BREAKING NEWS: Green Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Arrested

Jill Stein and her running mate have just been arrested outside the presidential debate for “blocking pedestrian traffic” AKA for showing up in protest of the two party monopoly over politics in this country.

Video of the arrest:

http://rt.com/usa/news/police-jill-stein-debate-589/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/wp/2012/10/16/green-party-candidate-arrested-outside-debate-site/

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BREAKING NEWS: Green Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Arrested
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22 thoughts on “BREAKING NEWS: Green Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Arrested

  1. 2

    I wish I could vote for her, but I live in a state that is likely to be relevant and feel obligated to vote for Obama. This will be very interesting to watch develop…

  2. 4

    UGH. Just…UGH. Utterance of disgust and frustration.

    Seriously, this dominance of the 2-party system is why I can’t in good judgment vote for Jill Stein, even though everything I know about her and her politics says that she is the best match candidate for me. (Also, she seems to be pretty awesome.)

    So basically this protest is super relevant? Also I live in Florida. Just this morning I was getting medical testing done, and as I’m waiting for the second half of the tests, I hear the technician talking with the next patient and exclaiming about how Reagan is “the master” and no one can compare, and also how government programs to help the poor, disabled, &c. basically amount to slavery. I was so disgusted and immediately started to question everything the tech had advised me re: my health (not that I wasn’t already – he was seriously trying to shame me for being out of shape without even wondering why that might be, and I was actually TRYING to get healthier, which is what caused the problems that led to the tests performed today, and I’m not even as bad off as so many other people!) … Anyway, I had never actually heard anyone state that outloud, and had always hoped it was just something that gets said on the Internet or summarized from FoxNews. But it was horrifying and a strong reason why I have to vote for a candidate who is more likely to win than Jill Stein, even if I think she’s awesome, and even if I’m not particularly enthused by some of the other candidate’s position on various issues. 🙁

  3. 5

    Which is one of the reasons why I loooove preferential voting as in Australia. Not only do you get to vote against the party/person you hate with a very satisfying you. come. last. on. my. ballot. paper, you can send a message about which of the minor candidates/parties you’d like your likely winner to take more notice of.

    Yes! You can vote 1 for someone desirable with no hope of winning and vote 2 for the preferred winner. And get two desirable outcomes for the price of one vote. Though I have a horrible feeling this only works as it does here because of the compulsory voting system.

    1. 5.1

      That sounds really great. So does the proportional representation of parliamentary systems (as I understand them?).

      But it’s not just mandatory voting that might make it work – you also don’t have the Electoral College in Australia. I don’t think preferential voting would matter since the Electoral Colleges tend to just vote for the popular winner in their state with no grey zone or proportionality or anything.

    2. 5.2

      Compelling everyone to vote is no fairer than not allowing anyone to vote.

      An abstention is a perfectly valid vote. And the sort of person who wouldn’t cast a vote unless compelled — and who far outnumber people who vote because they are actually seriously interested in politics — is by definition voting for the wrong reasons. Maybe they will vote for the candidate with the best haircut or something. They could vote for the candidate with the worst policy in protest at the compulsion. Or they might write “1, 2, 3, 4 ….. ” going down the paper, favouring the first candidate listed.

      These votes can easily be stolen by a candidate who knows how to game the system correctly. Which is why it is crucial to the democratic process that nobody ever be compelled to vote.

      1. As I understand it, Australians are required to “attend a polling place, have their name marked off the certified list, receive a ballot paper and take it to an individual voting booth, mark it*, fold the ballot paper and place it in the ballot box.”

        That’s not quite the same as being compelled to cast a vote. And as for doing silly things with your ballot, the truly apathetic won’t know who has the best hair anyway.

        (*Ballots are secret, so I don’t think there’s any way to actually check.)

      2. Or they might write “1, 2, 3, 4 ….. ” going down the paper, favouring the first candidate listed.

        That may happen (it’s impossible to tell whether or not the voter is simply voting in order listed or due to actual preference) and it’s called a ‘donkey vote‘.

        Just an FYI. Otherwise, I share your views on compulsory voting.

    3. 5.3

      Nah!!
      This is how we should do it (pinched from One of my silly radio pieces):
      I’m going to tell you the way to solve all the problems with all of our political system.

      Totally!

      Absolutely!

      All of them!

      Imagine the scene on a future election night. It’s rightly and inevitably done on the television. You can have plenty of glitz and the nature of the thing will ensure plenty of tension and incredible ratings. We settle down (nervously) to watch as the numbered balls are randomly blown around and out of the machine to spell out the Social Security numbers of the chosen ones. We start off with the House, move on to the Senate, the Veep and Finally the Pres! Sort of Miss World order.
      Yes election night is Lottery night! And think what follows:
      Soft money is squashed, endlessly increasing election costs are cut, stupid, vicious TV ads are zapped, Special interests are stymied and as for term limits? Do you know what the chances of the same set of nine numbers coming up twice are? If it happens they deserve it!

      And then there are the more subtle things:
      Finally our government will be really representative, there will (purely by chance) tend to be the same proportions of women, minorities and left-handed Englishmen* in our government as in our population.

      Of course we will also have the same proportion of criminals, liars and perverts as in the general population—a great improvement over our current system which tends to select far too many of them!

      ______________
      * Guess what I am.

    1. 6.2

      In addition to the Republican and Democratic candidates, there are three other tickets running in enough states to win the Presidency:

      Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, Green
      Gary Johnson and James Gray, Libertarian
      Virgil Goode and Jim Clymer, Constitution

      But the media has a vested interest in keeping the Two Party as the sole political power in this country.

  4. 8

    I may not like her politics, but I like her style. Being a Libertarian, I fully understand the inner workings and corrupt values of the supposed two party system.

    I can’t vote for Ms. Stein, but I can applaud her guts.

  5. 9

    It still sounds highly undemocratic to me. Less than half the population vote in properly democratic countries; meaning that in Australia, there are more people voting under compulsion (that they probably resent) than voting honestly of their own volition for all the candidates put together.

    This means, if you can somehow persuade those resentful of the compulsion to vote to vote in a certain way, that you can steal enough votes to force the result of an election.

  6. 12

    Imagine how satisfying the outcome would be if Obama won all “blue states” and necessary “swing states” as predicted by the current models, BUT Stein or some other progressive candidate came in as runner-up or high percentage third-place in every “red state”. (This obviously isn’t happening — ever — with the amount of “low information voters” that exist. It’s harder to predict whether electoral reform will happen here before widespread protest voting like this takes place.)

  7. 13

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