The Breakfast ClubINTERVIEW: Dr.Jill Stein & Dr.Butch Ware On Running As Green Party Candidates, Trump Vs Kamala, Israel Gaza War
The Breakfast Club Sits Down With Dr.Jill Stein & Dr.Butch Ware To Discuss Running As Green Party Candidates, Trump Vs Kamala, And Israel Gaza War. Listen For More!
Wake that answer up in the morning. The Breakfast Club Morning, everybody is dj n V.
Jess hilarious, Charlamagne the guy. We are the Breakfast Club law and Rosa is filling in for Jess. And we have our sister Angela Rae with us this morning helping us out. And we got some special guests joining us. We have doctor Jill Stein welcome, hello, and doctor Butch.
Where good wepening, Yes, good morning in the building.
Y'all are a Green Party presidential candidate in running mate, Tell the people what is the Green Party and how are they different from the Democrats and the republic.
Well, for one thing, we don't take money from billionaires and bankers in APAC and Wall Street and the war machine. So we're a people powered party. That's what makes us totally different. That's what liberates us to actually tell it like it is and to stand up and fight for the people, for the healthcare that we need as a human right, for the housing that we need. Because half half of America right now, half of all renters, are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. That's not a surprise, I'm sure to the listener on this program. You know, eighty seven million people don't have the health care that we need. Our schools are in crisis. We got forty four million people carrying student debt, and you know, and a climate crisis. Yet we're spending half of our congressional dollars on the endless war machine, bringing us the likes of the genocide in Gaza and beyond. We got three you know, nuclear wars in the making right now. You know, this is where our dollars are going half of our congressional budget. It's twelve thousand dollars on average per household in America to keep this endless war machine going right now. Yet we have such urgent and dire needs, especially among communities of color and African Americans. We've got really critical needs that we need to be meeting. And that's what the Green Party is about, actually fighting for people, planet and peace over profit.
What would you say to people that feel like the Green Party is really taking votes away from Democrats and it's a disrupt a lot of people, especially a lot of older people. When you talk about other parties outside of Republican and Democrats, they say, oh, all they're doing is being disrupting. They're just taking the votes away from other parties. What are your thoughts on that?
So that's kind of the propaganda of the power machine that wants you to stay in your place basically, and to think that resistance is futile and think that you don't own your vote. I mean, who owns your vote? Politicians have to earn your vote. They don't own it. And that's the question, are they earning your vote? You know, when you actually look at our condition, people are facing a crisis really in every dimension of our lives, and it's not getting better yet our resources are being squandered. Sixty eight percent of Americans want an immediate ceasefire and an end to the genocide sixty eight percent. Yet you can hardly get a single vote on that behalf in Congress, and you're getting a standing ovation per minute for that war criminal that Yahoo, you know, who is carrying out this genocide which could be ended with a simple phone call from the president, just like Reagan did, just like Eisenhower did before him. The US is in charge. This is our genocide going on right now, and don't let them talk you into voting for genocide. If you vote for genocide, you're endorsing it. You're enabling it. We can stop it. We actually have the power. And I'll just quote two people Frederick Douglass who said power concedes nothing without a demand. The empire is trying to talk you out of your demand right now. But we have that demand. We have the numbers to make the demand. We got the solutions, we've got a system, we have an analysis which actually works, and we got to stand up and make that demand. They're trying to shame you and blame you out of making that demand that belongs to us. Our vote is our power and a democracy. Don't let them talk you out of it. And the second thing is Alice Walker, the novelist and poet who said the biggest way people give up power is by not knowing we have it to start with. We got the power if you look at the numbers, if you look at the values, if you look at the solutions that are out there, they're out there really waiting for us to stand up and demand them. And if we don't know, that's that's at our apperil us, that we're making a mess out of the world. You know, we've committed some like eighty regime change operations since the Second World War, what's going on in Gaza is a it's like a microcosm. It's like a symbol of empire and colonialism kind of run amok. But it's not the only place, you know. I mean, we've been rolling out slow motion genocides all over the world for quite some time, and you know this is catching up to us. We are no longer the dominant power around the world. Power is shifting. We need to shift with it. We can no longer be giving marching orders to the rest of the world. We need to stand up like an adult and be part of a global community and a shared power structure.
And if you can just tag me in right here, Jill, I'll go back to the first question, right, how is it different? So when I was evaluating and got caught onto the ticket three weeks ago, okay, and I had done an Instagram live with doctor Joe Stein, and I asked her a couple of questions. I had just posted a real where Kamala Harris had been asked about reparations Harris. Okay, Kamala Harris had been had been posted about reparations. I posted a real where she was talking about it, and she was asked and she you know, sort of went around for about ninety seconds, and then she ended by saying, I will never do anything that only helps black people. In other words, it was a rising tide, lift all boats. We're gonna have social policies and stuff that helps black folks by default. So I asked doctor Jill in the interview, what's your position on reparations, and she said, they behave as though it's incalculable, but it has been calculated by specialists many times. It's between ten and thirteen trillion dollars US. And I'm in favor of payments cash payments to the descendants of the enslaved. So had my attention with that right. The second point is I said, well, we know that you have been at the forefront of the struggle for Palestine liberation, and as an anti Zionist Jewish white woman, that is a powerful statement, especially seeing you get arrested at you know, pro Palestine rally. So I know where you stand on Gaza and we wouldn't be talking if you didn't stand in that place. This was before I was on the ticket, But I said, what's your overall vision of foreign policy? And she said, to dismantle the American empire, and I said, yeah, and you better hurry up quick and do it before somebody do it for you. Right, that those two processes look very different. If you take the trillion dollars a year that are being thrown away murdering other people's children in foreign countries, and instead of put that into investments in infrastructure, into social housing, into healthcare in this country, then that looks like a flourishing, prosperous future, not.
Just for Black America but for all of America. Right.
Whereas if you continue to torment humanity with the most brutal imperialist state ever to exist in human history, that we're coming up on a nine to eleven more. Al Right, Jill and I are going to do something on March in Detroit. Well, what did Malcolm say about chickens coming home to roost? If we keep exporting this violence all over the globe, then it is going to keep coming right back here to our homes. And that's something that doesn't just concern black and brown folk. That's something that concerned all folk. Last thing that I'll say on this in response to here to your question, v I, would you know one version that we get to that question? You know regularly is like what you're throwing your vote away? You know, right, that's the other version of it, Okay. And the thing is is in this broke electoral college. And by the way, the Green Party stands for abolishing the electoral college, okay, And so that hangover from slavery and bringing in ranked choice voting in all voting systems so that you're not putting people on opposite sides where they bang on each other. Right, the real criminal Red and Blue is not the honorable street organizations like the Bloods and the Crypts. The real criminal gangs red and Blue are the Democrats and Republicans, and right now they're being encouraged to bang on each other in public. If you have ranked choice voting, then people are going to be drawn to the middle rather than drawn to extremes. But let's go back to the question about throwing your vote away in this electoral college system. All y'all throwing your votes away because unless you live in one of them four or five swing states, it has already decided that your state is going to go either blue or Red before you ever.
Get into the booth.
So instead of throwing your vote away on team Red or Team Blue when it don't make no difference in the state that you in, Why not vote for reparations?
Now? Why not vote for a ceasefire? Now? Why not build.
Power in a green party that is going to give people an actual, viable third party alternative so that we can get these thugs on either side of the aisle to behave like grown folks.
Well, so you raise an interesting point around throwing your vote away, and there's actually numbers on that, doctor Sin. You raised over seven point three million dollars for a recount in twenty sixteen, a recount of votes that probably actually do matter. In Michigan, for example, you acquired fifty four hundred and sixty three votes. Of course, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton by ten thousand, seven hundred and four votes, and she lost by half a percentage point. In Michigan and Wisconsin, thirty one thousand six votes you acquired. Trump beat Hillary Clinton by twenty two one hundred and seventy seven votes. In Pennsylvania forty nine thousand, four hund eighty five votes, and Donald Trump be her by a little over sixty seven thousand votes. You engaged in raising money for a recount because our votes actually do matter. Can you talk about the results of that recount in those three states that I just named.
Sure, and let me say that every vote counts, you know, and we believe because every vote counts. That's why we don't want the electoral College telling us that some states matter and others don't. We believe. And in terms of how we are conducting our campaign, we're in swing states, we're in red states, we're in blue states. We are all about building power and really helping to help people to grab the power that belongs to us. The fallacy there which is what you know the Democrats in particular harp on, and it's not true the idea that votes for Greens came at the expense of votes for Hillary Clinton. We actually know from in fact from exit poll and just from talking to people, people who vote for us, and it's about sixty one percent of everybody who votes for us would not have come out to vote. So those votes didn't come from Hillary Clinton, and some of them actually came from Trump to So if you actually crunch the numbers, what you see is that the outcome would not have changed at all. Uh if we weren't in there. Yes, no, no electoral college vote would have changed exactly none. If you calculate the fact, sixty percent, sixty one percent of our votes would not have voted one bit and of the remaining.
To do that calculation, but the only thing I'd be glad to share it with you. No, No, I'm not. Actually I'm a lawyer because I don't do math like that. We don't really know that. Like, folks come in even and you all know this too, you right, Folks will say Ralph.
Vader, who was one of about six third party candidates in that election, But you don't.
Know what my point was going to be.
He's going to that, Folks will say, and it's happened Hillary Clinton, has happened to Kamla Harris, has happened Donald Trump. Folks will say in a poll that they were going to vote or they are going to vote for this person.
That's true. You never know. But we also know that one out of every three voters did not vote in the last presidential election in twenty twenty. One out of every three eligible voters chose not to vote. And who were they? They were largely disproportionately of color, young, and low income, exactly the people to whom our agenda speaks. So you know, a lot about voting is indeterminate, and it's not going to be predicted by polls because polls, you know, are by definition people who tend to vote. But what we're talking to are people who tend not to vote. Don't they also deserve a vote? And let me also cite the statistics that show the numbers are off the charts right now in terms of people who want other options. This is sampled every year by Gallup and also by Pew. But Gallup shows that the numbers now are sixty three percent who are saying that the two parties, the two parties are doing such a bad job of serving the public interest that sixty three percent say we need another option, we need another major party. So it's like, amidst all this indeterminate stuff, and you're absolutely right, you can't predict a lot of this. Are we going to clamp down and say, therefore shut down choices, therefore shut down options when that's what people are demanding? Who and why are people demanding it? Because they've been thrown under the bus for long enough by both parties and they really want other options. So what we're saying is, let's give people those other options. If you're concerned about splitting the vote, so called spoiled elections, there's a solution for that. It's called ranked choice voting. We have been pushing that for twenty years and the Democrats keep shutting it down. Why do they shut it down because they want to extort your vote. They want to be able to use fear campaigning and smear campaigning because they don't want to face the music. Oh, it's hardly a new charge. No, we can document that.
Another question was addressed to question.
Yeah, I just want to say to add a piece to it. And this has come you know, since like I joined the campaign, reached out to colleagues. Dahlia Mulgahead a key researcher at ISPU Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. So these are publicly available numbers, and this goes to the heart of the question that you asked about previous elections, but it's about this upcoming one.
And then it's.
About like where we actually are so key swing states Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Georgia. Okay, these are all for demographic purposes, essentially the same state, similar proportion of African Americans, similar proportion of Muslims. There's little differences in the way that they're comprised, but specifically for the Muslim and Black populations are these are very similar states. So in twenty twenty, Joe Biden received sixty five percent of the Muslim vote in those states, and Joe Biden would not have won any of those states without getting that big majority amongst the Muslim vote.
Okay.
January twenty twenty four, twelve percent of the vote according to polling polling yes, from sixty five percent to twelve percent. Okay, And the polling says, well, why Gaza, right, So, so eighty percent of the people that have have bailed said that Gaza is the reason, even if that's for people that were Trump voters, that's for people that were Biden voters. The Muslim community has already been lost and it's not coming back. And the thing is is that in those swing states you are never getting the Muslim vote vote back, which means, in point of fact, if we know this, then the Democrats have for sure known this. They are not winning any of those swing states without those Muslim voting impossible. Dead man walking, bro, Like, I'm serious, it is a zombie.
Well, there will show. But right now they're looking like, yeah, yeah, so that's the point.
Yeah, yeah, So that's what.
They're showing is that it's upwards of seventy percent of those that are walking away from from the Democratic Party are walking towards third third party candidates. So in point of fact, only about five percent eight percent. I'm just there were two different numbers from two different points in time that Dahalia had cited, so it was somewhere between five and ten percent are going towards Trump. It's a very small number, a very small number are remaining uncommitted. The overwhelming majority are going third party. And this was before it became clear right that the Green Party was going to be the strongest of those three parties. So then another poll run by the Council on American Islamic Relations CARE showed just last week that that in the Muslim community nationwide now now not just talking about those three swing states, but nationwide had us polling neck and neck with Kamala Harris. And actually a new poll was just released that came out this morning. I didn't get the chance to verify it whether it's a scientific poll or not, that we're not leading in that race.
You guys are you're saying that you're competing in red states in battleground states. I'm sorry, y'all, you'll jumping too, but let's keep going. You know what I'm saying, there are at least thirteen states where you all are not like on the ballot or folks would have to write you in or there it's still contested. You're actively petitioning, for example, to be on the ballot in Rhode Island. So in those states where there are also Muslim people who you're saying you're winning over based on a poll, that you're going to find the information for what options do they have? This is if this is a fifty straight state strategy, y'all are short by thirteen.
So in every state except for three there are three states that don't allow writ in writing campaigns, but wright ins are doable campaigns. Joe Biden himself won a write in in New Hampshire because he was not in the primary for various Yeah. Right, but even so, even in a primary, he ran a write in campaign and did fabulous. So having the ability to do a right and if the community is really motivated and.
In the overwhelming majority of states, we are actually.
On the way we are. We will be on his right ends in all the states, with the exception of I think it's South Dakota.
Indiana, and Oklahoma.
That's right, those three states.
We are on the ballot right ends, yes, go ahead.
Well, so we will be a choice, an anti genocide, anti war, pro worker, pro reparations, climate emergency choice, and the only one which has nationwide status. We will be on the ballot for ninety five percent of voters. That is more than enough to win an election. But you know, I don't want to just focus on winning the election. This is an odd election and I would not rule out a win, but that's not the only reason to run. Every vote cast for our campaign is a vote against genocide. It is a shot across the bow of the endless war machine to say that we the people are getting organized, we are moving forward, we are growing. We have organization and infrastructure that we have never had before. We've never been able to break through like we are now because Greens have been ahead of the curve on a lot of things like climate change, on reparations, on healthcare as a human right, on housing as a human right, also on gaza and genocide. We've been very much ahead of the curve and on cutting the military budget. We're spending as much as the next ten major military budgets around the world right now, we're more than all ten of them put together. We can cut our military budget, which is not benefiting us here in America, and put those dollars into what we critically need right here and right now. We should have. We need to be raising the floor for schools across the country. Why should this quality of your school depend on luxury housing in your community? Housing should schools should not depend only on property taxes from housing. The federal government should be in the business of raising the floor so that we have a common standard across the country, so regardless of your zip code, you have good, high quality education where you're starting out. Things like that is where we need to be spending our money, not on endless war, on genocide, on killing children, on massacring women and children every day. You know, the police violence in this country. We don't need that police violence, and there are alternatives to that they can actually move us forward.
Yeah, go, we're a candidate in twenty twelve, twenty sixteen, what's the difference in twenty twenty four, Oh.
Man, it's the difference between night and day. You know. It's the thing about being ahead of the curve and then the curve catches up to you. Curve is catching up to us on all the things. Really our agenda, in fact, the agenda that we've been putting forward since twenty twelve really is the progressive democratic agenda right now. Healthcare is a human right, housing is a human right. Reparations to the extent that they give it lip service to the Green New Deal.
Yeah, you want to if you're not planning to win an election.
We said we wasn't planning.
I'm saying it's not the only understand candidate. To hear that from a candidate, it kind of gives like, well.
Why are you here? Then it does sound.
Like may I go in on this please? Because I would not have joined this campaign. I would not have come out of like, you know, prestigious position in the academy and organizing if I didn't think that we had a chance to win this fight. Look, I'm converted to Islam after reading the autobiography of Malcolm X at age fifteen. Malcolm brought me into knowledge of self, brought me to Islam. School me on the black radical tradition. I've been teaching and building this community. I speak fluent Waloff, lived in West Africa for years. I got a good life and I'm not coming out of that in order to play no spoiler. So I was raising that Black Muslim tradition, and just like Muhammad Ali, I came in because I believe we have a chance to shock the world. And I know that the deck is stacked against us. But this right here is part of our strategy, right because what happens is is that when people hear this agenda and understand that we're talking about erasing the generational wealth gap now right, having a bunch of black Wall Streets and new Tulsas that we can establish now, not another one hundred years. Not going with your hands out to the Democrats, like Malcolm said, where they, you know, treat you like a political chump. You put them first, they put you last. As Malcolm said, we erase that in this generation we build black businesses, Black Wall Street and they can't burn it down this time. So by appearing in a form like this, what is going to happen is we're going to get on a debate stage and when this woman goes up on the debate state exactly, well, who knows. But the point is that as soon as we are in the mainstream media conversation exactly we have a watch party tonight, we.
Have a response. We will be doing a response meet qualifications for.
The correct qualifications established by an exclusionary framework. His goal is to silence and throw off the ballots for voters.
Threshold for you to be pulling it at least fifteen percent.
Well before that, there wasn't a fifteen percent threshold when this was run, when it was run by the League of Women Voters, before it was hijacked by the private corporations of the Democratic and Republican parties, before they were in charge. It was whether or not you actually were going to be a choice for enough voters across the country that you could potentially win the election. So we have satisfied that criterion, the basic criteria I mean as a voter, because polls are self fulfilling, they are self fulfilling prophecies. If you're in the poll, as determined by whatever you know, private polling agency, If you are in the polls, people are going to know about you. If you're not even being polled people want, they don't.
They do not predict outcomes, they produce them.
And if people are saying, if people are screaming for other choices, don't they have a right to hear those other choices?
I think they do.
But I think that what you what you have are people that need a certain level of validity to the campaign. I will you will not hear Donald Trump or Kamala Harris tonight on this debate stage saying hey, it's not just about us winning.
Winning is everything.
And even if we even if we want to say, hey, this shouldn't be a binary choice. I grew up also by raised by an activists. My dad brought home the you know the picture of all of the parties in South Africa. Multi party democracy is great. That's how we have.
We have a binary choice between.
But the American is in the constitution, the American people. The American people don't want that. The American people are explicitly on records in absolutely unprecedented numbers saying we want other choices. And not only do people want their choices, they want to their choices.
I do I do believe in the third party.
I think we need other options, but it does seem like you all have a lot more smoke for the Democratic Party.
I just wonder why.
Yeah, So if I if I can aicular point so so to to kind of finish the previous one, I absolutely would not be in this race. If I didn't think that we had a chance to win, I wouldn't waste alls time and I wouldn't waste my own time.
So that's that's that's number one.
We have had to up until this point in time target the Democrats specifically because they're the ones that are suing to keep us off the ballot. They're the ones that are trying to knock us off the ballot in Georgia. They are the ones that are doing everything they can to keep us from coming. If we were not a problem for them, AOC wouldn't be, you know, doing her a little sorry attack ads, you know against us.
You know that we.
Came back at so so the Democrats are attacking us. We're responding in kind. Just to be plain about this. The reason why they don't want doctor Joe Stein on a debate stage is because she will be able to look at Team Read and say this is a party that is led by domestic terrorists and a criminal, okay, try to overthrow the government on January sixth, and is convicted of numerous crimes, including sexual abuse that that that amounts to rape and so forth. So this man is a domestic terrorist and a criminal.
Okay.
She can look to Kamala Harris and sorry, hold on, no, no, it's honest to God, no disrespect to be to be to be perfectly honest. It's just the way that I had gotten used to pronouncing the name because it resembles a name that is used in West Africa.
Getting it right though, yeah, you have to.
The other Absolutely, I will not make that mistake again. I'm big men get jumped by black hold on it not me, listen, richly deserved. And if I act a full check my black ass, that's fine, Like no joke, Like I expect to be held accountable by my people, whether those are black folk or Muslims.
So that is all love and it does all welcome.
You're not gonna get no pushback from me on that.
So where was I?
She will turn to Kamala okay and be able to say this person is actually a war criminal. In the following respect, the ic C and CJ have made rulings that the Zionist entity, the state of Israel, is an illegal apartheid state, okay, conducting an illegal genocide in the midst of an illegal occupation, and that anyone that provides material support to those things is actually complicit in war crimes. So you will say that there's a domestic terrorist on team Red and a war criminal on team blue. One party on this stage is not led by a criminal. One party on this stage wants to restore power to the American people, give a viable third party alternative. And just to return to the point, yes, I do want that shot at their chin, and I'm coming for Trump, Like I've already got my game plan laid out for Trump.
You know, Trump thinks he can do nicknames.
I already tagged Aoci Pelosi, right, and and the reels have already started with that.
So I'm coming for Trump.
But the reality is is that we have had to get the Democrats out of the way because they're trying to keep us off of ballots.
Yes, when you talk about AOC though, and it sounds like you have issues with her, right, Yeah, her whole thing is, like you guys, according to what she's saying, that it doesn't add city council seats, state electives.
She's round balland she's wrong.
Fifteen Yeah, because well how important because here for the.
People, that we're not growing, we're not running for lower office, and that we disappear except four years we come out for president. Those were her claims, and they are absolutely false and misleading. She should know better because she was actually campaigning in twenty seventeen. She ought to know better. No, what she talked about was the Working Families Party, but that is not a third party. It is a second What she mentioned was the Working Families Party, her third party, and what that does, that is a second ballot line. It's not a third party. It's a second ballot line for the Democrats, and it runs people who are already Democrats or they're independent on their way to becoming Democrats. And the main thing about Working Families versus true independent, non corporate political grassroots parties. We are under attack by the Democrats in particular, and that's what you know. It's the Democrats. It's not the Republican It is the Democrats who bragged starting back in March that they now had an army of lawyers to basically exercise law fare, looking for trivial details where they could do a gotcha and get us thrown off the ballot, violating this spirit of the law UH to basically eliminate their competition. They have also advertised publicly for infiltrators and spies to mess up our ballot drives. And they also hijacked our public funding three hundred thousand dollars. I know it's not a lot in the scheme of what Democrats and Republicans run on, but we're at grassroots, people powered, low budget part party that public funding meant a lot, and that's that's part of the reason why we're not on in three in three states.
I just have a question, and I would want all y'all to chime in on this.
Is it fair to call the vice president a war criminal when she's actively calling for an end to the war on God and she's just the vice president?
Well, it's lip service, you know. I mean, she could what would say?
I can't believe what you say because I see what you do. You have the power to influence policy.
Now, I mean, did you speak out?
She could speak out? No, she's what she speaks out in the same way that.
That Palestinians on the stage talk about not a single one where they held them off.
They ordering them like animals and Gaza and then they muzzle them like animals.
At the Democrats, even when they are faithful supporters at the party and of their candidates, they still would not allow a single Palestinian to get up and talk about just to humanized Palestinian, it means nothing to call when Biden is already doing that. He's already doing that. And uh Kamala Harris, you know, spoke a little more from the heart about the plight of the Palestinians, but not any different whatsoever about what to do. Basically, she said that, you know, our support for Israel is undying. It's uh, you know, it's an absolute We will stand by Israel no matter what come.
Hell or h parties are bought and paid for by Apak in the war machine.
So that that that that's the thing there.
Their souls are folded on tiny little pieces of paper that are buried deep in the pockets of raytheon Lackey Martin, I'm.
Not I'm not even I'm not even playing with you.
And let me just say this because because I don't know I'm gonna get the chance to say this in another.
Venue where will matter this much.
As a historian of anti slavery resistance movements in West Africa and the diaspora, as a historian of the black resistance tradition in continental as well as the asperg Africa, I am personally offended by the way that blackness is being weaponized in this electoral cycle in order to justify white supremacist genocide in Gaza. Okayolm so Malcolm X my mentor and I didn't meet him, but the bread the Autobiography of Malcolm X. Malcolm said of Zionism of the Zionist state, the Israeli state, he said that this is a white Jewish population, Ashkenazi population being given power by white imperialists to remove brown Arabs from their land. He said, so, therefore, Zionism is white supremacy. In nineteen seventy nine open Letters to the Born Again James Baldwin said the same thing. He said, the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews. It was created for the salvation of Western interests. Okay, so when you go through Kwame Toure Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Tony Morris, and Angela Davis, Assadashakord. These are all people that cited the Palestinian resistance. Will not even to bring in the Africans, right, not to mention Nelson Mandela, Not to mention Thomas Sunkarr, who talked about Zionism as being the face of imperialism in the Middle East. Right, this is what the black radical tradition taught me. And the Black radical tradition taught me that if we weaponize our blackness in favor of white supremacy, then we become apostates from blackness itself, because blackness.
Is not a race.
It is an oppositional ideology to white supremacy. I'm a historian of Africa by training. Never before in human history had people speaking hundreds of different languages made themselves into one. People developed the comic culture so that you and I can relate to one another. You and I can relate to one another on the basis of.
A shared culture.
And we got our Latin and Caribbean brothers and sisters, you know, especially Puerto Rican's and Dominicans. But hey, but also you know more broad, right, that's sharing that.
Culture, that is a miracle.
It's never happened before in human history. Because what happened is is that an oppositional identity to white supremacy came into being, and.
That is us.
And and when I see that identity now being weaponized to justify the most heinous genocide in our time, Like Harriet Tubman is rolling over in her grave right now, sojourn her truth is rolling over in her grave right now. Bill Hooks is rolling over in her grave right now.
Who did I miss?
Do you know what I'm saying, The idea that we would weaponize something as sacred as black womanhood and then utilize this to justify.
Blowing you know you.
Hear what I'm saying, period.
Because I want to make sure I clarify before I response to it, is that because Kamala is a black woman, and she's running as a black woman, and she's not speaking out against things that you want her to, she's using her black womanhood to.
Know I think.
So what I've saw is I saw a lot of black abolitionists of both sexes, of all of all of all gender identities. I saw a lot of black abolitionists going hard in the paint at Joe Biden right, And then as soon as Kamala was at the top of the ticket, radio silence. All of a sudden, people that you could count on that were solid through and through as abolitionists suddenly become apologists for empire.
And thought about why?
Yes, of course I thought about that.
Why is that?
The reason is is that we have this aspirational hope that is related to like black achievement and black power and black excellence, and it was weaponized in the Obama presidency.
But let's so let me Can.
It be something else?
Could be?
Could it be I know her?
Yes?
Could it be that she is someone who listens to voices on all sides. Could it be that when the opportunity, you could turn your head, but I've been no, no, no, you could turn your head. But I've been in the room, doctor, I was.
I was.
I was actually not turning my back. I was looking to see what this respond with.
The response on the other side of the room is over here engaged.
Because I can't I can't see if I can't see the people there behind me, No, dis.
We're all having healthy conversation, but nobody against anybody.
I never turn my back on Angela ever again.
The last thing that the last making me an enemy conversation because it's the strategy, because I knew you was kind of getting your way to this, and it's very disappointed to see you do that and get.
What are we missing?
Pad?
I would definitely like to hear.
Could it be you're getting little nervous?
I understand happened to me all the time.
I just had to.
Okay, I can't you know, you don't need to you don't need.
To be protected from me.
My words are not weapons, and actually is just really to dispel some of the myths. I think that since you all believe in polls a lot more than I do, there are a lot of folks that are saying that they still are trying to get to know Kamala Harris even clearly how to pronounce, pronunciate her name, pronounce her name. So what I would say is it could be that they've seen an opportunity for for negotiation, for hearing another perspective.
I've been in the rooms with her on.
Justice reform issues and others helped to convene those rooms where she's been more open. Because what we do know about how politics works is that it can't just be this wish agenda. I love a lot of what you all have on your agenda. I'll call it after seven ready or not, agen, I'll give you the sun, the rain, the moon starts mountain.
But there's really way who called it a wish list? Mean, the same people that spend a trillion dollars of y'all's money blowing up other people's kids are saying it's a wish list to have an actual social program.
I think I think that it's not propaganda. I'm saying it because it's I've worked on Capitol Hill. It's very difficult to get what you're trying to achieve. So just for example, Jill.
Can talk about what you can do just from the executive authorware.
Yes, maam, thank you.
Just for an example, I'd love to know how many members, how many voting members in the United States House Representatives.
So we have been blocked the Democrats, the ballot memory interfere They put spies and infiltrators on our campaign.
How many voting members compare us?
No, no, no, no, no, no answer the question how many voting members in the United States House of Representatives Republican, Democrat and Independent?
How many total?
How many total are there?
What is it?
Six hundred some?
No?
No, it's four hundred and thirty.
Five plus one hundred in the Senate, right.
One hundred, yes, I said House representatives, one hundred in the Senate. Of those four hundred and thirty five in the House of the one hundred and how many just one moment.
I'm not trying to put you on the defense.
I'm just saying this because the hell is my passion, that's where I grew up as a professional.
Right, how many of them are Green Party members?
Okay, I know where you're going to show that the Greens are powerless. I want to make the point, Well, this is usually this is usually part of that argument you're trying to make.
What was the point I'm going before you rebutted, doctor Stein?
What was the point?
I want to know?
How many voting members of the Green Party in the House of the Senate currently exists?
Currently? There are none. However, if you look at the American people, you know how many are voting against the genocide hardly any how many are voting for healthcare as a human right, which would actually save US half a trillion dollars a year. We the people are not represented so not being there is not a strike against the Green.
Party, Okay, and that's fine.
How many of them right now based on and I caught it a wishless It wasn't to be offensive?
Is I have a wishness? Is wanted an ideal?
Man?
What I'm saying is it's not dismissive here my heart right, but your hearts mispronouncing of commonly hear my heart of because there are none that currently exists. That means you got to have allies. Oh are your allies in the House.
And City health. See if y'all.
Would have just slowed down a minute, y'all had guns conversation, right, we try to We got to do basic, but how many how many before the allies, some of your allies in the House and the Senate that would help to get this very aggressive agenda done.
So let me tell you how the agenda would get done. For one thing, we need yess, yes, talk about that. So what I want to speak to specifically is town hall meetings, which used to require representatives to meet their districts. They don't do that anymore. They meet with their donors, well, they largely meet with their donors. They're meeting with their donors like ninety percent of their waking time. They're hardly ever going to town hall meetings. I mean, we've been out there on the campaign trail, and when we mentioned this, we get nods all around the room, especially from the opponents of genocide, or from those who are demanding healthcare as a human right, or from those who want rent control across the country so that we can actually have you know, have secure housing in this country. There are so many things that the American people are demanding, but our elected officials are accountable to their donors. So you have a you have got to catch twenty two here. You have a very difficult system to change. How do you change it? You know, and it only changes in a crisis. When did the third party come along? That is, it was the Republican Party, you know, which was the abolitionist party. It entered into the scene, you know, basically right before the Civil War, and they had been preparing for it running, you know, and before the Republicans, there were other anti other abolitionist parties. But it's a long road to get there, and you have to work to get there, and you know, and then suddenly they burst on the scene. When the time was right and right now, we know that the American people are clamoring for other options, the other options, like namely US, we are the major option on the ballot across the country. We are being denied airtime, We're being censored, we're being silenced, We're being canceled effectively, very much by an explicit plan through the Democratic Party, which they've actually been explicit about.
I understand that, and you've and you've repeated that today, doctor Stein. What I'm trying to say is with the like the very aggressive agenda you have, I said to you all with a lot of what you have there, what I'm talking about is as a political strategy is.
Let me tell you on day one, let me tell you on day one, on day one, we stop the genocide. Okay, there's a lot of lies, so there's a lot that they but I can't get answer your question. However, denies the power that the president has as the executive The president has a fair amount of executive authority to actually begin the process. So that process begins with stopping the genocide on day one, which happens with a phone call. It's happened before. This absolutely will happen, especially if we invoke the weapons and barberent on issues where you have executive authority. What you need our allies among the people, But you don't need the boats in Congress for much of this agenda. To declare and a climate emergency, which we have. The Colorado River is about to shut down. We got people dying from heat, from inadequate food supply. People can't afford their food. Yet the major source of food in the US is in deep trouble right now. The Colorado River is within one to two years of shutting down. That supplies the California agriculture system. Its drought. Yeah, it cannot get into the system. It can no longer get through the outlets coming out of Lake need which is where you have this big reservoir. It's almost too low to make it into the irrigation system to reach many states, but especially California agriculture, which supplies half of the fruits and vegetables for the US. So you think food prices are bad right now, just wait a year or two. They're going to be in real trouble. So we would declare a climate emergency, which there absolutely is right now, And we just had over one hundred days of over one hundred degree weather in Phoenix. You know, we got weather conditions that have never happened before. We're in serious jeopardy, not to mention the storms and drought and the trouble for farmers and all that. So we declare the climate emergency, and that immediately triggers the release of over half a trillion dollars every year in emergency funding to begin creating that Green New Deal that is an emergency jobs program so no worker is left behind.
Yes, it could do that right now.
That could happen right now, And if I had just had something that that are our brilliant and talented campaign manager, Jason Call who happens to be in the room with us, I don't know if the.
Cameras want to pad to him.
So so when we were having this conversation last night, after after you know, a similarly robust conversation with with with Mehdi Hassan, the we made the point and Jason was the one that brought this into the conversation that if we do land that knockout punch that Muhammad Ali versus Sunny listed knockout punch, and we managed to get thirty four percent of the electoral college votes in this country, right, and we go from the.
Far four percent of the of the vote the actual actual, which translated majority and the electoral college college.
Thank you for correcting the historian, because we've got a brilliant policy mind here and I'm still new to this and happy to be corrected by you know, by both family, you know, and and new family, and yes, exactly. So the point is, though, is that if we move from that five percent, you know that that that we feel is basically assured at this point in time, that will lead to ten million in federal funding to run the next election, so that we're not chasing, you know, behind.
If we have moved to the point.
Where Jill is able to make that phone call that we've moved from that five percent to that thirty four percent, that will mean that there is a profound mandate that comes from the American people with that office.
That means that, yes, you might have these you.
Know, intransigent, entrenched positions on both Teams Blue and Team Red, but what it will mean is that they will have to respond in a different way to Team Green if we have that kind of popular mandate. And that's why we're trying to take the case to the American people. We might fall short in making that case. They may never show us their chance to where we get to throw that knockout punch. But in the meantime, we are able to consolidate power that can be utilized in the next electoral cycle and in subsequent electoral cycles to give the American people a genuine choice rather than just the two gangbangers.
So when you talk about a third the democracy, you know, like Donald Trump is right, we can all agree, yes, yes, absolutely, What if because of y'all, you know, he ended up winning and then there is no more democracy for y'all even have a chance to be a threat?
Yeah, so, and it's a good question, so get asked.
Yes.
I mean Trump is out front, you know, in interfering with the peaceful transfer of power, So a real threat to democracy. The Democrats on their end don't get a lot of they're they're not held accountable for this, but they are throwing their competitors off the ballot in advance of the election.
They really hire a bunch of lawyers to get Yes, we can send you.
The articles if you like. In the Washington Post and the New York Times, they're bragging actually they're bragging not only about the consequences, but even when their plan was launched back in March, they are bragging that they have hired an army of lawyers basically to find faults in our you know, in our petitions, in our electoral process of getting on the ballot. So they and we have there, we have screenshots of their ads which they have since taken down, but they actually have ads advertising for people to manage infiltrators and spies into our campaigns. And then they actually did hijack three hundred thousand dollars in our public funding, which we critically needed for the timing of ballid access and that's why, for example, we missed Oklahoma because we didn't have the cash on hand to be able to pay the fee, which is you know what what Oklahoma requires. So yeah, they are pulling out all the stops, and then they they have I'm I'm sure AOC was being an attack dog there because she was put up to some ridiculous story which really did not hold water and I think was really quite embarrassing to her at the end of the day. Before her, it was Jamie Harrison, the head of the DNC, who was trying to smear me about being a Russian agent. Well, that was long put to rest by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which which looked into that smear campaign for three years. Actually, I had a detailed investigation by the Senate Intelligence.
Spirit and doctor Stein, given the fact that you were sitting at the head table with Vladimir Putin next to Michael Flynn, who was no, literally.
No, not next to Michael Finn, No, not exame.
He was at the table with National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, who was found to have Do you know in the twenty sixteen election in just months?
Do you know what my message your election?
Do you know what my message was?
And what I understand from what you said is that you weren't able to give that message because there was no one to try.
Actually, but I was a major speaker at the conference. What you saw was a photo from the dinner afterwards.
Dinner with Vladimir Putin.
Doc Vladimir Putin came in and sat down for ten minutes without translator with you yet well not with me on the other side, the only person I could actually talk to because there was so much noise and music and entertainment going on. The only person I could get a word in edgewise too, was the former Foreign Minister for Germany, Willie Wimmer, who was sitting on my right, on my left, and my speech, you know, made three points. My speech made three points. One is that we needed an immediate peace offensive in the Middle East and that Vladimir Putin needed to stop bombing Syria, which he had just begun doing. I told him that he was following in the footsteps of you US foreign policy, which was a disaster by way of trying to bomb our way to peace in the Middle East. The second point was that we need a global green new deal because we have a crisis that impacts all of us. We need to move our money from the military to actually confronting our true real threat to our survival, the climate. And the third thing being we need to get rid of the nuclear weapons, that too is a threat to our survival. And right now that is a law, that is a law of the land. The Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty is now required by the United Nations, the vast majority of the world nations have signed on, but not the nuclear weapons holding nations, not Israel, not Russia, not the US, not China. So I was there to promote those three things, not just to Russia, but to the world press, which was.
The dinner, which the American intelligence officials say is the Kremlin mouthpiece.
And I just am curious if you were there, you were sitting in this picture that I so. I was there to speak to.
Global media, including the Canadian broadcasting system, the BBC, China, India, world media, to know that there is another constituency within the US. We are not all about being empire, about conducting endless war against black and brown people around the world and ginning up nuclear weapons. And we have, by the way, led the charge in dismantling the nuclear treaties, so that right now we are risking nuclear war on three fronts. Did you know that one nuclear armed submarine alone contained the equivalent of five thousand Hiroshima bombs. Nuclear confrontation is a threat to us all because of the nuclear winter thing. And there's so much which is not being addressed. There's so much which the American people deserve to know, including how much this is costing us.
Asking it says engaging with foreign assets as a pattern for doctor Jill Stein. Previously, the Senate Intelligence Committee investigated links between Stein's twenty sixteen campaign Andrussia's efforts to interfere in the election, while an indictment bought by Special Counsel Robert Muller found at the Kremlin's Internet Research Agency had used social media to promote her candidacy.
So that, uh, that has been more than a thousand times.
Oh yeah, I mean so the the Senate Intelligence Committee. They don't mention what the finding of the Senate Intelligence Committee was, which was that there was absolutely no fault on my part whatsoever. The question that was raised there was did Russian social media have an impact? And was I on you know, a beneficiary of that?
In the Senate they said, you repeatedly parodied Kremlin views and posted you know what.
They consider a Kremlin view. They consider reparations a Kremlin view. They consider the civil rights movement actually a Kremlin view. They consider racial disparities a Kremlin view. So these are these are these are Department of Defense talking points and these are unfortunately the DNC talking points as well, which repeatedly tries to smear me as a Russian agent. Yes, and this has been very specifically found lacking. And the report, get this, the report that was initially used to supposedly show that Russians had a social media campaign supporting me that was written by a cybersecurity firm called the New Knowledge Corporation. New Knowledge had to disband shortly after publishing that because they were exposed for conducting an interference campaign themselves in the twenty seventeen Senate election in Alabama. And how did they do that? They pretended to be a Russian influence campaign on social media. So they did exactly what they have accused the Russians of doing. They actually did and put it under the false guise of being a Russian interference campaign.
So this is.
Vladimir Putin or any of anybody on in the anybody within his team.
Have you ever had anythine?
I have tried to and have never been able to. But that has been my goal to actually advance each of these three absolutely critical issues. And in the words of John F. Kennedy, we must not negotiate out of fear, but we must not fear to negotiate. Look at the Ukraine War, for example, which is an absolute disaster. It is a war being fought to the last Ukrainian. No one is paying a steeper price in blood than the people of Ukraine. Right now, this is an absolutely criminal and tragic war, but it was completely avoidable. Even after it began. There were negotiations taking place under the auspices of Turkey which brought together the various parties, and you had a peace agreement between Russia and between Ukraine. And that peace treaty was disrupted by the US and by the UK which came in and said no, you may not, you may not make peace here. The US has been invested in this, unfortunately as part of our plan for the expansion of US influence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's a longer story, we don't need to go into it, but this is an absolutely avoidable conflict. You have to be very skeptical of the talking points that we're hearing from.
America. Well, so that I hear a lot of geo political issues with and so.
I'd like to bridge between those by going back to something that you asked about, like Team Read right and how we appeal. So just to be clear right that part of the appeal to Team read is to actually focus on America. So one of the things that that is a marked difference between the way that the corporate interests that control the Democrats and the corporate interests that control the Republicans are are are configured. Is that on the so called right end of the spectrum, there are a lot more people that are interested in disengagement from forever wars and want to focus instead on domestic policy. So I think that that is one place where we can absolutely make an appeal. And you know the appeal that Jill, you know, sort of framed and I'll be bun about this. Like my grandfather, Rudolph Where Senior he never so, yeah, I go by Butch, but I'm actually Rudolf where the third, you know, my grandfather from Georgia, your father grew up in DC.
My son is also Rudolph, you know. So we got four of them.
But Rudolph Senior never would have voted for Democrats because he didn't like that culture of dependency, going with your hand out. He was somebody that did things for himself. So the idea of saying we can cut your personal income taxes, we can cut your small business taxes because we're gonna make billionaires pay their fair share, and we'll stop taking money out of your pocket and handle it handing it to raytheon by laundering it through genocides, right, that we feel that that is something that will appeal to people, you know, not just on the right, but like people that are not thinking about voting at all. That this is actually a really, really crucial point, and it is one place where Team Blue is absolutely speeding us towards World War three more rapidly than Team Red. Is Okay, Team Red might be speeding us towards a kind of societal collapse.
Right and fast. Exactly what.
No, No, But the thing is is that the truth of the matter is is that imperialism and fascism are two sides of the same coin. One is the side that faces outwards and the other is the side that faces inward. And I made a social media post before I got brought onto the team that said it this way, is that whether you vote Team Read or Team Blue, militarized fascism wins because the APAK and the weapons manufacturers are patrons of both networks. And just to return to that point, right, I've been on campuses. I organized a Palestini liberation concert on October twenty first, I organized a Black and Palestinian solidarity panel at my local Mosque on October eleventh, four days after like your brother was not backing down, and the Zionist came from my job within the month. Okay, and you know, a Negro still standing. So but the point of all that is just to say that when we launched this campaign to try to actually bring people into this conversation, you see that this is actually where the American people stand in The American people do not want this forever war and they do not one militarized fascists coming to their campuses to crack kids heads open.
I had to stand out in front of the encampment.
And that's democratic governor in in in California, that's Democrat. Uh you know mayors in places like New York City. It's Democrats that are running cop cities. So the thing is is bro fascism is already here. It's just that one of it is like fascism and the other is fascism.
But the truth is that the purple fascists, the purple.
Imperialist Team Red and Team Blue are run by the same funders, and who funds you runs you. So there's a there's a discourse about putting off fascism, but the reality is is that fascism was already here because we already can't speak freely.
We already have.
People university presidents losing their job under democratic regimes. We already have kids that are lining up for people peaceful protests having their heads knocked open. Or you have the cops standing to the side at u c l A. So the thugs can can can knock kids heads open.
So so I'm sorry. The fear Margaret ain't gonna work on me.
The only the only thing that I would say to you is, I think is very dangerous rhetoric to say they're two sides of the same coin.
I do think it's important for us to understand democrats. Yea, I think it's well, I think it's dangerous to all of us. Actually, I don't have that press.
I understand we do on a lot, but we also agree on a lot. But here's one thing I think we can't agree on. Either you win or lose this selection.
There's really no in.
Between, doctor sign. In two thousand and two, you ran for governor of Massachusetts and you lost. In two thousand and four, you ran for state representative in Massachusetts and you lost.
In two thousand and six, you ran for Secretary of the Commonwealth. You also lost.
In twenty ten, you ran for governor again, this time against the first black governor in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick.
You lost.
In twenty twelve, you ran against this country's first black president with and you got just less than one half of one percent of total votes cast. In twenty sixteen, you ran against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, losing uh significantly, with one point four million votes cast for you but zero Electoral College votes, which I agree with y'all needs to be abolished. But one hundred and thirty six million people voted and you lost that election as well. So I want to know what the pathway to victory is for you at twenty four can't be.
I'd like to yeh want can I respond? But I would like to respond. This is the framing of the empire and the oligarchy and white supremacy and colonialism, which wants you to feel that resistance is futile. This is about voter blaming me. No not.
What you're not going to say is that I'm ever perading anything at the hands of white supremacy.
This is something that's very different. This is me asking you again. It's a buy.
I'm just pulling out that it is either talking the same talking points, get talking to. This is not DNC talking points. This is my research and so for you, the research says you have never won an election. You have been successful in pushing forward certain agendas, advocate.
One in order to win. You know, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and in this case.
It's many steps.
Let me point out, let me point out. Please, you need to compare the Green Party not with those who are taking money from Apex and the War Machine and Wall Street. You've got to compare us, excuse me, you have to compare us to other grassrooms.
Non we need she said, that's what that was.
May I please let's please finish, please, thank you. You're trying to compare us to the Democratic Party and the Republican Party with their billions of dollars, or to the Working f Party, which is not under attack as a people powered party, not taking money from Wall Street or the war machine or a pack we are on very different turf. But if you compare us to all other similar parties which are not taking corporate money, which are not bought and paid for, which can stand up against endless war, against homelessness, against the climate crisis, against the housing and the healthcare crisis. Campaigns like us who can actually stand up for the people. They last exactly one to two election cycles and then they're gone. So we are actually strong, the pillar of strength among people powered politics. And what have we done over that period. We have established the Green Party as the vehicle for people powered politics. We have also launched the agenda which has been adopted by the Progressive Democrats given lip service, not actually advanced. But whether you're looking at healthcare as a human right launched by Ralph Nader as a national issue, reparations launched by our campaign as a national issue in twenty twelve, if you look at free public higher education, bailing out students and ending student debt, you had Congress bailing out the crooks on Wall Street who crashed the economy, but not bailing out homeowners, not bailing out students. That agenda was launched by us. So I think it's not fair, and it is the talking point of AOC the other day who is taking her marching orders from the DNC. This is exactly what they say that we are only running for president.
Color as parenting talking points instead of us looking at basic math. The one thing that AOC has done that you haven't is win some elections. And so when I'm asking you, but what I'm trying any elections, that is one point. If you want to tell me this, let's talk about it more good question. If you want to talk about you can do that, not by running necessarily for president. Douglas says power, it's not Secretaria of the Commonwealth, candidate as a gubernatorial candidate, as a president. Instead of telling me, I'm parting white supremacist talking so I can tell you to hear the facts, I can tell you the numbers are not on your side.
Absolutely remarks yes you know on your campaign, and then the honorable Angelo ri.
You can with your I've asked my questions.
Okay.
So, as Frederick Douglas said, power concedes nothing without a demand. It never hasn't, it never will. Like so many other Greens, I came from the world of social activism. I spent decades upon decades fighting for healthcare as a human right, for racially just redistricting, which we actually succeeded in, for getting big money out of politics, and creating a public financing system, which we actually succeeded in Massachusetts until the Democratic legislature came in and invalidated the people's referendum, which had won by a two to one margin. They validated it on a voice vote and refused to provide the funding for it. I saw our movements being beaten back by the power of the political power of corporations and billionaires operating through the Democratic and Republican parties. I saw that over and over again, we are not making incremental progress forward. We're actually taking rather major steps backwards.
Right now.
You know, the disparities, racial disparities, black and white disparities are actually not better at all than they were in nineteen sixty in spite of all the you know, hard work and the lip service that's been given to racial justice and racial equality. You know, in Boston, in the Massachusetts area, the average household wealth of the African American family is eight dollars considering debt. The average wealth of the Caucasian family is a quarter million dollars. And this is not unusual. This is where we are. We are stuck. If you looked at the footage from the floor of the DNC, what you could see were the corpse at suites which started at half a million dollars each and went up to five million dollars. This is the money running the DNC, running the Republican National Committee as well. These parties have been bought and paid for. They really do not have wiggle room. We're not going to fix this around the margins. We need to stand up and build a coalition. This was my experience as an organizer, a successful organizer on these many issues that I just ran through. How did we do that? You do it by building coalitions. But if your coalitions are only there for the moment, you know what, you can get the bill passed like we did with the public funding of elections, but they're going to tear it down. Then you need your coalition to be to remain in power and to remain effective so that you're fighting to maintain your victories. So what I see us having done since I first was tricked into running for office in two thousand, running for governor. I was tricked into running for office because I saw we were failing over and over and over again on our aspirations for you know, for racial justice, to fight white supremacy, to fight police violence, which also is getting worse year by year to fight for health care. You know, the health disparities between African American and white population is about three years three years of life taken away from African Americans. And that's before you add in the disparities in economic education. If you factor in education disparities as well, that three years grows to ten years a decade taken off the lives of most African Americans. To me, this was just unacceptable. I could not sit there and take it over and over again, especially after the Democrats reversed our achievements to get at the core problem, which is the corruption of money in politics, we solve that and they basically tore that solution to shreds. I could not stand there. That's when I got recruited to run for office because I began to realize this is about building coalitions. That doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of education, it takes a lot of work. And so I ran in that first race for governor, challenging actually Mitt Romney, who was running for governor on the Republican ticket. And you know what, we had to fight our weight to get into a televised debate, but we did succeed because the turnout was huge in you know, in the rallies that were demanding to open up the debates, and that debate was opened up on one occasion, and that took place in a TV studio. There was no live audience to like read, so it was just you know, speaking to the other people in the room, small number of people, uh the you know, the guy behind the camera and so on, and my the Green Party's proposals, which we've run through several times, went over like a lead balloon inside of that TV studio, and I walked out of there thinking, oh, well, at least I tried. But when I walked out, I was mobbed by the press who told me that I had won the instant online viewer poll, which we didn't even know was going on. And to me, that was like a revelation that, oh, my god, people actually agree with us. We don't need to change people's minds. People's minds have been changed by the desperate state of our economy, by you know, the incredible injustices, by the police state that we're living in, et cetera. And it wasn't nearly as bad back then, in the year two thousand and two. So we at that point as like a curtain went up for me and I saw, oh my god, this is not a matter of having to change people's minds. People are already there. It's just the people are denied knowing that there are options that actually empower us.
So that's your website for people want thank.
You it is it is Jill Stein twenty four dot com. And yes, check us out because this election is full of what shall we say, one eighties and unexpected developments, and we the people deserve to be heard. We are demanding to be heard, and we potentially have the power if only the Vote to Stop Genocide stood up to say I will not hold my vote, my my nose and vote for genocide. That vote, or the eighty seven million people who do not have adequate healthcare, or the fifty percent of renters who are struggling, who are just one or two paychecks away from being evicted and being out in the street, if those people stand up to vote for what we actually can have right now, this election will be turned on its head. And if we don't get to the White House, but we start on the road to the White House, that too is a huge win. So I really encourage people to follow the words of Alice Walker. The biggest way we give up power is by not recognizing that we have it. This is the conversation that the Democrats, the Republicans, the oligarchs, the warmongers, they do not want you to hear this. They do not want you to know that we have power. We have the power if we are willing to stand up and demand it. And in the face of the genocide, it is a new coalition is being forged. It's being forged in this era of blood and destruction and world crisis. A new coalition is being formed to stand up for peace and justice. The institutional supports are coming out of the woodwork in a way that we have never seen before. This is my third race. We've never seen anything like it. And the mobilization of the Arab American and the Muslim American communities is a real example of a community that is standing up with the incredible courage of their convictions to say we deserve better. We deserve an America in a world that works for all of us that is within our reach if we demand it.
Well, thank you for joining us, ladies and gentlemen.
Doctor Jistin, thank you so much.
To be a debate.
But it was good.
It was It was great, great, It's.
The Breakfast Club, good morning, wake that ass up in the morning club, Breakfast Club,
