So, a mere day after Stein spoke to Bernie supporters in Philadelphia, news articles are trying to expose all these crazy ideas Jill Stein holds. I've discussed some of these. She's anti GMO, anti nuclear energy, she's dodged questions on vaccinations, she wants to dismantle half our military, and her student debt idea is to use QE to erase it. I don't deny most of these are bad ideas. GMOs don't need to be labeled, and this is anti science woo woo crap. Same with nuclear, anti vaccines, etc. We can't cut the military she wants without threatening our own national security. And yes, while student debt should be forgiven, doing so via QE would likely cause inflation.
Here's the thing though. What choice do I have? Trump is even worse and is a total idiot. Pence is gonna have to do a lot of damage control for this guy. Johnson is competent, but his ideology is so counter to mine, especially on economic issues. Clinton is highly competent, but she's not going to fix the problems, she offers watered down centrism, I think she's shady as heck, and I really have reservations about rewarding her vote given the shady stuff that happened in the primary. I mean, the argument for Clinton is an argument that we don't have other options, and that we BETTER fall in line or else. She may be competent, but I really feel uncomfortable voting for her.
I still feel uncomfortable with Stein, all things considered too. But Stein is never going to win. She won't get a single electoral vote. The point of voting for Stein is more about protesting and pressuring the democrats, and hoping that they take progressives more seriously in the future. The republican and democratic parties are not going to go away. However, they have, through many times in history, been forced to change to meet their voters and their problems. I mean, before people say third parties don't matter, look at 1968. A refusal to support the democrats by the south brought down an entire democratic coalition and led to the rise of Reagan. people like to go on and on and on about 2000, but I'll counter your 2000 with 1968 every time. Or, as Stein herself brings up, what about 1860? Before then, the Republican party WAS a third party. So, while in many elections, particularly mid alignment, like 2000 was, voting for a third party isn't going to do much, if we're seeing the parties start to dealign and realign like we arguably are now, it CAN change things.
So, that's my argument for Jill Stein. It's not about her. It's not about her incompetence. It's about the bigger picture, and understanding our place within it. A vote for the democrats is a vote for the status quo. A vote for Stein is a vote for change. Stein and the greens will never ever win. But if the greens get a significant portion of the vote, especially by Bernie or busters this election who are pissed off and alienated, maybe it will cause the democrats to clean up their act and take a serious look at progressive ideas. The democrats are scared of moving left because they think that there's no demand for it. But if we start rocking the boat where they feel threatened in terms of losing elections, they will HAVE TO to win. And then, when they put forth more competent progressive candidates like Sanders, or Warren, or, say, Berniecrats making it into congress, THEN we can vote for them and get our way. We will never get our way submitting to the democratic party. It takes rocking the boat to do so. As long as the democrats have power over you, they will ignore you because you have no leverage. You need to use your leverage to support third parties to make them change.
The way I see it, Sanders' political movement has no future in the democratic party as it exists. They'll take our ideas "under advisement" and just do whatever they want anyway. We need the party to adopt the ideas in a full throated, unapologetic way.
My main issue with the Green party is that it is far too anti-nuclear, which I believe is the best way to tackle climate change, and is the most pragmatic way to end fracking. Unfortunately, Sanders was also opposed to nuclear power, and even called for a moratorium on construction and renewal of nuclear reactors.
ReplyDeleteStein isn't against vaccinations, although she does cowardly pander to the loonier groups in the Green party, and same thing in regards to the 911 truth "movement".
All this anti-science stuff is horrendous, but at least Stein actually listens to her base, insane as they might be, the same certainly cannot be said of Hillary Clinton. All the dirt on Stein combined doesn't compare to me as far as the extent of Clinton's involvement with Wall St, which alone is already worse.
As for her other two "bold" policies:
The implementation of Stein's student debt idea is deeply flawed, but nonetheless I think that at least public student debt is a problem that could justify higher inflation. Thus far it seems to have been fodder for centrist liberals to eviscerate her, although their arguments sound like they were authored by conservative think tanks.
As for reducing the size the military, I actually think is a fantastic idea, although it would need to be done gradually, perhaps over a 25-50 year period, and we cannot defund the veterans administration, as that would be criminal to punish people who suffered under our present and past, and likely future oppressive system.