The Presidential Candidate You Should Get To Know: Jill Stein

If you're like me, you're already 1) sick of being bombarded by an endless stream of TV ads from Romney, Obama or their surrogate "Super PAC" minions and 2) really looking for an alternative to both major party candidates. One alternative may be Jill Stein, the national Green Party candidate.

I say "may" because her eligibility (and that of other candidates) will be determined by the State Board of Elections in September (disclaimer: I signed a petition to get Stein on the ballot & helped get additional signatures, in addition to making a financial contribution to her campaign). So what would a Jill Stein presidency look like? If she keeps her word, a lot like a New Deal for the 21st century... though her campaign calls it "The Green New Deal". You can read a summary of her proposal on her campaign website here. 

Stein makes the point repeatedly that both major parties are effectively owned and controlled by major corporations. If you take the time to run through the Federal Election Commission's reports on contributions to Republican and Democratic candidates, you'll quickly see that overall Stein has a point. A friend of mine at a major labor organization made the observation awhile back that both major parties get 70 percent or more of their money from major corporations. But that's only the beginning of the story about how little difference there is between the major parties these days.

Both parties support the so-called "drone wars", which now range from Pakistan to Yemen and which, despite the proponents claims, have done nothing to stop attacks here at home. Remember the Times Square bombing attempt that was thwarted not by any drone strike but by a passer-by? The Drone Wars did not stop Major Nidal Hassan from committing mass murder at Ft. Hood, Texas. Stein promises a reexamination of our foreign & military policy, something that is long overdue.

Stein also would stop the industrial-scale surveillance our federal government has been engaged in since September 2011, and redirect resources from the bloated Pentagon budget towards domestic priorities like freeing America from its addiction to imported oil, which only helps keep us politically and militarily mired in the dangerously unstable Middle East and Persian Gulf regions.

And you'd never see a bailout of hedge fund managers by Jill Stein. She's clearly focused on helping people on Main Street, not those on Wall Street who robbed the country blind. Her economic program is focused on helping the average person, not those who are cutting $2,500 checks to the DNC or RNC.

I know what you're thinking: "She can't win." "She'll only be a spoiler and help Romney." I've heard all those arguments before, and none of them can refute this basic fact: The Dems and the Republicans have had their chances to govern, and the current state of our nation is the end result: structurally high unemployment, a vanishing middle class, millions of young people struggling to find jobs, and runaway spending on a national security establishment that is not making us safer even as it evicerates our rights.

Who's the real spoiler? Our current political duopoly.

Here's something else to remember. A lot of Whig's probably thought the same thing when an insurgent Republican Party emerged in the 1850's. We know how that contest turned out. Just as the Whigs were on the wrong side of history, so too is our current two-party political farce. Jill Stein is a fresh face with fresh ideas. Her campaign accepts no corporate money, period. When's the last time you had the chance to vote for a that kind of candidate?

Former CIA analyst and Annandale resident Patrick G. Eddington is the author of Long Strange Journey: An Intelligence Memoir.