(MintPress) – Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein was arrested Wednesday in Texas while bringing supplies to activists protesting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. This marks the third arrest for Stein during the 2012 campaign season, accentuating her commitments to protest, social justice and green energy development.
With virtually no chance of winning the election, most Americans have turned to the two major candidates, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, to determine who will continue to lead the country out of recession and back to economic recovery. While Mitt Romney has consistently worked to exacerbate class warfare, eliminate jobs and protect wealthy interests, his opponent, President Barack Obama has been far less consistent.
For millions of Americans, a vote for President Obama in 2008 was a vote for the progressive who could heal America after two devastating terms of George W. Bush. However, with a record number of deportations, a continued assault on civil liberties and an escalation of drone warfare, Obama, for many, has defied his roots as an anti-apartheid campus activist and community organizer in Chicago.
Building on career activism
Stein was arrested for trespassing Wednesday after trying to bring food and Halloween candy to protesters camping in trees on the site of the Keystone XL pipeline. Stein has been arrested previously on two separate occasions in acts of civil disobedience during Occupy Wall Street protests.
While for many Americans Stein represents a radical constituency, her work as an activist is consistent with the type of presidency she would like to run. As a medical doctor and an environmentalist, Stein has studied the effects various industries have on human health.
After graduating from Harvard medical school, Stein worked on the successful “filthy five” campaign that eventually lead to the passage of Massachusetts state laws mandating tighter regulation of coal burning facilities.
Stein was also instrumental in updating Massachusetts’ statewide fish advisories, helping consumers avoid mercury contamination.
Free from the corrupting influence of special interest campaign contributions, the Green Party offers a vision of transparent populism that represents the interests of working class Americans.
Cheri Honkala, the first formerly homeless candidate to run for the vice presidency, has been arrested over 200 times during her 25 year career working in anti-poverty campaigns.
The Green Party has a chance to make a major impact this election season. Although the party has virtually no chance of winning the presidency, the Green Party has the potential to revive the American political left and have a real impact on future local and state elections.
If Green Party candidate Jill Stein and vice presidential candidate Cheri Honkala receive at least 5 percent of the vote in this election, the party will be eligible for $20 million in federal matching funds to be used in the 2016 election.
Although the Green Party typically receives less than 2 percent of the vote nationally, the Stein-Honkala ticket represents a platform that is consistent with the work of two career activists.
Obama loses progressive history
However, President Obama, a candidate heralded four years ago as the personification of hope, change and a progressive revival, has deviated from the values of his once strong career as an activist and community organizer.
Although Barack Obama graduated with a bachelors of arts in political science from Columbia University in 1983, he began his college career at Occidental College, a small liberal arts school in Southern California.
As a student at Occidental, Obama began studying U.S. politics and become an outspoken advocate of his college’s divestment from the apartheid regime in South Africa. Writing about his involvement in the anti-apartheid struggle, Obama opined, “I figured I was ready, and could reach people where it counted, I thought my voice wouldn’t fail me.”
After graduating from Harvard Law in 1991, Obama settled in Chicago where he began his career as a community organizer, most notably as the director of Project Vote, a non-profit organization designed to register 150,000-400,000 unregistered African-Americans in Illinois.
Although Obama began working in the non-profit sector, displaying a keen willingness to work on progressive causes, his escalation of drone warfare in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, as well as his support for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), shows a disintegration of the platform that propelled him to office in 2008.
Now, four years later, Americans still struggling to find employment following the financial collapse promote a “lesser of two evils” approach when considering who they ought to vote for on Tuesday. Obama did end the war in Iraq, eliminate Osama bin Laden and negotiate nuclear arms reduction with Russia, all achievements supporters boast as reason to support the president.
Unlike Obama, who has a mixed, inconsistent record given his previous work in community organizing has a worthy adversary in Mitt Romney, a candidate who has consistently worked to defend the interests of corporate America, Wall Street and the wealthy elite in the U.S.
Mitt Romney: Working for the 1 Percent
Romney began his work as a financial advisor at Bain Capital. During his career, Romney amassed a personal fortune of more than $250 million disbanding American companies, eliminating jobs and exacerbating income inequalities in the U.S.
While Romney claims that he helped “create 100,000” jobs in the U.S. during his time as the president of Bain Capital, fact checkers estimate that Romney’s management of Bain may have lead to the elimination of as many as 6,000 U.S. jobs, including 3,500 jobs when Bain acquired KB Toys in 2000.
Romney claims that many of these jobs were eliminated after he left Bain capital in 1999 to serve on the Salt Lake City winter Olympic committee. However, a 2003 Massachusetts SEC disclosure form shows that he maintained 100 percent control of the company until 2002.
Additionally, the former Massachusetts governor displayed a deft ability to create a financial startup with the financial backing of war criminals involved in Salvadoran death squads during the early 1980s.
Romney touted these connections when he first ran for president in 2007, saying, “When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira.”
The Poma, Duenas and Soler families were among the wealthiest Salvadorans living in Miami during the 1980s. Many of the exiled Salvadoran elite helped finance the work of right wing thugs responsible for the majority of the killings during the Salvadoran Civil War.
An independent investigation by the U.S. Institute of Peace found that of the 70,000 killed during the Salvadoran war, U.S. backed forces, including the paramilitaries, were responsible for 85 percent of the deaths, most being innocent civilians.
The Poma, Duenas and Soler families were three of the wealthiest Salvadoran families living in exile during the Civil War. Although the principle investors have not been directly tied to funding death squads, many of their relatives provided financial backing and material support for right wing paramilitaries.