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<DIV id=entry-203089
class="post-203089 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-elections category-the_caucus tag-five-questions tag-green-party tag-jill-green entry "><SPAN
class="timestamp published" title=2012-02-14T07:38:09+00:00><SPAN
class=date>February 14, 2012, <EM>7:38 am</EM></SPAN></SPAN>
<H1 class=entry-title>Five Questions for Jill Stein of the Green Party</H1>
<ADDRESS class="byline author vcard">By <A class="url fn"
title="See all posts by MICHAEL D. SHEAR"
href="http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/author/michael-d-shear/">MICHAEL D.
SHEAR</A></ADDRESS>
<DIV class=entry-content>
<P><EM>Throughout 2012, The Caucus will occasionally pose five questions to
individuals from across the political spectrum who have special insight into
government, policy making and political combat. If there is someone you think
should be interviewed, let us know in the comment section below, or send me an
e-mail at <A class=tickerized title=""
href="mailto:michael.shear@nytimes.com">michael.shear@nytimes.com</A>.</EM></P>
<P>This week’s subject is <A title="Ms. Stein's Web site. "
href="http://www.jillstein.org/">Jill Stein</A>, a candidate for the Green
Party’s presidential nomination. Ms. Stein, a former physician and teacher of
internal medicine, writes and speaks about the connections between the
environment and health. She ran for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 against <A
class=tickerized title="More articles about Mitt Romney."
href="http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/primaries/candidates/mitt-romney?inline=nyt-per">Mitt
Romney</A>.</P>
<P><STRONG>Q.</STRONG> <EM>Why are you running for president?</EM></P>
<DIV class="w190 right"><IMG id=100000001356014
alt="Jill Stein, a Green Party candidate for president, during her campaign for governor in May 29, 2002."
src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/02/13/us/politics/stein-caucus/stein-caucus-articleInline.jpg"
width=190 height=290><SPAN class=credit>Michael Manning/Associated
Press</SPAN><SPAN class=caption>Jill Stein, a Green Party candidate for
president, during her campaign for governor of Massachusetts in
2002.</SPAN></DIV>
<P><STRONG>A.</STRONG> We are in crisis and people are losing their jobs and
their homes and their health care and affordable higher education and civil
liberties. You name it, they are losing it. We have got a 1 percent that’s
rolling in dough as much as ever and the political establishment is not fixing
it. The establishment got us into this mess, in both parties. And that’s clear
as day. Over 10 years, I have been a recalcitrant political challenger, a
recurrent alternative that would not go away.</P>
<P><STRONG>Q.</STRONG> <EM>Is your campaign trying to tap into the Occupy
movement?<BR></EM><BR><STRONG>A.</STRONG> Occupy is very much a part of a
broader move for democracy and economic and social justice. That is alive and
well around the world. Just look at what is going on in Wisconsin which is
directly linked to Occupy. It doesn’t have the name of Occupy, but they slept
for three weeks in the statehouse. If that’s not Occupy, what is? The Occupy
movement, beneath the surface, represents a political coming of age of a younger
generation who have been on the receiving end of a generally exploitative
economy. One of those groups to exploit has been young people. They have been
exploited in education. The unemployment crisis hits them the hardest. They are
bearing the burden for the climate disruptions that are coming down the
pike.<SPAN id=more-203089></SPAN></P>
<P><STRONG>Q.</STRONG> <EM>Does <A class=tickerized
title="More articles about Barack Obama"
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html?inline=nyt-per">President
Obama</A> deserve credit for health care and other accomplishments?</EM></P>
<P><STRONG>A.</STRONG> Small time, sure. There are minor improvements. But on
the other hand, he took single-payer off the table. He absolutely took a public
option off the table. As we found on issue after issue — the war, reappointing
George Bush’s secretary of defense, sticking to George Bush’s timeline on Iraq,
expanding the war, expanding the drone wars all over the place. And how about
bringing Wall Street in, the guys who created the problem, among his first
appointments. It was pretty clear right then that this was going to be business
as usual on steroids. We’re certainly not more secure, more equitable, more
healthy or safer internationally, with what Obama has brought.</P>
<P><STRONG>Q.</STRONG> <EM>What do you think of Mitt Romney?</EM></P>
<P><STRONG>A.</STRONG> He responds to his electorate. When he’s running in Salt
Lake, he’s anti-abortion. When he’s running in Massachusetts, he’s pro-abortion.
He responds to his electorate, broadly, except that he remains basically
pro-business in a very narrow sense of the word — that is a pro-one-percent big,
corporate multinational business. You know what, that’s not so different from
the way <A class=tickerized title="More articles about Lawrence H. Summers."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/lawrence_h_summers/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Larry
Summers</A> and <A class=tickerized
title="More articles about Timothy F. Geithner."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/timothy_f_geithner/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Tim
Geithner</A> are running the country under Barack Obama. When our governorship
changed from Mitt Romney and it went directly to <A class=tickerized
title="More articles about Deval L. Patrick."
href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/deval_l_patrick/index.html?inline=nyt-per">Deval
Patrick</A>, who is another poster child for progressive Democrats, no
difference. Nothing detectable. Nothing changed in Massachusetts whatsoever.</P>
<P><STRONG>Q.</STRONG><EM> Is there a difference between the Democratic and
Republican Parties?</EM></P>
<P><STRONG>A. </STRONG>You might look at one party as a rapidly sinking ship and
say we’re going to vote for the other guy because the ship’s not going down so
fast. We don’t like him but he’s not sinking the ship so fast. But the real
question is, if both of those ships are heading for the bottom of the ocean, do
you want to be on either of them? No. There’s no question about where those
ships are heading if you are looking at the
economy.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>