h/t: Being Liberal
There are 40 people on one side of a road. There is one person on the other side of the road.
A bread truck pulls up and the driver gives the one person — standing there alone (perhaps impatiently tapping a Gucci-loafered foot and checking his Rolex) — 40 LOAVES OF BREAD. Then the driver gives the group of 40 people, in varying states of dress and hunger, ONE LOAF OF BREAD to share among themselves. He drives off.
~ Jill Stein, paraphrased from a workshop in NYC 3.23.13Dr. Stein used this scenario to illustrate how the top 1% of our citizenry controls 40% of the wealth of this country. The bottom 40% controls only 1% of the wealth.
Also of interest:
KPFA Ralph Nader interview
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/83373
Lawrence O’Donnell’s The Last Word:
“Candidates talk drugs, climate, indefinite detention at third-party debate”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45755883/ns/msnbc-the_last_word/#49545259
“I’d rather vote for what I want and not get it,
than for what I don’t want and get it.”
~ Eugene V. Debs
Related articles
- American-Style Fascism (mathaba.net)
- Only way for Green Party to get into debate: Get arrested (VIDEO) (timesunion.com)
- Jill Stein vs. ‘Too Lateness of America’s Fate-ness’ (correntewire.com)
Always Question Authority 
I get the critique offered by this political cartoon and agree with it after a fashion. At the same time, it is a cartoon and does not have to deal with reality. So while I am glad there is a Green Party movement around the globe, I am not certain the Green Party is the solution to our problems here in the U.S. In the United States I think Green candidates resonate well in certain locales, especially municipalities where environmental issues are especially critical or social injustice especially egregious. This building-from-a-local-base was the path followed by the German Greens in becoming a credible third-party. At the same time, another distinguishing feature of the most successful Green parties around the world has been their ability to compromise or find common ground with many on the right, so regardless of how you might criticize U.S. Democrats, any political party, if they want more than pyrrhic victories, must find common ground with their enemies. This is the nature of politics no matter how distasteful.
Although I know the Greens dispute it, I am concerned that, on the national level, a fractured left or center-left, would result in a Senate of Todd Akins and a Supreme Court of Antonin Scalias. That, in my view, would be like creating the political version of a nuclear residue from which the nation would never recover. Remember, in Germany, their ‘conservatives’ look and sound more like our Democrats here. Our version of conservatism is something like far more dangerous to our liberties. I don’t think we can afford the luxury of further splitting the vote on the left.