#morethanredandblue: Dr. Stein's Acceptance Speech

Following up on a closer look at the Libertarian Party platform, I also want to look at Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate for president. Her acceptance speech transcript was posted to her campaign website, so I'll be reviewing excerpts from her remarks as she accepted her party's nomination.

"[The Green Party has been] ahead of the curve in so many ways - on climate change and green energy, on marriage equality, free public higher education and health care as human rights, on stopping the Trans Pacific Partnership, on reparations for slavery, opposing Saudi war crimes in Yemen, and Israeli human rights abuses and occupation in Palestine, on recognizing indigenous rights... That arc of justice is moving through us as we mobilize to make black lives matter, and to end violent policing – as the Frisco Five and the Millions March NYC just did. The arc of justice is moving through us as we sit in and lock down to stop fracking pipelines, fossil fuel bomb trains, coal and LNG export terminals, and all manner of fossil fuel and nuclear infrastructure... From living wage campaigns, to fossil fuel blockades, to the fight to end mass incarceration, to cancel student debt, to restore the rights of immigrant rights, indigenous rights, LGBTQ and women’s rights and disability rights."

That is just a sampling of some of the litanies from the first chunk of her speech... starting to wade into Dr. Stein's remarks unveils quite an enormous swath of claims. Starting from quite the broad appeal, she simultaneously claims successes in ecology, marriage rights, education, health-care, war crimes, and social unrest as basically being the purview of Green Party progress. As an amateur political scientist, I will say that third parties have it rough in America because any time they make progress in emphasizing a social issue, one of the main parties co-opts it along with their voters. As a result, it can be difficult to trace the third parties' impacts depending on the genealogy of these issue progressions. My gut just says Dr. Stein is painting with quite the broad brush here as she kicks off.

"There are 43 million young people – and not so young people – who are locked in predatory student debt, with no prospects for getting out. And there is only one candidate who will cancel that debt – and you’re looking at her. And by the way, we bailed out Wall Street, the guys who crashed the economy with their waste, fraud and abuse. It’s about time we bailed out the young people who are the victims of that abuse. So if young people come out on election day 2016 to vote green to cancel their debt, they can actually take over the election, not only to cancel student debt, but to advance the whole agenda for justice. And the world will be a better place for it! And millennials are the self organizing demographic that can do this."

Here, Dr. Stein starts to hone in on a specific issue - student loans and debt. She promises a righteous bailout of student debt, juxtaposed with the wasteful bailout of Wall Street. Her appeal is largely to grassroots organizing and mobilization, which is a good move for subsidiarity and community participation. However, she doesn't build a bridge from debt forgiveness toward the way to pay for it. Hooray for idealism, but misgivings over how such a giant amnesty can work.

"We also have the power to create emergency jobs program, with 20 million living wage jobs as part of a Green New Deal. It’s like the New Deal that got us out of the Great Depression… but a Green New Deal to fix the climate crisis as well as the economic crisis. It creates a wartime level mobilization to green our energy, food and transportation systems, and restore critical infrastructure, including ecosystems."

Here's where I get a bit intrigued: an FDR-style New Deal that's focused on economic stimulation and driven by infrastructure and ecological improvements. This is appealing on many levels. It reflects a better Care for God's Creation by moving us toward more sustainable fuels and lower pollution. It puts people to work to be able to realize their dignity as workers and potentially earn a just and living wage, upholding bits of Call to Participation as well as the Dignity of Work. It mobilizes society to take charge of some of its problems.

I like where her head's at for this one, as the social ramifications are positive and the financial factor is clearer her as stimulus spending than for the student debt idea. Dr. Stein even claims that this strategy "pays for itself in health savings alone" because it will reduce pollution- and climate-change-related health problems so drastically, so that's bold and maybe exaggerated but hints at an additional positive.

We can create health care as a human right through an improved Medicare for All system of everybody in, nobody out, and you’re covered head to toe and cradle to grave. You get your choice of doctor and hospital, and you and your doctor are put back in charge of your health decisions, not a profiteering insurance company CEO.

Dr. Stein here comes out in clear support of universal health-care, and her plan is to universalize the Medicare system as the new coverage for all Americans. This is a necessary right that we are called to support, and she states a specific approach for pursuing this universally. Again, whether you're for the ACA, for repeal or reform, or for a third way, I think Rights and Responsibilities calls us to choose a path that actively moves toward universal coverage.

We can create a welcoming path to citizenship for undocumented Americans who are critical to the diversity and vitality of our communities, economy and culture. We must end the shameful night raids, detentions and deportations of hard working, law abiding immigrants. In fact, one of the most important things we can do to fix the immigration crisis is to stop causing it in the first place with predatory policies like NAFTA, the war on drugs, military interventions, CIA-supported coups and US trained death squads.

We say to Donald Trump, we don’t need no friggin wall. We just need to stop invading other countries. And by the way, the Republicans are the party of hate and fear mongering. But Democrats are the party of night raids, detentions, and deportations.We will put an immediate halt to deportations, detentions and night raids for people whose only crime was to flee the poverty and violence created by predatory US policies across the border. And we can end racist violence and brutality not only in policing, but in courts and prisons, and in the economy at large.

Dr. Stein charts a clearly divergent path from Mr. Trump here. Dr. Stein is all for diversity and welcome while being anti-exclusion, anti-profiling, and anti-targeting. She is clearly for community and participation here and rings true to our rights and responsibilities in welcoming the stranger. She might go a bit too far in widely blackballing trade negotiations, drug enforcement, and military defense, but her general support of immigrants is strong.

Also, she said "friggin," so that's fun.

We call for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, to get to the bottom of the crisis of racism, and to provide reparations to acknowledge the enormous debt owed to the African American community for the unimaginable price they paid in building this country and sustaining our economy for generations while they were denied dignity and freedom.

This is one of my favorite pieces of her speech. Though I'm uncertain on the efficacy and necessity of reparations, I love the idea of restorative-style justice through this kind of dialogue. The opportunity for people involved to give public testimony and enter into an open forum. It's a great way to gather witness and get people's stories and history out into the open and hopefully to discern a communal response. This would be an interesting project to undertake in areas of the country with heavy racism issues.

Bits and pieces from her campaign's issues page:

• Dr. Stein identifies education and health-care as rights: thumbs up.
• She calls for a $15/hour minimum wage: iffy.
• Dr. Stein emphasizes work to limit climate change, protect resources, and take care of Creation: thumbs up.
• Dr. Stein says nothing about abortion or life issues explicitly: thumbs down.