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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