AN ENDORSEMENT OF JILL STEIN AND THE GREEN PARTY

The debates between the establishment contenders for president have finally ended; and the two men are still at pains to run on their public records. The foreign policy debate (which means war debate) as well as questions about the world's ecological crisis were constantly subject to evasion. Given the relationship of both these party mouthpieces to oligarchy, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that both men, Romney and Obama,  would remain committed to letting the corporations have their way. The further plundering of exploitable societies along the path to global feudalism, goes hand in hand with the militarization of our own society; and under either man,  this will surely extend the lawless and despotic methods we have already seen.

When Obama describes the United States as "the indispensable nation in the world" you can be sure that a principle like that is arrogant enough to satisfy the taste of any empire. Surely it is a provincial attitude not shared by any nation the US has savaged economically, or threatened with destruction, or delivered to chaos and madness. Both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama agree on these goals in the most fundamental ways. And the cockeyed framing of this empire's place in the world could not go on in its reckless way, if third party voices were admitted to our political debate.

The state's power of impunity, the regime of total surveillance, the slow dismembering of due process, and continual testing of the public tolerance for bullying and police state tactics, is more prevalent than ever  at home. The authorities right up to the highest level are less and less answerable to our legal rights; for they prefer secrecy to transparency; and they are satisfied to levy token fines on the worst corporate offenders.

By endorsing Jill Stein, I am declaring my eternal opposition to the corporate takeover of my government. This is because certain refusals are crucial to being a citizen now. That  means the rejection of war as a policy,  and it means rejecting the globalist race for profit which has slavery as the ultimate model.  This bad behavior defines global corporate despotism-- which is another name for a parasite that destroys and assumes the identity of its host--the former sovereign government of the people. These transnational corporations want to make it illegal to interfere with their profits in any way; and therefore we must act to protect our descendants' DNA, from those who would irradiate their genes, or tinker in dangerous ways with the genetic code of things we eat.

And with all of these necessary refusals it is good to endorse something, many things that are positive, such as political liberty and the ideals of justice. I endorse the campaign Jill Stein is making on behalf of us all. She is worthy of the presidency.

Chris Hedges has recently thrown his support behind Jill Stein. His warnings about the XL agenda should be heeded:

The XL pipeline, which would cost $7 billion and whose southern portion is under construction and slated for completion next year, is the most potent symbol of the dying order. If completed, it will pump 1.1 million barrels a day of unrefined tar sand fluid from tar sand mine fields in Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. Tar sand oil is not conventional crude oil. It is a synthetic slurry that, because tar sand oil is solid in its natural state, must be laced with a deadly brew of toxic chemicals and gas condensates to get it to flow. Tar sands are boiled and diluted with these chemicals before being blasted down a pipeline at high pressure. Water sources would be instantly contaminated if there was a rupture. The pipeline would cross nearly 2,000 U.S. waterways, including the Ogallala Aquifer, source of one-third of the United States' farmland irrigation water. [...]

Keystone XL is part of the final phase of extreme exploitation by the corporate state. The corporations intend to squeeze the last vestiges of profit from an ecosystem careening toward collapse. Most of the oil that can be reached through drilling from traditional rigs is depleted. The fossil fuel industry has, in response, developed new technologies to go after dirtier, less efficient forms of energy. These technologies bring with them a dramatically heightened cost to ecosystems. They accelerate the warming of the planet. And they contaminate vital water sources. Deep-water Arctic drilling, tar sand extraction, hydraulic fracturing (or hydro-fracking) and drilling horizontally, given the cost of extraction and effects on the environment, are a form of ecological suicide.

There's an attack on civic life and justice, that's been gaining momentum with the weakening of our safeguards on due process; and we cannot risk much more of this degenerative history we are seeing.  There are apparently signs in some parts of the country of of a new kind of capitalist adventurism that dissolves municipalities as it seizes municipal real estate: an evil process where the police stand down or fade away; and it sets up a sort of Twilight Zone, where anarchy is just another business opportunity. 

I thought of Jill Stein after she and her running mate were arrested at the site of that final ludicrous foreign policy debate, where Romney and Obama traded gusts of hot air. Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala, the national candidates of the Green Party, were detained in a warehouse, where it is reported they were shackled to chairs for eight hours.