Jill Stein/Butch Ware on Gaza & Fighting Zombie Politics

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Green Pres. & VP Candidates Jill Stein, Butch Ware on Gaza & Fighting “Two Zombie Political Parties”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
September 25, 2024

Democracy Now! speaks with the Green Party’s presidential ticket, Jill Stein and her running mate Butch Ware, after the Green Party suffered a setback Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request to put Stein on the ballot in Nevada. The Democratic Party had sued to keep Stein off the ballot for failing to submit the proper forms. In this campaign cycle, Democrats have fought to keep the Green Party off the ballot, while some Trump supporters, including a former Trump lawyer, have helped the Green Party obtain ballot access. “They are terrified of actually meeting us in the court of public opinion and having a real debate about the crises the American people face and the real solutions that we alone have put on the table,” says Stein. “The American people are in crisis in virtually every dimension of our lives.” Stein’s third run for the presidency is receiving support in some areas over Vice President Kamala Harris’s refusal to call for an arms embargo on Israel. The Council on American-Islamic Relations recently published a survey that showed Stein is leading Harris among Muslim voters in three battleground states: Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin. “This effort to try to pin an inevitable defeat of the Democrats upon third parties or upon Muslims is at best disingenuous,” says Ware, a Muslim historian and professor. “Every effort to protect Team Blue, to protect the Democrats from facing accountability for the evil that their own hands have wrought is equally evil.”

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

With Election Day less than six weeks away, we’re joined now by Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein and her running mate, Butch Ware, a professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. On Friday, the Green Party suffered a setback when the U.S. Supreme Court declined a request to put Stein on the presidential ballot in Nevada. The Democratic Party had sued to keep Stein off the ballot for failing to submit the proper forms.

This comes as support for Stein has been growing in some areas over Vice President Kamala Harris’s refusal to call for an arms embargo on Israel. CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, last month published a survey that showed Stein is leading Harris among Muslim voters in three battleground states: Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin. MPAC, the [Muslim Public Affairs Council], also recently endorsed Stein.

This is Dr. Stein’s third run for the presidency. Many Democrats view her as a spoiler candidate, pointing to the 2016 election when Hillary Clinton narrowly lost to Donald Trump. In that election, Clinton lost to Trump in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by fewer votes than Stein had received. In this campaign cycle, Democrats have fought to keep the Green Party off the ballot, while some supporters of Trump have helped Green Party with obtaining ballot access. Former Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow recently represented the Green Party in its efforts to be placed on the Nevada ballot at the U.S. Supreme Court. Stein, though, like Ralph Nader before her, has described her campaign as one taking on the two-party duopoly in the United States.

Jill Stein joins us from Boston, and Butch Ware joins us from Santa Barbara, where he teaches at UC Santa Barbara about the history of Africa and Islam.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Let’s start, Jill Stein, by you telling us why you’re running for president. What is it you see is most important right now?

DR. JILL STEIN: Well, let’s put it this way. The American people are in crisis in virtually every dimension of our lives, whether it’s the healthcare crisis and not being able to afford your pharmaceuticals. Some 8 million Americans are not able to afford their medications. Eighteen million were driven into poverty by the costs of healthcare in the last year for which data was available. Half of all Americans are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, severely economically stressed, trying to just pay their rent. And we are spending half of our congressional dollars on the endless war machine, of which the — this genocidal war against Gaza is one example that the American people vehemently object to.

The American people are calling for other options. You know, who is anyone to say they should be denied and that the two zombie political parties, that have so poorly served the American public, are the only options? You know, democracy is about competition. The American people are begging for other options. They are entitled to know who those options are.

It speaks volumes that the Democrats are pulling out all the stops, including fraudulent impersonations of the Green Party, hiring infiltrators and spies, which they have publicly advertised for, and hiring an army of lawyers, in their own words, to basically throw their competitors off the ballot, quite simply because they are terrified of actually meeting us in the court of public opinion and having a real debate about the crises that the American people face and the real solutions that we alone are putting on the table, from Medicare for All to free public higher education to rent control across the country to 15 million units of so-called social housing, which would meet our housing needs, cutting the military budget, and, above all, ending the genocidal war on Gaza right now, which the American people overwhelmingly support — a near supermajority, actually, supports a weapons embargo right now.

And with Israel expanding this war, not only into the West Bank, but also now into Lebanon, this is extremely, extraordinarily dangerous. And when we hear the Biden-Harris administration say that, oh, there’s nothing they can do, their hands are tied, that’s absolutely false. They can do like Ronald Reagan and simply make a phone call and instruct Israel that this genocidal assault is over.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Jill Stein, I wanted to ask you — immigration and border enforcement have become a key issue in this election. There’s a raging national debate on it. How do you and your proposals differ from those of Donald Trump or Harris?

DR. JILL STEIN: Yes. And indeed, we’ve seen Harris and the Democratic Party continue to march to the right, basically adopting the policies of Donald Trump. We have a very different approach. In our view, the most important thing that we can do to fix the crisis of migration is to stop causing it in the first place through regime change operations, through economic neocolonialism and domination, through the climate crisis and through the war on drugs.

There are things that we can do actually right now that will decompress the pressures that are pushing people to seek refuge at our borders. And that includes, on day one of our administration, we would legalize marijuana and undercut the power of the drug cartels to basically cause violence and wreak havoc on so many nations, particularly south of the border. We would not be overturning other democratically elected administrations, like, for example, the Aristide presidency of Haiti, which we overturned twice. And after doing that, the U.S., under Hillary Clinton’s secretary of state administration, went in and reversed a minimum wage law that had raised the minimum wage from a pathetic 30 cents an hour merely to 60 cents an hour, and that was reversed by the power of the U.S. once we had overthrown the democratically elected government of Haiti.

So, you know, it’s no surprise, with all the crises that the U.S. has been behind with our economic domination, our neocolonialism, our regime change operations, our war on drugs — south of the border, in particular — and also with our failure to actually take real, concrete steps on the climate crisis — and that, in turn, is prompting so many millions of farmers to have to flee, because they have no way of supporting themselves because of rampant drought and other climate instability. There is so much we can do not only to mitigate our own production of fossil fuels, which has skyrocketed, actually, under Democratic administrations, far more than it has under the Republican administrations, and which are not adequately addressed by the Inflation Reduction Act, which is more a fossil fuels first bill — if we have time to go into that — but we are not taking care of, you know, the many solutions we could provide right now which would decompress the crisis at the border.

And the last thing to say here is that instead of spending billions of dollars on a wall, which only kills people, kills wildlife, destroys ecosystems, instead we can be investing those dollars into prompt screening, background checks and to providing workpapers for people promptly at the border, because once migrants have crossed into this country and once they’re papered and can work, they are an economic boon to any community and are worth trillions of dollars, actually, in economic development. Our communities would be competing for migrants rather than shutting them out, if migrants were able to get to work. They not only pay their way, they actually contribute enormously to economic development and to the tax base of any community.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Dr. Stein, I wanted to follow up. You were talking earlier about Gaza. This month, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, CAIR, published a poll that shows you are ahead of Kamala Harris among Muslim voters in key swing states, like Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin. But yet the National Uncommitted Movement, which decided not to endorse any of the two major-party candidates, also decided not to endorse any third-party candidates. I’m wondering your response.

DR. JILL STEIN: [inaudible] American and the Muslim American community is not simply uniform. But the CAIR polls were quite comprehensive. So, uncommitted is a smaller subset of that larger community. And it’s very clear what the sentiment of the larger community is. They’re absolutely up in arms because so many of their family members have been killed, you know, people who have lost tens or scores or even hundreds of family members.

It would be a simple matter for the Democrats to recoup those votes if they wanted to. But it’s more important to them to continue the genocide in Gaza than it is to win this election. And without the support of the Muslim vote, they will not win this election, and they cannot. So, it’s in their hands. They have the power to actually do what it would take to win back that very alienated and distraught vote, which is not coming to the Democrats as long as they continue to carry out this genocide. So, it’s on them. This is not something they can blame third parties on. They have lost that support. And the American people and the people of the world, you know, deserve — deserve an option which is actually consistent with the majority of American opinion, not just Muslim opinion, but the majority of American opinion and opinion around the world.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Stein, before you selected Butch Ware as your running mate, several high-profile Palestinian and Arab rights activists said they were approached by your team, including Abed Ayoub, the director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and Palestinian American lawyer and professor Noura Erakat. Professor Erakat tweeted, “I offered to join ticket if they would be willing to concede the election if Dems deliver on permanent ceasefire and arms embargo. The idea being using Stein’s margin in 3 swing states to compel those concessions. If we truly believe the Dems would never concede, then there is nothing to lose. It also makes clear to those eager to throw Palestinians, Arab Americans, and American Muslims under the bus that if they lose to Trump, they are the source of their own loss. The Green Party rejected this as they are accountable to their broader base and the health of their Party. I understand that but my priority in this moment is doing everything we can to end genocide by using all the leverage we have,” Professor Noura Erakat said. Your response to that, Dr. Stein?

DR. JILL STEIN: Yes. Let me say that ending the genocide in Gaza is not a quick fix. In the words of Frederick Douglass, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will.” The Green Party is here to continue to exert that pressure. Simply extracting a promise before an election is a very precarious thing to do. The Democrats might agree for a period of a week, and then they might find, “Oh, circumstances made us go back to continuing this war.” So, you really do not want to unilaterally disarm in this kind of situation. It would be extremely ineffective.

More power to Noura Erakat for being the powerhouse voice that she is. Some of us have been, shall we say, in the political game for quite some time and have had time to observe how these various strategies do and don’t work. And extracting a simple concession without — you know, without a permanent guarantee is a very risky proposition, especially because, as an independent third party, the obstacles to gaining ballot status are so enormous that if you simply lay down your arms and you give up on the race, you lose your ballot status, and you lose it across the board, in a way that you will not gain it back. By continuing to run for office, we maintain our ballot status, and we are able to continue to apply pressure against this very reckless and dangerous empire, which is a problem not only in Gaza, you know, but throughout the Middle East and around the world. We’re currently engaged right now in two hot wars on the verge of going nuclear and another third cold war on the verge of becoming hot. So —

AMY GOODMAN: Let me —

DR. JILL STEIN: — you know, it doesn’t make sense —

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you another question.

DR. JILL STEIN: — to surrender on it all. Sure.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m just hurrying because we don’t have that much time. But New York Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was asked in a recent Instagram Live about voting for the Green ticket in November. This is what she said.

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: What I have a problem with is the fact that if you’re running for president, you’re the de facto leader of your party. And first of all, trust me on this. I run as a third-party candidate in New York. I also run as a Working Families Party candidate in addition to running as a Democrat, because, trust me, I’ve been on record about my criticisms of a two-party system. So this is not about that. But you are the leader of your party. And if you run for years and years and years and years and years in a row and your party has not grown and you don’t add city council seats and you don’t add down-ballot candidates and you don’t add state electeds, that’s bad leadership. And that, to me, is what’s upsetting. … And all you do is show up once every four years to speak to people who are justifiably pissed off, but you’re just showing up once every four years to do that, you’re not serious. You’re not — to me, it does not read as authentic. It reads as predatory.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s New York Democratic Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Dr. Jill Stein, your response?

DR. JILL STEIN: So, first of all, we don’t go away between presidential elections. What goes away is the media coverage. And I’m sorry, you know, if you’re only tuned into mainstream media and believe the propaganda that we go away. No, we’re here. We are working. We are doing the work.

We have elected, actually, some 1,500 local officials over the last two decades or so. We currently have 150 local electeds. We have to run at the national level, unfortunately, because of the rules that Democrats and Republicans make. Those rules require us — in order to maintain our ballot status and to run as Greens at lower levels, we actually have to run, in many states, at the presidential level. So this isn’t a choice that we have.

Furthermore, you can’t compare Greens, which are a people-powered party, under attack, above all, by the Democrats, to the Working Families Party, which is really not a third party. It is a second ballot line for Democrats, either for current Democrats or for independents on their way to becoming Democrats. As such, they are not under attack by the Democratic Party. And what destroys third parties — and, by the way, the Greens are the giant among third parties, so compare us to all other true, people-powered third parties.

We are the only ones that manage to fight again and, you know, live for another day to continue the fight. And when you’re fighting on such a very steeply tilted playing field, it requires building quite a head of steam in order to build support. And over the three races that I have run — and AOC is wrong on that: I was not running every four years; I didn’t run last time. But it’s very important that the party keep up its momentum in order to now be recognized as the alternative to the parties of war and Wall Street.

So, it’s not like we’re standing still. We’re actually under enormous pressure, that has essentially killed all other small parties, whether you look at the Labor Party, that was launched at around the same time that the Greens were; the Peace and Freedom Party, which only got as far as 14 ballot lines across the country — they’ve been beaten back to just two; the socialist parties, which used to be on the ballot all over the country — they’ve been beaten back to just a city council here or there, they do not have national ballot status anywhere, except for PSL, which — Party of Socialism and Labor — and Liberation, which has it only in California. So, true third parties which are people-powered, which do not take their marching orders from the war machine, from AIPAC, from Big Pharma, we have — we play on a very different playing field that AOC is not familiar with.

And I’ll just, you know, conclude my comments. The nickname that my running mate actually gave to AOC is ”AOC Pelosi.” What exactly is she doing with the battles that she has won? That’s why we’re in this race, so that we can truly serve the critical and dire needs of the American people.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah, I’d like to bring in professor Butch Ware to the conversation. Professor, can you tell us why you decided to join the Green Party and run as a vice-presidential nominee?

BUTCH WARE: Yeah. When tagged into the fight by my sister soldier Dr. Jill Stein, it was an easy decision to make. I had conducted an Instagram Live with her on my social media platform. I asked Dr. Jill about reparations, after having recently posted a video of Kamala Harris where she hemmed and hawed and shucked and jived for two full minutes and then said the exact words: “I will never do anything that only helps Black people.” So, when I asked Dr. Jill Stein about the question of reparations, she said, “They behave as though it’s incalculable, but it’s been calculated many times. It’s between $10 [trillion] and $13 trillion U.S. And I am in favor of cash payments.”

When I asked Dr. Jill about her resistance to this genocide in Gaza, I said that all of my colleagues and the activists and academic communities that are Palestinian liberation not just advocates but people that live this, breathe this, have skin in the game and have suffered, they were all voting for Dr. Jill Stein. So I didn’t actually ask Dr. Jill about her support for Palestine. I had seen her arrested at a pro-Palestine, a free Palestine rally. I asked her about her overall foreign policy.

And when I asked her about her overall foreign policy, her response was to say that the approach of the Green Party is to dismantle the American empire. And I said in that interview, as a lifelong, committed student of and exponent of and teacher of the Black radical tradition, “Yeah, and you better hurry up and do it quick before somebody else does it for you,” because those two processes look very different. Pulling back those 700 military bases out of the 800 that we have around the world that actually serve no purpose except to antagonize local populations, and then, you know, slowly withdrawing from those other nonstrategic positions in ways that keep Americans safe, that allows you to reinvest the trillion dollars or, really, $1.3 trillion, if you take all the auxiliary costs, that are now being spent on the endless war machine, and it allows you to reinvest those things in social housing, in healthcare, in fixing the roads and doing all of the things that the American government could do for the American populace.

So, when I was pulled into — when I was invited into the struggle against imperialism, into the struggle against white supremacy, into the struggle against capitalist exploitation in my time, after having spent a lifetime teaching about this tradition, writing about this tradition, engaging this tradition at an activist level and as a community organizer, it was an easy decision.

And before I even go any further, I just have to observe a moment of silence for Imam Marcellus “Khaliifah” Williams, who was put to death yesterday by this corrupt imperialist state. And we heard nothing from the Black woman who seeks to lead this country into the next phase, right? We heard nothing from the Biden-Harris regime, people who could at least speak, even if there isn’t an immediate federal mechanism for clemency. We have a massive void of moral leadership in this country.

And the last thing that I’ll say, by way of introducing myself to the American people on this particular program, is that every effort to protect Team Blue, to protect the Democrats from facing accountability for the evil that their own hands have wrought is equally evil. If you are trying to shield them from the electoral consequences of 200,000-plus deaths in Gaza, the electoral consequences of 11 months of genocide, of increasing police murders in every single year since they have been in power, in sending troops in riot gears in Democratic-controlled cities, Democratic-controlled states to crack kids’ heads, like they did at UCLA, like they sent troops in riot gear to my own campus at UCSB, then you are part of the problem. Wake up and unplug from the propaganda machine. Everyone is fearmongering around Trump as though fascism is not already here. So, I have entered this fight alongside a lifetime humanitarian, peace activist, ecological conservationist and moral leader, Jill Stein, in order to shake America out of its stupor. You have more choices than just blue militarized fascism or red militarized fascism. You can actually vote your conscience, vote Green.

And the last thing that I’ll say is that, as Dr. Jill alluded to, the Democrat Party has already lost the swing states of Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, ISPU, has publicly available data, that the Democrats certainly saw before I saw it, that indicates that in the swing states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia, that Joe Biden received 65% of the vote in 2020, and the Democrats are polling under 15% in those states now. They could not have won the election without those swing states, and they could not have won those swing states without Muslim voters. Those voters are gone. They are not coming back. Dead man walking. The Democrats cannot win.

And Dr. Jill and our host, Amy, have already cited the CAIR study. But Yaqeen Institute will release this week — and I’ve been privy to this because of my long-term connections inside the Muslim community as a Black Muslim man myself — that over 53% of the Muslims that they surveyed nationwide are now supporting third-party candidates, with something like 80% of those going to the Green Party, that the support for the Democrats in the Muslim community is at 15%, and it’s at 4% for Trump. So, this effort to try to pin an inevitable defeat of the Democrats upon third-party candidates or upon Muslims is at best disingenuous, and for those with a clear sense of moral integrity, it is obviously gaslighting.

AMY GOODMAN: Last question to Dr. Stein, and we just have 30 seconds. You grew up in a Zionist household. How do you respond to those who say that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, as a Jewish presidential candidate? Just 30 seconds.

DR. JILL STEIN: Yeah. So, in brief, when I hear people equating anti-genocide, the resistance to genocide, saying that that is antisemitism, in my view, that is the most antisemitic thing one could possibly say, to imply that it’s anti-Jewish to oppose genocide. Zionism and Judaism are very different. Zionism has been controversial within Judaism for much of the lifetime of Zionism. Zionism is a political ideology. It is not Judaism. And Gaza is not a war between Jews and Muslims. It is a war by Zionists on Jews, Muslims and Christians.

AMY GOODMAN: Jill Stein, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Green Party presidential candidate, and Butch Ware, Green Party vice-presidential nominee, a professor at University of California, Santa Barbara.

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‘Democrats pretend to be the lesser evil’: Jill Stein on the US election
The Take
Al Jazeera English
Nov 1, 2024

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is polling at 2% nationally, drawing attention from US voters as the ‘anti-genocide’ candidate for her opposition to US support for Israel. Her opponents in the Democratic Party label her a “spoiler” in key swing states. So what is she trying to achieve – and what does her candidacy say about the state of US democracy?



Transcript

Al jazer podcasts today is this the
candidate who could decide the US
election if you vote for either of those
candidates you are endorsing genocide
and you are enabling it do not make a
deal with the devil here we actually
have a way forward with just days to go
before the vote we speak to Green Party
candidate Jill Stein on why she's
running for president I'm Malika Bilal
and this is the take
[Music]
welcome to the take Dr Stein it is
really good to have you here for this
conversation we are just days away from
the US election an election many are
calling one of the most consequential of
our time but you've been here before
running in 2012 and
2016 this year you are again running
against Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump and a newer
opponent
Democratic candidate kamla Harris vice
president Harris gave her closing
argument this week from in front of the
White House former president Trump held
one of his final rallies at the massive
Madison Square Garden arena in New York
but you are a third-party candidate in a
staunchly two-party system in this
country so what does the week before
election day look like for
you it's um an intensive week while the
other candidates the usual candidates
from the political Elites have been
drilling their message down uh for the
American public for just about a year if
not more they've had months and months
to get their message out we have only
just begun because as a third party
there are so many obstacles to bringing
a choice to the American people in a
nutshell the choice that we bring is an
anti-genocide
anti-war pro-worker climate action
Choice which is actually a choice that
the American people are desperate to
have so for us it's a first opportunity
really to tell the American people that
a choice is here a choice that the
American people are hungry for that
provides Health Care as a human right
that provides affordable housing as a
human right that will uh eliminate uh
education debt and medical debt
and the climate crisis it needs our
dollars and our support like so many
things do but both political parties
which are bought and paid for by Wall
Street and the war machine are spending
over half of our Congressional Budget on
basically that endless war machine
including the genocide going on in Gaza
and this is like the situation that real
Challengers to the status quo the War
Machine machine the Wall Street Machine
this is what we always face and this is
my third run for this office and we have
never seen anything like this there is
such a ground swell as people wake up to
our campaign in fact the Democrats who
have tried from the very start to throw
us off the
ballot okay so you talked about the core
issue for so many voters who you've
talked to and that is um Israel war in
Gaza and the growing and expanding of
that war you've positioned yourself as
the anti-genocide candidate in this
election and you've been incredibly
outspoken against Israel's war you've
called for a ceasefire and arms
embargo in April you were even arrested
at a pro Palestine rally in St
Louis when did support for Palestinian
rights become a core issue for
you let me say
that I grew up just after the Holocaust
you know in a Jewish Community attending
a reformed synagogue singing in the
children's choir and my community was
grappling with the question is there
life after
genocide and the dialogue that we had
arrived at the solution that we will
move forward we will affirm life after
genocide by by confirming that we will
not allow genocide to happen again not
not to anyone I made my peace with this
issue as a child you remember
formulating that position back then yes
I grew up with the intention to be a
social justice Advocate and an advocate
for human rights and for peace and that
I would be part of that fight against
any genocide if I saw a hint of it I had
a strong uh ethic really to become a
doctor to help make uh peace in the
world to help adj to help address you
know the causes of Despair death and
suffering so I never saw myself having
anything to do with politics until I was
an activist you know I began to see that
we cannot change you know what ails US
unless we address the mother of all
illnesses Our Sick political system and
that's when I got tricked into running
for office by the green party I was not
a member of any party uh prior to that
and you know and the greens uh basically
we had won uh Public Funding for
elections and the greens came to me and
said you're already running on all those
issues why not make it a political
campaign and speak to a larger audience
so I got political out of desperation
because nothing else was working I want
to pause on because you said you got
political out of desperation and that
feels exactly like what this moment is
in my own community and what I'm seeing
on social media and from the youth from
Muslim Americans from Americans so talk
to me about how that upbringing and your
desperation has turned into what we're
seeing now the anti-genocide candidate
yes so that desperation that drove me to
political action was really transformed
in the course of conducting an election
you know when you run for office you're
kind of public uh property and you talk
to everybody and you talk to people on
the street and you talk to people when
you're flying in the middle seat on
airplanes and you know we run a
people-powered campaign so there's
really uh no barrier between me as a
candidate and the public and our events
you know take place in uh coffee shops
and the school auditoriums and you know
very public places uh where everyday
people are coming and in fact they are
thronging right now so our events with
36 hours um you know lead time are
absolutely over whelmed now it's not
only standing room it's like out the
doors because people are so hungry for
this I was so inspired as you said it's
a system what you learned as an activist
you learned even further as a candidate
so if it's a
system let's say you are elected
president what do you do on day one day
two that changes this systemic rot as
you're calling it exactly fortunately
there are many things that a president
can do on the first day that she is in
office and in fact even before she is
inaugurated if I were to win this
election on November 5th and we can come
back to why that is not impossible right
now and we should not be talked into
hopelessness and powerlessness about
that the very following morning I would
pick up the phone and I would call BB
Netanyahu and tell him that his war is
over and put it in no uncertain terms
because we are funding this war we are
arming this war we're providing
diplomatic cover and intelligence for
this war so are in control just like
Ronald Reagan did in 1982 when he picked
up the phone and instructed manakum Bean
then the president that the Israel's war
in Lebanon was over Israel is very much
a proxy for the United States this is
our war every bit as much as it is
Israel's war we need to be an adult in
the room working with other nations
according to international law human
rights and diplomacy you've talked about
your position on Gaza and that is a
position that has made you very popular
to many Muslim and AR American voters as
well as the pick of your vice
presidential candidate uh Professor but
wear a black Muslim
American but these groups are of course
not a monolith and there are some
particularly those in the
syrian-american community who have
qualms with what they see as your stance
on Syria civil war which you have said
was coming from a place of the party's
view on being
non-interventionist but like Syria
there are other countries with poor
human rights records Russia China for
instance where you haven't been as quick
or as strong in your condemnation as you
have been with the US and with Israel
and it can look like an inconsistency
when it comes to foreign policy and I
wonder how you respond to that so let me
clarify that we have always supported
the uh the human rights of people in
Russia in Syria throughout the Middle
East and there was a um what can I say
sort of uh a misinformation campaign
that I was supporting Assad that is not
true I have never spoken in support of
Assad um nor in support of Russia uh and
its human rights record we've not shall
we say I try to avoid using inflammatory
language because at the end of the day
we have to negotiate with our
adversaries as well as our allies and in
fact I was in Moscow for a um uh for a
global uh uh press event and as part of
that I was calling out Vladimir Putin
for his bombing campaign against Syria
so it's you know it's just not true that
we have been on the side of dictators
and I hear you there and I know that
people watching will say well you made
those comments in Russia but not at the
table where you were photographed with
Putin or you are giving this Viewpoint
and yet there's a video circulating
online right now about you not feeling
comfortable calling China's campaign
against weager Muslims there a genocide
or feeling like you know enough to speak
about what's happening how do you
respond to that
criticism yes so first of all Vladimir
Putin walked into that that room and by
the way he was listening to my address
to the conference that day he said as
much in his speech that he was listening
to what people were saying and he found
that interesting he was at the table
only for a few minutes speaking only
Russian surrounded by his uh you know
his codery and he then went up and gave
a speech in Russian and then walked out
I would have loved to have talked with
him but I was able to put my message out
to him by being a part of the Forum and
having about 10 or 15 minutes where I
could basically communicate the key
issues for me and those were that we
need a ceasefire we need to end all the
bombing campaigns in the Middle East we
need to abandon nuclear weapons and we
need a global Green New Deal so I was by
no means shy about our uh our mission
and our our issues and hoping you know
very much to be able to open dialogue
for further communication on this as far
as bib Netanyahu goes you know he will
not dialogue I mean he's he um he is the
opposite of dialogue and diplomacy I
don't mince words about BB Netanyahu he
needs to be called out as the um you
know as the worst war
criminal uh walking the Earth at the
moment Dr s I think that is the point
and I'm going to move on in just a bit
but because you don't mince words and
that is what your supporters love about
you that is what some of your detractors
are saying is the problem here very
briefly can you touch on the weager
issue because that's what I'm seeing
making the rounds amongst Muslim
Americans who are unhappy and who want
to give you more full-throated support
but can't so let me say I'm glad that we
are not funding the uh the human rights
abuse and and the crimes being committed
against the Wagers we're not funding
that we are funding uh the genocide of
the people of Gaza so it deserves you
know it deserves the full focus of our
attention I now have a running mate who
himself is very familiar with these
issues so I'm in the process of being
informed he has certainly taken a stand
an unabashed stand and we are you know
he is advising me and I'm coming up to
speed uh it's very hard to know know you
know through the US uh mainstream media
what is the truth and we have
seen so much um death disaster uh
genocide committed because of the power
of the US War Machine and the power of
the US propaganda machine so as greens
were always very guarded about taking
these accusations at face value so that
is why we want to give them full uh
review and now that we have someone
who's very close to this issue you know
I look forward to coming out with a
statement soon that will help bring my
part of the agenda uh up to speed on the
weers uh as we have already done in
clarifying our position on Syria and on
Russia for that matter but what we have
complete agency over is not just the
words that we use but actually the
slaughter that is being conducted so
this is our first um you know our first
priority is to end this Slaughter and
you know it's not enough to open up the
delivery of humanitarian Aid as the
Harris Biden Administration sometimes
calls for that's not enough because that
Aid is going to be destroyed as it has
been destroyed we also have to stop the
genocide it's not enough to feed the
people who were then being targeted and
bombed and you know and and buried under
Rubble we have to stop
uh bearing them under the rubble as well
as providing them food and medical care
that can happen on day one more with Dr
Joe Stein after the
break Dr Stein I I I I I I want to talk
about how you get to day one and a topic
that most third party candidates
probably hate the most the idea of being
a spoiler candidate so let's talk swing
States a poll that came out last week
conducted by the New York Times in
Sienna College has you polling at 2%
nationally but there are other polls
that have you doing very well with Arab
and Muslim communities and voters
because of your stance in Gaza and
that's especially in key Battleground
States like
Michigan now you have heard this a lot
but many feel you cost Hillary Clinton
the election in 2016 because of small
margins in these swing States and that
you are therefore the reason that we had
a president Trump
many people are saying that again so I
want to hear from you are votes for you
in these Battleground States going to
decide this election so first of all
just to clear the record here people who
voted for my campaign in 2016 were
otherwise not voting so we provided a
reason for people to come to the polls
we were not taking votes away so it is
it is misinformation disinformation and
it is dis empowering and disrespectful
and anti-democratic let me say this
smear campaign that says that the
Democratic party owns your votes or that
the Republican Party owns your votes
they don't own your votes they have to
earn your votes they haven't earned your
votes which is why kamla Harris has lost
the support of the Muslim American
Community she doesn't want to talk about
that in fact there are also two polls
from about two weeks ago and what those
two different polls showed was that in
fact kamla Harris has already lost these
votes and in fact we're not drawing down
on on kamla Harris's vote we're drawing
down on Donald Trump's vote because
we're providing people who have already
decided they're not going to vote for
someone committing genocide someone who
has murdered dozens of their relatives
and we have one candidate who's actively
in the White House overseeing this
genocide and another Donald Trump who
has said let's hurry up and finish the
job there is nothing to lose and
everything to gain both in terms of
foreign policy but also in terms of the
assault on our democracy uh you can look
at any of the issues where the Democrats
pretend to be the Lesser evil but when
you actually dig down at the details
they are not the Lesser evil but Dr se
you you you said something you said
something that I know that some
listeners are going to take issue with
and you said that there is nothing to
lose only something to gain now on both
sides that will not be the same take you
have the Democratic side who say there
is everything to lose here and that you
are taking votes away from kamla Harris
so of course exit polls are not
scientific we can know there's no way to
know that 100% of those voters just were
not going to vote in 2016 we don't know
that again this year but that is what
the Democratic party says that you are
ushering in a trump
presidency that is what they will always
say the parties of abolition were called
spoilers because they dared to challenge
uh the institution of slavery so this is
what power does power will uh you know
attempt to hang on to power and the
Democratic party in in particular you
know we know that Donald Trump disrupted
the election by Try by trying to
interfere with a peaceful transfer of
power well the Democrats do that in
advance of the election by stripping the
election of opposition candidates that
is authoritarianism that is the Tyranny
that that the US complains about in
other countries they are doing it here
you have a lot of criticism for the
Democratic Party
arguably rightfully so because of the
attack ads they put out against you but
one of the criticisms about you is that
you don't talk enough about Trump and
the threats that he poses and so I want
to frame this in a way that's really
personal for people who are actually
fearful of what could happen under
another Trump presidency they cite
things like his role in inciting the
January 6th
Insurrection his plans to deport
millions of undocumented migrants in a
military operation the threats people
already face and will continue to face
unproductive rights what would your
message be to those people who say this
is existential foreign policy aside this
is what we're facing here in the US
absolutely and you know as I just
mentioned it's Donald Trump who
interferes with the peaceful transfer of
power and the Democrats do it on the
front end so it's not like we don't
criticize uh Republicans we absolutely
do in fact one of the things we always
say is that people are mad at the
Democrats because they make promises and
then they break them but the Republicans
never make promises in the first place
so they don't kind of inspire the same
kind of anger that the Democrats do and
let me just uh to that point you know
what moved the big uh the big shift of
the electorate uh into the Republican
Party happened after the uh 2008 Wall
Street Crash where the Democrats in two
houses of Congress and the Obama
Administration they bailed out Wall
Street so there's enormous reason here
which is driving the shift of the
elction
it's not that the Republicans are
solving any of this it's just that the
electorate is very angry at the
Democrats for having betrayed them but
to your point um about the deportations
uh there was a young uh Hispanic woman
who uh came to one of our house parties
the other night and she was like
Overjoyed to learn about our our uh
approach to immigration she said nobody
knows about this in my community they're
all voting for Donald Trump and I said
well why Trump she said because it's Joe
Biden who's been deporting our community
and this is actually true in spite of
Trump's horrific rhetoric throughout
it's the Democrats who've always been
the dep Porters in Chief on uh
Reproductive Rights you know both Barack
Obama and Joe Biden came into office
having promised that codifying row would
be the first thing that they would do
but they never did it when they had the
majorities to do it so do not believe
the propaganda that's telling you that
um you know that Donal Trump is the
greater evil in fact we have two greater
evils in this election and our job is to
vote for the greater
good so Dr Stein um I have one final
question but I I will preface it by
saying usually people say don't read the
comments but it is really remarkable
that under each of your media
appearances on YouTube at least the
comments are from my viewpoint I didn't
know about this and now I'm voting for
Jill Stein and butchar um so I want us I
want to talk about how you Galvanize
that after the election people will have
checked a box for you or for someone
else there will be a result that will be
as poll show unlikely to make you
president so stepping aside from
electoral policies and electoral
politics let's think about 2025 your own
should we say project 2025 either under
under a president Harris or a president
Trump how do you keep that momentum and
that movement going and and let me say
this is not new for us we as the Greek
party do not go away and this is why
we've been able to build in my first
race in 2012 we got half a million votes
something like that and then my 2016
race it was more like a million and a
half so we actually tripled our vote
because we are building we don't go away
we have over 150
uh elected officials at the local level
we've had over 1,500 elected officials
we are a
decentralized um political party that is
people powered across the country in the
course of this race we have had many new
communities stepping up and creating
green party chapters and running green
party candidates and I very much look
forward to working with activists all
over the country so we can stand up
together and we can keep the momentum
going because no matter what happens in
this election we have a genocide to stop
we have an Empire to uh dismantle we
have a democracy to reestablish we have
migrants to uh to defend uh the biggest
solution to the immigration problem is
to stop causing it in the first place
with endless Wars and regime change
operations and also with the War on
Drugs which empowers the cartels to
create their violence which is driving
people here all politics is local and we
are a Grassroots campaign we grow from
the bottom up the American people are
really hungry for a people-powered
politics that is of buy and for us
together we are unstoppable and we
really look forward to working with
everyone who has been mobilized in this
campaign to continue the
fight Dr gilstein thank you so much for
this conversation and for sharing the
green party stake with us it's been
really an honor to be with you Malika
thank you so very much
and that's the take what are your
thoughts on Jill Stein's candidacy let
us know in the comments below I'm always
checking in so let's keep the
conversation going and if you enjoyed
today's episode don't forget to give it
a like so more people can find it

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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."

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Part 1 of 2

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

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Part 2 of 2

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

[admin]

Part 1 of 2

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

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Part 2 of 2

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
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