Jill Stein: A Gift to the American Liberal
Jill Stein
Age: 66
Education: Harvard Medical School, Harvard University
Party: Green Party of the United Sates
Running Mate: Ajamu Baraka
There are millions who consider themselves to the left of center who would like to break the mold this year. They are dissatisfied with a candidate who tells Goldman Sachs she has a public policy and a private policy and then goes on to share her private policy with the investment company. Dignified liberals or progressives are learning what it is like to be taken for granted. “They’ll vote for me! I’m the major party liberal! I’m all they have!” say you political betters. If you don’t know what that is like, ask honest friends who happen to be Black or Latino. They know what it’s like to be taken for granted by Democrats.
Well, folks, here is your chance to break away! Here’s where you can go from the harsh, phony glare of seedy politics and step into the refreshing air of a new kind of candidate. She’s genuine. She is energetic and imaginative.
When she speaks, she doesn’t provide the standard laundry list of vague bullet points and ambiguous code. She says what she believes and what she intends to do as president.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am fiscal conservative. While I have some social views that would put me at odds with my friends on the right, that is tempered by a view that I exist and succeed in a free economy. Penn Jillette says it better; take a right at money and a left at sex and you’ll have a good life.
So you know I don’t get excited when Jill Stein speaks of energy policy or rails against gentrification. But that is hardly the point. What I want my friends on the left to think about is taking the honest option. If you are solidly left of center why would you whore your voting franchise on a woman who has succeeded in only one thing in 40 years of politics; namely skirting the law when she breaks it? Why would you vote for HRC over an honest woman who more solidly shares your real philosophy? Anyone who isn’t living under a rock knows that Clinton has never has an ethical or philosophical anchor. All her clearly left wing positions have been inserted into her campaign to thwart Bernie Sanders. Unable to pull people from the right into her orbit during the general election, she has maintained many of these newly-minted positions to shore up her base. That’s clearly all she has.
Trump’s situation is identical. All of his “conservatism”, especially his support of the second amendment is between 1 1/2 to 3 years old. He too found he is barely holding his base so cannot go center to pull in the fence sitters. So he continues to throw conservative red meat out there to try to keep the base in line. What his most ardent supporters haven’t noticed is that some of Trumps’ policy positions are pure, unadulterated socialism. And his campaign has stated that his idea of “repeal and replace” for Obamacare turns out to be: we will use more tax dollars so people don’t pay fines and we can subsidize individual costs with more tax dollars.
Ajamu Baraka
Anyone who would question Baraka's political credential would have to be willfully obtuse of from Mars. He has been in the trenches, fighting for the Left for decades. I have a bit of a headache with his resume in that he claims to have been in the military and THEN fought segregation in the South. He would have been 12 years old at the Selma March. That must have made for an interesting military career. Be that as it may, he has held numerous positions in key social justice organizations and has written extensively.
Compare that to Kaine. Kaine is a political hack and office holder. That is to say he;s never been in the trenches. He has spent his live pandering to people in he trenches. Kaine also lacks the courage of his convictions. A "Good Catholic" and okie-dokie with late-term partial birth abortion? You can't be both. One of those things is a lie. I am guessing the former.
Stop Kidding Yourself!
The media has successfully run us through a funnel (through laziness or political collusion) to accept a binary choice for president. I further contend that those two choices will be equally disastrous.
With Stein you have a person who is sincere in her positions and has done more than run for office in pursuit of those ideals. I most ardently encourage my friends on the left to seriously throw your support behind Stein. To make this advise worth taking, all you have to do is take this essay viral. I can’t do that for you.
So hit share and free yourself and your friends to make an open and honest choice. Put this link on all your social media. You have 13 days. There is more at stake than who will un-friend you on Facebook tonight.
Next up: Gary Johnson, Something for Everybody!
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