Jill Stein speaking at the Green Party Presidential Candidate Town Hall hosted by the Green Party of Arizona in Mesa, Arizona. March 12, 2016. (Flickr / Gage Skidmore)
Posted to Mint Press News
August 24, 2016
With public opinion showing that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the two most unpopular presidential nominees ever to be nominated by their respective parties, this could be the year of the third party.
One such candidate for disillusioned voters is the Green Party nominee for President, Dr. Jill Stein. Stein, who was previously her party’s nominee for the 2012 presidential contest, believes that her candidacy can gain serious traction among voters who detest voting for Trump, as well as Bernie Sanders supporters who feel betrayed by the Democratic National Committee and believe that Clinton will renege on her newfound progressive pledges.
Stein, who is not accepting any corporate or special interest donations to her campaign, offers a bold alternative vision for the country. As she told Mint Press News’ staff writer Kit O’Connell, in her first one hundred days in the Oval Office, Pres. Jill Stein would cancel student debt, implement a Green New Deal, end America’s military adventurism abroad, pardon all nonviolent drug offenders, and legalize marijuana. This week, Stein has taken her campaign to Louisiana to assist the victims of the recent flooding.
Last week, Stein and I spoke briefly about the need for social movements, Donald Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy, and being labeled a “spoiler.”
Read the bulk of the article here.
Here are Dr. Stein’s comments about being a spoiler:
KPK: Whenever mainstream media does finally decide to interview you, you are spending most of the time discussing how you will be a “spoiler.” Is it frustrating for you being consistently asked how you will “steal” votes from Clinton and deliver them to Donald Trump?
JS: It’s not that frustrating, to tell you the truth, because it’s actually great to be able to address the question because there are so many overwhelming arguments against it. The Abolition Parties, back when slavery was being abolished and there was a big movement to end slavery, when that movement got political and they established political parties for abolition, they were called spoilers. Spoiler is what the establishment says when they feel threatened.
So, it is great that they feel threatened, and it is great that we have a voice on TV now, because usually we cannot get a word in edge-wise and mention what it is we are listing up which is exactly what the American people are demanding. That is, an emergency jobs program with living wages, solving the emergency of the climate crisis, cancelling student debt like we did for the crooks on Wall Street, making public higher education free, healthcare as a human right, ending police violence and mass incarceration, creating a welcoming path to citizenship, and a foreign policy based on international law and human rights.
It is so much fun to tell people about that and to let people know, oh my God, we can actually do this and it pays for itself. Each of these programs basically has a self-funding mechanism … and we can create a world we can survive in because people are really worried about where we are going. They don’t like and they don’t trust Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, they are begging for what we got and this is just a great time for us to be shouting to the heavens that there is an alternative that is of, by, and for the people.
It is time to forget the lesser evil and fight for the greater good knowing we actually have the votes that it would take. Just the number of people holding student debt, that’s 42 million, and it’s a big incentive just like coming out to vote, can effectively cancel their debt. If that word gets out, hold on to your hat.
We could see not splitting the vote, but flipping the vote so that every day people who are the underdogs right now, become the top dogs in an America and world that actually works for all of us.
‘Stein is fantastic on foreign policy, and pretty good on civil liberties, but she’s so terrible on economics, I could never bring myself to vote for her. So, like Bondurant, I probably just won’t vote at all this year.’
You are so right about much of the Green Party’s economic views, and I’ve really struggled with this. I finally decided that my main issue in life, way more important to me that anything else, is our involvement in murdering people in other countries. For that reason, I decided to vote my conscience in this area.
Maybe, just maybe, Johnson/Weld will wake up and start sharing Libertarian views. I get that they’re trying to appeal to many different people, but they’ve messed with my core values.
At some point in my life, I need to stand for something.
Stein is fantastic on foreign policy, and pretty good on civil liberties, but she’s so terrible on economics, I could never bring myself to vote for her. So, like Bondurant, I probably just won’t vote at all this year.
And Israel was part of my decision, Krzysztof, especially after Weld’s comment that he’ll never stop giving money to Israel in the townhall last night. Not okay with me.
Staying home is an option, but CA has 19 propositions, most of which I need to vote “no” on.
Stein is still voting for the “lesser evil”. I cannot stomach Weld but I’m just going to stay home on election day because all of the options are shit.
Awesome. Stein/Baraka, is a far better ticket than Johnson/Weld. Neither individuals on the Green ticket are members of the CFR. I also really like the fact that Stein sat a few feet away from Putin at an RT fundraiser in December. This earns my respect, because in my opinion, Putin is not a pawn of the New World Order.
Stein is the only candidate out of the “top five” who has called the Israeli government out on its war crimes against Palestinians, many of whom live in a “open air concentration camp” like Ron Paul said during the Gaza massacre in 2009.
My favorite candidate continues to be Darrell Castle. I wish Castle all the success in the world, and hopefully he will break 200,000 votes for the first time in the history of the CP. It’s a shame he’s on so few ballots.
I have switched my support to Dr. Stein, primarily because of her foreign policy, which is far more aligned with mine than is Johnson/Weld’s.
Don Wills
FWIW, I won’t be voting for the LP candidate for president for the first time in 28 years. I will likely be voting for Jill Stein even though she’s a socialist. My reasons: IRV, war and that fact that Johnson/Weld is a joke.
WRT IRV – http://openmediaboston.org/content/jill-stein-espouses-instant-runoff-voting-through-ma-voter-choice-campaign-national-popular