Jill Stein (above) is campaigning for the Green Party's presidential nomination. Her campaign notes her position on what took place in Wisconsin last week.
Wisconsin betrayed by silencing of democracy movement, says Stein
Dr. Jill Stein, the victor in the Green Party presidential primaries, this morning issued the following statement about yesterday's recall elections in Wisconsin:
"For over a year now, the working people
of Wisconsin have been under siege by the fossil fuel, mining, and toxic
chemical corporations. Yesterday's recall election was deeply flawed.
Thousands of qualified voters were turned away from their polling
places. Thousands more were told not to vote, or that election day was
yet to come. The corporate media declared the election results while
voters still stood in line to vote, and at a time when only the most
conservative ward results were reported. Many votes were cast on
electronic voting machines that are easy to manipulate because they lack
a paper trail. And nearly all of the money spent in the election came
from out-of-state big corporate interests. If an election like that is
free and fair, then I have a nuke plant in Vermont to sell you."
"My
national campaign headquarters is on the Capitol Square in Madison. I
have visited Wisconsin repeatedly this past year, marched with
Wisconsinites, sang with the Solidarity Singers, and circulated recall
petitions. Next week, I will speak at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair
near Amherst, Wisconsin. I am committed to Wisconsin's struggle for
democracy and self-determination."
"Where has Barack Obama been in the
course of this struggle? He had time to visit Minnesota and Chicago, but
not Wisconsin. He had time for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wall
Street financiers, but not for the working people who have already lost
so much. If he has had any part at all in this great movement for
economic justice and democracy that has arisen in America this past
year, President Obama's role has been to oversee the most coordinated
and brutal national crackdown on non-violent protesters this country has
seen in half a century."
"There are many lessons to what happened
in Wisconsin yesterday. Most of those lessons are about the role of big
money in politics, and the lengths to which some will go to suppress the
right to vote. But one key lesson from this entire recall process --
from the attempts by the Democratic National Committee to cancel the
recall effort last year, to the pressure the Obama White House placed on
progressives within the Democratic Party not to run in the recall, to
the early concession by Mayor Barrett given despite his promises to wait
until all the Milwaukee votes were counted -- one key lesson is that
the Democratic Party cannot be trusted to defend the interests of
regular people."
"We need our own party, organized by, led
by, and funded by we the people, not the corporations. Just as
Wisconsinites took leadership in the uprising of the past year, and did
not ask for permission to launch the occupy movement, so too must
Wisconsin find its own strong progressive voice at the ballot box.
Yesterday's election reminds us once again that silence is not an
effective political strategy."