“Winning” means securing a place on the platform, on air, at
tables of power and influence, to contribute ideas equally, uncensored, unencumbered
by overt or subliminal, insidious mandate to pander to PAC, corporate media,
lobbyist, campaign-contributor paymasters
Re-reporting, editing by Carolyn Bennett
Jill Stein
A 2012 candidate for the U.S. presidency, Jill Stein is a Midwest
born-New England physician, environmentalist and health expert, political
leader, activist and writer who two years ago, along with her routine
responsibilities, was active in implementing the Massachusetts “Secure Green
Future” ballot initiative that earned high percentage points in voter returns. The
measure called on legislators to accelerate efforts to make development of
green jobs a priority and move the State economy to renewable energy.
Leader in politics and
public health
In 2002, Jill Stein ran for the office of Governor of
Massachusetts under the Green-Rainbow Party banner. In 2003 through 2006, she
represented Greens or Green ideals in cofounding the Massachusetts Coalition
for Healthy Communities, a non-profit organization addressing a variety of
issues that are important to the health and well-being of Massachusetts
communities: health care, local green economies, grassroots democracy. She represented
the Green-Rainbow Party in races for
State Representative (2004) and for Secretary of State (2006), garnering the greatest
number of total votes ever received by a Green-Rainbow candidate.
Jill Stein’s environmental advocacy “as a human health issue”
began in 1998 “when she realized that politicians were failing to take action to
protect children from the toxic threats emerging from current science.” Over the
years, she has provided services to parents, teachers, community groups and a Native
American group seeking to protect their communities from toxic exposure. She
has offered expert advice on television programs and testified before numerous
legislative panels and local and state governmental bodies. Her testimony on
the effects of mercury and dioxin contamination from the burning of waste
helped preserve the Massachusetts moratorium on new trash incinerator
construction in the state.
She has been on Massachusetts and national boards of
directors of the Physicians for Social Responsibility; and has won the Clean
Water Action’s award, Not in Anyone’s Backyard Award, the Children’s Health
Hero Award, and the Toxic Action Center’s Citizen Award, among others.
Documentation
Jill Stein is coauthor of two widely-praised reports aimed
at promoting green local economies, sustainable agriculture, clean power, and
freedom from toxic threats: “In Harm’s Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development
(2000, translated into four languages and used worldwide); and Environmental
Threats to Healthy Aging (2009).
Her “Healthy People, Healthy Planet” teaching program makes
clear the critical connections of human health, climate security, and green
economic revitalization. Her body of work has been presented at government,
public health and medical conferences, and has been used to improve public
policy.
Personal
Born in Chicago, raised in suburban Highland Park, Illinois,
Jill Stein took her academic credentials at Harvard College (1973) and Harvard
Medical School (1979). She is married and a mother living in Massachusetts.
http://www.jillstein.org/bio
 |
| More than one More than two Constitutes Electoral Choice |
Bill
Fletcher
Bill Fletcher Jr is board chair of the International Labor
Rights Forum, executive editor of The Black Commentator and founder of the
Center for Labor Renewal. Fletcher is a longtime labor, racial justice and
international activist; and is immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum, a
national non-profit organization organizing, educating and advocating for
policies in favor of the peoples of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America.
Fletcher is also a founder of the Black Radical Congress and is a Senior
Scholar for the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C.
Bill Fletcher is coauthor (with Fernando Gapasin) of Solidarity Divided: the Crisis in Organized
Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice. He is a former vice president of
the International Trade Union Development Programs for the George Meany Center
of the AFL-CIO. Before working with the George Meany Center, Fletcher was education
director and later assistant to the president of the AFL-CIO, http://www.opednews.com/Podcast/Bill-Fletcher-activism-02-by-Rob-Kall-100218-294.html
Michael
Hirsch
Michael Hirsch is a labor writer on the staff of the New
York Teacher, a newspaper of the United Federation of Teachers.
In These Times
staff writer Bhaskar Sunkara led the July 4 interview with this frame:
“Every four years, the election season finds many on the
political Left agonizing over whether to make a pragmatic choice and vote for
the better of the two major-party candidates—or to vote for an individual who
most closely matches their political principles, ‘regardless of that campaign’s
relevancy.’
“In These Times
convened three progressive voices to debate how the Left should be organizing
this election cycle.”
Fletcher, Hirsch, Stein’s responses to In These Times
Bill Fletcher: “The
Democrats and the Republicans are fundamentally corporate parties—everyone knows
that. The Republicans have now become much more consolidated as a hard-right
coalition. Democrats are not as consolidated at the broad level but have
embraced neo-liberalism at the top.
“Part of the problem is that within the Democratic Party
constituency, there is a very poorly organized progressive bloc. I’m not just
talking about the Congressional Progressive Caucus. The broad progressive
forces that will tend to vote Democratic do not have a very clear vision,
organization and strategy.
 |
| More than one More than two Constitutes Electoral Choice |
“So we have repeatedly been in a trap of every four years,
people as individuals—sometimes as organizations—start an electoral campaign,
get people engaged in it, and at the end of the campaign, nothing changes.
“Without any discussion about strategy, where are we going
in the next five to 10 years?”
Jill Stein: Because [U.S.
President] Barack Obama has adopted so many of the positions of [former
president] George W. Bush and in fact gone beyond him, it is hard to discern
the impact of one party over the other.
“Young people, who are always the engine of real change and
the engine of social movements, have been left behind by all parties in the
political establishment.
 |
| Nine political parties |
“The young have a very bleak future right now and they are
hungry for a vehicle that is really principled and has a broad and
comprehensive strategy, vision, agenda and game plan.”
Bringing into the Green Party labor, people of color, key
constituencies of the Left, the Green Party is working to ensure placement on the
ballot in 42 to 48 states. An important, necessary focus of the Greens “is our infrastructure
and to make sure we are a visible part of the discussion—the ultimate stake in
this election, in terms of impact on policy outcomes and on social movements.”
From Democratic Party candidates, we’ve seen a consistent folding
to the money that sponsors them.
The Greens do not accept corporate campaign contributions.
We do not accept money from lobbyists and are therefore insulated from those
pressures. “We have nothing but the power of a people’s movement and of
volunteers and of people who are impassioned by the issues.”
 |
| Many voices Many choices make democracy |
Michael Hirsch: “The way
Obama has run his administration has been deadly to our class—deadly—and the
Left’s got to say that. Will we be in any better position in 2012, after the
election, than we were in 2008?
“The question is not just how we vote; it is how we
organize.”
“The Season of Electoral Angst—in election 2012, what does ‘winning’
mean for the Left?” (Bhaskar Sunkara), In These Times, July 4, 2012, http://inthesetimes.com/article/13348/the_season_of_electoral_angst/
Accompanying photo image: Green Party presidential candidate
Jill Stein speaks in March at the Left Forum in New York. (Photo via
Jillstein.org)
Bhaskar Sunkara is founding editor of Jacobin, blogs at
Uprising, and is a staff writer at In These Times, http://inthesetimes.com/community/profile/74175
________________________________
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