by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
A vote for the Green Party is not a protest gesture -- it is a vote for a platform of peace, social justice and a livable planet, and against the Parties of Lies. The Democrats “continue to be seen as the antiwar party even as they use regime change more successfully than George W. Bush ever dreamed.” Trump is a scarecrow for political children, but Clinton is a real, live, proven monster. Vote Green – boldly! -- for civlization, and against death.
Freedom Rider: Vote Green
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“The Democratic Party has long outlived its usefulness and there must be a plan in place to stop genuflecting to the more effective evil.”
The Democratic Party and their minions are leaving nothing to chance in their drive to get Hillary Clinton elected president of the United States. After spending the year claiming that Vladimir Putin is interfering in the elections or discrediting the ineffectual Bernie Sanders they are not giving up with only six weeks remaining in the campaign.
Voters know Hillary Clinton to be a liar, lawbreaker, warmonger and unreconstructed Goldwater girl. That well known history makes her unattractive to millions of people who vote for Democrats. The fear of a Donald Trump victory keeps them on her side but the support is shallow, with complaints and longing for a better choice.
Fortunately, many Democrats are no longer living in hope but are taking a serious look at the Green Party. Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka are making headway with people who don’t want to fall for the smoke and mirrors again. Team Hillary should fear that votes for the Greens will jeopardize her chance to complete Bill Clinton’s wish of “two for the price of one.”
The anti-Green Party onslaught is in overdrive. Some of the attack consists of smears and lies against Stein and Baraka. One article in The Nation magazine is blunt: “Your Vote for Jill Stein is a Wasted Vote.” Others take a softer approach and raise the specter of a President Trump. The good cops at the same publication warn “Don’t Assume Someone Else Will Stop Trump.”
Bernie Sanders ought to be ashamed for leading millions of people on a path straight to Hillary Clinton but he refuses to disappear. This is no time for a protest vote says the sheep dog in chief.
“Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka are making headway with people who don’t want to fall for the smoke and mirrors again.”
But support for the Green Party should not be consigned to the triviality of protest voting. A vote for Stein and Baraka should be seen as a truly revolutionary act, not a faux Sandersesque revolution, but as part of the necessary effort to kill off the Democratic Party once and for all.
The Democratic Party uses left-leaning Americans to do the business of the ruling class. They may claim to be more inclusive, which isn’t difficult to do in comparison with the white peoples party. Democratic presidential candidates talk about protecting a woman’s right to choose abortion but do nothing to protect that right as it is stripped away across the country. They continue to be seen as the antiwar party even as they use regime change more successfully than George W. Bush ever dreamed. The party with unquestioned support among old line civil rights organizations has done more than Republicans to keep the mass incarceration of black people alive and well. They refuse to use the tools already at their disposal to punish killer police.
People who call themselves leftists or progressives have only one choice. They must work to replace the Democrats with a new and truly progressive party. The Green Agenda opposes American interventions abroad and Democratic Party trade deals which bestow corporate personhood and steal jobs. The Green Party pledges to abolish student debt, close U.S. military bases abroad, establish health care as a human right and provide constitutional protection for the franchise. All of the issues that matter to progressives are on the green party agenda.
“Bernie Sanders ought to be ashamed for leading millions of people on a path straight to Hillary Clinton.”
Yet the plea to hold one’s nose and vote for the supposed lesser evil still resonates. The duopoly continues for a reason. They effectively use propaganda and fear to prevent defections. Both parties do the business of the 1%, further imperialism and continue enshrining anti-black racism with legal imprimatur. Yet they each use a variety of issues to give the appearance of substantive difference.
Barack Obama makes war, promotes austerity and bails out the banks. Yet we are told that his administration was progressive and must be continued in the person of Hillary Clinton. This year Donald Trump is the perfect republican foil. His open appeal to white nationalists broke with a tradition of winks and nudges and coded language. His open racism and boorish behavior makes him anathema to millions but the Hillaryites leave nothing to chance. They use their friends in corporate media to create fictitious connections with the Russian government and keep doubters in line.
But what would be so terrible about a Hillary Clinton defeat? Obama deported more immigrants than any other president so the xenophobic Trumpian appeals shouldn’t change what exists now. Trump says he will do what progressives say they want and end the practice of regime change and military intervention. Democrats always aid corporate interests and big banks so Trump can do no worse. The list of Democratic Party treachery is long and ought to galvanize the urge for change.
Not only must the left end the quadrennial surrender to people they say are their enemies but they must be unafraid to say that a Democratic loss is a necessity. The Democratic Party has long outlived its usefulness and there must be a plan in place to stop genuflecting to the more effective evil.
“Democrats always aid corporate interests and big banks so Trump can do no worse.”
The response to the panicked plea for Hillary Clinton should be a declaration that the Democrats will soon be history. The choice must be an active one with an organizational effort to relieve the Greens of also-ran, spoiler status and put them on the road to being the party that millions of Americans so desperately need.
Every four years we are told the time isn’t right, or the Republican is too awful, or there will be a black president, or only if you don’t live in a swing state, or some other fairy tale used to frighten. Instead boldly vote Green in blue states and in red states and in swing states. If there is any fear it should be directed at the Hillary Clinton big tent of the 1% and imperialists. It should be directed at the people who ended the right to public assistance and filled the prisons with black people.
The question, “Do you want Hillary to lose?” is used to intimidate. The answer ought to be, “Yes I do. Because we must finally drive a stake in the democrats’ heart.”
Vote green.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as athttp://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
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