Jill Stein at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, Tuesday, September 25, 2012

    Transcript by Valerie Face

Thank you to the National Nurses Association, formerly the California Nurses Association, for
being a real driving force to bring Medicare for All to the American people, which the American
people are really clamoring for. So it's a real honor to be able to be that voice for Medicare for
All during this election, to answer so much more.

Before I get too far into this I just want to be sure to give a big, "Thank you," to Merriam
Kathaleen for arranging this wonderful gathering tonight, [applause] and also to the Santa Clara
Green Party, to the Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, and to all of you for being here
and also to the Single Payer Association for helping to arrange this gathering tonight.
We are on just this amazing roll right now! We just rolled in from Northern California, from
visiting four of the college campuses, where we had just an amazing, incredible reception. That
followed on the heels of being at the gathering of the Coalition Against Nukes, the Coalition for
Nuclear Free Future, to put an end to nuclear weapons and nuclear power, which are equally
dangerous. [applause] And before that we had just come from the Occupy Wall Street
[cheering] anniversary, [cheering, applause] and before that from the Poverty Tour with Cornell
West and Tavis Smiley. [applause] All of the presidential candidates have been invited to speak
on that Poverty Tour and, as you might imagine, I was the only one to show up. All on the way
we've just had this incredible reception. I should mention also the Chicago Teachers Union.
[applause]

It feels like, in this campaign, we get to bear witness to this rebellion that is actually in full
swing, this movement for democracy and justice, that is rising up, all over America, and which is
clamoring for a voice in this election and a choice at the polls that is not bought and paid for by
Wall Street, and we are really proud to bring that voice ... [applause]
So, you know, it's really a credit to all of us, that we are at this incredible historic moment. It
really is a perfect storm for political transformation, and it's an historic moment that we have all
worked to bring us to, where democracy and justice are rising up all over the country -- really
all over the planet -- including the democracy revolutions in the Middle East, and, I might add,
the incredible achievements of the students in Quebec who have just ... [applause]. And I think
they are pointing the way forward for us because there is so much that young people have at
stake.

And to look at the agendas of the Democratic and Republican parties in this race you would
think that young people are public enemy number one because they are nowhere to be found on
this agenda. Yet they should be the first priority, not the last priority, and they are in our
campaign. We are calling ... [slight applause] Thank you, you can clap for that! [applause]
Because it's young people who are really bearing the burden of where we're going, and where
we are, yet you don't see them, or their issues, given the light of day, at all, from the corporate-
sponsored campaigns here.

So we have this incredible burden of student debt. We just heard from the Federal Reserve, last
week, that they're going to be undertaking yet another bailout for the Wall Street banks and for
the mortgage brokers. They're expecting to spend perhaps another trillion dollars bailing out
Wall Street yet again. Instead of bailing out the crooks who got us into this mess with their
waste, fraud and abuse on Wall Street, we should be bailing out the students who've been the
victims of that ... [applause]

We are calling for an end to student debt and we are calling for free -- tuition-free -- public
higher education [applause, cheering] because we can afford this! We know from the GI bill.
We did this before, after the Second World War, we paid, as taxpayers, we paid for the college
education of more than a million returning soldiers. And what did we find? For every dollar we,
as taxpayers, invested in public higher education we received seven dollars in economic benefit
that is distributed to the whole country. That is why it's not just something that we can afford -
- it's something that we cannot afford not to do. [applause] The same way that we have
provided education through a high school degree for throughout the twentieth century. We did
that because it was essential for economic security. So, in the twenty-first century, guess what?
You need a college degree for economic security. So it's only a matter of justice that we
provide it.
By the same token ... [applause] By the same token, it's young people who are graduating to
these unconscionable high unemployment rates of 50% unemployment and underemployment.
That's not OK! We can fix this unemployment problem, and we can fix it with a program called
the Green New Deal, and that is the centerpiece of our campaign -- an emergency program to
actually put an end to unemployment as we jump-start the green economy for the twenty-first
century.
That, in turn, puts an end to another crisis -- the climate crisis which is rolling out, you know,
across our landscape day by day with the worst drought, rising food prices, the worst firestorms
and heat waves, the hottest 12 months on record. And we have only begun to see what this
climate crisis is about. This is the devastation we are seeing with less than one degree
centigrade temperature rise, and there is already predicted six degrees of temperature rise by
the end of the century. It is our young people who are inheriting that crisis in full force, and as
a matter of simple fairness we need to step up to the plate and enact the Green New Deal, to
put an end to the climate scourge, to put an end to unemployment and fix both of these
problems in one fell swoop. We know how to do it! [applause]

We did this in the New Deal that got us substantially out of the Great Depression in the 1930's.
We hear from Barack Obama and Mitt Romney that we're just going to stay the course, you
know, we're just going to keep doing what hasn't worked for the last several decades. We're
going to continue with this failed policy of trickle-down economics, of providing deregulation for
Wall Street, providing more dirty energy and tax breaks for the so-called "job creators" who are
creating jobs in India and China. You know, enough of that policy! It's time for a people-
powered economy that actually delivers the goods for everyday working people. It's not rocket
science. It's just a matter of plain democracy and enacting what's going to work for all of us.
And I'd like to mention, also, that the Green New Deal not only is a win-win for the economy, for
the climate, it's also a win for putting an end, for making obsolete, these wars for oil that we
don't need and we won't anymore ... [applause] And so that enables the other companions of
the Green New Deal -- another piece of our key agenda -- which is to downsize the military.
[applause] Yeah, how about it? [applause] And a big, "Thank you," of course, to Stanford
University and NYU for that wonderful report that they just released yesterday which, again,
just, I call what is common sense -- which is that dropping bombs, on drones, on weddings and
funerals is not the way to win the hearts and minds of the people of the Middle East. [applause]
We need a foreign policy that's based on human rights and international law, not on brute
military force and the fight for secure oil sources, and that's what our campaign intends to do.
In doing that, we can draw back to the military level of the year 2000. That's half the size of
what we're at right now. Did we achieve twice as much security over the last ten years by
doubling the military budget? I don't think so. No way! In many ways we are less secure for
having a more militarized foreign policy. So our real security, and real international security,
is by achieving a stable and just economy and a stable and sustainable climate, and we can do
all that by moving towards the Green New Deal with all due haste. [applause] And that, in
turn, by returning to 2000-year levels of the military, we can free up hundreds of billions of
dollars to put back into our economy here at home.

We're also calling for an end to the foreclosure crisis -- an immediate moratorium on
foreclosures. [applause] And, just so you know, the White House has $300 million that was
appropriated by congress for that purpose -- of buying up mortgages for families and
homeowners at risk and renegotiating those mortgages, and, by lowering the principle to
current market rates, to enable families to stay in their homes. And they said, "No," because,
they said, "Oh, too much moral hazard!" So where's the moral hazard in families who've been
victims of predatory loans and victims of waste, fraud and abuse on Wall Street? We know
where that hazard is. That moral hazard is on Wall Street, and Wall Street, unfortunately, is
inside the White House. So we address that moral hazard by voting Wall Street out of the
White House. [applause]

I should mention, also, another key piece of our agenda, which is to create a welcoming and
legal path to citizenship for the immigrant members of our communities and our economy who
are key parts of our future going forward and of our community. [applause]
But the President basically created a two-year worker permit program for a small subset of
those undocumented Americans. It's important to remember why they came here to start with.
They came here because NAFTA enables the dumping of key agricultural goods on the
economies of Latin America, which basically puts millions of farmers out of business. We
created that wave of economic refugees. To fix that crisis of immigration, we need to go back
and change this "free trade" agreement, which is free if you're a corporation (it's very costly for
everybody else), we need to change that free trade agreement into a fair trade agreement.
[applause]
And, in addition, and I just have to mention this, it took Bill Clinton to sign NAFTA, George Bush
to continue NAFTA, but then it took Barack Obama to expand NAFTA, not once, not twice, but
three times, with three new free trade agreements, and then to now create a secret free trade
agreement being negotiated behind closed doors -- this Trans-Pacific Partnership, which is
NAFTA on steroids -- and continues to export our jobs, to undermine wages here at home, and
actually to compromise American sovereignty by creating these international corporate boards
that get to decide whether our laws and regulations are acceptable and whether or not to fine
Americans for protecting our workforce, our communities and our environment. This is an
absolute outrage and it should be stopped. [applause]
And just a couple of other points I'd like to mention. As part of the Green New Deal we're also
calling for the financial reforms which are essential to fund the Green New Deal. By the way,
the estimates for the costs of the Green New Deal are essentially about that -- actually a little
bit less, to get it jump-started -- than the cost of the stimulus package in 2009. That package
created about 2 or 3 million jobs. That was a nice, you know, that was a nice, uh, small?, tiny?
step in the right direction, but did not make a permanent dent in this really entrenched
economic crisis we're in. So, instead of creating 2 or 3 million jobs, with the same amount of
money we can actually directly create 16 million jobs with an additional 8 million spin-off jobs.
How is it we can do that? Because the money goes directly into creating jobs, not into tax
breaks, which, unfortunately, do not directly create jobs. There's no guarantee. [applause]
And the New Deal showed us how to do that! And FDR said where the private sector would not,
or could not, create jobs, that government can directly step in and directly create those jobs.
So the Green New Deal we're calling for, which would provide grants and zero-interest loans
across the public sector and the private sector, enabling small businesses, community-based
small businesses, as well as worker cooperatives, to get up and running, as well as public
services and public works. So if you don't have a job, instead of going down to an
unemployment office, and collecting a check not to work, and being isolated from your
community, instead you can go down to an employment office, and get a job, and collect a
check, actually improving your community and contributing to a more just, sustainable and
green future that we all deserve. So this is in our hands. [applause]
And as part of the Green New Deal we call for financial reforms -- including breaking up the big
banks that have only gotten bigger than ever! [applause] And we need to take them on all
counts so that they're no longer too big to fail, and no longer too big to jail, so they actually
have their day in court for the waste, fraud and abuse that has actually decimated the wealth of
average Americans by an astounding 40% -- it's just staggering, the price that we have paid.
So it's time for the big banks to be held accountable. It's time to stop bailing them out and take
an example from Iceland, which actually broke up the big banks, sent the bankers to jail. Their
economy took a temporary dent while they adjusted, and now they are doing better than just
about all of Europe because they've put their economy on a clean footing, and we need to follow
in their footsteps. [applause]

We call for a variety of other financial reforms as well, as you can see in the Green New Deal, if
you want to take a look at it, up on our website. And we also call for democracy reforms --
including a constitutional amendment to guarantee the right of the vote so that these voter ID
laws do not stand a chance to take away the vote of so many people who are being tracked by
these voter ID laws. We're calling for reliable voting systems that ensure that every vote is
counted, and that means a hand-marked paper ballot. We need to do away with Diebold.
[applause] And we're all for voting reforms like Instant Runoff, also known as Ranked
Choice Voting. [applause] So you can actually go and rank your choices instead of having to
worry. And, OK, that's my five-minute warning. So I'm going to jump here to, kind of the take-
home.
The take-home is, as Alice Walker says, "We are the ones we've been waiting for," and that it's
time for us to stand up! You'll hear, over and over again, from your friends and colleagues,
"You're gonna vote for who? You're gonna do what?" You know, "Uh, are you sure you want to
do that?" Well, the thing to point out to them is that this politics of fear, which has been just
drummed into us for at least the last ten years, that it just doesn't have a leg to stand on! First
of all, if you look at what actually happened in Nader-Bush-Gore, if you look at the exit polls,
that stuff is just a public relations, it's a spin campaign designed to silence opposition. Nader's
votes came equally from Democrats and Republicans, but the vast majority of his vote actually
came from Ross Perot voters in the prior election, who were people who were independent,
who otherwise would not have voted Democrat or Republican. So it was not Nader who stole
the election, it was the Supreme Court that stole the election. [applause]

And, you know, beyond what happens next, there is the broader case that we are a diverse
country, diverse people, many ideas -- we need multi-partisan democracy, not this ...
[applause] The thinking is upside-down, here, to say that votes belong to those two sold-out
corporate parties. Actually the votes belong to us. We deserve multiple choices and multiple
parties in order to have, number one, a real dialogue and also, number two, so that you have
enough moving parts that they're not all going to get bought out by big corporations -- that's
what happens when you only have two choices. We need many choices. [applause]
It's not just OK to stand up and vote for an independent political party, it's actually life-saving,
job-saving, healthcare-saving, planet-saving and climate-saving, and we are the ones who are
gonna lead the way. [applause]

So when they say, you know, that you dare not stand up and vote your values they're actually
telling you to continue this policy of silence. We've been told to be quiet, to just go along to get
along, to vote for the lesser evil, but we have a ten-year track record, now, on where that leads.
There were a lot of people who were scared into that thinking by the spin campaign following
the Bush election. So we saw independent political votes, we saw the Green Party really take a
big hit, and we've stepped backwards. So where has that system brought us, this strategy of
silence? What we've seen is that silence is not an effective political strategy, and the politics of
fear, in fact, has brought us everything we were afraid of. All those reasons we were told to
be quiet, be good little boys and girls at the polls, all those things we were afraid of we have
gotten by the droves.

The Wall Street bailouts -- $700 billion under Bush, but $4.5 trillion under Barack Obama with
many trillions more with the free giveaways and the zero-interest loans. The expanding wars.
We were told, "Be very quiet," because you didn't want to get a president who'd expand the
wars. Well, look what happened. On day three Barack Obama began to bomb the heck out of
Pakistan! Where were the Republicans in the room to blame that one on? They weren't there at
all! Likewise the decision to bring Larry Summers into the White House and basically give away
the store to the very predators that engineered the Wall Street meltdown. You know, there's no
Republican party to blame that on. It was all out of that politics of fear bringing us what we
were afraid of. The same, you know, why did we withdraw from Iraq? You may have
remembered, it didn't get well publicized, but it was because Barack Obama was not able to
extend the immunity for U.S. soldiers. George Bush had negotiated a date on which that
immunity ended and Barack Obama worked his darnedest to try to extend that date and keep
our troops there for the indefinite future. He was unable, so he declared victory and said he was
the peace president and withdrew. Meanwhile his stand on the drone bombing, you know,
"Surge the troops into Afghanistan," is just another example of how this politics of fear delivers
everything we were afraid of. Same on our civil liberties, same on the attack on immigrant
rights, and same on the attack on our climate where this president embraced the policies of
George Bush and the, "Drill, baby, drill!" So with that I will ... [discussion off-mike]
Yes, and let me not omit the issue of health care as a human right, which is another key piece of
our agenda, and part of the Green New Deal. I live in Massachusetts. We already have the
Affordable Care Act, and we know that it is (a) not affordable and (b) it is not caring because it
does not provide real care. It provides the illusion of care, if you have your piece of paper, and
you feel good until you get sick, when you discover that in spite of paying big, hefty fees for this
Affordable Care Act (so-called -- it's not affordable), in spite of paying big-time for it, you're not
covered. It has enormous holes, and if you truly get sick, guess what? You're on your way to
bankruptcy. The medical bankruptcy is just as much under the Affordable Care Act in
Massachusetts as they were before we had it. In fact, polls show, surveys show, in
Massachusetts, that people now consider affordable health care even further out of reach than
they did before we had it. So it's not a solution!

It was created -- and I know this, too, from watching it happen in Massachusetts -- it was
created by the lobbyists for the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries. They are the
winners in this healthcare program. And they're making out like bandits, but it's not answering
our healthcare needs. Costs continue to skyrocket, our state budget continues to be gobbled up
by runaway healthcare costs, as are our cities and towns, and our small businesses, and our
families and individuals. This system is breaking our backs without actually delivering health or
healthcare. It was written in Massachusetts behind closed doors by those lobbyists. Even the
legislature in Massachusetts was unable to see it, or read the law, until the night before the bill
was voted on! I mean, we cry about what's inside of it and the fact that the national bill was
based on the Massachusetts bill.

So we know what the solution is. It is Medicare for All, which is a win-win! It covers our health
and our healthcare comprehensively. So that includes things like your ears, and your teeth,
and your reproductive health care, and your mental health, and your meds, including your
psych meds. It includes the whole nine yards -- all these little pieces in that link, that chain of
what makes us healthy. We need to be covered in our entirety. You're only as healthy as your
weakest link. So it's very important that we have a comprehensive healthcare system like
Medicare for All which covers not only acute and urgent care and short-term illness, but also
covers chronic illnesses and the diseases of aging and nursing home care and chronic care and
things like that.

So it's a wonderful system! It puts you back in charge of your healthcare decisions, not some
insurance CEO. Instead you get to decide where you get your care, and you and your
healthcare provider decide what you need for your coverage, what procedures and
pharmaceuticals -- and whatever you need. It's your decision, not the insurance companies'.
And, finally, the big, well-kept secret is that it saves us trillions of dollars over the next
decade! It doesn't cost us -- it saves us -- because it eliminates that massive, wasteful, private
health insurance bureaucracy that eats up 30% of every healthcare dollar right now. Instead of
putting our dollars into paper pushing and bureaucracy, we can put our dollars right into
healthcare. That enables us to cover everyone, and then we actually save money, because
under a single-payer system, you stabilize this rising cost of health care, so-called "medical
inflation". It goes away. That saves us trillions of dollars.
                                            

So how about it? We've got two ways, many others as well. But, between these two, to solve
the problems of this growing national deficit, we could have austerity, or then again we could
have healthcare for everyone. Which one would be a better way to solve our deficit problem?
[Audience member: "Healthcare for everyone!"] Yeah, how about it? Exactly. [applause]
So, when you think about it, there are 50 million people out there who need healthcare, who
don't have it, at all, and many more who are underinsured, and that's not gonna go away. Even
under the so-called Affordable Care Act we would still be massively underinsured and there will
be many who aren't covered. There are 36 million students and recent graduates ... [discussion
off-mike]

To wrap up, there are so many of us out there, between those who need healthcare, those who
need to be bailed out and not held in this indentured servitude that an entire generation is being
trapped in right now! If 36 million students, alone, got up and said, "We're going to go to the
polls and actually use our votes, not as a weapon against ourselves, which is what they're
trying to tell us to do, but we'll actually use our vote for ourselves. We vote for the future we
deserve!" If those 36 million students, alone, stood up, you know, we would turn politics on its
head in this country! There are 90 million voters out there, now, predicted (study published in
USA Today two weeks ago), 90 million voters, twice as many as the number that are going to
vote for Barack Obama or the number that are going to vote for Mitt Romney. They are staying
home because they know that neither of those candidates represents their interests. If we can
get the word out to them, you know, we can actually turn the White House into a Green House
... [applause]
So, I'm just gonna say, it's in our hands! Think Tahrir Square when they try to tell us that we
are powerless. Remember, it's exactly the other way around. We have the facts, we've got the
solutions, we have truth and justice on our side, and for once we actually have public opinion on
our side on all of these issues. If democracy has anything to do with it, we are going to win this
election! [applause]
And by winning the office we can win it by winning the day -- by our coverage, our political
voice and our political courage. They cannot take that away from us if we stand up and claim it.
So, go to our website, and join us on Facebook, join us on Twitter -- get the word out. Talk to
friends and neighbors, because people out there, one out of every two voters, basically, is
clamoring for what we've got, and this is the time for us to stand up.
I encourage you to make a donation if you are in a position to be able to do that. If we can
raise, in this end of the election, what we raised in the first part -- essentially a half-million
dollars -- we have potential to really come up in the polls. We've been very busy just getting on
the ballot. We're on the ballot for 85% of voters, in about 39, maybe 40, states. So the vast
majority of voters will actually have a choice. That's what we've been doing for ten months.
Even before we have started the real campaign we are creeping up in the polls! We've come up
from undetectable to 1%, then doubled to 2%. That's 2 million voters right there who hadn't
heard about us and weren't gonna vote for us before. If we can double that again, and make it
a little bit more, we could get to that 5% threshold, where you actually kick in to a $20 million
grant from the federal government to begin the next election with. It also means that
[applause] in the next election we hit the ground running, because we will be on the ballot. If
we can get the 5% we're already on the ballot, and we can start the election when that election
actually begins.
So this is that perfect storm! It's what so many of us have been working for for decades. This
is that moment to make good on all that incredible, wonderful work. Thank you all for all you've
done to get us here, and let's go forward and turn this breaking point that we've made into the
tipping point we deserve, to take back our democracy and the peaceful just future that is within
our reach, right now, if we stand up. [applause]
                                             

[Stack created for Question & Answer Period]
[Sound quality for questions was very mixed; to treat them equally I've listed just the answers.]

Answer 1:

Yeah, and that's a, it's certainly not bigger than what we've got; let's put it that way. OK, the
question was, "How do we get to a sustainable population and what is it, as, say, for the United
States?" and I don't have that magic number. But clearly we are over the carrying capacity of
the planet right now, and one of the really good solutions out there for the population problem is
called reproductive rights for women. Because [applause] when they have the authority to
determine their family size, we find that, magically, family size goes way down and it caps
rather quickly. And this is important not only to the United States, but it's really important as a
component of comprehensive health care, and health justice, not only in the United States but,
really, the world over. And if we're gonna deal with the issue of population pressure around the
world it's really important to ensure that we are providing, actually, health care and economic
justice and opportunity around the world. That is the way to get to population justice and
population sustainability. Thank you so much. Number two? OK.

Answer 2:

Yeah, exactly, I thank you for your very important work doing counter-recruiting in our high
schools! [applause] The question was, what was my opinion, and the stand of my campaign,
about recruitment in our high schools and about the, essentially, the economic draft. And I
think we need to eliminate the economic draft entirely, and [applause] in the same way that
we need to drastically cut back on this military-industrial-security complex that is taking away a
trillion dollars a year of our taxpayer dollars, actually, to pay for that whole thing, and we need
to drastically pull back from this militarism which has taken over our economy, and our culture
as well, and to turn to a foreign policy that is based on human rights and on international law --
to really pull back from this militarism. It is not a defense department we're funding, it's really
an offense department, and that is not any way toward a sustainable future. We'll be far better
off, the world will be far better off, when we are not, you know, the purveyor of arms around
the world. U.S. arms exports have tripled in the last year alone. It's been absolutely criminal
that we are the arms merchant, you know, the merchant of war, arming both sides of conflicts
around the world and then conscripting our low-income and communities of color to go fight
these wars because we don't have the money here at home to have a real economy. So it's a
great self-serving system if you are part of the military-industrial-security complex. That's
really all who it serves, and I think that's what this election is about -- is taking back our
economy so that it serves us in a way that's equal, just and sustainable for the future.
[applause] Uh, let's see, who was number 3?

Answer 3:

Great. Thanks for bringing that up, and to my view there's sort of a similar answer to both of
those questions. The question was, "What is our strategy towards swing states? Are we
focusing on something other than the way to break through in the news? And what are our
plans after the election." Our plans for this campaign are very much to lay the groundwork for
what happens after the election. We see this as something that doesn't shut down on
November 7th. On November 7th we just move into the next phase of the campaign, and I'm
very honest with people [applause] that when you sign on for this campaign, don't expect it to
end in seven weeks! [laughter] This is part of, you know, we're here for the long haul. I'm
here, myself, after ten years of building the local Green Party, and it was only after I had a real
sense of how to build a state party, plus Barack Obama's announcing, a year ago, that he was
going to dismantle Medicare and Social Security as the answer to the debt ceiling crisis -- that's
what got me into this campaign. But it's not just to protest, it's not just so that the Green
Party...
                                              
When I got involved to help recruit somebody I never, in my wildest dreams, thought I would
get recruited, but I did! That's what happens when you join a recruiting committee, you know.
So I felt like it made sense to me. It never had before. I had never been involved in a national-
level campaign because as Greens, you know, we work on grassroots democracy; we build from
the bottom up. And it never made sense for me to run a national. But over the past ten years
we built our state party by running headliner campaigns that changed the public perception, and
the public profile, and the sense, you know; it raised the bar for so many people for what we
should ask from our political parties is that we deserve a politics that's of, by and for the people,
not these political predators that we've come to think of as establishment politics. So it's very
much based on that model of how we can energize the grassroots through our headliner
campaigns, and change the public's mindset for what we can achieve, and to really light a fire to
that, you know, that incredible desire for a politics of integrity.
So we conduct this campaign that's very much aligned to growing the Green Party, to bringing
in new members, new volunteers, new donors, reviving the state parties that have gone
dormant, 'cause we've been, sort of gone through a very difficult ten years where we've been
the subject of fear campaigns and smear campaigns. So it's really important to remember,
people voted the Green Party and say, "Oh, you've kind of dropped the ball," however, when
you compare us to what happened to every other non-corporate, independent political party, we
are the heroes of the day because we did not go away. We lived to fight another day, and no
other independent political party did! [applause]
And we'll be having a broad discussion, when this campaign concludes, about what, specifically,
the next steps are, but one of the things that emerges is that there are many cities around the
country where the Greens have really taken a hold. They're on the city councils. We have
some, either current mayors, or I have candidates who are moving up in their city councils that
would be great mayors. There are areas where we have a number of candidates who are
breaking through into their legislatures. So we hope to do some more targeting. It's been
really exciting to be in touch with some of the other Green Parties around the world, including in
Canada, and New Zealand, and in Africa, as well, and the European Greens who take a real
interest in the revival, now, of the Green Party here in this country. One of the things they've
done in Canada is target, nationally, they target areas that are ready for a breakthrough, and
they help bring the national resources to different areas of the country. So we may be
considering some options like that. So, be advised, you're not off the hook on November 7th!
[applause] Uh, moving on. Who else? Yes, go ahead.

Answer 4:

Great. The question is, "What about expanding the scope and the power of the federal
government?" And so we actually build that into the Green New Deal. I didn't have time to go
into those details but it's intended to be nationally funded but locally controlled. So decisions
are made by local communities. In fact we hope to strengthen local communities and their
decision-making powers and abilities because it creates a process, at the community level, for
wide participatory budgeting, so that the communities are deciding, themselves, what kind of
jobs they need to create to become sustainable -- not only ecologically but also socially and
economically. The broad spectrum of jobs -- from the traditional green jobs in clean renewable
energy and conservation, local organic sustainable agriculture, public transportation, etc., as
well as teachers, child care, home care, affordable housing, etc. A broad spectrum of jobs that
communities decide, and the money is dispersed based on need, that where unemployment
rates are highest, those communities receive proportional increases in those national
economies. And how do we fund it? Right now we're squandering trillions on wars, Wall Street
bailouts and tax breaks for the wealthy. Trillions. More than enough to pay for a Green New
Deal. [applause]

Answer 5:

Great. I don't know if everybody could hear the question. It was, "So how will you limit the
expenditures under a single-payer system, and how do you limit the boondoggle for
pharmaceutical companies and for medical devices and equipment and technology and so
forth?" So let me answer that in two ways really quickly. One is that the advantage of the
single-payer system is that you could bargain and you should bargain. And it's inexcusable that
Medicare has this pharmaceutical deficit attached to it that would deny the power to bargain, so
it's basically another guaranteed market for the pharmaceutical companies. So this is part of
how a single-payer system could, and should, and must function -- is to be able to cut these
wheelers and dealers down to size so that they're receiving, basically, a fair price and they're
not able to extort outrageous payments for their tithe. We get to call the shots. [applause]
And I want to add one other thing about health care. What we have right now is a sick care
system. It's not a health care system. We spend over $2 trillion every year on this as
governments, as individuals, as businesses -- over $2 trillion -- twice as much as the military-
industrial-security complex, if you can imagine that. And in spite of that, 75% of our
healthcare dollars are spent treating chronic diseases that would be prevented at a fraction of
the cost if we had the right things up front. Well, what are those right things? Like a healthy,
local food supply which provides fresh foods, and far more nutritious and so on. A more plant-
based food supply, instead of this kind of Frankenfood system that's really, we're force-fed,
we're poisoned, essentially, three times a day. This is why we're sick; it has a lot to do with
why we're sick. We need to actually put our dollars and create incentives to lower the prices for
the foods that are actually healthy rather than these concocted food derivatives that are making
us sick. We need a Farm Bill which is also a Public Health Bill and a Food Bill -- not just a bill for
big agribusiness basically. [applause]

I want to add, real quick, that what makes people healthy, you know, is -- what your mother
always told you -- is eating right and it's getting exercise and it's not getting poisoned by
pollution. That's essentially what the Green New Deal is about. It creates a public
transportation system in which you can also ride your bike and walk to where you need to go,
including a transit hub, without taking your life in your hands. This is what Copenhagen does.
40% of the people actually bike to work. This is how you get a healthy society. [applause]
And the last piece of this is pollution prevention. This is essentially the core of the Green New
Deal, and which is why it's a win not only for our economy, and for our climate, and for making
wars for oil obsolete -- it's also a win because it creates a real healthier system, not a sick care
system, which is all we've got right now. [applause]

Answer 6:

OK, so the question was about Social Security, which he sort of renamed Social Insecurity,
which is kind of where it is right now, and the question about the differences in costs of living in
different areas and how we're going to deal with that. And that's a really good question. I
think, I'd just say, at this point, we need to shore up Social Security instead of tearing it down.
As a first order of business we need to ensure that we have support for Social Security, we need
to extend, we need to remove that cap for Social Security ... [applause] It's come out that the
president, if you saw the news in the last two days, the president is backing away from any
assurances that he's not going to go after Social Security as part of the solution to the debt
ceiling crisis. So I think, you know, as step number one we need to be sure that we get out,
and we vote strong, and we also let our friends and associates know -- especially in the senior
community -- that neither Social Security nor Medicare are secure in the hands of the
Democrats, and that we really need to stand up and vote Green, and that will send a stronger
message than anything else that they need to keep their hands off of Social Security.
[applause] Four minutes, so I need to make the questions really short so that people... Yeah,
all right.


Answer 7:

I'm going to take the question about Israel and Palestine because I couldn't quite hear the
second question. The question was, "What's our position on Israel and Palestine?" Our position
is that we need to ask -- not only people in Israel and Palestine, but also Bahrain, and Saudi
Arabia, and all the countries in the Middle East, whom the United States gives incredible support
and materials and policy support at this point -- we need to ask all players to basically come up
to a common standard of human rights and international law, and we need to put the full force
of the American resources and government behind that. And that means to stop supporting
military governments, to stop supporting any of those who are violating international law and
human rights. So that means no apartheid governments, no illegal occupations, and the rest
that we need to ask all players to come up to a common standard, and that if they do not, that
we will withdraw the support. And I think the whole issue of military aid needs to be called into
question from the get-go. We should not be in the business of shoring up military conflicts
throughout the world. [applause]

Answer 8:

Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, and I think that's really in our hands, and it remains to be
seen what's going to happen in this election. Right now there are 90 million voters, that's about
one out of every two eligible voters, who are not going to vote at all because they don't want to
give their vote to candidates that have been raking them over the coals, you know, both Mitt
Romney and Barack Obama. So in my view we want to look at Tunisia and Tahrir Square as the
real examples here where people said they weren't going to take it anymore. They started to
stand up. We're seeing that now within the peace movement, within the single-payer Medicare
for All voters, we're seeing real leadership within those really well-organized large networks,
within the foreclosure movement, within the anti-poverty movement, with the leadership of the
Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign that Shamako was ... [applause] ... my
running-mate, Sheri Honkala, she's a key organizer ... [applause] ... people stand up and lead
the way forward with the politics of courage. And I think it's all about getting the word out. It's
using the tools that we have now, including Facebook, and email, and Twitter and our social
networks to actually spread the word. We learned [coughing in audience] we could create these
things and begin in the same way. And I think that's what we want to push, as far and as fast
as we can, knowing that we have nothing to lose and we have everything to gain by standing up
and leading the way with the politics of courage.

Answer 9:

That's a really good question, and I wish I had more time to talk about it, but we actually have
to catch a plane, but obviously we need to be very skeptical about military intervention. And
we've seen that fail over and over again and we need to be very skeptical about what's going on
in Syria, as well, and the drumbeat for military intervention. But one thing we can do right now,
that should have been done decades ago, is to stop pouring gasoline on the flames of ethnic,
religious and national conflicts around the world. ... [applause]

So, with that, I have to leave you because we are running to catch a plane, but I want to thank
you so much for being here tonight. Thank you, Merriam, thank you. [applause]

Merriam Kathaleen: All right, let's hear it for Jill Stein! [cheering, applause]

Transcript by Valerie Face. .1724 .