The more Donald Trump goes off the rails, the more resistance is rising up. As the assault on democracy reaches unprecedented heights, the clearer it becomes that we are the ones we've been waiting for. Thanks to all the grassroots activists leading the charge to an America and a world that works for all of us!
In my recent travels up and down the East coast, it is so inspiring to see the momentum for transformative change becoming unstoppable. Here’s a few recent highlights:
Yale debate: should public higher education be free?
I was invited by the Yale University Political Union to a debate on the issue: should public higher education be tuition-free? I argued that not only should we make higher education free, we should cancel student debt to free young people from indentured servitude to Wall Street and provide a gigantic boost to the real economy. In a vote at the end, it was decided that free public higher education is something our country needs - and what’s more, the organizers told me that it was the best-attended, most energetic debate they could remember!
NBC recently reported that I had been at an event in Russia along with Vladimir Putin in 2015. Notice that whenever you see this story in the corporate media, it consists of nothing more than a photo, because if they reported any of the facts behind the photo it would undermine the story they are trying to invent.
In reality, the NBC report didn’t say anything that wasn’t in my campaign’s
press release about the Moscow event in December 2015. My trip to Russia, like my visit to the COP21 climate conference in Paris as part of the same trip, was about promoting diplomacy, peace, and international cooperation on pressing global issues. I criticized the militaristic policies of both the Russian and US governments, and proposed an alternative vision: working together on a “Peace Offensive” to de-escalate conflict in the Middle East and around the world.
I was one of a number of American advocates for a more peaceful and just foreign policy in Moscow, including Thom Hartmann, Rocky Anderson, Ray McGovern, Max Blumenthal, and Jesse Ventura.
The Moscow conference featured public figures, politicians and academics from across Europe and North America, as well as journalists and major media leadership from India, China, Russia, Europe and the US. It was an honor to be able to address the international community, and show them we Greens are fighting for a foreign policy based on international law. human rights and diplomacy, not on economic and military domination.
It is not only justifiable to attempt to communicate with other nations, it’s essential to do so if we are to have any hope of solving the gravest threats to human survival: endless war, climate meltdown and the threat of nuclear conflict. The Greens are the only political party with a plan to address all these issues. No wonder we are under attack by both Democrats and Republicans, and their surrogates in the corporate media, even outside the election cycle.
NBC and other corporate media outlets have tried to create the impression that I refuse to answer questions about my Russia trip. Actually, I have answered these questions so many times I’ve lost count, but when the corporate media realize that the answers don’t support their pre-conceived smear narrative, they refuse to print the facts. No, I did not speak with Vladimir Putin. Nor did I receive any payment from Russia. Why has one reporter after another, after hearing these facts, decided not to publish them? Why do they choose instead to encourage sensational conspiracy thinking based on a photo?
This transparent campaign of neo-McCarthyism perfectly demonstrates why Americans’ trust in mass media has
plummeted to an all-time low.
This is just the latest in a long line of smear campaigns from the corporate media. For a look at the many desperate attempts to discredit our grassroots movement,
check out our “Haters Gonna Hate” page debunking the smears.
It’s time to withdraw our trust and support from these masters of misinformation, and put our resources towards building independent, non-corporate people’s media to provide the truthful information we need to create the future we deserve.
Meanwhile, the fact that Democratic apologists are attacking us outside of an electoral campaign is a great sign. We have become a force to contend with and they are rightly worried. The American people are clamoring for a new way forward and together, we're creating a future whose time has come, that puts people, planet and peace over profit.
I recently had the honor of giving a keynote speech at the National Cannabis Festival in DC, where I reminded the crowd that marijuana is dangerous BECAUSE it’s illegal. The growing number of states that have successfully legalized marijuana shows that the days of the destructive, wasteful and racist drug wars are numbered. The leadership on this issue has come from the grassroots, showing that we can find ways to work around the regressive political establishment to make progress.
