South End News columnist: ‘Vote Jill Stein’
Thanks to Ross Levin at Independent Political Report for this story:
South End News columnist Shirley Kressel recently wrote a ringing endorsement of Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party gubernatorial candidate Jill Stein:
Fortunately for us, such a candidate, Jill Stein, has entered the race.
Stein is a person of accomplishment; she is a physician and public health researcher, co-authoring “Environmental threats to Healthy Aging” and “Toxic Threats to Child Development.” A leader of the Mass Coalition for Healthy Communities, she keeps her eyes on the long-term, big-picture issues, working with experts in green jobs, local economies, public health, renewable energy, sustainable agriculture and industry. I have known her for many years; her focus has always been on creating a just and sustainable society. She is a fount of knowledge, real knowledge, not just politically expedient factoids, about her web of interests. And it is a web, because more than most political figures, she understands acutely the interrelationships of all these issues, and the reason why they cannot be treated in isolated bits. Jill Stein is an inspiring figure who persists against all odds, because she knows the stakes.
I hope the media will not renege on their critical mission of broadening the public forum, as they often do, misusing their powerful tools to skew the race, or to predict it in a self-fulfilling prophecy. In her Feb. 10 appearance on the WGBH Emily Rooney Show, Stein questioned the right of journalists to exclude candidates from coverage and from debates, and thus to decide which political messages the public is entitled to hear; Rooney responded, “Well, yeah, we’re the editors.” Rooney, as well as The Boston Globe in its coverage of Stein’s Feb. 10 declaration speech, cited Stein’s low 3.4 percent vote total in her 2002 gubernatorial run but didn’t point out that she beat out the Republican with 20 percent of the vote in her 2004 run for state representative, and got over 350,000 votes for her 2006 run for Secretary of State-despite the incumbent’s refusal to debate and the press’s refusal to give her fair coverage. Why ascribe credibility only to candidates who are well-known-even if they’ve been part of the problem? Let the public judge all available candidates, based on their ideas and accomplishments.
Jill Stein will not be the beneficiary of millions of dollars from corporations and lobbyists, that’s for sure. Grassroots fundraising is difficult, time-consuming, and ultimately cannot match the big bucks of the business world. This should improve, not detract from, her credibility. Why settle for only the best candidates corporations will buy for us?
Her platform, on www.jillstein.org, explains her priorities: revival of local economies with secure, livable-pay jobs rooted in an environmentally sustainable green economy; preventive health care and Medicare-for-all insurance; fair taxation both by progressive burden distribution and by eliminating the “corruption tax”-and the honest, open government required to make public officials our servants, as they should be. And she, unlike the others who spout the same words, means it.
