Jill Stein Green Party Presidential Candidate 2012

August 25, 2012

Jill Stein is the 2012 Green Party candidate running for President of the United States. Her running mate is Cheri Honkala. As of August 16th they are on the ballots in 33 States and the District of Colombia. Check her website for up-to-date information as well as additional information about Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala.

The following is an introduction into Jill Stein's views on a variety of topics. The summarized positions are in my own words and are not endorsed by the candidate. However, the summaries are short, and I have included videos and links so you can hear or read her position directly.

"We need a solution to actually rise to the magnitude, and the seriousness, the emergency, of this jobs problem."

- Jill Stein (from video below)

A primary element of Jill Stein's campaign is the implementation of a New Green Deal, modeled after the New Deal implemented by Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a way to bring us out of the Great Depression back in the 1930's. Like the original New Deal, Stein's new deal contains a program of job creation. 25 million according to Stein and an end to unemployment. Impossible? According to her, the program would cost about the same as Obama's first stimulus package (around $700 billion). Full details of her plan can be found on her website. This program would be federally funded, but locally run, and would create jobs based on economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

In the following video, Jill Stein is introduced at the 1:30 mark, after Thom Hartmann provides some contextual remarks.

"Millions have lost their homes already. Many millions are still in the pipeline....We are five years into this crisis and effectively nothing has been done about it."

- Jill Stein

Jill Stein considers housing to be a fundamental human right, and her running mate, Cheri Honkala, has spent her life as a community organizer and activist fighting for the poor and homeless. Recently these efforts have been particularly focused on the issues of foreclosures and evictions that have resulted from the housing crisis and economic recession. Both Stein and Honkala believe that little if anything has been done by politicians or the banks to work on keeping families in their homes. In dramatic fashion, both women recently showed they were willing to go beyond mere words and were arrested while conducting a sit-in protest against Fannie Mae. In that particular incident, they were supporting two Philadelphia women who had been tossed out of their homes by Fannie Mae.

Cheri Honkala speaks in the video below about issues of poverty and homelessness and also discusses the Fannie Mae protest.

"...most other developed nations around the world are using a Medicare-for-all, single-payer-type system, providing better care with better outcomes at half the cost of what we’re paying."

- Jill Stein (from video below)

Dr. Stein is a Harvard trained physician who entered into politics partly because of problems she saw in the healthcare system which were not being addressed by the established political system. Dr. Stein advocates for a single-payer Medicare-for-all healthcare system. She believes it will actually save money compared to the current system, while providing better outcomes. Part of these savings will be from eliminating the massive overhead present in our current private insurance dominated system. Further savings will be provided by focusing on upfront preventive care along with the healthier communities which will be ushered in by green initiatives (e.g. pollution reduction and healthy food production systems). As it stands now, 3/4 of our healthcare dollars are spent on chronic health issues—what Dr. Stein calls our "sickcare system."

The first part of the discussion is about the Green New Deal. The healthcare discussion begins at 5:45. The video can also be watched directly at DemocracyNow. Their site includes a full transcript.

"If you go into the voting booth and you vote for either Wall Street-sponsored candidate, you are giving a mandate for four more years of these policies, which are not just taking us in the wrong direction, they are accelerating in the wrong direction..."

- Jill Stein

Jill Stein is a strong supporter of the 99% and the Occupy movement. In different ways she beleves that the two main parties are essentially representatives of the 1%. While, Romney and the Republicans make no effort to hide this, Obama and the Democrats hide behind populist rhethoric. An examination of their policies, however, such as their support for Wall street and their continued (in some cases expanded) prosecution of war, shows their true agenda. Dr. Stein is critical of the American system which silences opposition to the two-party stranglehold, through media control, and the expensive and difficult process for third-parties to get on the ballot or into debates

The following video is a lengthy one. It pretty much covers all of Jill Stein's main positions on the issues. There is also a question and answer period at the end. The whole thing is worth watching, but I am also going to call out specific parts of the video related to the topics in question.

"Most of the conflicts of the last decade would not have happened had there been a national conversation and discussion about what the true risks and benefits of our national security were."

- Jill Stein

The Green Party is a party of peace and as such advocates for non-violent conflict resolution. Dr. Stein does not support our current wars and wants to bring troops home from these conflicts. Additionally she would bring home troops from bases and countries all over the world where they are not needed. She is strongly critical of Obama's record on war, especially his drone campaign, and feels like this makes enemies not safety. Overall she would cut military spending, believing that the bloated military industrial apparatus is only really necessary for waging wars for oil and other resources. A green economy makes such wars obsolete.

For comments about war in the above video see (33:23 - 33:40).

"We need to stop using war and weapons as the discourse for foreign policy."

- Jill Stein (from video above)

Dr. Stein believes we need to stop basing our foreign policy on military might and instead base it upon human rights and international law. She also believes we need to abolish nuclear weapons and nuclear proliferation and stop using weapons sales as a way to bribe countries to do our bidding.

Of course this extension of human rights and international law is really just an international extension of the policy of seeking environmental, social, and economic justice domestically. These principles should be extended universally to the entire global community.

For foreign policy comments in the above video see (44:06 - 46:08).

"...create a welcoming and secure path to citizenship for immigrants in this country who are critical to our economy and to our culture."

- Jill Stein (from video above)

Dr. Stein considers the supposed immigration problem as being a direct consequence of the NAFTA free trade agreement. This agreement allowed cheap agricultural goods to be dumped into third-world economies and put many farmers in those nations out of business, who then sought out opportunities elsewhere. Essentially they are economic refugees of our own making. Dr. Stein calls for changing our free trade agreements to fair trade agreements that respect workers and the environment both here and abroad.

She also recognizes the important contributions immigrants have made and continue to make to both our culture and economy and calls for a welcoming and secure path to citizenship. She notes, for instance, the consequences of doing the opposite, such as the draconian policy enacted in Alabama, which chased away migrant farmers and collapsed their $5 billion dollar tomato industry.

For immigration comments in the above video see (33:40 - 36:25).

"We need to bail out the students and not the banks."

- Jill Stein (from video above)

Dr Stein believes our higher education system has basically created a system of indentured servants. From a combination of exploding costs, massive debt burdens, and the lack of well-paying jobs (or the lack jobs at all) an entire fleet of students are facing debts they can not possibly pay. She advocates for wiping out student debt, which amounts to nearly one trillion dollars. While that may be a lot, she notes that banks have been bailed out to the tune of $16-17 trillion dollars.

Dr. Stein believes that public education should be free from pre-kindergarten through college. Education isn't a cost. It is an investment that pays for itself many times over. As an example she cites the very successful GI Bill to provide education to millions of returning soldiers from WWII which provided an exceptional return on the investment.

For education comments in the above video see (36:25 - 39:08).

"We must strive as a nation to so conduct ourselves that we have nothing to fear if the truth of our actions should be revealed to the world."

- Jill Stein (from video below)

Jill Stein in this video talks about the importance of whistleblowers to a Democracy. In particular, she discusses the case of Bradley Manning and how his actions should be protected as a whistleblower. She calls his actions heroic for informing the American public about war crimes committed by the American military. She is critical of the Obama administration which has brought six cases against people under the Espionage Act, though only three had been brought before him since it was enacted in 1917.

"...Cannabis is a drug which is dangerous because it is illegal, it is not illegal on account of being dangerous..."

- Jill Stein (from video below)

Dr. Stein believes that hemp and marijuana should not be classified as restricted substances. There is absolutely no basis for doing so, especially when they are such useful products: hemp as a green fiber and marijuana for medicinal purposes. She calls for an end to the failed drug war, not just for being an enormous waste of money but also for being an enormous waste of human potential. Substance abuse should be treated as a health issue, not a criminal issue.

"Don't let them talk you into a ship that is also sinking but slightly less quickly. That's not a solution and we have a clearly established trajectory at this point. There's only one solution which is to get off of that sinking ship into the lifeboat that is headed for the secure, green, just, peaceful shores that aren't that far away."

- Jill Stein (page 11)

A full discussion about third parties is a lengthy article in itself. However, regardless of how people feel about voting for them and the impact they have on elections, it is at least worthwhile to take a look at their platforms and positions. Polls consistently show that people are unhappy with the current state of politics. They are unhappy with Congress and seem dissatisfied with the two-party system and the deadlocked bickering that too often seems is all they are capable of. Furthermore, the two main parties represent a relatively narrow band of the political spectrum. While, the Republican party has expanded (or shifted) it's tent to include the likes of the Tea Party and Libertarians such as Ron Paul, the Democratic party has become (or remained) fairly centrist. Stronger voices on the left, such as the Green Party and the socialist party are far too absent in the public debate. Gary Johnson, running as a Libertarian, is another strong third party candidate who is worth checking out.

The matrix below is a fairly common way to represent political ideologies. While the positioning of the candidates is arguable, I personally think they are fairly accurate. What should be noted is not only how close Obama and Romney are to one another but also how far they are to the Authoritarian Right.

"...it's a win for us simply to recover a voice in our political courage and a voice for the public interest..."

- Jill Stein (from video below)

The Green Party is much more than just a party of environmental concerns. They are also populists that strongly advocate for things like peace and social well-being. Additionally, their environmental concern doesn't stand as a separate issue. Instead it is just one element of the many ways in which people and places are exploited.