On This Issue, Third Parties Applaud Jeff Bezos' "Principled Decision" to Not Endorse. How else are we going to get out of this hideous two-party system?
The Washington Post
[Jeff Bezos] "What presidential endorsements actually do is create a perception of bias ... Ending them is a principled decision."
US Elections: Why We Must Be Radical - Professor Butch Ware The Thinking Muslim 207K subscribers Nov 1, 2024
The US elections are nearly upon us, and we have all be subject to the empty words and rhetoric of of the two main political parties. The Green Party has gained a lot of traction, especially amongst the countries small but very important Muslim community. I have already interviewed the leader of the Greens, Dr Jill Stein. But Today I have the pleasure to speak with Professor Butch Bilal Ware, its Vice Presidential nominee. Professor Butch Ware is a lifelong activist and educator specializing in the history of empire, colonialism, genocide and revolution. For the past two decades, Ware has put scholarship in service of the people, especially in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as the George Floyd murder in 2020.
Transcript
Introduction
somehow you're watering down your radicalism but wear is too radical for the green party I was stopped for driving W black 17 times before I reached my 18th birthday an officer drew his service weapon and pointed it at my face so we need to In This Moment organize for maximal political power we never condemn the resistance of occupy people to their occupy in your mind AA we has been persecuted there has never been a more dang dous dealer of death than the American Empire we destroyed Iraq we destroyed Afghanistan destroyed Palestine we are the Dutch star these so-called leftists apparently have never read any books on the subject nor have they had any conversation with actual weers and it is better for these people to have a red fascist than a blue fascist the US elections are nearly upon us and we have all been subject to the EMP words and rhetoric of the two main political parties the green party has gained a lot of traction especially amongst the country's small but very important Muslim Community I've already spoken to and interviewed the leader of the greens Dr Jill Stein but today I have the pleasure to speak to Professor Butch Bilal we uh its Vice Presidential nominee Professor Butch wear is a lifelong activist and educator specializing in the history of Empire colonialism genocide and revolu ution for the past two decades Professor wear has put scholarship in service of the people especially in response to the ongoing genocide in Gaza as well as the George Floyd murder in 2020 professor butam alayum and welcome to the thinking Muslim it's an honor and a privilege I'm overdue I'm but glad I was able to make time in the midst of a busy campaign to get this in so it's great to talk to you no I really appreciate your time and I know you've probably got a punishing schedule at the moment so jazak thank you so much for joining us precisely the Embrace Islam at 15 yeah punishing it's punishing I I I watched a really great interview uh between you and the Ansari on the Ansari podcast and I was surprised to hear that you had become Muslim at the age of 15 um before we begin with the politics and with you know the many questions I have about the green party can I just ask you I mean it's very rare for someone to embrace Islam I think anyway at the age of 15 like what brought you to Islam at that age yeah um so uh I read the autobiography of Malcolm X um cover to cover in one night when I was 15 years old um and I I remember that night like it was yesterday I mean I could not put that book down um you know Chang positions on my bed a few times sat in the corner on the floor for a while but I read it cover to cover I couldn't put it down reread certain portions of it um I wanted what MTH had at the end of that book Malcolm um like me had been in a lot of dark places in his life I was raised in uh extreme poverty um very difficult circumstances in Washington DC my father had a sixth grade education my mother was 15 years old when she was pregnant with me was told by her high school guidance counselor to get an abortion um you know I I came in to this world under difficult circumstances as Malcolm had um and what I saw in that book was that you know no matter how dark the places um you know you might have uh seen uh may be that the light of God could find you there and lift you up to the highest of all stations so I went to my school library the next day after not sleeping that night and I checked out an English translation of the Quran wow um yeah and I read that cover to cover the next night so I had stayed up you know for two consecutive nights without sleeping and I actually when I finished the Quran in Translation I fell asleep and missed my school bus and and slept through school that day so you know nakum and and and and and the Quran made me a truant um but but I hadn't taken my shahada before the end of the week I told my mom that day that I'm Muslim um and and that I and I looked up in the phone book for the where the nearest mosque was to go to go make my shahada I had also got a couple of books that were like instructions on how to pray and how do you you just something simple I think that um it was one of U maud's books was actually also at my public um you know library at that time I grabbed a copy of that and just learned the basics we didn't have the internet back then so I had to look these things up in books um and yeah I I my mom I told her I'm Muslim and um and I said I want to go you know make my shahada at this mosque and she was like that's wonderful honey but gonna have to wait till the weekend because I have work you know so so we waited until the weekend and then we drove out um to the Islamic uh uh uh Islamic Center in Fridley Minnesota I was living on uh in Minneapolis at that time I I made my Shada then really wonderful to hear it's inspirational and and I want to pick up on the Malcolm X connection Malcolm X and radicalism there because um Malcolm X was a radical and he fused his radicalism with Islam and in many ways Islam is a radical Faith uh it's it's a faith that requires us to call for justice uh and against all the odds and so in many ways you know we are all responsible for speaking out against tyan tyrannical rule oppression genocide is in the case of Gaza how important is that melding of radicalism with Islam in in your philosophy for and for me so just to be clear reading those two books uh consecutively on back-to-back Knights um they were a single argument for me right one was an autobiographical narrative about how to triumph over both internal and external oppressors and then the other was a universal narrative the Quran was a universal narrative about how to triumph over internal and external oppressors and when I read the Quran even that first time the the the Anti-Imperialist nature of the Quran the radical IM manatory liberatory message of the Quran was apparent to me right because why well where do we find IIM face Toof face with Nimrod the most powerful Emperor and Tyrant on the face of the Earth in his where do we find Moses and Aaron M and Har we find them T toes down face to face with the most dangerous tyrants and Emperor on the face of the Earth in their time where do we find Yahya where do we find ASA uh peace be upon all of the prophets we find them being persecuted by the Roman Empire why because the people of God always stand against the fundamental form of Oppression in their time that's what makes them the people of God if you have genuine comp passion for the children of Adam um and in many ways the quran's most radical argument is also its simplest right you are all the children of Adam and it is from dirt that you were created your nobility lies in the Divine breath that is breathed into you that caress that makes you right the human being is not made in the Quran just through a simple Act of speech no God asked inad to why did you not bow to that which I made with my own hand and then in two separate eyes of Quran God says and when I have fashioned it and breathed into it of my spirit then fall down before it prostrate so the human being is this sacred creation um indeed I enbl the children of Adam um so so uh for me the struggle to keep harm and oppression from reaching the children of Adam that was wired into my understanding of the Quran from the beginning and it was clear from Malcolm's experience that he was carrying forth that radical emancipatory Legacy in his age last thing that I'll say in response to this people that don't know my academic work before I got pulled into politics um my scholarship is about the history of West African Muslim Scholars who from the rise of the Atlantic slave trade itself also Drew on this emancipatory um uh potential of Islam to struggle against the fundamental evils of the age right they organized resistance to the r the Atlantic slave trade they organized resistance to um French to Dutch to British Imperial occupation Spanish imperial occupation um the the these African Muslims like an African-American Muslim like Malcolm or myself were people who read the Quran as as as a radical Manifesto of resistance to white supremacy um and so in that respect um you know I I I I feel quite comfortable in point of fact in this new position different from my academic life because I feel like I've been tagged into a fight you know that that that Malcolm took up in his time and that the great Scholars that I've written about in my work took up in their time um is your Sufis and being radical radicalism shared by many Muslims in the United States I mean I I note that I read somewhere and forgive me if I if I read it wrong but you are uh from a Sufi tradition or you Embrace a Sufi tradition and in in a West African Sufi tradition and in uh the United States we associate a lot of the time at least from the outside side uh Sufism uh with quietism with an apolitical Islam that tends to be in cahoots with dictators and princes around the world um maybe I'm I'm exaggerating a bit for effect here but um you know how does it's not a caricature by any means yeah go ahead right no I I I just want to understand so how does your Sufism uh uh interact with your Islam and your radicalism yeah I mean so for me so i' for people that have been knowing me you know as an intellectual in the Muslim Community I've been trying to persuade people that Sufism isn't about you know uh polite middle class tea parties in the suburbs um and chanting di that the real Sufi the people like um you know for example abdad jir Abdul Kad you know at age 19 he was crowned with the ceremonial turban that made him the greatest living heir of adby in his time okay and at age 20 he was organizing armed resistance to the French occupation of Algeria right um Abdul Kad Khan Kad Sufi himself in the 1770s um abolished not just the international slave trade as it was being conducted in in the senar river valley but he abolished the institution of slavery itself with a a an Emancipation Proclamation he said that that not a single verse of the book of God should ever be held in bondage so that anyone capable of reciting so much as a single Ayah of the Quran that was in his territories was to be immediately freed and just to be clear an ay of the Quran like is an Ayah of the Quran and he he said he said that the Muslim that should be protected from the indignities of enslavement is the one that says even if she pronounces it in other words he took the the legal exemption of Muslims enslaving other Muslims as a way of creating a blanket emancipation Pro Kad Sufi right and I wrote about him in my in my first book the walkin Quran shman Dano Kad Sufi also Northern Nigeria organized resistance to the Atlantic slave trade elaj maral Tani Sufi organized resistance to French occupation sh Ahmed Amba creator of the Tarik moradia spent 27 years of his life under house arrest because of his resistance to French colonial rule so the Sufi tradition that I know is one that tethers together spirit uality with social justice and it is a it is a Sufi tradition and this is important especially for this audience to understand that it is a sober Sufi tradition it is a Sufi tradition that is rooted in Quran and Sunnah and nothing else the idea behind the West African Sufi tradition is and always has been that the traditional branches of the Islamic religious Sciences are three that we have um the and they correspond to the Hadith of jel where the Prophet Alat was described to to was asked to describe the contents of the religion Islam Iman for in response to Islam he named the five pillars in a a response to uh to Iman he named six articles of Faith it's belief in God his books his angels his Messengers decree and the hour and in response to the to question what isan he said it is worshiping God as though seeing him and if you do not see him knowing that he sees you and the way that this has been understood in a West African context is that this is to put a 24hour surveillance camera not on your Deeds but on your intentions on why you do what you do um and that this is the the the the path of asan and so these are Sufi Scholars who why they did what they did was to try to keep needless harm and oppression from reaching the most precious thing that God created the children of Adam now you're starting as VP of the green party and uh I've received the occasional message Diluting radical tradition I think it's it's uh uh it's certainly not in plurality but there's an occasional message I received from Muslims in America and elsewhere which suggests that in a sense what uh by joining the green party and by uh fighting uh within the political process you're somewhat diluting that radical tradition because it's a secular it's a corrupt political process and it's better to fight from outside then join it fine you're not joining it by you know by embracing it but you're joining it by fighting this election and how would you respond to accusations that somehow you're watering down your radicalism yeah I mean it's a it's a wonderful question so was Malcolm watering down his radicalism when he created the organization for afroamerican Unity an explicitly political organization no he was not was huie P Newton founder of the Black Panthers um watering down his radicalism when he ran for elected office not once but twice was huie P Newton some kind of sell out was quame T stokeley carmichel um a sellout when he advocated for organizing what what quami Tor said and by the way people don't know that stokeley carmichel petor was a direct student of of of Malcolm X Malcolm said we are not outnumbered we are out organized Malcolm argued explicitly for political organization as the basis of empowerment um for black people for Muslims for all colonized people and he was a supporter of those political movements that embodied that so what stoley carmichel did with this U with Malcolm's insights about organizing he said people usually mobilize around issues but revolutionaries organize against systems let me repeat that people usually mobilize around issues revolutionaries organized against systems so as a historian myself it is claim that successful modern revolutions always contain a kernel of political party organizing within them and the reason is is that no party is bigger than the movement the movement is bigger than any party but political parties allow um movement energy to be galvanized towards organizational and institutional expression it allows you to leverage power and you mentioned in the introduction that the first time I got on social media is true I didn't have an open a social media account before George Floyd was murdered um you know so the hund 40 whatever thousand followers on Instagram that's all since you know since 2020 well what happened in 2020 there was a mobilization around an issue and it swept the whole globe whole globe but no organizing against the system so then what happened the system responded to the fact that this was a moment and not a movement by more repression than before so police have killed more people in every subsequent year 2021 2022 2023 now 2024 they're they kill more people every year and now the cops that used to just beat up people like me and by the way I was stopped for driving W black never ticketed 17 times before I reached my 18th birthday an officer drew his service weapon and pointed it at my face on 36th and 10th on the south side of Minneapolis a few blocks away from where George Floyd would eventually be choked a couple decades later so I know the carceral state uphand on my own flesh and the reality is is that people did not organize against the system so now the brutality that used to be exercised just against people like me is now being extended to middle class kids on college campuses right because this police state is now defending the Imperial fascists abroad with Imperial fascism at home so so what do we think is going to happen as Muslims in this moment where Gaza has people on fire if do not have an organizational institutional structure for our resistance when these white liberals stop seeing babies blowing up on their phones do you think that they're going to be interested in divesting from the apartheid state or Palestinian Liberation no so we need to In This Moment organize for maximal political power and that means uh yes you take electoral Avenues but it also means that you do not foreclose on non electoral Avenues such as direct action boycotting divesting and sanctioning and of course as is plain I have made it plain I I said this in an interview on Middle East eye we never condemn the resistance of occupied people to their occupi somebody asked me um uh um uh uh how would Malcolm have responded you know to to our current moment I said we know how he would have answered the question do you condemn Hamas we know how Malcolm would have answered that and and and I'll just you know make my position plain I have said at countless times that that resistance on the part of occupied people that that's enshrined uh as a right in international law our obligations go beyond this because um we are it is not a right to resist um occupation it is a responsibility to resist occupation you are not permitted in our Dean to have someone if someone wants to enter your home and kidnap or violate your family members you are not allowed to just say um I have a right to resist but I'm going to forego that right to resist you have a responsibility to resist and the the jurist the the scholars understood this so that they were they only considered themselves absolved of that responsibility if certain formal requirements were met if you were outnumbered more than two to one on the field of battle or if casualty ratios were in that then you had an option where you could sue for peace or negotiate but below that threshold you are required to resist now that's really really good to hear actually it's really um Green Party and Liberals reassuring to hear I uh I was speaking to a friend of mine he's a historian and uh he said something to me he said that but wear is too radical for the green party um think otherwise go ahead yeah well we we've got an equivalent we've got the we've got a green party I know they're not connected we've got a green party here and uh I spoke to a Muslim who's a member of the green party and he said you know it's full of uh you know well-to-do uh well healed white liberals who tend to not want controversy uh how much is the green party at the moment restraining your radicalism in no way is the green party restraining my radicalism when they when they made this invitation I said you guys do know who I yeah I said I said listen I'm going to give you 24 hours to reconsider this offer I need y'all to go ahead and run as much tape on me as you can um and you know good friend of mine hus jafer I did Instagram live live with them you know also uh you know a UK guy um he he he said you know we thought that when you got pulled into the politics we were suspicious because we thought you might mellow out and I'm like mellow out what like what what would I look like you know uh you know trying to embody the the legacy of Malcolm if I now turned around and and mellowed out so the first thing to say is that is that when I said this I said you guys better run tape on me they were like the campaign manager Jason call um Jill St he said he said no we know that's why we brought you on the campaign and Jill Jill said Jill Stein said absolutely and so Jill has been you know like um you know completely locks up and she also said if there are places where our platform does not go far enough then you let us know right so they've been open to you know to to to being responsive both to the concerns of the Muslims and to the concerns of those of us who are you know committed Anti-Imperialist I just have to say Dr Jill Stein is a committed Anti-Imperialist like in the best radical tradition I think that that the way the only way that I would argue um so I don't know about the green party in the UK but the green party in in the United States has almost no liberals in it um it has a lot of white progressives it has a lot of white um environmentalists white radicals the the older generation of green party leadership you know I think you know still reflects that demographically but politically it's not a party that has liberals in it um so that part we haven't had to do a lot of house cleaning in that in that respect because we know what Malcolm said you know about white liberals Malcolm said that the white liberal is a is a is a fox um you know that it that it Hunts by guile and cunning it Bears its teeth and you think that it's smiling but you are on the menu um so we have not had you know too many uh you know liberals white or otherwise to deal with in the green party so the green party has has really embraced um you know and and and has been willing to be pushed um and and just to be clear like the green party has run on a platform of reparations for the black community since 2012 the green party has run on a platform of full Liberation divestment um you know uh from from the aparte state in uh in in Palestine since 2006 um so so with respect to these major policy you know points of both domestic and um you know foreign policy um I I was actually surprised myself when you know because I knew about the green party uh growing up um one of my closest friends was a green party elected official in the City of Minneapolis so I knew about its local politics I did not understand the extent to which the green party was already standing at The Cutting Edge of Anti-Imperialist work that's really really reassuring to hear again um so Green’s and social issues let's talk a little bit about uh the green party and the Muslim vote at at present um I think it's fair to say that you have captured the majority of Muslims it seems to me at least the active Muslims uh and I anecdotally I'm just picking that up for conversations I'm having through comments on my videos through uh through various means it just seems like Muslims are moving in the green Direction and we'll be voting green uh I do often get uh a response from Muslims who are voting green that they're ready to do so but they don't agree with all of the policy platforms of the green party and they tend to site more often than not the social platform of of the green parties can you address that for me please yeah yeah definitely I mean so so I had similar questions until I read the platform and that's that's when I realized that that that we didn't have a problem so so the first thing that I'll say before I get to the question of social issues is to talk about how consonant the green party platform already was with core Islamic ethical and spiritual values so at the end at the bottom of every poster you know Green Party will say people Planet peace right and the the formal platform of the green party since its foundation 40 years ago mallister College 1984 in in uh in in minneap in Minnesota um you know next to my hometown second Hometown in Minneapolis was to they literally described themselves as stewards of these three things things the people the planet and the peace now in my online community spiritual intensives where I've taught from the West African uh Sufi tradition about how to tether together spirituality and social justice I have been teaching for the last four years without having any awareness of the green party platform about the notion of KFA stewardship in Islam and the principal things that we are uh uh uh question about our custodianship these things are the rights of the people the sanctity of human life the sanctity of the rights of human beings the planet like the the the Abomination that is the Saudi State we can talk about that in another you know uh uh place um but all of these you know Gulf polluters have been you know um what's the word um disavowing this fundamental responsibility that Muslims have to be stewards of our shared home as human beings our natural environment and especially as stewards of the peace and what because what we have is essentially the United States Empire which is the most dangerous Imperium ever to exist in human history I mean if we talked about Nimrod and pharaoh and the Roman emperors they would have all wet themselves at the prospect of surveillance capacity and death dealing capacity that the American Empire wakes up with every morning so so just to be clear um our responsibility our values as Muslims are first and foremost to be stewards of these three and those are precisely the core values of the green party so at the highest of levels there is direct consonant now with respect to the question that you asked about social issues and this is where I think people have a huge number of misconceptions in part because the green party is usually uh thought of as a party that is to the left of the Democrats to the left of Team blue and therefore thought of as on social issues then also being to the left of of Team blue whereas in point of fact the green party has played precisely no role of any kind in the culture war between liberals and conservatives as it has unfolded over the last 30 plus years in American politics you can just look that up we're not there having an argument about lgbtq rights versus religious rights and the reason is is that the basic principle of the green party is that at age 18 when a a person that has political maturity in the United States of America they can live their life by whatever code they choose to live their life by and there is not a moral argument that you are supposed to be you know um accepting the way that someone else chooses to live their life as a core tenant of your value as a human being Muslims should choose to live their life by the code that they choose Christians should choose the Life by the code that they choose atheists agnostics whoever that is and that the role of of an actual uh de uh democracy the leadership in an actual Dem democracy is not to stoke Warfare in order to site fear between people that choose to live their lives differently but is to create a safe space in the public environment for everybody's choices on how they live their life to be respected and for no one to get prejudicial treatment one way or the other and when I want to put a fine point on this to the musl Muslim Community I just often point out that from from the standpoint of you know uh of certain secular humanists right there is a demonization of the institution of polygamy correct it it can be represented from their standpoint as deviants they can frame it however they want the green party um is there to protect the rights of people who will live by whatever code that they have chosen for themselves and to not impose that on other people so when Muslims sometimes get exercised about lgbtq issues I remind them of a few simple facts the first is is that non-muslims are not required to live by the Sharia of Islam so what non-muslims do in their bedrooms is none of our damn business that's number one two no sin puts a believing person outside the fold of Islam therefore if you are a person um who constructs um homosexual uh Behavior as a sin according to the tradition kind of Juris Prudential rulings of Islam and I'll be blunt about this I will be explicit about this is that I have never come ac across a plausible juristic ruling that suggests that the sin of the people of lot is anything other than what we presume it to be but at the same time as all of my teachers my West African teachers have taught me no sin puts a believing person outside the fold of Islam therefore it is not our position to chase such people away or any other such thing rather it is to create an environment that that Fosters safety for for all so mus non-muslims are not a problem and now the Muslims are also not a problem so then the question becomes do you want the state probing into your private bedroom Affairs in your polygamous household or in your monogamous household for that matter well then stay out of other folks bedrooms too that that is the basic you know position and when you understand that the green party has played no role in stoking this culture War you realize that you are actually being a given a vehicle that allows you better expression of your values and ethics as a Muslim and more importantly a vice presidential candidate that has sat with Scholars I do not advertise this this fact but I have traditional authorizations from Scholars for texts I don't run on that basis that's not the basis on which I would govern but the point is is what is better to have someone in a position of power that is capable of understanding and defending Muslim sensibilities or to have someone who uh in in power who has no even awareness of the intricacies of those I know that not everyone is going to have the same understandings of you know Islamic jurist Prudence that I have been trained with both as an academic and as a as a student of knowledge but the prophet Alam is reported to have said dis agreement in my um is a mercy from God so I'm there to defend those that might see things otherwise and to create a public space wherein the rights of all people of faith and people of conscience are respected um and to contribute in no way to this toxic environment of a culture War and the last thing that I'll say on that is that so many Muslims do not understand the way the extent to which their Consciousness has been poisoned by right-wing rhetoric yeah that's I think that's a Uyghurs and foreign policy really comprehensive answer jazak thank you for for answering it in in that way can I then ask you about foreign policy positions now you said that Jill Stein and the green party have a very strong Anti-Imperialist uh history and they take very strong positions on on imperialism in particular American imperialism but does that commitment to be Anti-Imperialist and anti-American foreign policy or anti-empire does that commitment come at the cost of sometimes siding with groups and countries who are persecuting Muslims I mean I I think I got a satisfactory answer on the Syria question from Joe Stein but the oers I mean there was a an interview that went around of course Medi Hassan sent it around because it it it uh it corroborates his agenda his pro-democratic agenda for sure but nevertheless his Pro his Pro he Med Med Hassan believes that you that you can oppose a genocide and support the genocider which is which is which is a kind of Madness that I have no ability to Fathom but go ahead continue sorry yeah no no I I I completely agree but it's illogical completely illogical bu
Let's just talk about the Wagers um in your mind uh are the Wagers being persecuted you know or even genocided I I would suggest and are they been placed into concentration camps or is this some sort of CIA plot uh to you know to to restrict the uh the appetites of a rising power China yeah so so I'll go back to the beginning of the question and then and then answer the final part so so the overall framing of anti-imperialism is crucial before we get to the second part of the question I'll just say this um before I was brought onto the campaign I hosted uh Dr Jill on an Instagram live that I did and I asked her specifically I said I'm not gonna ask you questions about Palestine because all of my Palestinian colleagues both in AA the West Bank abroad here in the US have been pushing me towards East I'm not going to ask uh sorry about that I'm not going to ask questions about about that I want to ask you about overall view for American foreign policy and her answer stunned me she said my view for American foreign policy is to dismantle the American Empire great and I said yeah you better hurry up and do it quick before somebody does it for you right that that if you take those $1.3 trillion doar that are now spent annually on the War Machine and instead put that into housing Affordable Health Care all of the social programs that Americans need you can cut Americans taxes and still give them better social programming than before you can build not a Utopia but a functioning Society whereas if you continue to squander that wealth on dealing death throughout the Imperium then somebody bricks for example um is going to take your Empire away from you and and that can lead to a kind of collapse into fascism which we are witnessing under both teams blue and team red so the first thing is just to say and to affirm that there has never been a more dangerous dealer of death than the American Empire and that our aim is to is to dismantle that Empire so that the American state survives and so that the resources of the American state can be put at the disposition of the American people and that the globe will become a safer place when the United States is no longer the Death Star because that's essentially what we are we point beams and Destroy whole worlds we destroyed Iraq we destroyed Afghanistan destroyed Palestine we are the Death Star and if you have responsible moral adults with intelligence and integrity then you can dismantle that weapon of death and instead put all of those resources towards the construction of life and livelihood now to the question with the Wagers yeah this is a a an issue it is not a fundamental issue inside the green party it is more of an issue that affects the the Socialists and the Communists because there is a strong authoritarian tendency they're glossed sometimes as tankies um and it's it's a reference to you know whether you agree with the the decision I think that Stalin made um to to to use tanks against his own citizens to put down a popular Uprising um these are people that will defend um authoritarians as long as they happen to be socialists or Communists as long as they happen to be anti- capitalist um and opposed to us Empire so the first thing to just to say is that I'm not going to waste my time arguing with Tanki so let's put that part aside right the the the the question about weager specifically is uh one of those situations where both things can be true and and some of the so-called leftists refuse to accept that something can be blown out of proportion and weaponized um by CIA intelligence and Cor corupt liberal press and also be true on the basis of facts on the ground those things can both be true at the same time and in fact they often are but the unfortunate logic is that people are uh concluding that the enemy of my enemy is my friend therefore I have to treat but whereas in in reality sometimes you got two enemies right the enemy of your enemy is not always your friend and as somebody that has lived in Africa for extensive periods I speak the wallof language fluently speak the colonial language of of of French fluently um and and by the way sagol where I did most of my field research and have lived for years is a socialist country and they will be the first people to tell you that Chinese Capital while not violent in its domineering nature is nonetheless capitalist and extractive in the way that it engages with the African continent Chinese are not infallible the Chinese Communist party is not really communist it is capitalist in the way that it organizes much of its activities at home and abroad last thing to say with respect to the Wagers we as Muslims all know Wagers who who who who will tell us directly face Toof face their experiences of persecution their experiences of being oppressed whether you call it um in a genocide in the the post that that got the tankies mad at me was that I referred to to to the Wagers in the overall context of genocidal oppression and I think that that is a fitting um you know title for what weager face and by the way this is not a controversial position and it is not drawn from any Western sources I've never read any of those media accounts nor those CIA statements they inform my opinion and nothing I'm an academic I served on a search committee where we hired uh uh historian historians of China so and they were all Chinese candidates by the way those Chinese candidates write and talk about Han Supremacy Han Chinese Supremacy as being more virulent and dangerous in China than white supremacy is in America and the reason is that on an ethnic basis thead make up something like 91% of the total population of China so that both the wayy and weager Muslims as well as Tibetan Buddhists and others that don't conform to the kind of or in the case of the Wei they conform to the ethnic basis but not the religious BAS basis of the kind of uh normative um identity of the state that they are always living under circumstances of persecution and that by the way is a matter of fact simple academic conclusion that these so-called leftists apparently have never read any books on the subject they nor have they had any conversation with actual Wagers as Muslims we all have and as an academic I've read multiple Works including doctoral dissertations on these subjects is not a controversial from uh statement for me to say that Muslims have been systematically disadvantaged and oppressed and subjected to genocidal practices for over a thousand years yeah no I think that's a really clear answer um actually as you were talking His political leanings there I was I was thinking I mean you you've talked about the tankes and the leftist so where do you fit in terms of your politics like would you self-describe as someone who is a socialist or is a leftist like how would you describe where you are my entire life I have been an anti- capitalist um from the beginning um you know I organized a Pana africanist reading group at the University of Minnesota when I was 18 or 19 years old um called Africa's progyny for Global power that this would I mean literally from the beginning and I was we reading Walter Rodney um I was reading um you know the the the um African socialists you know quame and kruma seur and others I I I learned French early on and read the French revolutionaries in their um in their original languages whenever I could for me I don't so just to be clear about this and this is I think why people find me difficult to place if you read my first academic book the walkin Quran you will find not a single reference to any Western theorist in the book I do not take my categorial thinking from white supremacist categories at any level I refuse to so I actually do not in my own thinking situate my own politics on a left to right political Spectrum Malcolm didn't think about it or talk about it that way he never used that language he talked about liberals and conservatives he did not talk about left and right okay um for specific reasons and though he has been claimed by many um you know socialists Communists marxists Malcolm was not in point of fact a socialist communist or Marxist he was explicit in his rejection of that framing as descriptive of reality because I think that Malcolm was similarly ideological res ideologically resistant to the idea of taking some white European man as the the the founder of his his way of thinking so for for my own personal politics have always been radically anti- capitalist but as a believing and practicing Muslim I I and I use by the way the analytical tools that come from marxian analysis all of the time especially when they come from colonized and third world populations but I never consider that the kind of um doctrinaire Marxist positions as being foundational for me in in any way um I I find a basic flaw actually um in much of the articulation and as as a Muslim it's a relatively simple and straightforward one so linguistically and analytically uh the anti antithesis to a thing must always contain the thesis antithesis right so the the thing is is when you craft an antithesis you have to respond in the terms of the original argument otherwise you do not win the original argument and what we often find in Marxist analysis is that the values of capitalism are deeply threaded within them they're just simply inverted they're turned into an antithesis and that's the reason part of the reason why what we often find is uh that so-called socialists or so-called Communist States actually end up with capitalist structures under State control rather than under control of the Bourgeois so that's a a structural problem and it inheres in the kind of dialectic relationship just of of these are basics of philosophy right that the thesis the antithesis must require must also contain the thesis secondly because the thesis of marxist capitalist analysis is uh um it is it is materialist and what I mean by that is that it has no metaphysics it takes as real only that which is empirically verifiable and as Muslims we must therefore reject it as the basis of our ontological understandings we can use and I encourage us to use it's analytical category for thinking critically about capitalism but no system that is purely materialist as a philosophical system is capable of actual um metaphysical Transcendence meaning um so so the and by the way stokeley car also quame T pointed this out quame T said that when Mark said that religion is the opiate for the masses that was only he said this that was only accurate for Europe he said that throughout the indigenous World throughout the African World throughout the Asian world that the the spiritual traditions of those places were emancipatory Radical tra uh uh traditions and that the struggle against imperialism and against capitalist exploitation in the non-european world was always a spiritual struggle not just the material one and that that way of thinking is much closer to my own personal thinking now again at running for the executive branch my own personal thinking informs the way that you approach policy but it does not determine it because it's not your personal thinking that you are there to represent you're there to represent the interests of the the people and of the collective but when asked what my own personal thinking and approach is that is you know in in a in a five minute sketch the kind of philosophical basis of it do you think Muslims in America could Can Muslims work independently organize themselves independently around this philosophy I don't think that it's necessary that we do so I I think that that part of what the green party is offering is and let's just be be clear about this and explicit about this um the green party is providing the the material based the the the the increase in fundraising capacity organizational capacity political prominence that the green party is experiencing in this electoral cycle which will exceed any electoral achievements even in the nater era for sure that is all being bullied by the Muslims and with a Muslim as the VP and a very particular kind of Muslim as the VP like a a Muslim that is steeped in the black radical tradition and I think that it is partially because I am both very Muslim and very black and very radical I sorry I said both but I'm all I'm all of those things um that it has helped to crystallize what is going to happen in this moment in the next moment which is that the Muslims don't have to create their own we have organizations we have care we have you know and we have others what we are being essentially get given an opportunity to do is to have Islamic ethics values and Leadership provide the driving force for the third largest political party in the United States of America the Muslims are being handed the keys and and and let me just make this clear the Muslims are also being presented with exactly the same crisis therefore exactly the same opportunity EXA exactly the same dilemma that the American Jewish Community faced after World War II how do you respond to a genocide against your people and they they responded in an insular way driven by ethn religious nationalism to Say Never Again to my people right and they responded with APAC we do not need a Muslim version of APAC what we need is Muslims providing ethical leadership spiritual leadership moral Clarity um in a cohesive movement of Anti-Imperialist forces that are actually about restoring representative government to the people make America work for everyone um and so the Muslims have this incredible opportunity now right to provide moreal leadership and we are providing that like we you mentioned the numbers it's not just the plurality it is now a majority of American Muslims that say that they're going to vote are saying that they're going to vote for the green party and what it means is that this is the First Community in uh in the United States of America to say no in coin of fact genocide is our red line and everyone that wants to follow us that build community with us um and and we are going to you know to to bring in those progressives those radicals but I've made it this explicit we are now in two separate polls we are pulling more Trump voters than we are uh Harris voters I mean most of our voters are going to be people that wouldn't have voted at all but we are now pulling more Trump voters than than Harris voters according to to a number of measures and the reason for that is is that all of the issues that the green party is running on are 7030 or 80 twit 20 issues for the American people so the last part of my answer to your question is that when I see the future of the green party I do not see a leftist party on this you know kind of Fringe left what I see is two separate framings if we were to borrow Malcolm's framing I see liberal extremists on one side and conservative extremists on the other side and I see a green verdant path right down the middle on 70 30 80 20 issues that are of concern to all of the American people see the green party as a Centrist movement not in the compromising way that that term is usually used but if you are responding to to to the the concerns and questions of 70% of the American population that want to C Spar then you are in the middle now if we wanted to borrow instead of Malcolm's you know kind of non-denominational you know framing if we wanted to use this left to right Spectrum we're still centrists and and the reason is in that framing both the Democrats and the Republicans are so far to the right that they're off practically off the scale entirely I mean just think about the fact that Ronald Reagan in 1982 racist devil that he was remember he said that a that he he he was caught on tape talking to Richard Nixon about African uh dignitaries that visit visited The Wine House he called them monies and said that this was the first time they ever wore shoes and Suits but and that blackhearted devil nonetheless knew to call monam Bean in 1982 and he called what the the Zionist entity was doing in Lebanon a holocaust explicitly comparing it to the Nazi Holocaust of the Jewish people and within 24 hours that Holocaust was ended because Reagan didn't just threaten an arms embargo he threatened to cut off relations that was Ronald Reagan he's a monster that Joe Biden and kamla Harris 40 years later have let a genocide linger for a full year they are incapable of even that so that means that Reagan was here and now today's Democrats and Republicans are literally off the map to the right we're still a Centrist party because the green party is responding to what every American wants none of them want their tax dollars to use to be used to blow up babies they all want those tax dollars to be used instead to lower income tax provide affordable housing Health Care they none of them want corporate uh domination in our politics none of them want money to determine who wins elections these are all right down the-middle issues and and you know I've already made this clear that now that I've been tagged into this fight with the green party I'm not coming out of if we don't land that knockout punch I am running immediately for the nomination in 2028 for for to to run at the top of the presidential uh ticket and running for governor of the state of California for for in the midterms in November 2026 I am not letting the Muslim Community or this Coalition that we have been able to build I'm not going to let us stop organizing because I know what is going to happen if we stop organizing fantastic um I have Voting for Trump come across Muslims who are with you actually in punishing the Democrats you've made it very clear that uh voting for the Democrats is untenable it's unacceptable and I completely agree with you what would you say to those Muslims who are teetering they're thinking about voting for Trump just to uh solidify that anti-genocide vote because of course when you vote for Trump you've got two votes right you've got you're taken away from the Democrats and you adding to Trump whereas when you vote for the green party you've basically got one vote because you're taken away normally anyway from the Democrats and you're add in it's the I think it's actually the opposite of the way that it's normally framed and the reason is is that if you vote for Trump you just get thrown with the racist and the Rednecks to be perfectly honest about it um whereas if you vote for the green party you can actually begin to develop the institutional strength in the third party alternative so let's say you're not persuaded by the way that I just laid out the green party platform and its consonant with Islamic values and you still think that a conservative quote unquote option is the better option for you 70% of American Independents 53% of American Democrats 40% of American Republicans say that what we need is an independent third party because teams blue and team uh teams blue and red are so bad at their jobs so the way that you can actually create change is by investing in the the the the growth of that third party which is us we are the only third party that is available as an option to voters for 95% of the voters in the United States of America we're the only one that's actually capable of reaching the 5% threshold in this upcoming election which would guarantee us uh perhaps as much as $60 million um in order to to to to run the next election in 2028 it would um guarantee us ballot access across the country not in every state but in the overwhelming majority of states to this point in time almost half of our budget in the first 10 months of running just came to try to secure a ballot access so it would allow us to clear the Batton access hurdle right from the beginning and here's the best part it would give us a debate I mean IM imagine you know imagine it's 2028 um and they let you know um either Dr Jill Stein or myself um anywhere near that stage and I mean I'll be blunt about this we don't talk about this a lot it's it's not appropriate to talk about it before the election but Dr Jill came out of retirement to run this cycle we've had these conversations it's very unlikely that she would run in 2028 unless she's running for reelection right now that that is a very different Prospect but what that what that means is that that the and and I've heard this from you know green party you know organizations on the ground that you are right now talking essentially to the presumptive nominee of the green party for 20128 which means that they gonna owe me a presidential debate and man they do not want no part of that presidential debate and and the reason is is that the American people are not fools the American people have been fooled right they have been conditioned to think that there are only these two choices when and that's the reason why they've you know attacked Dr Jill tried to smear her that that's why they're now trying to smear me is that there is a marked difference between candidates with intelligence and integrity like us and corrupt mediocre politicians because let us be clear Donald Trump is Donald Trump could not pass any class that I have ever taught at any University he is dumb as a box of sticks okay and that's just obvious JD Vance in uh insanely mediocre as a human being because privilege protects mediocrity Kam Harris as well what has K Harris ever won she is a miserable ineffective candidate she's a joke Vatican smoke signals went up anointing her her she did not win a single nomination for that office so these are fraudulent flawed candidates and if they had let Dr Jill on a debate stage during this cycle which they were terrified of she would have been able to say this one here team red is a domestic terrorist and a convicted felon this one here is a war criminal because the ICC and icj concluded that that the aarid state of uh I won't even call it Israel Israel is a name of Honor in the Quran the Zionist entity is an illegal apartheid state conducting a genocide in the midst of an illegal occupation um anybody that provides material support to such is actually in point in fact a war criminal and they want no part of us having the the ears of the American people which is why they tried to sue to keep us off the ballot the the crazy part is is because I was in the academic world and had no interest and in the community teaching world and had no interest in politics they never saw me coming they did not ban Tik Tok fast enough and they did not you know get to my social media account fast enough because now that I've been tagged into this fight especially in a position where I can represent the values and aspirations of both the Muslim Community and the the the the community that is anti-colonial Anti-Imperialist and has longed for you know Liberation for five centuries now I am not putting down this sword I'm going to keep fighting until we get to Freedom can I turn to um George Floyd George Floyd I remember um Yahya senoir in fact he drew a parallel between George Floyd and the Palestinians I mean did that resonate with you and the in particular the black community there in the United States 100% um I posted you know um a graphic and I'm forgetting the name of the incredibly talented artist that did this um but he essentially you know uh uh ju the pose image of a American police officer in blue with his knee on George Floyd's neck um with an iof um you know soldier with his knee on a Palestinian neck um and you know we know that it's not just that the that our you know um police state repressive police forces here in the United States of America are often trained by the the Israeli occupation forces but it has always in point of fact been so before it was Israel it was South Africa um and that the the the the apar state of South Africa trained a lot of the police and tested a lot of the weapons that were then used on black communities throughout the the the 80s so there was been there's been a profound resonance um in that and you've seen black people um not just people of color generally black people at the Forefront of a lot of these campus protests at the Forefront a lot a lot of this movement there has been a rift you know essentially because KLA Harris's campaign is attempted to try to weaponize Black black Ness um in support of a white supremacist genocide um and I've spoken about the the kind of massive betrayal that is not just of the black radical tradition but of Blackness itself because African-American identity black identity comes into being in response to white supremacist domination I mean you got to understand as a historian I've studied this you you're talking about people that spoke of hundreds of different languages coming from you know many were Muslims many were um there were congales Christians many practitioners of traditional African religions speaking hundreds of different languages on plantations throughout the US South but also in Northern cities people forget that slavery was widespread throughout the northern colonies until the American Revolutionary War and it died out slowly thereafter all of these people coming from different backgrounds united only by the slur you know of you know negro negro you know I won't say the other one you know on on on on this CU I I don't I want you to be able to to keep up your monetization you know on your YouTube channel because if I say the other one they you know they they they'll cut it right but that's what we were called and never before in human history had people that came from so many different backgrounds united only by this system of Oppression made themselves into one people Blackness is in and of itself a miracle and it is a miracle that was defined in opposition to white supremacy so what could be more perverse than now having Blackness weaponized in service of white supremacy and and if we have any questions about Zionism as being white supremacy in its foundation brilliant doctoral dissertation by MAA alhassan was the one that taught me this is that she she actually went through Malcolm's field notes and and after he had spent time in Palestine hunas and other is he wrote in his notes he said this is a white Jewish population being empowered by white imperialist authorities to move Brown Arabs off of their ancestral lands nakum said in in so many words that Zionism is white supremacy and if you understand Zionism as wank Supremacy then you understand what we are actually all struggling against my my wife for examples Mexican Amer um the IM immigration policies of the United States of America are white supremacist uh policies um and her people um have to fight back against white supremacy as my people have to fight against white supremacy is your people as any apostate as any you know light-skinned quote unquote white apostate from white supremacy also has to fight back against white supremacy as well when you understand that our shared enemy is white supremacy imperialism fascism capitalist exploitation then we are so much more numerous than our opponents are and and I'll end that you know kind of discursus with this point from Malcolm what did Malcolm say he said two things he said never let your enemy tell you how many of you there are never let the man you are against form your opinions for you we have internalized this idea that we are friends that we are weak that we are small no we are not weak we are not few in number we are definitely not outnumbered we are out organized and my goal is to do everything that I can to bring this you know power Coalition um into being uh of course Barack Fascism in US Obama uh made a comment the other day about Muslim voters and the consequence of voting for Trump or voting for a third party and enabling Trump to come to office and he painted a picture of a world which would be far worse uh the Democrats that have banded around the fword a fascist were describing Donald Trump I mean how would you respond to these claims that U life will become far more Fierce and difficult for Muslims for black Americans if Donald Trump comes to power I mean so there's there's two sort of basic you know um uh answers to this the first is to just debunk the basic premise of the question so the first thing to understand is that the Democrats have already lost the election and they know that they have already lost the election you're confident about that no they they know that it's happened so they know that we are not taking votes away they know that unless you elect the green party Trump has already won and the reason is is that when I joined the campaign I immediately got access to a bunch of polling information that I didn't have access to before and it's clear that that as as early as January of 2024 the Democrats knew that they were going to lose the election and here's how they knew is that Institute for social policy and understanding named Dalia mahad presented me with the data as soon as I joined the campaign in August in 2020 Joe Biden in the swing states of Georgia Michigan and Pennsylvania and those three states by the way demographically with respect to the African-American population Muslim population and so forth are basically the same state they have the same kind of basic demographic makeup so Joe Biden in those three swing States and he needed every one of them you know to win um he got 65% of the the Muslim vote he was ping at 12% in the Muslim Community in January 2024 wow dead man walking and they have known at least since January that they were never going to be able to reassemble the Coalition that got them the that election and that's why they've been coming after black voters so aggressively um because they know that they have no hopes of putting that Coalition back together but they forgot that black Muslims are the largest single ethnic group in the American Muslim Community so that that that you are never going to get black Muslims on board with this genocidal uh um you know um campaign so just to be clear the most recent data from yaken Institute you know shows what what um how much worse things have gotten for them um this was almost a month ago now where they were showing that 53% of the Muslims they surveyed were planning on voting third party with over 80% of those coming to us 14 15% for Kamala 4% for Trump so the reality is is that listen Jews don't vote for Nazis and Muslims are not going to vote for Democrats you don't vote for the people that Holocaust you and so that and that's the reason why the Democrats have made this last second appeal to try to get Republican voters on board with people like Dick Cheney and L Cheney and so forth because they know that they have no hopes of any kind of winning this election with the Electoral constituency that they have before they're dead um so the first part of the answer to your question is you can sleep comfortably at night knowing that they caused their own demise and you did not you should vote your conscience vote for where you want your name on the L because understand that if you choose to write your name next to the party that genocided your people you have in Essence signed your name next to Pharaoh well what happened to the people of pharaoh the people that stood next to him were washed away with the flood but Pharaoh was a hereditary Monarch the people did not elect him and yet just by standing next to him they were destroyed what will be the Fate on the day of Judgment of a people who enter into a Ballot Box and positively affirm that they choose the people that slaughtered bear brothers and sisters in the third holiest place on the planet for Muslims it is a catastrophic decision from a religious standpoint every single human being that has been maned or lost their life unjustly in that war now has a potential claim against you on the day of judgment because you have participated in whatever crime was committed against them because you have positively endorsed and affirmed it and you've said more please now with respect to the Spectre of so-called fascism and Trump fascism is already here these are democratic Governors Democratic Mayors Democratic cities that have been building these cop cities and sending Riot troops in the hundreds to suppress your constitutionally protected rights of speech and assembly fascism is here and it is better for these people to have a red fascist than a blue fascist because at least when there's a red fascist the Liberals are afraid when there's a blue fascist the Liberals will cut your throat and tell you it's for your best because those other guys are dangerous it is a kind of collective Madness if we want to make it quranic cuz we're on the thinking Muslim how did F keep the people under control he had magicians that had them Spellbound well who are The Magicians that have the people Spellbound AB accepting these absurd arguments they are the media companies MSNBC running cover and carrying water for team Blue Fox News running cover and carrying water for team red CNN running cover and carrying water for the 1% as a whole and they tell you over and over again that the despite the fact that all the American people say that we need a new third party you can't vote for them they might not win it's a kind of collective Insanity because we've been propagandized over and over and over again to just accept these two corporate murderous parties as the only option that we have the reality is is that they're both the same party they're just they're purple fascist they're a mix of blue and red they they have 99% the same name donors APAC and the war machine there is a 1% marginal difference between the the Christian Evangelical nationalists which support team red only and lgbtq U extremists that want to indoctrinate everyone with their own philosophical um uh Moray as the the the supporting the other parts so there is this Skirmish between these two identity camps Each of which is trying to propagandize the other no you have to accept a Christian definition that life begins at conception which by the way no muslim jurist ever believed no mus it kills me when Muslims get Tethered to these uh right-wing Christian talking points about life beginning at conception when every single Muslim jurist that I've ever read said that the insulants of a human being takes place after 120 days and that the the the jurist used to say about this question of abortion which was known that uprooting a dates a seed is not the same as uprooting a date palm I've got one final question for you um uh Dr we and that's really about the American Empire I mean today we've spoken a lot about dismantling the American Empire dismantling this Imperium and of course um Muslims around the world have have Dismantling Empire feared very badly uh with this Empire and its its propensity to deep militancy to violence um we saw over a million dying in Iraq and War on Terror and we we're seeing that continuing in in Gaza and in Palestine and if this is all connected to the American Empire are we ever going to see the end of this Empire like will we see the end of this Empire In Our Lifetime like how how realistic is it to to dismantle this Imperium so so across all of our Fai and philosophies as human beings there is one universal truth that unites them all all Empires fall all Empires fall right go to the end of Sur and God asked this you know question of qu have you not wandered in the earth and seen the ruins of those who were more more exalted in power and wealth than you were do you see any sight of them now or hear so much as a peep from them it's a Stern warning and that is also true across secular philosophies no Imperial power can with uh can uh retain that power where are the Builders of the pyramids now where are the Builders of the Roman Coliseum now so the the problem that we as you know Muslims and we as formerly colonized people have is that we have internalized the chains of our oppressors we struggle as though defeating the the Empire is impossible whereas in point of fact the fall of the Empire is inevitable inevitable the most important question is what will replace this Fallen Empire and that's why I'm always focused on those social policies and leading with our ethics and our values rather than Vengeance and retribution because I'm thinking about the kind of society that we want to live in post American Empire in the world of language they say the child of Adam not release what their hand is holding until they're reaching for something better right we have to be reaching for society that's better than this Imperium because this Imperium is in point of fact doomed it is not uh impossible it is inevitable so the then the question then becomes well then how do you usher in this new age what what do you do well Dr Jill Stein has already talked about this there are 800 military installations of the US Empire throughout the globe 700 of them serve no tactical or strategic function they are just you know artifacts of Empire that continue to antagonize the world with the marks of American imperialism right she said that within the first year you can get 700 of those out that leaves a hundred that have strategic importance and you make the world safe um you know from us and for us um you know by by by phased negotiated withdrawals from those places to create a multi-polar world the truth is is that I think part of the reason why we're drawing more Republican voters than Democrat voters and according to some uh polling now is that the so-called conservatives already perceive the futility of you know wasting money and you know American lives trying to fight fruitless Wars in foreign countries as they would frame it around the the the the world um that those get Americans killed and they don't do anything except make the shareholders at halberton or Ron or Lockheed Martin or Boeing or General Dynamics richer um so the the the end of this Empire is is within sight and the last thing that I'll just say about this as as a historian right why has the Middle East you know and the broad Middle East you know stretching from West Africa through North Africa into East Africa the lands of the Muslims let's just be blunt about this lands of of Muslim majorities from the time that Columbus first set sail people forget that Columbus's first Journeys were off the West African Coast before he sailed um West to go East they were trying to find a way around the Muslims so that they could control what had always been the most lucrative sources of Commerce in human history those they connected the Muslim world and for 500 years a white supremacist imperialist capitalist system has kept Muslims and the globe under its subjugation first dominated by the Spanish then the Portuguese then the Dutch then the French then the British and then after World War II by the United States of America five centuries of white supremacist global domination that era is over it is finished a new day is Dawning and America will either be um an irrelevant I hate to say this um you know former you know uh uh Empire you know still drunk on its past Glory the way that Britain is I mean I I I saw an epic take down you know of of of you know Britain by by Chinese Diplomat he was like why would we think of them as equals like like what why who wait are you're talking about the United king United Kingdom like who are they like have them talk to my door man is basically the way that that that that China did and that is what is coming for the United States of America unless its leadership Embraces the idea that it still has if not the first then at least the second you know largest and most powerful economy still has this incredible you know military capacity that could be used to keep the World safe and secure as it withdraws from its previous imper those are tactical chips that you can use to keep people safe from the other Mad Men in the world right because we do have other people with you know crazy imperialist aspirations you know through throughout the globe the United States of America just by withdrawing from its Imperial fantasies and instead using its resources to actually meet the needs of its people could provide a model for all of humanity and with me in the white house either as vice president or eventually as president and preferably both you have my word that if they put the sun in my right hand and the Moon in my left I would not desist from my lifelong mission of trying to live true to the values of this religion and true to the values of the black liberatory and emancipatory tradition which has brought so much to the Muslims who have always you know looked up to Muhammad Ali who have always looked up to Malcolm X and to be frank about this the Muslim immigrant community in the United States of America is largely present because of the 1965 Immigration Act which was born through the Civil Right struggles of black people this is a way for our community to become whole to get free and to help set Humanity free so if your people did not know who I was before this interview um they need to start reading up because that's what I'm going to be on for these next you know few years and make you know God protect us all from you know from from the enemies that seek to keep that from happening and may God give us Swift Liberation in our lifetime not waiting to pass this on to our children five centuries of white supremacist Empire is enough Professor but where it's really been a pleasure speaking to and I think I I speak for much of my audience um we've never really come across uh your writing and your um uh your videos before but I think um alhamdulillah I think we'll be following much more of what you have to say in in the months and years ahead inshah thank you so much for the opportunity to to talk to the people thank you very much brother please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube channels and head over to our website thinking muslim.com to sign up to my Weekly Newsletter
Why Muslims Should Vote For The Green Party with Dr Jill Stein The Thinking Muslim Oct 27, 2024
The pro-genocide administration of Biden and Harris has been involved in a frenetic outreach to America’s small but vocal Muslim community. These critical constituents in crucial battleground states like Michigan are where November’s election will be won or lost. Both parties, the Democrats and Republicans, are Zionist to their core, but this genocide has happened with the seal of approval and the consent of the Biden-Harris administration.
Is Gaza a turning point? Can we move beyond this two-party nightmare? Are third-party options plausible in a system that approves only two possibilities? Or is voting for anyone but the two bad options a wasted vote? And what of the broader question of the US empire and its propensity to violence? How will this election address what the world observes as an imperium without moral or ethical standards?
Today I have a very special guest, Dr Jill Stein, leader of the Green Party and Presidential candidate. Jill is a Harvard educated doctor, an environmentalist, campaigner and organiser.
Transcript
Introduction
a vote for you is in vote for Donald Trump Israel is a proxy for the US here can I ask you about about M Hassan interview while he opposes genocide he's all in favor of those committing genocide he's a LAPD dog to uh to Empire does the green party have a Syria problem I have never expressed support for Assad the American people want to end the genocide our children are not okay unless all children are okay okay there is a new moral compass here and much of that is coming from the Muslim Community the pro genocide administration of Biden and Harris has been involved in a franatic Outreach to America's small but vocal Muslim Community these critical constituents in crucial Battleground States like Michigan are where November's election will be one or lost both parties for Democrats and Republicans are zionists to the call but this genocide has happened with the seal of approval and the consent of the Biden Harris Administration is Gaza a turning point can we move Beyond this two-party nightmare our third party options plausible in a system that approves only two possibilities or is voting for anyone but the two bad options a wasted vote and what of the broader questions of us Empire and its propen to violence how will this election address what the world observes as an Imperium without moral or ethical standards now today I have a very special guest Dr Jill Stein leader of the green party and presidential candidate Jill is a Harvard educated doctor and environmentalist campaigner and organizer and she joins us today from San Francisco Dr Jill Stein it's a pleasure to have you with us and thank you for joining us on the think it Muslim it's such an honor to be here thank you so much for this conversation Is a vote for the Green Party a vote for Trump? well it's wonderful I think we've got a lot of ground to cover uh today so Jill let's start with what I've really observed uh amongst the Muslim communities in the United States and Beyond actually and conscientious voters there is this anger a palpable anger over Gaza and many are pledging their vote to you a third party the green party now you know that many of your D track argue that a vote for you is a vote for Donald Trump how would you respond to that you know I think that represents an incredible presumptuousness by the Democratic party and the Harris campaign that they own your vote that they somehow own the Muslim vote and that you owe your allegiance to the Democratic party and what for you know the party that could not even give uh Palestinian voices two minutes on the stage at the Democratic National uh nominating convention uh where the delegates held their ears so as not to hear the names of the um you know of the murdered uh on outside of that convention um you know it's incredibly presumptuous of the democratic party to imply that they own your vote they have to earn your votes they clearly have not earned them and the notion that a vote for me is a vote for Trump well actually current polls suggest just the opposite of that in fact the Muslim American and Arab American community and many other people of conscience have already left the station they are not going to vote for this Administration that is actively committing genocide so in fact those votes are already gone and now the question is are these voters going to Donald Trump or are they going to our campaign so current polls one-sided by Newsweek this week the other sided by breaking points the um uh the podcast very popular podcast uh they both show these two polls show in fact that we appear to be taking votes from Donald Trump not from kamla Harris and uh one of the commentators crystal ball actually observed well maybe it's awfully presumptuous of us to pretend that politics is so simple that it's one or the other and maybe we need a little more humility uh and maybe we should back off and not try to manipulate elections you know and this has been really our point of view from the green party all along as an independent third party that voters have a right to vote for a candidate that represents their views their needs their aspirations we have a right to that vote and if some are concerned that votes might be taken from another candidate which by the way is what democracy is about we're supposed to compete for votes candidates are supposed to compete for your vat so the whole notion is really a ridiculous framing to start with but even if you subscribe to that then the answer is not to suppress alternative voices it's not to suppress the voices against genocide the voices against endless war uh you know the voices against climate catastrophe whatever you know these are the voices Americans want over 60% of Americans regularly say in polls that they want other voices and other choices uh in the presidential race so so uh The Simple Solution here is to Simply enact a voter reform called rank Choice voting which prevents any so-called splitting of the vote any possibility that you could be casting a wasted vote that would be essentially futile in rank Choice voting you rank your choices if your first choice loses your vote is basically reassigned to your second choice so it prevents any possibility of a so-called split Vote or a spoiled election this is the actual solution if you think that's a problem here's how to solve it and it speaks volumes that the Democrats refuse to support this system in fact they work very hard to block it why because they rely on fear and extortion they want to extort your vote rather than win your vote why do they not want to win your vote and right now kamla Harris could go a long way to win back Muslim votes if she simply took a stand Voters vs Donors right now and enacted a weapons embargo to the state of Israel which is what the people of America want and what Muslim Americans want as well she could win your vote she has the power to do that but she would rather lose the election than end uh the genocide and the massacre of children that's going on so you know this is a refusal of the candidate to basically win your vote because they have donors whether it's APAC or the weapons uh profiteers they have donors who are who rank number one that's who the Democratic party and this and the Republican party and these two candidates uh prioritize they prioritize their donors not their voters that's why they have to eliminate the competition and silence the competition because these candidates who serve the War Industry who are dedicated to genocide this is why they cannot actually stand up and fight for your vote because to do so would be to betray they big money donors um are you giving too much Why is Kamala Harris not opposing the Genocide? agency to the vice president here Camala Harris and I was speaking to a black Muslim organizer a couple of days ago and he said to me that um Kamal Harris is different to Joe Biden but because she's vice president she's not able to voice her her disagreement with the genocide and um once she is elected uh she will reverse position uh How likely do you think that is you know I'd say famous last words you know um listen to what I say not to what I do she could respectfully voice her disagreement uh it's true she cannot overrule the president but she has a lot of agency as the candidate for president uh there ought to be a great deal of respect for not only for her opinions but also for her status in the polls but unfortunately she cannot find a single difference between herself and Joe Biden when actually asked asked you know the difference she points to is that uh well she'll maybe have a republican in her candidate in her cabinet you know so she um it's hard to give much agency to her at all because she will not assert herself and she tends to you know drift with the wind and seek whatever seems to be popular and convenient at the moment so you know this is the danger of such a candidate a candidate who's been raising money hand over fist and who has more billionaire donors than ever on record so what are the odds that she's going to stand up against the interests of uh Wall Street and the War Machine and the military industrial complex and APAC what are the odds that she's going to take a principled stand in the future when she has yet to find a principled stand really across the board uh in the past Dr SE can I ask Does the Green Party have a Syria problem? you about that Mei Hassan interview uh probably a couple of months back or a month and a half back um now of course I I think that um medy probably has a very strong inclination towards the Democrats and we've seen that the last few weeks but he did raise some uncomfortable questions about Syria um I suppose my question is does the green party have a serria problem has it in the past dabbled with pro-assad dis views I don't believe so not that I'm aware you know the green party is uh Vigilant about uh us interference and us um you know uh manipulation and uh support for uh uh so-called um uh what do they call them you know the uh more moderate you know terrorists and funding uh Isis so the green party is very wary of interfering in other governments but I don't believe I have heard the part party adopt positions uh in support of Assad and our campaign has been accused of taking a stand for Assad back in 2015 I mean you have to go back to 2015 where a statement was posted on our website without approval because the issue was controversial within our campaign we were not going to take a prosad stance but a statement got posted that contained one sentence of support for assign and when we became aware of that it was taken down uh within approximately a month or so and we have never I have never expressed support for Assad and you know uh the truth of the matter is we support human rights we support the sovereignty of the Syrian people actually when I was at that notorious media conference in Moscow and I had an opportunity to speak on it I actually took uh Putin to task for uh for his bombing campaign in Syria um out of you know sympathy to the Syrian people and their right to uh sovereignty and self-determination and to be free from uh you know human rights abuses and bombing campaigns are horrific uh forms of you know intervention and Untold thousands of people were killed in that bombing campaign and in fact the words that I used uh to my recollection was that this was f f following in the footsteps of misguided US foreign policy where we had you know basically assaulted Iraq and Afghanistan and had made a complete mess out of these countries through violent intervention violent intervention is not a pathway to peace or to human rights and sovereignty so we have never and I have never expressed uh support for Assad though we do indeed caution against uh us Intervention which so often only makes things worse see if I impress you a little bit more on about I mean the impression that often we get when we observe some on the Oppressive leaders left is uh that um uh if there are uh autocrats or dictators or strong men who are anti American automatically they must be in in the right and of course uh many of these strong men do oppress and suppress Muslim minorities I mean the Chinese and the wigos for example or as we said assard and and uh uh but of course also President Putin and and thechans um can you categorically state that you are not on the side of these people these leaders these strong men uh who by and large do repress the minorities and many of them are Muslim minorities yes of course I think you know any leadership has to be taken to task for its human rights violations you know I think at the same time we're quick to acknowledge that our government is as Martin Luther King put it the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today you know and we are certainly guilty of slaughtering millions of people from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan so you know I think our criticisms have to be taken with a grain of salt because we have our own government to account for and hold accountable uh but within that framework you know recognizing as Martin Luther King said my country is the G greatest purveyor of violence uh in the world today within that framework yes there are so many other leaders who are abusing human rights and need to be uh called out for that um how do you understand the position of Medi Hassen of course he's not here to to Mehdi Hasan's position on Kamala Harris for himself but medy has uh very strongly argued against for genocide but at the same time I know you've had conversations with him on Twitter and elsewhere uh medy has come out in favor of Kamala Harris um like how would you frame his position uh on on Camala Harris while he opposes genocide he's all in favor of those committing genocide and to me that is just a a um you know that's that's just a a a non seor you know that just doesn't follow that you oppose the genocide but you are all out in support of the candidates committing genocide and you know Donald Trump is has also expressed you know uh full support for that genocide you know wants Israel to hurry up and finish the job um but medy Hasan you know so they're both to my mind they're both greater evils and one cannot parse that uh carel Harris is better she's actually doing it you know how do you get worse than what we are seeing playing out on our you know on our cell phones and our computers every day where children are being purposefully shot in the head you know this is a tactic and a campaign where all possibilities for dialogue and diplomacy are eliminated when uh Israel is in the business of assassinating the spokes people and the um negotiators you know I think they negotiated um rather they assassinated most recently the um uh the Hamas I'm sorry the Hezbollah uh leader um after he had agreed to AAS fire you know then they assassinated him this is just the height of of treachery barbarism murderousness where wounded in the hospital on an IV are actually set a flame and are burned alive uh you know where patients in hospitals are held hostage denied food water medicine uh and their hospitals are under sied uh not to mention you know the whole population of two and a quarter million people not only subject to murder but to torture on a daily basis what the people of Gaza are subjected to and now increasingly uh into Lebanon as well you know is bombardment uh assassination being targeted um by snipers told they have to flee while being targeted being starved of food and water and medicine at the same time and shelter and sanitation it's just almost Beyond Comprehension what is being done and it's not only that hundreds of thousands of people have been murdered it's that the entire population is subject to torture really on a daily basis it's just Unthinkable and you know how one can forgive and Overlook the perpetrator the leading perpetrator here because Israel is a proxy for the US here the US uh is funding this War uh is arming Israel is providing diplomatic cover uh is providing intelligence so the US does not get a pass here and the US leadership who are committing these war crimes uh should not get a pass and to me it's just Unthinkable that medy Hassan goes to the mat here over and over again to try to give kamla Harris cover she needs to be held accountable and you know he should be part of a movement here to end the genocide the votes are there you know if people had the courage of their convictions and that ought to be the responsibility of any journalist to actually keep the American people informed of their options and not systematically uh smear and fear camp campaign against candidates who actually would solve this crisis 68% of Americans want an end to the genocide over 60% of Americans want a weapons embargo right now in order to force the hand of Israel because Israel will not go willingly here uh certainly not under Netanyahu it won't so Medi Hassan is in denial of the political power of this movement and he seeks to intimidate the movement in into being some obedient servant of the democratic party and its genocidal interent to me that just it's it's horrific and it's completely incompatible with Medi Hassan's principal position about the genocide but he's a complete you know uh he's a lap dog to uh to Empire here he the Press is supposed to be a watchdog and he's not only not a watchdog he is a lap dog to power here in his uh uh in his apology in his promotion uh of the genocider and his effort to silence and intimidate those who would stand up and stop this genocide so to me this is this is a very sad State of Affairs and the dialogue that took place that was not an interview that was an ambush in which he systematically sought to shut down our point of view and in particular my point of view that he was just very quick to cut me off to try to force you know to force me into a corner and to manipulate my answers um this is not what credible journalism does it's a real shame and it's been a real eyeopener for many of his Bas he quietly posted that interview he had promoted certain segments but the whole interview itself went up without any fan flare whatsoever but it was certainly discovered by his viewers many of whom have now signed off from his uh from his you know subscribing to his station feeling like this was just um a betrayal of his responsibilities as a journalist I suppose his argument or at How does voting Green Party help Gaza? least the argument of his supporters would be that voting for you will not actually stop the genocide I mean I think if I'm not mistaken the last poll I read you're you're polling around two 3% um you're not going to win this election so so so explain the Dynamics of this how would voting for you uh help to put an end to the genocide so two things you know as Frederick Douglas said power concedes nothing without a demand it never has and it never will every vote against genocide is a shot across the bow of the Empire to say that we are here we are not going away we are uh political opposition that opposition is strong and its voice is growing there's no question that there is majority opposition to the genocide if it simply votes for the Lesser evil it has been politically disappeared it has been neutralized it has been disarmed and in fact it has been Twisted into supporting genocide into endorsing and um enabling genocide so every vote of resistance against genocide helps bring closer the time when our elected leadership will cave to the reality that the American people oppose this we need to oppose it with political force and let me say if see they they can keep us to 2 to 3% because they s us they have you know tried to throw us Green Party being contested off the ballot they hired their army of lawyers to use devious and I must say to misuse the law to try to dig up little technicalities in order to throw us off off the ballot and we have been in court in seven or eight states fighting them we've ex we've succeeded in all but one and one is still being contested uh but we have largely succeeded here they tied up our Public Funding in order to prevent us from using money that we had earned Public Funding in order to meet our various deadlines for the ballot access and they managed to keep us off the ballot in a couple of states by doing that um in most of those States we've been able to be on the ballot as a wrin so that con including the rins we are on the ballot for about 95% of Voters they haven't been able to stop us but this is another way that they try to silence our opposition and basically um bury us so that there is not awareness in the 2020 election one out of every three eligible voters did not vote for president those voters tend to be younger of color uh and lower income so exactly the people who are most being thrown under the bus who are most served by our agenda which calls for cutting the military budget at least half it's a trillion dollars that uh is misspent every year on this endless war machine we call for cutting that in half so that we can spend our tax dollars on the emergencies right here at home instead of spreading chaos death and destruction AIPAC is running America around the world uh instead we can spend those dollars on our crises right here fixing the crisis of Health Care the housing emergency the um uh the education crisis and the fact that some 43 million Americans are stuck into unpayable uh student debt um we should have higher education for free uh we used to do that in my day growing up we can certainly do that now there are solutions we can fix the climate crisis you know but we can't do that while we're spending all this money on the military the American people are are distraught polls among young people now in this country show that about 50% of young people say that they are hopeless about the future 25% of young people uh have have um have considered harming themselves within two weeks of the last poll this tells us you know you couldn't have a stronger indicator out there that this is not working for the American people 50% of all Americans are struggling not to be evicted they're within one to two paychecks of losing their housing and uh rates of eviction and homelessness are skyrocketing this country is in very bad shape it's being managed on behalf of APAC the war profiteers Wall Street the fossil fuel industry you know big powerful special interests are profiting hand over right now while poverty rates among children have actually tripled so this country is being thrown under the bus there is enormous political will and because of those one out of every three voters who would vote for an agenda like ours which is an agenda for everyday working people the Democrats are terrified that word is getting out about this they're not just worried about that two or three you know percent in swing States they're worried about votes all over that could flip could flip in a big way and you know while I'm not holding my breath we're going to win this election on the other hand I don't rule out that there could be uh real unintended or unforeseen developments in this The Responsibility of a Third Party race you know Israel has announced you know many times over that it's about to attack Iran in at least one of those statements they've said that this will happen before the election if Israel attacks Iran and we know that the uh nuclear sites are also in their Target hairs which is you know a horrific violation of international law and an extremely dangerous thing uh Iran is in a military alliance with Russia and Russia has also expressed grave concern about Israel's intention to attack Iran and especially to attack the nuclear facilities is it not possible that we will be in a war with Iran escalating towards a potential Global um conflict that could potentially go nuclear as well and by the way the draft is back in this country the draft is back and Men between the ages of 18 and 25 are already signed up for the draft they don't know about it or many don't know about it those that I've talked about it are completely unaware that they are uh in the Target hairs of The Selective Service and all it takes is for the president to declare we're at War and we need boots on the ground in fact he's already pledged boots on the ground Israel has already been given the Baton the Baton has been passed for being commanderin-chief of this country the US has said Israel can do what it wants and that uh the US will be there to support them including boots on the ground and in addition to 5,000 servicemen and women with each of the aircraft carrier battle groups one stationed off of Iran the other now stationed off the west coast of Gaza so those are 10,000 uh Americans right there there are another 40,000 American uh servicemen and women who were stationed in the Middle East who are all very much uh in the Target hairs of this growing rapidly escalating conflict another 100 which were sent maybe two weeks ago with the new uh missile defense system that's being given to Israel because Israel is completely defenseless here Israel cannot defend itself and it certainly cannot conduct the war not even the war that it has on Gaza but just expanding that war even to Lebanon you know Israel is not accustomed to a long War Israel's accustomed to a Six-Day War or maybe a six week war and that's about it so Israel is in extremely precarious circumstances right now recent poll I heard about says that one out of every three Israelis is intent on leaving and in the process of leaving Israel their economy is in a shambles uh their tourist industry of course has completely Gau under so Israel is in very desperate States it needs the US the US is entirely um shares full responsibility here with Israel which is basically its proxy and the American people are in the Target hairs of this war so I just want to make the point that really dramatic things could spin out of control very quickly and it's exactly in that kind of circumstance where you can see the electorate flip on a dime and those one out of three voters who aren't voting are not voting uh to some extent because they don't know that there is a campaign that is standing out for them if if events were to happen if the news cycle were to go in a direction that basically lifts up our campaign as the only anti-war anti-genocide pro-worker in climate emergency campaign we could see the vote change there are three Pro genocide candidates on the ballot RFK is still on the ballot in many states you could see the pro genocide proar vote split three ways you could see an informed electorate coming out to support our anti-war anti-genocide pro-worker campaign and in a four-way split an election can be one with as little as 26% that's not an impossible movement of the electorate even overnight if the country were suddenly to be in a full-blown war and if the draft were uh potentially about to be reactivated if there was talk of boots on the grounds if there was a real um you know uh devastating conflict and it's hard to imagine how this conflict will not be devastating um so you know I just want to make a point that elections are unpredictable Affairs and you know part of what you do as an independent third party is you wait for the moment you know and that's a moment that depends on forces much bigger than you but you have to be ready as a political force to stand up and fight back and you have to begin that fight at your soonest opportunity you know it's not just uh an opportunity it's a responsibility if we want a world that can survive for our children considering the risks of nuclear war not only in the Middle East but also in um uh in Taiwan and China and also uh with Russia and Ukraine you know the US mindset is to basically blow it up you know and and to resort to violence as a first uh uh as a first Resort rather than as a last resort we're going to war all over the place you know according to the um Congressional research service the US has sent its military into other countries Uninvited 250 times in the last three decades we have conducted 80 regime change operations since the uh second world war you know so this is a country that as Martin Luther King says you know is a massive surveyor of violence and our instinct in the instincts of our leadership who are warmongers and have been warmongers and war criminals uh their instincts are precisely um the opposite of what they should be right now we're in the nuclear age and you cannot do that you need to negotiate first and you know you need to use you need to exhaust all other options and you should not be conducting war in order to maintain uh military and economic domination over the world which is basically you know the ration now for US foreign policy also known as full spectrum dominance we can come back to that if we need to but the instincts are all wrong and they need to be challenged uh publicly and especially now so where we would come out in this election would be totally different if we were included in the dialogue if there was a real debate here uh if the American people knew that there is a campaign across the country for 90% of Voters a choice uh in this election there is such a campaign that actually is advocating for the solutions that the American people are absolutely desperate for right now
Dr Stein, I mean that's you know very very convincing um uh to build a third party that's going to have longevity you obviously Building a Third Party for the American people need to build a base and I've come across a good number of Muslims uh who almost describe the vote they're going to give to you and it seems to me that a large majority maity a plurality of Muslims will give the green party the vote but they describe it as they're lending the vote to the green party in in a sense you haven't quite convinced them that their long-term home is within the green party now um I have come across for example the mayor of hamrak I mean he's made a very naive decision I think to to support Donald Trump but one of his reasons for supporting Donald Trump was to site uh social concerns and um um I suppose my question here is that how can you re assure voters that uh your position your version of pluralism incorporates a a respect for religious attitudes yes and and let me say I don't think anyone should be uh manipulated into making premature commitments to any candidate or political party um I think it's much clearer about what's going on in this race and in that sense I think it is uh absolutely you know it is uh kind of a no-brainer strategy I think that those who oppose genocide need to be supporting our campaign in order to you know build uh political momentum and give voice to a real political movement here that has legs and Longevity and that is a movement against genocide and endless war because they're kind of inseparable so so that much I think is a um that's a partnership right now that makes every sense uh you know imaginable for us to partner in this election and I think this is a very important get to know you moment and there are some who've been with us there are some Muslims and arab-americans who have sought us out from the very beginning have become major um advisers and uh uh operators really within the campaign uh have begun political uh parties themselves Muslims in the Green Party there is a new chapter of the green party in Dearborne Michigan for example and uh really all over the country now we are seeing uh Muslim Americans and Arab Americans who have really join the fabric of the green party and it is a wonderful uh thing to behold because uh we bring different skills to the table and uh it's a very powerful and empowering partnership and I think the uh future looks very bright uh for this partnership I think there's a very deep um uh uh convergence of values and Views here and while there are many in the green party who regard themselves as atheists there are I would say even more who regard themselves as humanists who have some kind of spiritual beliefs or practices and you universally there is great regard for uh the Muslim religion and the experience of uh Muslims around the world their political experience their political wisdom for having been uh up close and personal uh in Empire knowing the abuses of Empire overseas and then knowing the abuses of Empire here in this country abusing the civil liberties uh with the islamophobia um you know and uh the targeting the surveillance Etc where Muslims are you know the canary in the Min shaft but all of us and especially political uh opponents of Empire we are on the receiving end of this as well and uh there's enormous Common Ground Among Us in our campaign I am running as you know with a uh an African a black uh African-American Muslim uh man and together with a white Jewish woman uh we have the bases covered I must say on many issues including a lot of questions about religion and respect for religious diversity and so on so this is a um I think it's a very empowering um uh combination and conversation and we will all be changed by this there's no doubt about that there will be influence you know the green party is not a um you we are not a top- down organization we are a bottomup organization and you know our four pillars are you know Grassroots democracy social justice nonviolence and ecological wisdom and I think that fits pretty well with Muslim values uh as I've been introduced to them so I think there is within the uh you know within the key values of the green party there's a lot lot of room for growth and understanding uh and dialogue so I am extremely encouraged by the kinds of uh Coalition building that I'm witnessing and it is such a um I have to say it's so exciting um the green party was founded you know generation Generations ago you know maybe one generation ago but there's um there's been a real need for an infusion of young people with uh with a contemporary vision and I think opposing genocide and Empire and standing up for uh a climate and social justice and fairness to workers um we need the energy of the younger generation to lead the way that's always been true you know throughout history in social movements it's always been young people who have been at the front lines pushing the envelope and that's certainly what's going on right now uh in opposing the genocide and watching greens grow with this now has been really kind of a you know a Wonder to behold to see our communities coming together across lines of religion and history and ethnicity and and race it's really exciting and I must say there are a lot of African-Americans now you know who are ve and Indigenous Americans as well who are very identified with this struggle against genocide uh in Palestine and that Community as well has been really reinvented erated uh right now politically and it is the objective of Empire to keep us divided and conquered and I think it is such a strategic move so timely and essential for us to be coming together for our higher vision and and the necessity of building political power at this very critical moment in history can I ask you 5% of The Popular vote a question about the 5% Mark so I've heard from a number of people that if the Green Party receive 5% of the popular vote then they have access to all sorts of funding and they get greater recognition within the system can you spell out what that recognition is and and why that 5% is so important for you yes so if you are a newcomer to the political process like say Dr West when he decided to go independent you have to collect about a million signatures and um at today's rates you know unless you have a well-organized base that's across the country and even if you do have volunteers around the country you need people to manage them so the cost per signature nowadays is about $10 you know so if if you're going to get 10 million uh a million signatures at the cost of $10 you know what's $10 million out the door right there and then you usually have staff to add on to that as well so it's just uh uh it's it's daunting what you have to do if you're starting over if you're in the race uh and already have ballot status um and you're already on the ballot then you're ahead of the game to collect a million signatures it'll take you at least nine or 10 months unless you're RFK and you have big money donors from APAC from uh billionaire you know running mates and so on then you have corporate money and maybe super Pacs and you can buy your way into the race greens don't do that we do not use any of the loopholes for legalized corruption you can't sit down and write a million dollar check to a green you can do that to basically all the other candidates I don't believe Dr West uh or the uh or or Claudia and Karina from PSL but you know uh Biden or rather Harris Trump RFK and a Libertarian you can write a million dooll check through their special arrangements and that comes with strings attached they may not be explicit but they're implicit and if you are a recipient of the million dollars you know what the interests of your of your Doner are um the greens don't engage in that we follow the plain old-fashioned rules um the limits for ordinary Mortals of $3,300 per election that's a lot of money for most people but it's not much compared to a million dollars and through super Pacs you can contribute more than that there are no limits whatsoever through super Pacs and we totally disavow uh super Pacs uh entirely so we don't play with that stuff we are basically what um everyday people um you know want who funds you runs you and we uh reject all that you know legalized corruption so we are about what uh the everyday people you know are really clamoring for so that's why we have an agenda which is of by and for the people period that's why our values are you know really lead the way our values are popular values they are people's values uh we adopted our position on on uh Israeli apartheid occupation and ethnic cleansing back in the year 2006 we took a position in favor of boycott divestment and sanctions at that time we are not new to this we are not uh fair weather friends here uh we are not opportunists this is who we are and what we we say is what we do because all we have are the people we don't have big money donors so there's no one else for us to abandon say Muslims uh on behalf of we're not going to abandon this cause uh to stop genocide to um uh to challenge APAC uh we are not going to abandon our opposition to uh Wall Street and the war machine this is who we are and you know we very much forward to the continuing dialogue uh with Muslim Americans and to moving forward together uh and seizing this moment um uh where we actually do have a majority if you look at where the power is we have the majority who wants healthc care as a human right who want uh an who want affordable housing who want a green New Deal and jobs that will transition our economy to the um sustainable and Equitable uh economy and future that we deserve so what we say is what we do we very much see eye to eye with Muslim Americans on so many things and we very much look forward to continuing to grow the political movement together Dr Stein's vision of American power? uh can I ask you a question about American power in world now you've made it very clear about uh American Empire American power is usually a cause for for for bad in the world it doesn't create a world which is uh the type of world that you envisage um uh then tell me where do you see the position of America in the world um would the world be better without the exercise of American power like paint me a picture of the America you desire and the America you want yes so let me say very simply about foreign policy we need to move from a monopolar world or a unipolar world dominated by one imperial Force to a multi-polar world you know I think that's not rocket science there are other economic forces and military forces in the world right now we need to work collaboratively uh we need to be adults in the room together working according to international law human rights and diplomacy the US you know uh mode of operating right now is through economic and Military domination a policy that was formerly named full spectrum dominance we dominate every sphere of potential competition or conflict and we we prevent even Regional powers from rising to Regional dominance that has been the uh you know the the guidelines of American foreign policy since the fall of the Soviet Union and this is not workable especially because we are no longer the dominant power we're not the dominant economic power you know we see bricks which is in the process of enlarging right now and you know having started with five it's now like 12 members I think and then many uh Partners as well so there are rising um uh economic powers and collaborations that we have not been friendly to whatsoever so we need to uh uh cease and desist from attempting to dominate and become a player in a multi-polar world operating according to international law you know we've been substituting for international law with uh what we call a rules-based order whose rules our rules rules that change from situation to situation we need to subscribe to the body of international law yes there are some things that do need Improvement like the security Council for the United Nations needs to be democratized there are improvements that need to be made that can be made um you know so we can move to a foreign policy that's going to work for all of us and the America that I see stops squandering half of its Congressional Budget on the endless war machine uh and puts those dollars back into the needs of the American people and which also takes a uh the role of of humanizer and of supporting human rights uh and the helping Nations meet especially the poor nations of the global South meet the Urgent needs of the climate crisis which we have been really the major contributor to historically we have contributed did the greatest burden of of greenhouse gases so we need to be a responsible player here that assists uh the less fortunate in the global Community because we are still the wealthiest Nation uh around the world throughout the course of world history we have enormous wealth and resources and we need to use them for the betterment of the American people and to support uh the world in which we live because these two are interacting you know if you look at the migration crisis that this country is experiencing um our approach is that the most important thing we can do to stop the migration crisis is to cease causing it in the first place through very misguided and harmful US policies from endless war regime change operations uh economic neocolonialism like in Haiti we overthrew the democratically elected uh um president of Haiti twice arised we overthrew him twice and after he was overthrown the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came in and reversed the minimum wage law which had raised minimum wages in Haiti from a mere 30 cents an hour to a mere 60 cents an hour our government our secretary of state pushed that back in order to do a favor and let the um the clothing manufacturers reap maximum profits by exploiting labor you know this unfortunately is the rule not the exception we overthrew the um the the democratically elected government of Iran you know way back in the 1950s because Iran was going to nationalize its oil and use its national resources for the benefit of its people rather than for um British Petroleum and the United States who came in and overthrew him and substituted you know this uh absolutely murderous uh dictator the shaw of Iran and we kept him in power uh you know for uh for decades same thing in Guatemala we overthrew their government uh on behalf of United Fruit so that the peasants uh would not be um the recipients of redistributed land to enable them to support themselves you know so the US has played this role uh throughout history and uh that is not the kind of world we want that does not win us friends and influence people again we need to move from a monopolar world that um you know is dominating uh in dominating economies and uh military such that we are driving migration crisis you know so we're looking at migrants from Haiti we're looking at migrants from uh from Guatemala from South America in particular also the drug wars uh America's War on Drugs also empowers their drug cartels and it's the violence of those cartels then that are driving you know many people to come to this country fleeing the violence you paint a a picture of America which I think will sound like music to most of our ears outside of Where do Ordinary Americans stand? America but how much is your uh view your vision of America shared by American people because from out from the outside we tend to get um a very skewed understanding of the American electorate the American population and their proclivity I suppose to American militancy if that's the right way to phrase it um how much is what you say shared by ordinary Americans for that I think the most telling um statistic really is to look at Americans opposition to the genocide and American support for actually a weapons embargo right now so what you hear from the political parties what you hear from the political class the political Elites is not the American people the American people want to end the genocide they want a weapons embargo on Israel to enforce that end they want to cut the military budget poll after poll shows that Americans do not support catastrophic war after catastrophic War that's why we have this you know this uh corporatized media which is you know n chonky called it um manufacturing consent you know consent is manufactured through uh propaganda this is why our campaign is shoved out of the way because we are a very Inconvenient Truth uh and a very inconvenient um you know blockade to manufacturing consent truth is a very powerful thing it's hard for people to mobilize to do the right thing unless there's someone out there and that's not necessarily a candidate you know it's it's the students who are out there on the campuses and that's why their heads are being bashed in you know and this is not happening you know the the bashing of those heads is not happening incidentally that's not happening because the American people want it that's because you know the American uh Power class is sold out they are sold out to the military-industrial complex they are sold out to APAC you know so the um the messages that are being broadcast in this country and from this country around the world do not reflect where the American people are you really have to dig to find that you know you really have to be looking at Independent Media uh systematically you have to be really searching the polls and they often don't ask these questions because they don't want the uh you know the responses to be um in the public domain but over and over again when the American people are given a choice they don't want to be at War and the uh the genocidal war going on in Gaza right now is an example if you pull the American people about expanding this war and potentially uh globalizing it and potentially allowing it to go nuclear uh on behalf of protecting Israel's right to commit genocide you know the American people would be absolutely up in arms about this especially if they were reminded or even informed that the draft is here and they are in the Target hairs of that draft and if this war explodes uh we are not only then paying in dollars we're paying in blood uh for this genocide and that could happen and the American people is are opposed to this so you know the American people want Health Care as a human right they want a solution they want rent control they want uh you know they want affordable housing to be built again it was under Bill Clinton that that uh public housing was brought to an end under Democrat Bill Clinton the program of public housing was stopped with a thing called the fair CLA amendment that prevents public dollars be from being spent on on public housing and Europe is building quality mixed income um affordable housing the US doesn't do that we subsidize luxury housing and then take a little tiny fraction of it uh to be affordable the American people are hungry for uh for what our campaign is offering and also likewise for a solution to the climate crisis overwhelmingly the American people want that right now so we offer solution after solu ution and that includes backing off of this Imperial foreign policy that shoots first and asks questions later the American people don't want this they want to bring our dollars back to take care of our urgent problems here this is why our voices are kept out of this dialogue because when people hear this I mean take a look at the comments on The Breakfast Club so The Breakfast Club which is a very popular um uh uh podcast a video podcast especially viewed by African-Americans so um uh Butch where my running mate and myself were interviewed we were really and set up for an ambush by a talking head with the usual you know ridiculous uh propaganda which we shot down very quickly and if you read the comments there are over 20,000 comments right now if you look at the full posting it's just mindboggling to see comment after comment is I was not going to vote in election now I am registering green and I am voting for uh Stein wear people have been so hungering for this you know this is why the Democrats are coming out with their advertising campaign because they are very terrified that the cat should get out of the bag that the American people have other options coming into this race over 60% of Americans in the Gallop poll prior to this race over 60% were saying they want another choice in this election because the two that we have are doing such a horrible job of serving the public interest so we see this over and over again the American people are hungering for what we don't have it's very important not to be swayed by the propaganda that's out there this propaganda of powerlessness in fact we the people are not powerless we are powerful and as Alice Walker said the biggest way people give up power is by not knowing we have it to start with we have it it's time to use it because we ourselves we're all in the Target hairs you know um James bald said that uh sorry all children everywhere belong to all of us you know and the children in Gaza are the you know fundamental um illustration of that they belong to all of us it's time for us to change uh business as usual here it's time for us to change American politics so that we can step up and actually serve the children of the world which are our children as well and our children are not okay unless all children are okay the world is just too um interdependent a place right now and people flow between countries and we share an atmosphere and water and oceans and food and an economy we are too connected now to be at Eternal war with each other or to have leadership who cannot see how we are interconnected and interdependent and who can step up to the plate and leave behind them their war criminal uh instincts and background and training uh we need to really throw those bums out they need to be in the he not in the white house uh we need to be stepping up to um Embrace and demand an America and a world that works for all of us if it doesn't work for all of us fundamentally it's not going to work for any of us and you would like to see Joe Biden in the H I would like to see him face Justice yeah good think all war criminals all the major enablers of this genocide should face Justice I've just heard an informal report that Israel just hit Iran so you know this could be unfolding as we speak I don't know you know there have been um a lot of indicators that this is going to happen and it and it occurred and no one knows where this is going to go yeah um I think it's not too soon for us to stand up and demand that voices of reason and Justice be heard and that we stand up for the politics we deserve uh God knows where this could go in the blink of an eye you know we've been on an escalation ladder uh for decades really um but you know certainly for the last year BB Netanyahu has been attempting to drag us into um you know a devastating War potentially a nuclear war and um we need to stand up and be heard and to fight for a world we can survive in and that our children can survive in Dr Jin it's really been a pleasure speaking to you and I hope uh you can make a dent in this two-party nightmare thank It's Not Too Late you very much for your time today thank you and it's Jill stein2 24.com for those who'd like to know more it's not too late the future's in our hands thank you so much you've got a publishing schedule I was speaking to Sam and it's uh you're you're uh you're traveling from City to City at the moment oh yeah and then we're either doing in we're either doing uh events or we're doing interviews and I don't have a half hour hour to like do a laundry or you know do anything I'm I'm eating on the Run constantly um it would be hard to maintain this for very much longer so you know but on the other hand it would be impossible not to just give this my all right now you know it feels like this is our chance to stand up and fight this horrific genocide and and the the response that's happening right now feels nothing nothing short of miraculous um I've never been in a situation before where uh people total strangers are coming up to me bursting out in tears and greeting me with hugs like I'm a member of their immediate family the uh the passion that's going into this campaign right now against enormous um uh demonization the effort to criminalize us you know right and left uh the Democrats are pulling out every dirty trick in the book in the book you know uh to try to silence me to intimidate me to get me to drop out um and to intimidate voters to stop them from voting for justice and for a future we deserve there's so much fear campaigning going on especially about Donald Trump he's terrible but um uh so is you know so is um uh KLA Harris absolutely terrible and you know so I I couldn't I couldn't hold myself back you know I was uh recruited to run this race when I had other plans my family had other plans um so you know I want to make the most of every minute here it feels to me you know uh as I've been saying now in in some of our our Gatherings uh as Martin Luther K King said the arc the moral Arc of the universe is long but it bends towards Justice it feels right now like we are in one of those moments where the universe is bending it's bending because it has to it's bending because we have a genocide on our hands but as a consequence of that genocide the moral universe is changing and you know and there is a new moral compass here and much of that is coming from the Muslim Community and the arab-american community and we are forever changed um I think in a way that uh gives us a real fighting chance for uh peace and Justice and a world that's going to work for all of us but it feels to me almost like physically that the universe is bending right now and we can feel it bending uh inside of us in a way that is quite transformational really I think we're we're eternally gratitude grateful to you for for what you've done and and for your stance on on Gaza and I think um you know I'm I'm not a voter and I'm I'm an outsider of course but um uh people are talking about you here it's it is you know it's a conversation here the green party so you know the Muslim Community of course speaks to um their relatives abroad and and it's very clear to me that the message is getting through I do think so and I don't remember if I said it in this interview or the prior ones but you know I grew up after the Holocaust uh you know in a genocide of Jews when our community was asking is there life after genocide you know I wasn't because I was young I didn't feel the genocide but people around me were pretty horrified about it um and I was taught you know that when you see something wrong you have to stand up and fight it you know and that that uh you know that we have to hold everyone accountable just not just the perpetrators of genocide but the bystanders to genocide you cannot be a bystander to genocide or anything else so that's why I became a social activist and I grew up ated to the proposition that genocide will not happen again certainly not on my watch and I never expected to actually see our country committing that genocide and that blood on our hands and it made it impossible for me not to step up when it became clear that that having an anti-genocide candidate in the race and an anti-genocide voice was going to depend on the green party using his ballot lines so I had helped recruit a candidate a wonderful candidate Dr West to be that you know to to be our representative and use our ballot lines but when he decided he would rather run independent I knew there's no way first time out of the starting date that you're going to get on a ballot unless you're selling your soul and you've got billionaire donors uh a principled uh anti-war anti-genocide candidate is not going to be buying their way onto the ballot um so was going to depend on the green party uh if we were going to have a strong voice to truly challenge Empire and to fight the genocide in this election so I felt like I had no choice you know I had to stand up because I made this commitment above all to my mother who was most disturbed about this in my family I made that commitment that I would stand up when I saw wrong happening in the world I you know that would be my job you know and that's why I became a medical doctor you know I was going to serve and help you know help write the wrongs and now the greatest wrong imaginable fell into the lap of our party which was really going to be the only way we could bring this front and center into the election so that's why I could not say no although there were a lot of people telling me I should say no I should not stand up I could not conscience doing that and you know this is just once you see this you can't not see it yeah so we got to fix it thank you thank you so much I'm I'm we're just so appreciative of your efforts and and what you've done so thank you so much um for your time today pleasure wonderful talk with you please remember to subscribe to our social media and YouTube channels and head over to our website thinking muslim.com to sign up to my Weekly Newsletter