Green Party View: Why Jill Stein?

I’m a retired high school teacher of history and government. I have advanced academic degrees and honorable discharges from the US Navy and US Army Infantry. I’m a Christian (Pre-Constantinian), married and father of four grown children, and a grandfather to seven loving children.

I am voting for Jill Stein because I know what nuclear weapons can do. I was ten years old in 1945 when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were obliterated by my government, and I was taught that that was a good thing. Long before I visited Hiroshima, I knew that what we did was a horror. It must never happen again.

Joe Biden’s risk-taking by boxing in the Russians and threatening them with nuclear annihilation by placing nuclear weapons and troops along the Russian border is breathtakingly irresponsible, stupid, and insane. Yet, like many of you, I also fear having a crazy man like Donald Trump capable of deciding when to press the nuclear button and doing it because he is allowed by US law to do so. 

I am voting for Jill Stein because she knows what nuclear weapons can do to humanity and all life. 

Do Americans understand what a nuclear war would do to the world? I don’t believe they do. Even with the Bulletin of Atomic Science Doomsday Clock set closer to midnight since the clock started ticking in 1947, it’s a ho-hum American attitude that it won’t happen.

As this is written, a Russian nuclear sub surfaced for US TV viewers 100 miles off the coast of Florida. The US has nuclear subs around the world and nuclear weapons near the Russian border ready to fire at any time. Additionally, the US has worked with Ukraine to destroy Russian nuclear warning stations inside of Russia. 

Joe Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine has us on the cliff, on the brink of nuclear war. Biden is a risk taker and has been one since he was a child in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

Joe Biden’s hate for Russians runs deep. He likely learned this disdain as a child in Scranton, which he likes to call his hometown. He was born in Scranton (1942) and educated in a Catholic School system by the Sisters of IHM. I lived just a few miles away from the Bidens in Carbondale, PA and had the same order of Sisters guide me through distrust and disdain of the Godless Communists, the Russian Soviets.

The Sisters were simply part of the US cultural fear and hate of Russians prevalent in the USA during the Cold War. Little thought was given to the fact that Russia had been invaded multiple times by the West (including US troops in 1919) and has a justifiable fear of the West. And who rules the West? Silly question, of course, the US does. NATO is an American invention, not a European one. The Germans, French, Brits, Italians etc. all dance to the Wagnerian-American dirge.

After the United States used the atomic bomb to incinerate the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it took just four years for the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons. The Soviets knew of the proposed US-Brit plan to nuke the Kremlin and large cities inside the USSR. [After the US “tested” its nuclear arsenal in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Churchill and right-wing American policymakers began to persuade the White House to bomb the USSR].

The USSR exploded its first nuclear device in 1949, and the arms race was on.

Joe Biden was just ten years old (1952) when his Scranton pals challenged him to climb a burning coal mountain with fiery embers easily seen at night. The stench of sulfur from the hundred-year-old coal fire was 24/7. Joe said he would do it for five bucks. His pals found the dimes and quarters to cash in for a $5 bill. Joe scampered up the dangerous coal and ash pile to the top.

The winning $5 bill became a trophy, pinned to a board in his house and later framed to highlight his desk in the US Senate and as Vice President. It’s quite likely on his Presidential desk.

Today, Joe Biden’s risk-taking does not involve just risking his skinny ass, but all of humankind. 

Would Donald Trump, convicted on thirty-four criminal counts (with far more serious felony trials set aside as he runs for the Presidency), a serial liar, an amoral creep without any sense of compassion who thrives on self-love, who was diagnosed as a psychotic narcissist (by 37 psychiatrists at Yale University in 2017) take fewer risks?https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Case-Donald-Trump-Psychiatrists/dp/1250212863.

Democracy Now and other media reported the then-US President Trump declaring US nuclear superiority by telling North Korean leader Kim Jong Um of the use of nuclear weapons that “my button is bigger than your button.”

Having a certified crazy man capable of deciding when to press the nuclear button and doing it because he’s allowed by US law to do it is as insane as Joe Biden’s risk-taking today as he pushes the nuclear envelope to the very border of Russia.

Jill Stein is the sane candidate for President of the United States. She supports the abolition of nuclear weapons.  Here is Jill responding to a question in an interview in April 2024 on CSAN about the threat of using nuclear weapons in the Middle East, with Israel having a storehouse of over 200 nuclear weapons. 

“I would just note that the U.S. has sent a nuclear submarine there now aside from two battleship or two missile groups,” she said. “In a nuclear submarine, you have enormous firepower as a rule that’s equivalent to about four or 5,000 Hiroshima bombs packed into one nuclear submarine.”

“The world won’t survive this,” she warned. “And yes, we’re not at nuclear war now, but could a nuclear war be triggered? Absolutely. And we’re seeing this become more dangerous every day.”

Jill Stein is the only Presidential candidate who has publicly called for a suspension of all military aid to Israel. 

One caller said Jill did not understand the word genocide and asked her if she would have a barbecue each October 7th to celebrate the attack of Hamas on Israel. 

Jill responded she is a Jew whose grandparents escaped the Holocaust, and genocide must be opposed, as even the World Court did, proclaiming the Israeli attacks on Gaza and the starving of the people as plausible genocide. 

Below is the CSPAN interview link to share. Please ask friends and family to watch the interview and pass it along.

Our nation needs this woman of intelligence, moral character, love of humanity, a heart of compassion, a fighter for American workers, one who will force deep cuts in militarism and use those funds for health care, education, and the environment. We need diplomacy, not tough-guy posturing.

Doctor Jill Stein, that’s MD doctor, is our best choice for President of the United States.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?534676-5/jill-stein-2024-presidential-campaign

Jack Gilroy is a Veteran, peace activist and member of the Green Party. He lives in Endwell, NY.