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The Best Candidate for Minorities and Women (Not Hillary, Not Now)

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Climate Change -- We are currently on a path to apocalyptic climate change. The phenomenon disproportionately affects women and the poor. Globally about 60 million individuals were displaced in 2014, in part due to the climate. Related conflicts and insecurity are forcing women and the dispossessed to extreme measures. The ensuing struggle for resources is particularly challenging for the vulnerable, particularly in places that do not guarantee human rights like housing and water, like America.

Jill Stein* of the Green Party supports a "Green New Deal": a transition to 100 percent wind, water, and solar energy by 2030. She supports an end to mountaintop removal, fracking, and tar sands. Bernie Sanders* opposes the Keystone XL pipeline (while Hillary Clinton was "inclined" to favor), supports divestment of fossil fuels companies and won't take money from them. He sponsored a carbon tax in the Senate. Hillary Clinton has been mostly mute on effective solutions, favoring more fees and royalties on fossil-fuel companies.

Human Rights -- In the rich nation of America, people struggle for housing, access to clean water, safe and nutritious food, and affordable health care (the last is discussed in the next section). These issues are seminal given corporate influence over government, rising inequality, and climate change. This is especially true for minorities and women who, on average, hold less wealth, earn less, and have more insecure lives.

Jill Stein* supports granting of these rights through living-wage jobs and an endorsement of these rights, as well as anti-poverty programs. As a Democratic Socialist , Bernie Sanders* is similarly supportive of human rights. Hillary Clinton questions what a "good job" is (even while working with those who undermined protections for workers). She also spoke of corporate profit sharing through tax credits, even as corporations aggressively outsource jobs and replace individuals with robots, which many Americans hate. She has largely shied away from fundamental issues of basic social justice, relying on key policy phrases that she has yet to truly champion.

Other Domestic Issues: Rev. William Barber was right to call for a fitting legacy to the murders of Senator Clementa Pinckney and 8 others: an omnibus bill to provide Medicare-for-all, voting rights, less gun proliferation, a living wage and more police accountability. More could be added including a quality education for all. These are certainly issues for women too, who are frequently victims of violence, comprise more than half of college students, and live within the dimensions of a misogynistic as well as racist society.

Jill Stein supports a living wage through the creation of many jobs to create a renewable-energy infrastructure. She favors free higher education, a robust public-school education, an end to police brutality, and a single-payer system. Bernie Sanders supports having public universities offer free tuition and a single payer, Medicare-for-all system. Hillary Clinton favors universal pre-K education, and police body cameras. All three have been much weaker on these issues, particularly those most closely associated with the #blacklivesmatter movement, than one would hope. In addition, none of them have had the courage to ask where the trillions of funding -- or at least a substantial amount -- is for African Americans after this nation experienced twice the murders by white supremacists as foreign terrorists.

Trans-Pacific Partnership and Other "Trade" Agreements -- There are some striking similarities between war rationales and justifications for trade agreements: don't look at past history, we're told, or what's behind the curtain. The TPP's attempted expansion of corporate rights has little to do with trade. It would likely increase climate change due to chilling and direct effects from an investor-state dispute clause that allows companies to hold countries responsible in new international courts for future profits lost due to environmental action, including climate-change agreements. It also could outlaw "Buy American" policies to boost adoption of renewable energy. Claims it will boost American jobs are dubious as previous unfair trade agreements resulted in the massive outsourcing of good jobs. It could worsen food safety, roll back reforms on Wall Street, and increase surveillance (never good for activists). Such agreements could have a major effects especially on women and minorities. The next president will also have significant power to negotiate such treaties that can't be amended by Congress (through fast-track authority.)

Jill Stein* wants to "replace corporate trade with fair trade agreements." Bernie Sanders* rejects the TPP. Hillary Clinton imposes criteria for approval including "strengthening national security," although what greater threat to national security could there be than climate change?

Election financing -- With a level of inequality that virtually no one favors, the Citizens United decision and other election financing, the wealthy and corporations have undue influence in shaping our nation. White, male-run institutions (and wealth) dominate our "democracy," shifting power from poor and middle-class minorities and women, who comprise majority of these categories, as they do for all Americans.

Jill Stein* does not take corporate money and favors public-campaign financing. Bernie Sanders*, who had raised more than any Republican candidate, also does not accept corporate money. Hillary Clinton is raking in Wall Street money, while struggling to get grass-roots donors.

Partners -- Bill Clinton was famously called "the first black president" by author Toni Morrison. But, if Hillary Clinton wishes to run in part on his record, it's sensible to look a little closer. Bill Clinton deserves some credit for the economic recovery. But he also promoted "anti-crime" legislation that contributed to mass incarceration, for which he has recently apologized, although belatedly. He pushed the Democrats to dismantle the Glass-Steagall Act and deregulate derivatives through the Commodities Future Modernization Act, both which contributed to the 2008 worldwide depression that affects us today. Hillary Clinton also served on the board of Wal-Mart, a company notorious for outsourcing manufacturing, and crushing unions and better-paying local companies. She has worked with questionable donors and partners through the Clinton Global Initiative and Clinton Foundation.

Bernie Sanders* and Jill Stein* do not appear to have such conflicts of interest, and their rejection of easy money lends credibility to their avowed, specific priorities within a humanist vision.

Today, our country needs strong and bold leadership. The evolving examples of Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders show promise. Conversely, a campaign of extraordinary resources like Hillary's does not inspire confidence. She poorly frames and champions effective solutions to challenges facing women and minorities. Would she cast off her connections and prior positions and do so in the future?

Hillary's candidacy has often been supported by Democrats as "the lesser of two evils." But where in the constitution does it set such low aspirations? Alternatively, we hear that one needs corporate money to run and win, despite a largely grass-roots campaign by Obama in 2008. Finally, why should voters sigh with resignation while contemplating an unenthusiastic march to the ballot box?

Joseph de Maistre, a French diplomat, stated, "In a democracy, people get the government they deserve." To get the President that we deserve, let's have a race, let's have debates, and let's have a competition for critical components of our electorate, without which the presidential election cannot be won. Democratic presidential candidates, tell us what you'll do for us. Earn our support.

Not demanding a true democracy and humanism shortchanges our country. We sell out ourselves and our promise for lives of security, opportunity, and true happiness.

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Veena Trehan is a DC-based journalist and activist. She has written for NPR, Reuters, Bloomberg News, and local papers.
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