Award winning director and director Gazlandia Josh Fox on why he’ll never vote for Jill Stein.
Milanville, Pensylvania –Progressives can actually win this election even though we have a moderate Democrat. And it’s not by voting for Jill Stein. But first a bit of history…
Not long ago, the entire Delaware River basin in upper Pennsylvania—one of the most beautiful areas in the country, at the watershed of New York, southern New Jersey, and Philadelphia—was up for fracking.
A 75-mile stretch of the Delaware River could become a toxic oil field. Fracking is an environmental apocalypse: millions of gallons of toxic fracking fluids, radioactive wastegroundwater contamination, hundreds of thousands of truck trips, air pollution, land damage, massive health crises and water depletion. Everything is toxic in practice; it is inherently polluting in the long and short term.
Our community quickly realized the threat, organized and mobilized against it. Anti-fracking groups have sprung up in every town along the Delaware River in New York and Pennsylvania. My movie Gazlandiaon HBO, was part of that and our campaign Gazlandia tours went from city to city in a Johnny Appleseed style, promoting our new movement.
Surprisingly, we won. We banned fracking in the Delaware River Basin and in the New York Statepreserving the water supply for 16 million people. One of the greatest achievements of the environmental movement in this century.
We did that by convincing the Democratic governors of New York and Delaware and the president at the time, Barack Obama, to ban fracking here. All these were moderate Democrats. Not exactly Bernie Sanders, if you know what I mean.
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I consider myself far to the left of Andrew Cuomo and Barack Obama. But I know that if these moderate Democrats had not been in office, we would not have won.
Republicans would simply say no. The whole place would be completely broken to hell. We would have lost. And the entire beautiful, life-giving national treasure of the Delaware River would be a toxic fracking zone.
Our victory against fracking is preserved more carbon and methane in the ground than almost any other environmental victory in history, making it a huge win for the climate as well.
Here’s the key point: I’m not thrilled with Kamala Harris’ stance on fracking. I find it very outrageous that moderate Democrats think they need to pay lip service to the toxic, destructive climate monster of industry in order to win Pennsylvania. I actually don’t think that’s true because research showed that 70 percent of Pennsylvanians want either a ban on fracking or much tighter regulation.
But I don’t need to be in love. I need to be able to vote strategically.
Hundreds of thousands of people showed up to defend the seat and hold moderate Democrats accountable, and that was the key to victory.
You know who didn’t show up at this location? Jill Stein. She does not appear at these frontline battles. Someday.
Stein says she’s against fracking, but Stein is invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in the oil and gas industry. Did you know that? Did you know that she actually profits from the oil and gas industry, that she had investments in the Keystone XL pipeline and several fracking companies?
Did you know that she has an investment in Raytheon, that she had an investment in ExxonMobil? Did you know she has an investment in Home Depot, one of the most predatory companies in the world, guilty of terrible deforestation all over the world?
How come the Green Party candidate didn’t divest her personal fortune from fossil fuels? It’s clean hypocrisy. So is the strategy of running for president every four years, but never showing up for such battles.
In 2016, Stein protected this investment saying they are mutual funds and indexed pension funds.
But it is, frankly speaking, bunk.
Her statements are a slap in the face to the entire fossil fuel movement. Now easier than ever have fossil-free investments; it is a huge plank of the environmental cause. Hundreds of real activists were arrested this summer in New York City calling for the divestment of Citibank as part of the “Summer of Heat” campaign. For Stein to ignore all of this and continue to try to call herself an activist is beyond hypocritical, it’s political nonsense. Shame on you Dr. Stein! Shame on you for profiting from fracking and oil production.
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I’m not happy with Kamala Harris’ position on fracking and some other issues. But I’ll tell you what I’m in love with. I am in love with our movements.
I’m excited about what we can do. The entire history of progressive progress in this country is about movements pushing moderate presidents. This is what happened to FDR and the labor movement. It happened with LBJ and MLK and the civil rights movement. That’s what happened with Obama and Biden and the same-sex marriage movement. We organize and push them — and that’s how we get what we want. This is our progressive story in America.
But in order for us progressives to do our job and fight effectively for a fairer and more equal world as a movement, we need Harris in office. If we have Donald Trump in office, there’s no way we’re really going to advance the environmental agenda.
Therefore, I urge you to believe in us as a movement. Love us. Believe in our strength. We’ve done it before — and we can do it again with a moderate Democrat in office. This is the only choice we have now.
If everyone who voted for Stein in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan had voted for a Democrat insteadTrump would never be president.
We have real power. It goes from the bottom up.
And I believe in us.
A vote for Harris is a vote for us, a vote for our movements to have a fighting chance for change. Progressive politics and advancing our agenda in this country isn’t something that happens every four years when you vote, or every four years when a toxic egomaniac like Stein (or Trump, for that matter) runs for president. It’s a daily commitment. So vote for Kamala Harris. Join the movement and I’ll see you on the front lines.
Can we count on you?
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