Actively Support Jill Stein For President

2016 Lone Star Iconoclast Endorsement

Actively Support Jill Stein For President

 Bring America Together

Few Americans would have voted for Barack Obama four years ago if he had promised that, as President, he would continue to sustain the failed missions of former President George W. Bush, perpetuate endless unnecessary wars, and exhibit ineptitude in dealing with crises at home. Obama promised change and did not deliver.

Under Obama, we have seen, for instance: racial division at an all-time high, the United States nine trillion dollars more in debt, education policies that failed to curb college costs, disastrous vetting policies of Muslim immigrants, war waged with Libya without congressional approval, aiding in the birth of ISIS,  NSA spying on American citizens, Benghazi, disappearing tax money,  Obamacare, poorly staffed agencies with legislative directives to be nonproductive, zero immigration reform, and the list goes on…..

He is now ready to pass the presidential baton to his former Secretary of State so that Hillary Clinton can become yet another “dynasty” president, much like the disastrous Bushes, and continue with the Clintons’ growth of personal wealth and power, the hell with middle class America.

A distinguished and highly respected Texas journalist, Molly Ivins, explained in one of her last columns that Hillary Clinton’s vote for the Iraq War “disqualified” her from being president, a chant that reverberates even stronger when considering the Benghazi episode and e-mails that put our soldiers at risk. Her neo-liberal policy positions have been exploited to increase the wealth of the Clinton Foundation, plus her support of NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement make her a most disagreeable presidential nominee.

And, if elected, we not only get Hillary, but Bill, too, a confirmed compulsive liar who signed the death warrant of the Delaney Amendment that allowed big companies to freely incorporate cancer-causing agents into our foodstuffs, companies that became big donors to the Clintons. The Bushes had their Halliburtons and the Clintons have their Monsantos. Why would any sane political party offer us a highly dysfunctional family to run our country when there are and were other choices?

Or you could vote for  Trump, the gambling casino mouthpiece who due to inheritance is a billionaire, someone who does not know what it’s like to have to struggle to survive. He’s not self-made and, moreover, he hasn’t released his most recent tax returns. We don’t know if his wealth has grown or shrunk. So how do we know he will help grow the economy and create jobs?

Also, regarding his immigration policy, which side of the Rio Grande does he plan to have the Mexican government build the border wall? If it’s the American side, we’ll lose access to the Rio Grande. If it’s on the Mexican side, the Mexicans would basically own the wall. So maybe no wall is better than a wall, and no Trump is better than a Trump.

Today, the leaders in the Republican and Democratic Parties have demonstrated that not only in the United States, but globally, they cannot be trusted. They are the left and right hands of the same mafia-type operation. That’s why each party has witnessed extreme dissent this election year. The Trump camp has pulled away from the Republican base and cannot obtain endorsements from the party core. Bernie Sanders acted similarly in the Democratic Party, only he came up vote-short due to gross shenanigans perpetrated by Hillary Clinton in the DNC camp to steal the nomination.

Focus has been turned upon these squabbles and power plays when it should instead be turned upon other choices — third-party candidates who by design have been virtually eliminated for consideration due to demands by the Democrats and Republicans to maintain a two-party system. This translates to voters being led to choose one of the two mistrustful “lesser of evils.”

Today, The Lone Star Iconoclast is endorsing Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president because of her believable vision to return our country to normality.  It is time to distance ourselves from the lies, deceit, bigotry, and scandals that prevail in the two major parties. It would be a clean re-start with plain, intelligent, progressive, everyday folks, not the billionaire elite who are consumed by personal greed.

Dr. Jill Stein, a Harvard-trained physician, favors single-payer health care, campaign finance reforms, and student loan debt forgiveness. Like Bernie Sanders, she has refused to accept money from corporate donors.

There is much work to be done in our communities, from infrastructure to affordable education. We need to elect someone like Jill Stein who has both the desire and the ability to make things happen and knows how to do it. Her training in medicine has given her the ability to analyze minute details and step-by-step answers. She had the intelligence to become a doctor. Can you say this about Donald and Hillary?

Stein wants to have the power given back to the electorate, the people, and has a plan to create a “deep system change, moving from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism to a human-centered economy that puts people, planet, and peace over profit.”

On her website, she addresses topics that hit home:

Education as a Right: Abolish student debt to free a generation of Americans from debt servitude. Guarantee tuition-free, world-class public education from pre-school through university. End high stakes testing and public school privatization.

A Green New Deal: Create millions of jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, and investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, and conservation.

Jobs as a Right: Create living-wage jobs for every American who needs work, replacing unemployment offices with employment offices. Advance workers rights to form unions, achieve workplace democracy, and keep a fair share of the wealth they create.

End Poverty: Guarantee economic human rights, including access to food, water, housing, and utilities, with effective anti-poverty programs to ensure every American a life of dignity.

Health Care as a Right: Establish an improved “Medicare For All” single-payer public health insurance program to provide everyone with quality health care, at huge savings.

A Just Economy: Set a $15/hour federal minimum wage. Break up “too-big-to-fail” banks and democratize the Federal Reserve. Reject gentrification as a model of economic development. Support development of worker and community cooperatives and small businesses. Make Wall Street, big corporations, and the rich pay their fair share of taxes. Create democratically run public banks and utilities. Replace corporate trade agreements with fair trade agreements.

Protect Mother Earth: Lead on a global treaty to halt climate change. End destructive energy extraction: fracking, tar sands, offshore drilling, oil trains, mountaintop removal, and uranium mines. Protect our public lands, water supplies, biological diversity, parks, and pollinators. Label GMOs, and put a moratorium on GMOs and pesticides until they are proven safe. Protect the rights of future generations.

Racial Justice Now: End police brutality and mass incarceration. Create a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to understand and eliminate the legacy of slavery that lives on as pervasive racism in the economy, education, housing, and health. Ensure that communities control their police rather than police controlling our communities, by establishing police review boards and full time investigators to look in to all cases of death in police custody. Demilitarize the police.

Freedom and Equality: Expand women’s rights, protect LGBTQIA+ people from discrimination, defend indigenous rights and lands, and create a welcoming path to citizenship for immigrants. Protect the free Internet, legalize marijuana/hemp, and treat substance abuse as a public health problem, not a criminal problem.

Justice for All: Restore our Constitutional rights, terminate unconstitutional surveillance and unwarranted spying, end persecution of government and media whistleblowers, close Guantanamo, abolish secret kill lists, and repeal indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Peace and Human Rights: Establish a foreign policy based on diplomacy, international law, and human rights. End the wars and drone attacks, cut military spending by at least 50% and close the 700+ foreign military bases that are turning our republic into a bankrupt empire. Stop U.S. support and arms sales to human rights abusers, and lead on global nuclear disarmament.

Empower the People: Abolish corporate personhood. Protect voters’ rights by establishing a constitutional right to vote.  Enact electoral reforms that break the big money stranglehold and create truly representative democracy: public campaign financing, ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, and open debates.

Ultimately, America needs to move past the concept of a horse-race, winner-take-all approach to elections. We need to recognize the strengths of viewpoints of all of the candidates who, against all odds, have offered themselves as alternatives. We suggest that all trustworthy candidates agree to participate in a fusion type of administration by bringing their ideas and specialties to the table for consideration.

It is Americans who are the government and those elected are working for us. In this way we signal to the world not just the election of a candidate but a change which goes far deeper, by learning the needs of our citizenry over the needs of a political party.

For a clearer picture of where to cast that vote, there needs to be a series of debates featuring all five candidates — Jill Stein (Green Party), Gary Johnson (Libertarian), Rocky de la Fuente (Reform Party), Donald Trump (Republican Party), and Hillary Clinton (Democratic Party). Currently, all you get are Donald and Hillary, an absurd snub to prevent “we the people” candidates from participating. The Commission on Presidential Debates needs to rethink the 15 percent polling threshold, but it is not likely since the commission is controlled by Democrats and Republicans who have put up barriers in order to gain exclusivity.

Remember, our first president, George Washington, refused to align himself with any political party. He was right in his belief that partisanship and division in the federal government would decimate its ability to effectively handle the country’s affairs. That’s why the Iconoclast has always encouraged those elected to office to immediately resign from their party as their first act and, in effect, stand on their own two feet as individualists, not corporate peons and certainly not political party lobbyists. Maybe someday!

True power rests in the hands of the people as individuals and in the communities they build, something that has been bypassed of late. Transforming America into a world that is sustainable and responsive to life and the earth requires this be visibly acknowledged. The coming together for a fusion administration can become that symbol, sending out notice of a new direction and very different reality, one filled with cooperation and putting the wishes of the electorate first.

In reality, the two major political parties are medieval parasites that suck creative negotiations and arrays of ideas from individuals elected to serve. The end result? Stalemates, gridlock, inaction, and never finding Point B. This is a good reason for conservatives who might not initially be completely on board with Stein’s positions to get involved in her campaign, to share their positions and attempt to arrive at ideas that work for all. She is the honest candidate, something currently unattainable from the Democratic and Republican Party offerings. With the bigger parties falling apart, you do have a solid place to go with your influence and support.

Our country is at a crossroads. Jill Stein will inclusively and imperatively represent the masses as a positive force for our nation. We must put an end to the toxic turmoil that has been force-fed to us.

The voters have a choice, billionaires whose visions reside in Wall Street and gigantic corporations, who are pro-war because of profits and have personally amassed, often illegally, vast wealth, or the other choice, “we the people.”

— W. Leon Smith

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