It’s Not Easy Being Green, Just Ask Jill Stein

More than once in my life I have voted hope over pragmatism, anger over practicality. I voted for Ted Kennedy in the 1980 primaries and then sat out the Presidential election in which Reagan routed Carter who received just 41% of the vote. I was riveted by the Jesse Jackson campaigns in 1984 and 1988. Even though Jackson’s “Hymietown” remarks should have given pause as to his lack of discipline, I probably invested more time and energy into those two campaigns than any others in my life.  I thought Mondale was the most milquetoast of candidates, totally inadequate to the challenge Reagan posed—he lost in a historic landslide in 1984 and managed to garner just 41% of the vote. Though one would not have thought it possible Dukakis was an even worse candidate in 1988. Jackson won 30% of the Democratic primary vote that year (Dukakis won just 43%). Jackson was considered the front runner for a brief span after a big win in Michigan, and was even touted seriously as a candidate for VP. Bush, running a heinous race based campaign, “Willie Horton(ed)” Dukakis into oblivion. Dukakis, the progeny of New England cool, had no sense for the hot all around him, refusing to even show emotion to a deplorable debate question as to what his response would be if his wife was raped.  Once he climbed into the cab of the tank, opening himself to endless parody, it was all over. Bush captured 53% of the vote to Dukakis 46%. In today’s terms that was the third landslide in a row for Republican candidates.

Jackson, on the other hand, was an inspiring, spell-binding, speaker and he stood for a lot of the things I believed in then and still believe in now. Obama ran a campaign on the theme of single word, “Hope”. Jackson’s theme was “Keep Hope Alive”. After eight years of heartless Reaganism, Jackson stood with strikers at an International Paper Co in Maine where jobs were being replaced with non-union workers.  It would not have mattered if he didn’t do that, but I remembered being inspired in that moment. The idea that a Presidential candidate would stand with union members on strike seemed bravely surreal. I was all in. Jackson’s 1988 platform was a manifesto of progressive politics:

·         Reversing Reaganomics-inspired tax cuts for the rich, and reinvesting that money in Social Programs—Though Unemployment stood at just 5.5% in 1988, roughly 1 in 3 were Americans  below the poverty rate

·         Create a Works Progress Administration-style jobs program

·         Cutting the Department of Defense budget

·         Creating a single-payer system of universal health care

·         Increasing federal funding for education at all levels and providing free community college to all

·         Applying stricter enforcement of the Voting Rights Act

·         Reprioritizing the War on Drugs to focus less on harsh jail sentences for users and more on treatment

·         Declaring Apartheid-era South Africa to be a rogue nation

·         Instituting an immediate nuclear freeze and beginning disarmament negotiations

·         Supporting family farmers

·         Ratifying the ERA

·         Supporting the formation of a Palestinian state

After 12 years of Pottersville politicians of the right, trickle-down economics, and belligerent foreign policy often used to ramp up xenophobic domestic political power (something Bush used masterfully in his 2004 re-election campaign) in 1992 Clinton was elected. Finally America found its way to electing a politician with a liberal streak, and a gift for the political game that matched Reagan. Clinton had both great oratorical skills as well as the right wing machine’s take-no-prisoners proficiency for political warfare. Clinton gave as good as he got until his personal weaknesses ground his Presidency to a sparks-flying, grinding, halt. Clinton presided over a largely peace-time economy that ushered in dramatic growth in job creation, cuts in defense spending, and reductions in poverty rates, and he managed to pass progressive tax legislation. He tried and failed on Health Care, but most Americans look back on the accomplishments of those eight years if not the Presidency itself with some longing and some fondness. Clinton got things done.

The less said about the dangerous, heartless (excepting AIDS policy), catastrophic, foolish, deceitful, profligate, wasted and wasteful, Bush Presidency the better.

That pretty much brings us up to the present, three years into a Hope and Change Presidency which has provided precious little of either. When the media and the right bloviate about the President’s job approval ratings they seldom mention the portion of that disapproval that comes from the left’s deep disappointment with the corruption and malaise of our current political circumstances, and in a larger sense this President’s inability to move the political dial. In plain terms Obama has been rolled by the right. The mishandling of the debt ceiling negotiations is only the most egregious example. Rather than include the debt raise in the deliberations to extend the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2011, Obama waited, hoping vainly for Republican wisdom. One would think he would have learned after ceding the dialogue on healthcare reform to the surreptitiously well-funded right wing attack machine, with their hysterical granny murdering death panels and “Keep your government hands off my Medicare”, but he did not. 

Obama, though he has sharp oratorical skills, possesses none of the political skills that allowed Clinton to triangulate his way to a successful Presidency. Taken together with the crudeness of billions of dollars in corrupt, though lawful, political giving, America finds itself in a gridlocked state of acrimony and fear. It is quite clear that we will be battered with the most extreme and negative campaign of our lifetimes. Americans face a near certainty that the eventual winner will have no mandate for governance or change, both by virtue of the closeness of the election and also, but more importantly, by their unwillingness to spell out with any specificity what they will actually do to address the nation’s problems.  

For all the truth laurels hung on it by right wing chattering class, the Ryan budget plan is long on specifics when it comes to tax cuts, but short on particulars on the tax loopholes he would close, or even the specific budget cuts he would make. Candidate Romney has endorsed it wholeheartedly, often using the same language about “eliminating deductions and cutting rates”—without specifics. Today in an interview on the radio Kudlow report, Romney laughably went so far as to say he had no intention of reducing the amount of taxes paid by the wealthy class. The Ryan plan  proposals include dramatic cuts in government spending, but provides so little detail that Republicans have been able to brush back Democratic attempts to paint the cuts as draconian by claiming those particulars—food stamps as an example--are not included.  On Healthcare, no American should allow candidate Romney  to get away with calling for repeal without demanding to know what he will do to provide for the uninsured while also reining in costs, in which America outspends other industrialized nations almost two to one per-capita. No politician has any chance to manage deficit reduction without proposing deep and lasting reductions in government expenditures on health care, which currently run at 17% of GDP. Endorsing the status quo is neither serious nor sustainable.

Obama to his credit has put forward more serious and detailed proposals, but in his case he has left out the political calculations that will make any of it work in a grid-locked capital. Both candidates clearly plan to run I’ll let-you-know-when-I’m-elected campaigns, which by their nature will emphasize petty personality crap that will have everyone holding their nose by the fall. While there was great optimism in the air after the election of 2008—even with the economic calamity—one now senses that America will awaken on the morning of November 7 to the stench of scorched earth and rotted, meaningless, promises.

So in these circumstances one MUST ask “Where to from here?”

Recently I had the opportunity to read the “People’s State of the Union” http://www.jillstein.org/text_psou, presented by Jill Stein, the Green Party Candidate for President. Even with memories of Ralph Nadar’s disastrous participation in the 2000 elections which swung Florida, and so the nation, away from Gore and gave us Bush, curiously I thought who more than I aspires for an alternative among this sea of dreck? Sensing the closeness of that election, despite Gore’s goofy though now apparently prescient “Social Security lockbox” rhetoric, I voted Gore somewhat enthusiastically that year. Now I’m not so sure about the Democratic candidate.

I am once again considering voting hope over pragmatism, anger over practicality. Would I? Could I? Jackson’s campaigns, after all, were not totally quixotic. More than two decades later Health Care legislation was passed. Despite Reagan’s do-nothing “constructive engagement” policy Apartheid’s embers are scattered on the ash heap of history, and many of the virtuous planks of Jackson’s platform are still on the progressive wish list. Hell, even Republicans know they are going to need to cut defense—though they want to use the money for deeper tax cuts. 

Stein and the Green Party call for the creation of 16 million jobs by “ensuring” a job to every able bodied person that wants one.  These programs would emphasize green energy, renewable resources, infrastructure, and education. The platform proposes free education through college. Housing would be limited in cost to no more than 25% of income. The Greens would provide healthcare for all through an improved Medicare for All program, the single payer system that more than 50% of Americans support. That in itself is pretty amazing since I sincerely doubt that what with all the repeats of “The Kardashians” and all much more than 50% of all Americans know what a single payer system is. On taxes the Greens propose a more progressive income tax system based on income, and on corporate taxes they would “make subsidies transparent in public budgets where they can be scrutinized and not hidden as tax breaks in complicated tax codes”.

Stein’s statement points out The Obama administrations shortcomings on the environment, particularly on climate change, while proposing a “World War II mobilization to transform the way we produce and use energy”.  They would re-direct government energy subsidies from fossil fuels towards wind, geothermal, and solar.

Stein also notes that Wall Street Regulatory reform is currently bogged down By a “ bipartisan failure in Washington” to pursue vitally needed reforms.  Here they propose moving on several fronts.

·         An Immediate halt to all foreclosures

·         Reduce mortgage and student debt loads, I guess merely by forcing the banks to just write it down

·         Nationalize the private bank-dominated Federal Reserve Banks and place them under a Monetary Authority within the Treasury Department, along the lines proposed in the National Emergency Employment Defense – or NEED -  Act of 2011 (HR 2990), sponsored by Representatives Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers. http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/112/hr2990

·         Break up the big Banks, something former Citibank CEO , architect of the Wall Street catastrophe of 2007 and all around Prince of Darkness, Sandy Weill has proposed. 

·         Regulation of the derivatives market

·         90% tax on banker bonuses, i.e. elimination of same

Beyond the economy the Greens and Stein propose real electoral reform, without which America will remain trapped in the purgatory/ pseudo hell of a gridlocked political system. Here they propose obvious and necessary reforms such as same day voter registration, making Election Day a national holiday, public financing of elections, and abolition of the Electoral College in favor of direct election. They would also grant DC statehood, something that would have immediate impact for the balance of power in the Senate and The House.

The platform contains goals and reforms that given our current political climate are probably decades away. This is in my view no reason not to consider full throated support, but there are other considerations. A goal which envisions the creation of 16 million jobs is worthy. “Ensuring” a job to everyone who wants them is not. Though the issues they address are laudable, limiting housing costs to 25% of income, or wiping out college, consumer or mortgage debt with a stroke of a pen, are neither realistic or practical goals. The cause of the economic meltdown of 2007 and 2008 was the increasingly laissez faire relationship between government and business. The Greens in my view propose to deal with that with a full frontal attack on Free Enterprise. I would be more comfortable with a return to the balance that existed before repeal of Glass-Steagall. A return to Pre-Reagan tax levels is not feasible, but a return to pre-Bush tax levels particularly for family income above $250,000 is.  

The Greens present other problems. They espouse the kind of rhetoric that makes it impossible for most Americans to even consider a real turn towards progressive politics. What Stein refers to as “A People’s State of the Union: A Green New Deal for America” is sprinkled and to my taste over spiced with idiomatic language that leaves me, ironically, cold. Still, once I read through it all, I have to say I am still more aligned to what Stein and the Greens are saying than I am to the rhetoric of either Party. Moreover, there is nary a word about personalities, nor any of the boiler plate bullsh** which already makes my eyes glaze and my ears turn to stone. 

In the news everyone will tell you that it comes down to the 12 swing states:  Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.  My home state New York, as well as most of the Northeast, and all of the West Coast, is already in the pocket for Obama. The states of the bible-belt south, so many believing as they do that Obama is actually an oxymoronic closet Muslim/ Communist will not even consider the president.   For the electorate in both of these entrenched pockets these elections are all about the House, and to a lesser extent the Senate. Citizens United makes any real competition a bit of a mockery even in the House, but let’s go with that for a moment. The degree to which a few of us (outside those 12 key states) may stray to a third party will matter little in the presidential tallies. I understand that the Republican Congresswoman from my District, “The Fightin’ 19^th as Colbert called it last election, may have some competition, so I will be concerned there. Polls for the Senate Race in New York pitting incumbent Democrat Gillibrand a totally unknown Republican opponent Wendy Long show a 30+ point gap in support.   

So my vote might only matter if I vote the Green, Stein, for President and whoever is eventually chosen to run against Hayworth. Still something holds me back. I do wonder at the absurdity and the sincerity of my posture, but I guess I still believe in the principles of small “d” democratic politics. It’s not easy being Green, but I am seriously considering it.