(At 9 pm EST tonight, Jill Stein will debate the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson in the final Free & Equal presidential debate(http://www.jillstein.org/free_and_equal_debate_with_jill_stein). You can watch the debate on the Green Party's Livestream Channel (http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus). It'll be livestreamed from the studios of RT America in downtown DC, so we won't have the livestream problems that interrupted the broadcast of last night's debate. -- Scott McLarty, Green Party Media Coordinator)
An end to poverty: Statement of support for Stein/Honkala 2012
The Green Party presidential campaign of Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala has a plan for the total, direct, and rapid abolition of poverty. The selection of Cheri Honkala as Vice Presidential candidate is itself a clear sign of this commitment. Ms. Honkala is a formerly homeless mother and lifelong leader in the movement against poverty, unemployment, and homelessness.
Today it is a sign of truly astonishing economic failure that the famous 1937 words of Franklin Roosevelt are ringing true once again in this wealthy country:
“In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens—a substantial part of its whole population—who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life. I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day. I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago. I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children. I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions. I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished…”
If it has accomplished nothing else up to now, the 2012 election campaign has proven that America’s two establishment parties are hopelessly paralyzed when it comes to addressing these life-and-death realities the American people face today. Instead, Democrats and Republicans cover their moral and political bankruptcy by refusing to even admit that there is a problem. Not a single time have either of the establishment candidates even mentioned the word “poverty” or “homelessness” in any of their campaign appearances.
Desperate times require desperate measures. The hour has come to break with the dying two-party system and begin building the new political parties that over half of Americans now say are needed. The Green Party presidential campaign of Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala is the best opportunity we have today to make that move.
Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala are running on a platform called the Green New Deal, which is a comprehensive program to address America’s economic, environmental, financial, and political crises (see http://www.jillstein.org/green_new_deal). The Green New Deal calls for an Economic Bill of Rights similar to those proposed by Roosevelt and Martin Luther King, Jr.
It calls for the immediate creation of 25 million new jobs, mainly in projects to meet human needs – housing, health care, education, and transportation – and to protect and restore our environment. It calls for an immediate halt to evictions and foreclosures, and a federal bank to restructure the housing market and make it affordable for everyone. The Green New Deal will also rebuild our entire economy around green technologies and sustainable practices; thoroughly reform the financial sector, abolish student debt, end bailouts, and reorganize failed banks as public financial institutions; and restore our democracy and the full democratic rights of our people.
It is time to end the destruction, the austerity, and the needless suffering. A moral government would honor the sacredness of human life by ensuring jobs, housing, health care, and education for every family. Martin Luther King once said America has the resources and the technology to end poverty; the only question is whether we have the will. It is up to us to start creating that will by taking decisive action right now. We support Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala for President and Vice President of the United States of America.
In solidarity,
Marian Kramer & Maureen Taylor
Reverend Edward Pinkney & Dorothy Pinkney - Black Autonomy Network Community Organization
Dave Marsh - American music critic, author, host of Live from E Street Nation, Kick Out the Jams, and Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams
Pastor Scott Wagers - CHAM Deliverance Ministry
Lynette Malles - Occupy Homes Minnesota & Minnesota Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
Marin Peplinski - Retired Principal - Loring Nicolett Alternative School
Mary Bricker-Jenkins - USA-Canada Alliance of Inhabitants & Former Co-chair of the Assembly to End Poverty
Monica Beemer - Sisters of the Road
Michelle & Rick Tingling-Clemmons - MIRICO Unlimited
John Eskow - Screenwriter (Pink Cadillac & others)
Eric Sheptock - Chair, Shelter Housing and Respectful Change
Mark Webber - Actor, Writer, Director
Lee Ballinger - West Coast Editor - Rock & Rap Confidential
Mike Malinin - musician (Goo Goo Dolls)
Jennifer Jewell - Director of Women in Transition
Sister Margaret McKenna - New Jerusalem Laura
Galen Tyler - Kensington Welfare Rights Union
Glen Davis and Tara Colon - Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign
George Friday - Move to Amend
Dorothy (Dottie) Stevens - Massachusetts Welfare Rights
Mark Dunlea - Executive Director - Hunger Action Network New York State
Bob Flanagan - Worcester Homeless Action Committee
Ms. Fran - fighting foreclosure
Reverend Bruce Wright - Refuge Ministries
Rev. Dennis Segall - Coalition for the Reform of Youth Services
Jeremy Alderson - Founder, the Homeless Marathon
Paul Boden - Organizing Director, Western Regional Advocacy Project
Sister Adrienne Lawton, Associate Pastor, CHAM Deliverance Ministry
Gloria M. Sandoval, President, CA Central Valley Journey for Justice
Maren McDonell, Minneapolis, MN
Ismaeel Alkhaleefa
Sylvia Orduño
*Unless listed separately, organizational affiliations are for identification purposes only.
Additional signatures are being gathered now – more to come.
