Dr. Jill Stein (G-MA)
Announcement Speech
National Press Club
Washington, DC
June 23, 2015

Good afternoon.

Thank you all for being here today, and for all you’ve done to bring us to this historic moment, as a movement for democracy and justice is sweeping the planet. Thanks to so many in this room who are leading the charge - to Cheri Honkala for lifting the voices of black, brown and poor people in the fight for economic justice; to German Parodi for defending the rights of students, immigrants, and the disabled, Bonnie Lane for mobilizing the homeless to become a new political force in Baltimore as part of your mayoral campaign.

This work for Democracy and Justice is the antidote to the converging crises we face, crises that Martin Luther King described as racism, militarism and extreme materialism, now made even worse by the climate crisis. Communities across the globe are rising up against these disasters - from Ferguson to Gaza, Baltimore to Cairo, Detroit to Pine Ridge. 

This struggle for justice is especially wrenching today in the aftermath of the latest  act of racist terrorism in Charleston, South Carolina. where nine magnificent lives were taken from their families, communities, and all of us. This tragedy is a painful reminder that our nation’s roots in the criminal institution of slavery go deep. And that legacy carries forward from slave trade to lynchings, to Jim Crow, to drug wars, mass incarceration, police violence, the school to prison pipeline, and unconscionable racial disparities in health, wealth and education.

We must see the continuity between the covert violence of institutional racism and the flagrant violence of white supremacy. And it must all be stopped. In the face of this horror, the courage, forgiveness and love of the victims’ families is utterly astounding, and a model of the tranforming power of human spirit. Let their example be a living inspiration for the broader movement for democracy and justice.

I’d like to tell you how I've come to be a part of this movement.

Thirty-five years ago, as a new doctor and mother starting off in medical practice, I saw clearly, even then, that our healthcare system was failing, especially for the poor. I was deeply troubled by the new epidemics descending on our children  – the rising tide of obesity, asthma, autism and more.

I joined community groups working to eliminate the upstream drivers of these diseases - everything from pollution to poverty, to industrial food and street violence. After years lobbying elected officials, I realized our health system was part of a much larger failure of our political establishment. a system not only failing us, but outright exploiting us, in collusion with the economic elite funding their political campaigns.

That’s when I realized that as a doctor I could best contribute to the health of society by practicing not clinical medicine, but political medicine - confronting the mother of all illnesses, our sick political system that must be healed if we’re to hold any hope of fixing these ills that are literally killing us.

Now decades later, this practice of political medicine brought me to picket lines at oil refineries in Houston Texas, to the trial of Benton Harbor political prisoner Reverend Edward Pinkney, to the immigrant struggle on the Rio Grande, to the DC Mothers Day march to the US Department of Justice with mothers from across the country who’d lost their sons to police violence.

Thanks to these courageous souls and so many others who are realizing that dreaming for change is not enough, hoping for change is getting no where, and are taking the power in their own hands to defend their communities, their children and their rights. They do this not because they want to, they do it because they have to, because their political representatives from both parties have sold out the people and the planet to the highest bidder.

As a result we face a crisis of historic proportions.

1 in 2 American families are in or near poverty. Twenty million people need full time work, yet 75% the jobs being created are part time and temporary. 40 million students are in debt with little prospect of getting out. Meanwhile corporate profits have tripled, and a mere 80 billionaires have the wealth equivalent to half of the world’s population of 3.5 billion. This is unconscionable.

The ecological crisis is beyond an emergency. 2014 was the hottest year yet. California, which produces half the fruit and vegetable supply for the country, has one year of water left in its reservoirs. Where the climate is heading can be seen in India which has just had one of its worst heat waves in recorded history, with a heat and humidity impact equivalent to 149 degrees F, causing roads to melt and killing nearly 2000 people.  Climate stress is causing species to disappear at a rate that more than 1000 times normal. As a consequence, half of the world’s species are expected to die off by 2100, putting the survival of humans into the next century at grave risk.

Bottom line. We’re in trouble, and the political parties that got us in to this mess are not just unwilling, they are utterly incapable of getting us out. We need the people powered political movement that does not sell out to the corporate predators and economic elite. or their apologists in the Democratic and Republican Parties.

That’s why I’m here today to launch my campaign for President of the United States.

I’m running because this nation is in crisis. Only we the people have the power to fix it.

To paraphrase Alice Walker, the biggest way people give up power is by not knowing we have it to start with. Well we do have the power. And it’s time to use it. In poll after poll, the American people are calling for the kinds of solutions we’re offering. Polls also show that people are leaving the two corporate parties by the droves, and 58% are calling for a 3rd party.

The American people have had enough of a Two Party system that bails out Wall Street and throws out Main Street. We’ve had enough of rule by the 1%, with their cult of cut throat competition and their religion of greed. It’s now clear for all to see where these oppressive systems have led us  -to  extreme inequality, economic despair, racism, endless war, and climate catastrophe.

But the American people have the power to create a new way forward , and the solutions we need are in our hands.

Our Power to the People Plan lays out these solutions in a blueprint to move our economy from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism to a human-centered system that puts people, planet and peace over profit. This plan would end unemployment and poverty; avert climate catastrophe; build a sustainable, just economy; and recognize the dignity and human rights of everyone in our society. The plan affirms that we have the power to take our future back:

We have the power to create a Green New Deal, providing millions of jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030.

We have the power to provide to a living-wage job and workers rights for every American.

We have the power to end poverty and guarantee economic human rights.

We have the power to make health-care a human right through an improved Medicare for All system,.

We have the power to provide education as a right and  abolish student debt.

We have the power to create a just economy.

We have the power to protect Mother Earth.

We have the power to end institutional racism, police brutality and mass incarceration.

We have the power to restore our Constitutional rights.

We have the power to end our wars of aggression, close foreign bases and cut military expenditures 50%

We have the power to empower the people.

I invite you to join our campaign and make the most of this moment of historic transformation.  We will be in this race all the way to November 2016 and beyond. We will amplify the voices of courage and transformation already inspiring us across America. Our campaign is building a people-powered force that will not sell or bow out, and will change American politics forever. 

Visit jill2016.com. Connect with us. Volunteer. Make a donation. This Democracy needs more than your vote. It needs the Power in your hands to reject lesser evil and to rise up for Greater Good!

Now is the time to seize this moment of crisis together and create the world of democracy, justice and peace that we all we deserve.

The Power to create this world  Is not in our hopes, it’s not in our dreams, it’s in our hands!

Thank you.

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June 22, 2015

Contact:
Dennis Trainor, Jr | Communications Director

Dr. Jill Stein Officially Running for President; Demands System Change 

Presidential Announcement Coincides with Lawsuit Against Commission on Presidential Debates

Official Launch Video here
Download an HD version for broadcast or web here.

 

Dr. Jill Stein will formally launch her campaign as a Green Party candidate for President of the United States at a campaign kickoff event Tuesday, June 23 @ 1:30PM at the National Press Club (529 14th St. NW 13th floor, Washington, DC 20045)  (Map)

Earlier today, in a Democracy Now! exclusive, Dr. Jill Stein broke the news that she is formally seeking the Green Party nomination. “I have a people-powered campaign," Stein notes. "I am running with the only national party that does not take corporate funding."

At the National Press Club event tomorrow, Dr. Stein kick off her campaign and introduce her Power to the People Plan.

“The Power to the People Plan creates deep system change, moving from the greed and exploitation of corporate capitalism to a human-centered economy that puts people, planet and peace over profit,” says Dr. Stein.

 

It offers direct answers to the economic, social, and ecological crises brought on by both corporate political parties. And it empowers the American people to fix our broken political system and make real the promise of democracy.

 

This plan will end unemployment and poverty; avert climate catastrophe; build a sustainable, just economy; and recognize the dignity and human rights of everyone in our society and our world. The power to create this new world is not in our hopes, it’s not in our dreams - it’s in our hands.”

 

ORGANIZED AROUND GREEN PARTY GROWTH AND MOVEMENT BUILDING

A key focus of Jill Stein’s 2016 Presidential Campaign is to bring the struggles of frontline communities into the frontlines of the Presidential debate and dialogue.
 

“The Green Party in the United States is growing,” says Dr. Stein “because we empower voices of resistance and transformation in the electoral arena. The Green Party can do this because we’re the only national party that isn’t poisoned by corporate money. In 2012, we emerged as the nation’s leading progressive party challenging the status quo. Now we are building on that.”

LAWSUIT AGAINST COMMISSION ON PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES

In the fall of 2012, Jill Stein and Vice Presidential Candidate Cheri Honkala were arrested as they tried to enter a Presidential Debate sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Now, that fight moves from the streets to the courts.
 

Dr. Stein’s official entry into the 2016 Presidential race coincides with the filing of a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Alexandra Shapiro is the star litigator leading the effort on behalf of Level the Playing Field (LPF), the successor to Americans Elect, LPF’s chairman, Peter Ackerman, and the Green Party.

Shapiro, a former federal prosecutor and former U.S. Supreme Court clerk, has won a series of high-profile victories overturning convictions by New York U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office, including the highly-publicized reversal earlier this month due to massive juror fraud of a Deutsche Bank broker’s conviction, as well as the landmark Newman insider trading case, the Ernst & Young $1 billion tax shelter case, and several other major white collar cases. Shapiro also defeated the FEC’s effort to shut down the entity that became Americans Elect in a 2010 victory in the D.C. Circuit. Shapiro will be the public face of a legal strategy in which the plaintiffs argue that the FEC must either crack down on the CPD or empower them to sue the CPD leadership and its Directors over their exclusionary debate rules.

 

The lawsuit will be filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on June 22, 2015.
 

According to LPF, “The suit paints a disturbing picture of a debate commission stacked with partisans who have been violating FEC regulations and the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) by rigging the rules governing who can be in the debates to ensure that no candidate other than the Democratic and Republican nominees will ever be invited to the debates.”
 

ABOUT JILL STEIN

Stein was the Green Party’s 2012 candidate for President of the United States. She is an organizer, physician, and pioneering environmental-health advocate. She has helped lead initiatives promoting healthy communities, local green economies and stronger democracy – including campaign finance reform, green jobs, racially-just redistricting, and the cleanup of incinerators, coal plants, and toxic-pesticides.

 

ABOUT THE GREEN PARTY of the UNITED STATES

The Green Party of the United States (GPUS) is a confederation of state green parties that campaign to elect Green Party candidates at all levels of government to promote the party's core values of ecological wisdom, social justice, grass roots democracy and non-violence. GPUS was recognized as a political party in 2001 following Ralph Nader's presidential campaigns in 1996 and 2000. More recently GPUS presidential candidate Jill Stein challenged her exclusion from the 2012 presidential debates and joined forces with other excluded presidential candidates to promote alternative presidential debates.

 

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