Green Party candidates protested last night at Hofstra University
appeared today in rebroadcast parallel forum on Democracy Now! “Exclusive:
Expanding the Debate with Third-Party Candidates Jill Stein, Virgil Goode,
Rocky Anderson”
Excerpting, editing, brief comment
By Carolyn Bennett: I apologize that my excerpted and edited version from the
Democracy Now transcript of the third party candidate’s participation seems
biased. I guess it is because, while I believe strongly in free speech and new
ideas, I am strongly against regressive opinion, the status quo, the willfully ignorant
and or the ridiculous.
Last night’s protest outside dominant party’s (singular) “anti-democracy”
performance
Dr. Jill Stein (Green Party candidate for U.S. President):
We
are here at the barred gates of American debates to say that we need to open up
this debate and make it a full, fair and inclusive debate.
Cheri Honkala (Green Party candidate for U.S. Vice President):
It
shouldn’t just be whether or not you have billions of dollars that determine
whether or not the American people can hear about your platform.
Jill Stein:
Our
Green campaign is on the ballot for 85 percent of voters.
Eighty-five
percent of voters deserve to know who their choices are in this election and
what the real solutions are that can solve the desperate problems that we’re
facing. The Commission on Presidential Debates makes a mockery of democracy by
conducting this fake and contrived debate.
 |
| Stein - Honkala Green Party Pres - Vice Pres |
Jill Stein:
We’re
here to stand our ground.
We’re
here to stand ground for the American people, who have been systematically
locked out of these debates for decades by the Commission on Presidential
Debates.
We
think this commission is entirely illegitimate; … If democracy truly prevailed,
there would be no such commission. The debates would still be run by the League
of Women Voters [and] would be open with the criteria that the League of Women
Voters had always used: that if you have done the work to get on the ballot, if
you are on the ballot and could actually win the Electoral College by being on
the ballot in enough states, you deserve to be in the election and you deserve
to be heard; and that the American people actually deserve to hear choices
which are not bought and paid for by multinational corporations and Wall
Street.
 |
| Stein - Honkala police handled outside Hofstra presidential debates |
STEIN/HONKALA clamoring for speech at gates of empire
Confronted by Police force
“We were held at a facility, especially created for
detaining protesters at the debates,” Dr. Stein said. “It appeared to be a
warehouse which had been specially equipped. It was obvious … [that] they were
prepared to handle a lot of people.
“They had 13 [police] officers there and three in plain clothes.
For most of the time, it was just Cheri Honkala and me yet they felt the need
to keep us in tight plastic restraints, tightly secured to metal chairs.…
“We were handcuffed to chairs for the entire duration of our
time ─ about eight hours. Thirteen officers to keep these two women, mothers,
handcuffed to chairs for the entire time.
“That was their procedure for handling people who were
arrested at the debates,” Jill Stein said on Democracy Now. Did you get to see
the debate from the warehouse,” Amy Goodman asked. “Absolutely not,” Stein
answered.
Speaking last night, Jill Stein said in a clip rebroadcast today
at Democracy Now
This
is what democracy looks like in the 21st century. … [And] It’s going to take some
politics and courage to get our democracy back.
More
[is] to come.
WHAT EMPIRE SHUT OUT
DENIED a HEARING
Issue: FOREIGN WARS
Rocky Anderson (U.S. presidential candidate, Justice Party):
“The important issue is that we went into Libya … without
any authorization from Congress. This is the real long-term question that ought
to be addressed:
Do
we allow one person to act as a dictator and determine whether our country goes
to war, or do we, in compliance with the War Powers Clause of the United States
Constitution, seek a determination from Congress that there is reason for our
country to engage in acts of war?
This
is an ongoing problem with the drone attacks, creating more hatred, more
hostility toward the United States in sovereign nations.
We
need to get back to the fundamentals. This is the important question that we
should all be addressing and Congress needs to live up to its constitutional
responsibility.
Jill Stein (presidential candidate, Green Party:
The tragedy in Libya, … is a very good case in point that shows
how this ‘get tough’ international policy has been extremely unproductive, has produced
the opposite effect of what was intended.
“And we are seeing this [effect] now, not only in Libya; but
in the demonstrations against U.S. embassies across the Middle East, in the
fact that the Afghanistan army is shooting at U.S. soldiers.
“The war effort is not being turned over to an Afghan army.
The Afghan army itself has a very high desertion rate.
“We need a foreign policy
based, not on ‘tough guy’ militarism, not on wars for oil; but on international
law and respect for human rights.”
Issue: JOBS
Jill Stein:
“Women-headed households have a 40 percent poverty rate
relative to the 15 percent poverty rate among the general population. So we
have a critical problem.
“That’s why our Green New Deal insures that everyone will
have a job, and a job paying living wages.
The
Green New Deal will put 23 million people back to work, will end unemployment.
We will provide jump-start grants, zero-interest loans to small businesses and
worker co-operatives, and we’ll provide the public works and public services
that enable you to go down to an employment office, rather than an unemployment
office, and actually get a job.
“We are also advocating for free public higher education.”
Banks are now getting a $40 billion every month as a part of
the latest [Obama government] ‘quantitative easing.’ Again, we need to quantitatively
ease student debt, not bank debt, again, for the third time, their fourth
consecutive bailout.
Issue: Trade Agreements, Off-shoring
Jill Stein:
“We saw the first free trade agreement, NAFTA, enacted under
Bill Clinton, a Democrat. We saw it carried out under George Bush; we saw
Barack Obama expand three free trade agreements and is now negotiating a secret
free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that will continue to offshore
jobs, undermine wages; and as well, this time, compromise American sovereignty
with an international corporate board that can rule on our laws and regulations
and say whether or not they pass muster. This is an absolute outrage against
American sovereignty, democracy and our economy.
“We need to turn the free trade agreements into fair trade
agreements.
“The Green New Deal will create the community-based jobs we
need here, supporting small businesses,
worker co-operatives, and public services and worker—and public works to put
people back to work right now, for a cost—less than the cost of the first
stimulus package.”
Rocky Anderson:
“We are seeing a return to the Gilded Age with a disparity
in income and wealth unparalleled since the 1920s.
 |
| Anderson - Rodriguez Justice Party Pres - Vice Pres |
“We can do so much better providing good jobs but having a
strong labor movement in this country is crucial to that.
“We can renegotiate those trade agreements, put in place a
WPA-like project, and raise wages, including the minimum wage, which will have
that rippling effect and helping out everybody along the way.”
Issue: HEALTHCARE
Dr. Jill Stein:
“It is every woman and every man’s right to have complete
healthcare through a Medicare-for-all plan, which is the only way that we can
actually get to complete coverage. It provides comprehensive care, so that it’s
not up to your boss, as the president basically validated by agreeing to
relieve business—businesses where employers objected on religious grounds to the
coverage of birth control.
 |
| Dr.Jill Stein |
“Birth control should not be up to your employer nor should
vaccinations or blood transfusions or any other aspect of healthcare that might
be objected to on religious grounds.
“Healthcare is a human right. We should be providing it now
for everyone. It will also save us trillions of dollars over the coming decade.”
Issue: VIOLENCE, GUNS (domestic)
Rocky Anderson:
“We need to end the stranglehold of the National Rifle
Association on our government.
There’s one reason for assault
weapons ─ to kill as many people as quickly as possible.
There was a federal ban on assault
weapons, which expired in 2004.
The permanent reinstatement of that
ban would be the right thing to do but neither of these [Republican and
Democratic Party] candidates will do the right thing when it comes to ending the
influence of the National Rifle Association and, once and for all, getting assault
weapons off the streets of this country.
Jill Stein:
“Some 260 people every day are injured or killed by gun violence,
so it’s very important that we ban assault weapons, for starters; but there are
other steps that need to be taken quickly.
“Local communities need to be able to regulate guns, as
needed, to deal with their violence.
We
need to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.
We
need background checks, so that the mentally ill are not possessing and using
guns.
We
need to end the gun show loopholes, as well, because there’s far too much
violence from guns, which is not needed.
“But in addition, we have to address other drivers of
community violence.
That
includes ensuring that mental health services are available to everyone. Mental
health services have been cut back in a major way with all the cuts to healthcare.
Providing
Medicare for all ─ that covers everyone, including mental health services ─
would go a long way to ensure that very unstable and troubled individuals are
not getting into possession of guns and then using them.
In addition, we need to end the culture of drug violence,
which also is a major driver of gun violence. This means legalizing marijuana
because it is a substance that is dangerous because
it is illegal (it is actually far less dangerous than other legal substances). Legalizing
marijuana will go a long way toward putting an end to the violence surrounding
the drug culture.
Sources and notes
“Green Party Candidates Arrested, Shackled to Chairs for 8
Hours after Trying to
Enter Hofstra Debate,” October 17, 2012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/green_partys_jill_stein_cheri_honkala
“Exclusive: Expanding the Debate
with Third-Party Candidates Jill Stein, Virgil Goode, Rocky Anderson,” October
17, 2012, http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/exclusive_expanding_the_debate_with_third#transcript
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