September 27th, 2016 I made the mistake of watching only Donald Trump’s (Republican nominee) and Hilary Clinton’s (Democratic nominee) responses to Lester Holt’s questions during the 1st presidential debate. On September 27, 2016 I was one of 84 million people around the world who watched Clinton and Trump on television.
A few days later, after seeing Stein’s responses to the debate, I was one of 1.3 million views to that video on Facebook. Less than 110,000 people viewed the Green Party’s vice presidential, Baraka, debate responses. The Green Party debates are not available on television’s mainstream media. Knowing that not many people know about Stein or her stances, because of the media’s focus on the primary candidates, I want to share my views on the Green Party.
I do not to focus on the other candidates because I want to use this article to focus more on why I am voting for Jill Stein, instead of focusing on the failures of the other candidates. I am not going to speculate about Hilary’s lies, ridicule her ‘flip flopping’ on her stances, or her mysterious emails nor am I going to rant about Donald’s ignorance. We hear enough of that, it’s discouraging, confusing and frankly uninformative. We need to do our own research, have more productive conversations about our other options and work together in the 2016 Presidential Election to vote for someone whose stances we support.
Jill Stein is one of the only candidates who has multiple policies that directly address the issues that concern the African-American community related to the criminal justice system such as radicalized police brutality, the industrial prison complex, mass incarceration, militarized police forces, etc.
I do not expect that one candidate that can completely meet my needs, especially as a person of color in the United States, but I refuse to vote for a candidate that doesn’t at least address the issues that affect my community. Voting for someone who has no interest in my community would be a deliberate practice of self-destruction. Ever since the beginning of the race, before her VP nomination, I committed myself to voting for Jill Stein. Now Stein’s VP, Ajamu Baraka, is a person of color,raised in south side Chicago, who is now an activist in the African-American community. Baraka, notably, is also the only veteran in the presidential race.
Choosing to vote for one of the primary parties continues to perpetuate the failing 2 party system that this country tries to uphold for the good strength of the capitalist democracy, that we’ve already proven is not a system that fits our needs. As a Black Panther Party enthusiast, Stein’s “Power to the People Plan,” relates to Panther principles in a reminiscent way. Like the Panther Party, the Green Party wants to move privilege and power out of the hands of corporations and into the collective hands of the people. The environmental components of the Green Party address environmental crisis that were less of a concern during BPP’s rise in the late 1960s and 70s.
Jill’s statement on the plan embodies the what we need in the next President of the United States, someone (unlike the 2 primary candidates), who is committed to removing power from corporations in order to benefit the people and relieve the planet of the current destruction that is occurring on the environment due to corporate exploitation of natural resources.
“My Power to the People Plan creates deep system change, moving from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism to a human-centered economy that puts people, planet and peace over profit.”
Currently America’s operations are not human centered, a system that values corporate savings through the enslavement over rehabilitation does not respect the value of life human life. The weight of Corporations over the health of the planet is sufficient evidence to the fact that America is not human centered but corporate centered. This continues the trend of keeping power and wealth in the hands of the top percentage of our population, corporation owners. They are modern-day plantation owners, who redesigned the slavery system into the prison industrial complex through the loophole of the 13th amendment in order to continue to use their privilege and power to sustain the negative economic, social, environmental, and political trends that are obviously at the detriment (to some degree) of the rest of the American population.
Stein continuous, “It [Power to the People Plan] offers direct answers to the economic, social, and ecological crises brought on by both corporate political parties. And it empowers the American people to fix our broken political system and make real the promise of democracy.” Here Stein addresses the toxic American 2 party system, Democrat and Republican, both funded by corporations. These 2 corporate influenced political parties are aggressively promoted to the public through mass media outlets (which are also corporate funded) virtually eliminating all other ‘third-party’ candidates. Even the phrase ‘third party’ suggests some sort of inferiority, with these obstacles to seeking out third party opinions the vast majority of Americans decide to settle between the ‘lesser of two evils’ (as many describe) when choosing between the Democratic and Republican candidates. Stein challenges Americans to go beyond what corporations are offering us as selections, and to recognize that her party will disrupt the pattern of corporate capitalism in the US.
Stein powerfully ends, “This plan will end unemployment and poverty; avert climate catastrophe; build a sustainable, just economy; and recognize the dignity and human rights of everyone in our society and our world. The power to create this new world is not in our hopes, it’s not in our dreams – it’s in our hands.” Her commitment to dismantling the destructive systems that corporate capitalism has created like widespread poverty, mass incarceration, an unsustainable economy, climate crises and national human rights violations makes me hopeful as a young American.
There are several key issues that Jill outlines in her Power to the People Plan and here are some details of the plan with my explanations for why I am choosing to vote for Green party Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.
Jill Stein Facebook Page
Stein’s Green New Deal illustrates her commitment to the conservation of resources and the value in the health and the longevity of the planet over corporate greed. Her disconnection from corporate sponsors (funded 100% by campaign donations) make her independent of the corporate political pressures that contribute to the destruction of the environment. For example, corporate run farms cut down hundreds of trees to clear area to build their facilities and then mass kill hundreds of animals to mass produce poor quality meats. These low quality meats are produced by animals that are enhanced by unnatural methods, like steroids, to expedite their growth. These unsanitary practices lead to the over use of antibiotics in these agricultural faculties. Americans consumption of these meats over time contribute to multiple health concerns, including antibiotic resistance. This has led to an antibiotics crisis in the United States, leaving thousands of people without treatment from bacterial infections like open wounds, meningitis, pneumonia and strep throat. ALL of these problems are influenced by corporate capitalism because corporate wealth is achieved at the expenses of the welfare of the mass public for the benefit of the wealthy few.
The candidates for these primary parties are members of those wealthy few, so are our representatives, senators and legislators. They themselves are all personally invested in these corporations.
Many candidates talk about creating jobs, and Stein is not unlike other candidates in this way. A dedication to an increase in jobs is what every candidate needs to stress to voters. More jobs will create a greater circulation of wealth which is good for the economy. However, what is unique about Stein in her stance is that she supports the formation of unions, unions empower workers and give them resources in numbers and communication to empower themselves against corporations in their own interest.
Stein’s commitment to end poverty and expanding health care access as a right with a “Medicare for All” stance supports her value of human life over corporate greed. She also views higher education as a right, recognizing that college debt perpetuates debt servitude among the American population. Currently this is a trend that only the wealthy are able to avoid, as they would not to take out the loans that vast majority of Americans are forced to take from the government and private companies in order to fund their education. Some students do this in addition to working full-time or multiple part-time jobs. This is the type of financial, mental and physical burden students expect to endure while pursuing higher education in the United States, which is shameful.
In addition, Stein calls for a just economy in which the Federal minimum wage is $15/hr, a rise we were able to see in Seattle January of this year. She also calls for the dismantling of big banks. This will take power away from financial institutions like Bank of America, that have stocks in private prison companies which strive for high arrest quotas, high prison sentences and high recidivism rates. Bank of America is also involved in providing trillion-dollar loans to alleviating crisis in the Soviet Union while denying basic needs, like clean drinking water, to American citizens in Flint, MI (less than 20 minutes’ drive from my childhood home).
Stein is also committed
source: theobamacrat.com
to Protecting Mother Earth as a core value in the Green Party. Climate change is real and it will be one of the reasons why people generations after us will struggle to survive on this planet. Irresponsible corporate business practices, like oil fracking that pollute tons of gallons of clean water, value cutting costs over the health of the planet. Stein’s commitment to not just simply ‘cutting back’ on these practices but to, “Lead a global treaty to halt climate change,” makes me confident in the US ability to reverse our current worldwide devastating practices, this also connects to Stein’s New Green Deal plan, “transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, and investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, and conservation”.
Although the points this far do effect the African-American Community in positive ways, Stein further earned my vote with her direct devotion to our cry for Racial Justice Now. Not only does she call for an end to police brutality, demilitarization of the police, and an end to mass incarceration but she calls for the implementation of police review boards, one if the many solutions we have proposed to legislation that has been consistently ignored.
Stein is one of the few candidates that addresses minority groups outside of racial groups. Her dedication to freedom and equality aims to protect and expand rights for woman, LGTBQIA+, and indigenous people (currently Native Americans rights are being trampled by corporations, allowing for an oil company to build an oil pipe right through the main water source of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota). She also calls for the decriminalization of drugs, reversing the detrimental effects that the war on drugs continues to have the black community (as it was a direct attack on our community by the Republican Party.
Stein calls for the government to live within the law and uphold the rights of the constitution for all people.
The mistake we made in the last Election was voting for the corporations, we picked from the batch of ‘the lesser of 2 evils’. Yes, Obama was an incredible example of a Black man in the white house but his affiliation with the Democratic party, a corporate run party, limited our ability to make any political gains within their systems. This time we need to expand our thinking outside of the two primary parties. We need to critically think about our vote. Currently in response to the deaths that have occurred at the hands of police and a call for injustice we have been stripping ourselves from big corporations in our own interest. Similarly to supporting big corporations by buying their products or banking with them, voting for their candidates whether Democrat or Republic also negates our self-interest.
I want to address the stance that some Blacks may have about American politics like:
“It isn’t for me.”
“it isn’t about me.”
“I don’t understand it.”
“It doesn’t matter what I do anyway.”
Although some of those things may feel true to some degree we must be conscious of the duty we hold to our ancestors who fought and died for our right to vote in order to gift it to us. Therefore, in order to honor them we must register to vote, do research on our options, make an educated decision and vote. This is my perspective as a young African American woman and a Law, Economics and Public Policy Program graduate from the University of Washington.
This will be my very first time voting in a Presidential Election and I will be voting for Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka.
You can find more details about the Green party, Stein, Baraka and their stance on each of these issues and more at jill2016.com
