Jill Stein - A Twenty-first Century Jane Addams

The following quote comes from a speech delivered by Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein at the conference on the environment in Paris last week.

“As the crises are interconnected, (violence and climate change) so too the solutions are interconnected. I want to mention a couple, including some that are often left out of the discussion.


• Stop corporate trade agreements that drive environmental destruction.
• Launch a Green New Deal to transform our economy. In the United States this would mean 20 million jobs to create 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, revive our economy, turn the tide on climate change, and make wars for oil obsolete.
• A weapons embargo, beginning by halting US-Saudi arms deals ($100 billion in the past 5 years)
• Demand disclosure from national security agencies: who is really funding and arming terrorists? Release the redacted 28 pages of the 9/11 report so we can know who is behind the growth of extremist groups.
• Close Turkey’s border to terrorist militias. Turkey has already closed it's border to refugees. How about closing it to terrorists?
Ultimately this is a political fight. It is critical that we stand up and stand together across issues, and across borders, to be a unified political force for people planet and peace over profit. The minute we stand up, we are unstoppable. It's time to forget the lesser evil and fight for the greater good. The clock is ticking. It’s in our hands.”  Jill Stein – Green Party candidate for President 2016

From The Peacemaker by Brenda Duffey   http://kentuckywoman.net 

Jane Addams organized a meeting Washington, D.C. in 1915 to establish a Peace Party to call for a ceasefire in Europe and prevent American involvement in that war that became World War I. Three thousand women attended that Conference which came away with plans to organize an international peace convention to be held at The Hague in The Netherlands later that year. Women from all countries involved in the war attended. The fewest number came from France and England because most of the women there could not get passports for travel. The Conference ended with the passage of the following resolutions which a delegation including Jane Addams carried to all the governments of Europe currently involved in war. These were the resolutions:      

·        That no territory should be transferred without the consent of the men and women in it and that the right of conquest should not be recognized.

·        That autonomy and a democratic parliament should not be refused to any people.

·        That the governments of all nations should come to an agreement to refer future international dispute to arbitration or conciliation and to bring social, moral and economic pressure to bear upon any country which resorts to arms.

·        That foreign politics should be subject to democratic control.

THAT WOMEN SHOULD BE GRANTED EQUAL RIGHTS WITH MEN

THE RIGHT TO VOTE

When these women returned to the United States they continued in the struggle for peace and the right to vote. That struggle was not an easy one and was met with violence and resistance toward the “radical” women who wanted to have the right to vote. When a Declaration of War was sent to Congress, there was one female in Congress Jeanette Rankin of Wyoming because Wyoming had already given females the right to vote. She joined with some 50 other Congressmen who voted against going to war. The Peace Movement and what it meant for women in the United States involved in it are recounted in Jane Addams’ book “Bread and Peace in Time of War.”  Her efforts for women’s rights, educational rights, fighting world wide hunger and many more were rewarded by placing her on the Red List as a communist during the 1920’s. Addams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933, the year Hitler was elected Chancellor of Germany and the world’s economy crashed leading to the Great Depression. The only reason women were granted the right to vote in 1919 was because they had to “take up the slack” in America when our young men were sent to fight in the trenches of The War to End All Wars.

Jill Stein’s voice today is still calling for these things that are the desires of American women from the earliest days of our history. It’s time women spoke in one voice instead of being polarized by thinking that the institutions set in place by this small group of men were ever intended to include us or any of the other groups that were disenfranchised from the start. We women want the same thing – I believe that and if we came together and spoke in one voice for peace what we could do in a society that guarantees our freedom to do this.