 million people who are struggling as indentured servants with debt. You have 50 million people who canât afford their healthcare. Millions have lost their homes and millions more are at risk. If all of us got together and were to stand up -- like, for example, we were able to with the PIPA and the SOPA legislation â we just stood up and we did it. We saw the Occupy movement doing that too. Very much driven by young people who decided they were at the breaking point and they were going to turn the breaking point into a tipping point. That is very much a philosophy of our campaign. We canât control all the circumstances here, but we can mobilize the incredible power we have as ordinary citizens of the nation and the planet. To really standup against the system that has left us largely in incredible peril and more or less heading downhill very quickly. I think people are seeing this right and left. There are no signs out there that the political establishment is turning this around. There are no good proposals out there even from the Democrats. They tend to be less bad versions of what Republicans are giving us. What theyâre not giving us is the good solutions that we need for single payer healthcare as a human right, for creating free public higher education and forgiving student debt, for actually ending unemployment and creating the jobs that we deserve. If we simply redirected the trillions that are being squandered on wars, Wall Street and tax breaks for the wealthy we could not only do the right thing, but we would have the numbers do it. We are the majority. Poll after poll shows that people of conscience and conviction are out there and see the way forward. The trick is getting ourselves past this politics of fear and standing up with the politics of courage and moving forward, as progressive movements have always done â as movements out on the street, but which also have an independent political, electoral voice that drives that agenda into the process. JH: One thing thatâs always struck me is that if we were to send Greens to Congress they would face the same challenges that liberal Democrats do. There are 80 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who I imagine are very close to you and I on the nuts and bolts of policy. What they face is this massive structural barrier to get a progressive agenda passed. Iâve spoken to lawmakers who went in as a freshman and were told that they had to start dialing for dollars on their first day of office. They didnât get to look around and get acquainted; they were already dialing for dollars. You have this structural issue in the Senate where very small states in the South have the same two votes that populated coastal states have. We basically have an effective requirement that you have to get 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything nowadays. Wouldnât you face the same problems? Wouldnât Greens face the same problems that Congressional Progressive Caucus members face? JS: Yes and no. This to me is why a party makes a big difference because the Green Party doesnât dial for dollars. We are not creatures of corporate sponsorship and we also donât take marching orders from leadership that is making you toe the corporate lines. To my mind that is definitely an argument for a different political party. A party that is not hijacked and essentially kidnapped by the big money that prevails in the current mainstream political parties. Back to your question about how do you ever move forward when youâre just one of many, when youâre a lone voice in the wilderness on behalf of a peopleâs politics. Keep in mind this is where executives really do come in, whether they are the mayor of a city, a governor, or the president. Being president is not being commander-in-chief only, it is also being organizer-in-chief. Right now we fly blind as a democracy, and ordinary citizens are the ones who should be the drivers of our political process, but they are completely blind. They donât know whatâs coming up and when itâs coming up, and what the real story is on those bills. We donât have a real free press, with notable exceptions such as the alternative press.To my mind, the opportunity and responsibility of an executive like a president is to inform people. To truly have a liberated moveon.org telling people whatâs coming up, when itâs coming up, and here are the three talking points, now go to it with your congressmen so that they know youâve got your eye on their vote, and if they want your vote in November you need their vote now. Whether itâs for healthcare as a human right under a Medicare for all system, whether it is for a Green New Deal which will eliminate unemployment and put 25 million people back to work, whether itâs for downsizing the military and bringing the troops home from these illegal and immoral wars. These are all things which if we had a responsive, strongly democratic government we would be passing. I think thereâs enormous power in our executive branch right now to help drive that agenda and make it impossible to ignore.  Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. He is the author of The 15 Biggest Lies About the Economy: And Everything else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know About Taxes, Jobs and Corporate America. http://www.alternet.org/environment/155015 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[email protected]?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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