Justin Filip: Who Funds You, Runs You!
The Green Party has been against corporate rule since before that was cool! It was one of the positions that first drew me to the Green Party back in 2000, when I supported Ralph Nader’s campaign.
At their core, the two major parties are capitalist, imperialist parties owned and operated by billionaires and corporations. It is the donor class whose interests they serve.
It's been more than 10 years since a study by Princeton University Professor Martin Gilens and Northwestern University Professor Benjamin Page concluded that the U.S. is already an oligarchy.
The billionaire agenda has created immense wealth inequality in this country. Over the last 50 years, the top 1% of Americans have taken $50 trillion (with a “T”) from the bottom 90%. If you're not part of the 1%, you're getting exploited.
Less than a year before his death Dr. Martin Luther King said: “Why are there forty million poor people in America? … When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy...we’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society.”
Today there are still roughly 40M people living in poverty and nearly 800k people are homeless in America. It is estimated that between 2023 and 2024, the number of unhoused people has increased by 18%.
Contrast that with:
- In 2012 Elon Musk was worth $4B. Today he's worth more than $850B.
- In 2012 Jeff Bezos was worth $18B. Today he's worth more than $239B.
- In that same time there has been no increase in the federal minimum wage.
That so many can be so obscenely wealthy while others suffer is an indictment of the whole system. It's immoral.
In the most recent Presidential election, Trump was backed by 52 billionaires. Harris was backed by 83 billionaires. The other 678 billionaires sat it out, presumably because they know they will do well under either of them.
For decades, we chose to elect political leaders who put the material interests of the rich and powerful above those of the American people. We can do better.
In 2024, I signed the Pledge to Amend to put an end to Citizens United.
We want to end corporate personhood and move to public financing of elections. Only then can we level the playing field, and give the people a voice in government. We need our elected officials doing the job they were elected to do instead of spending more than half their time raising money for the next campaign.
I was also Track AIPAC's recommended candidate in 2024, because the incumbent, Rep. Val Hoyle, accepted money from the pro-Israel lobby while approving billions in weapons to Israel.
Rep. Hoyle is a co-sponsor of a bill to end Citizens United, and yet she accepts corporate PAC money. She also co-sponsored a bill that would prohibit members of Congress from owning stocks in weapons manufacturers, but she owned stock in weapons manufacturers.
Despite co-sponsoring those bills, we simply can not trust her to do the right thing.
We have now a political system that rewards politicians who sell us out, and punishes principled candidates who refuse to be bribed. Because, let's be real, in effect, this is legalized bribery. These big donors aren't giving out of the good of their hearts. They're donating because they expect a return on their investment.
Green Party candidate for Governor in California, Butch Ware, is fond of saying, “who funds you, runs you.” I agree. Is it too much to ask to have a government that isn't bought?
Corporations aren’t people, and I don’t want their money. We run on donations under $200, because I don't want to be influenced by money. I want to be influenced by the people of this district. I want to listen to the academics, the blue-collar workers, the people putting in the work to educate themselves and to make their communities better.
If we accept the premise that our government is corrupted by the monied interests of billionaires and corporations, and we admit that both major parties are owned and operated by those monied interests, then it follows that we must build people power outside the duopoly.
We need to cut these corporate parties off. Enough is enough. We want to take our country back. Climate catastrophe, genocide, and poverty are all products of this system. We don't have time to wait. The best time to cut ties was probably decades ago, but the second best time is now.
Join our working-class campaign, and help us bring democracy to the United States.
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