Jill Stein stopped by Marshall Park in Charlotte, NC during the DNC to talk with activists there. Donald Kronos told me Stein was there listening and talking for about 30 mins. I got there at the end. When I did, about 12 people stood in a circle listening to Stein. Another group of people, about 8-10, sat in a circle singing and playing guitar instead of talking with or listening to Stein. And there were about 3 people sitting on the concrete looking into their laptops.
As the auto Stein was in drove out of the parking lot, one person whose various attire often reminded me of a smartly dressed person in the mid 1960s—fair skin and dirty blond longish hair and a long thin body in turtle necks and tight fitting Corda-Roys with an air of aloofness and a sly look in his eyes—-did a mic check: Jill Stein is driving away in an SUV, and she’s the Green Party candidate.”
In Tampa, I had suggested to Shamako Noble and Cheri Honkala that the Green Party do more to reach out to people at Occupy gatherings, despite that more than a few of them, whether they called themselves anarchists or not, seemed wary and dismissive of, if not openly hostile to, all politicians. Am not sure if Stein’s appearance at the encampment in Marshall Park in Charlotte during the DNC had anything to do with what I said to Noble and Honkala.
Donald Kronos said he’d like a debate between Jill Stein and Nadine Hays.
“They would debate on what they agree on as well as what they agree on. Actually, some debate is ok but I’d like to see how both of them are different from the two party candidates. It’d be interesting to see how they could agree on doing better than the other candidates.”
Kronos said Hays has not held public office and is an independent write-in candidate.
Like the fountain in Marshall Park with amber lights, idealism sometimes gushes at gatherings such as these. But how do we test some of these ideas ?
Kronos said most people want to contribute to society.
“But we should allow for those who don’t want to contribute, and allow for a few people who are happy with next to nothing and not aspiring for more. The idea of capitalism has been understood to mean working hard to get ahead of others. Why not working hard to get ahead of where you’d be if you hadn’t worked hard?”
Without coming across as megalomaniacal, Kronos said he is among those people he considers to be visionary. He said he contacted someone on the staff of Dennis Kucinich’s DC office to suggest the Ohio politician be Hays’ running mate.
Kronos and I had a casual late night conversation under the bright park lights. He didn’t seem to take offense when I suggested his socio-economic ideas might in fact be visionary, though his ideas about a Hays-Kucinich ticket were unrealistic.
As for Jill Stein, Kronos said she brushed him off.
“Her people didn’t have the time to hear what I had to say. If it weren’t for that, maybe I’d help the Green Party.”
Kronos said he is investing some of his time and energy teaching the world Esper, which he said derives from Esperanto.
[[[To what degree does Esper have relevance in terms of social justice? ]]]]
invented in Brazil?]]] Kronos said he rode it in almost every country of Central America and in a few countries of South America, as well as the US and Mexico in North America.
[[[How about the Eastern Hemisphere? ]]]]
Include Billy Lolos’ comments about Stein.
That was Sunday evening. The following Thurs Stein did a press conference at the encampment in Marshal Park in Charlotte with Green Party VP Cheri Honkala, Hip Hop artist Shamako Noble, activist Bruce Wright, and several other activists and concerned community members who had traveled there from Philadelphia where Honkala lives.
About 12 hours earlier, Bill Clinton had just delivered a speech at the Democratic National Convention that thrilled many mainstream Democrats who perhaps focused more on nostalgia for the 90s and the star appeal of the kid from Little Rock than on actual policy or other facts on the ground pertaining to our nation’s current situation.
Speaking at the protest encampment at Marshall Park, about 2 miles from the DNC, Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein not only reminded us about present problems but she also called attention to the injustices under the Clinton administration during the 90s, a time some middle class folk might now long for but a time of harshness against our nation’s poor, according to Stein.
“Who’s Clinton to ensure us to stay the course?” Stein asked and then said poverty increased during the Clinton presidency and that he was instrumental in moving welfare from something for those who needed it to a type of welfare for the super rich and corporations.
In response to the slogan some Democrats are using during this campaign– “GM is Alive, Bin Laden is Dead” Stein asked “who thrives at GM, the executives or the workers?” As for Bin Laden being dead, she said, ” our civil liberties continue to be under attack under Obama, as war spending has increased, diverting an infinite amount of money to the military industrial complex.”
With a tone of indignation, not mockery of Clinton’s speech the night before, Stein asked rhetorically, “The recovery has happened, we just don’t know it yet ?” Then she said, ” It’s a recovery for the 1 percent, not for the rest of us. We’re seeing at this convention and during this campaign the Democrats’ thin veneer of phony populism. Beyond the narrative of both parties, details are very similar. It’s cut Medicare and cut other programs.”
Stein talked about the humble beginnings of the Green Party in the US, but said, “it’s the start of something worthwhile, ” adding that the Green Party is important regardless of the election outcome.
“We don’t have to win the White House to win positive change. We have the facts, justice, and truth on our side.”
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