Political positions of Jill Stein

Political positions: copied from Jill Stein's biography page.
=Addressing "structural racism"=
Stein has deplored what she and others identify as the structural racism of the U.S. judicial and prison system. She has promised that "the Green New Deal prioritizes job creation in the areas of greatest need: communities of color" and argues that the war on drugs has disproportionately affected communities of color.
On Juneteenth in 2016, Stein called for reparations for slavery. In accepting the nomination of the Green party, she reiterated this support, calling for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission "to provide reparations to acknowledge the enormous debt owed to the African American community."
Asked by the Washington Post whether she agreed with Baraka's characterization of President Obama as an "Uncle Tom", Stein replied that it would be better to address questions about his choice of words to him, but added that she thought he "was speaking to a demographic that feels pretty locked out of the American power structure." Stein said she would fund the start-up costs of the plan with a 30% reduction in the U.S. military budget, returning U.S. troops home, and increasing taxes on speculation in stock markets, offshore tax havens, and multi-million-dollar real estate, among other things. In 2012 and 2016 she cited a 2012 study in the Review of Black Political Economy by Rutgers professor Phillip Harvey showing that the multiplier economic effects of this "Green New Deal" would recoup most of the start-up costs of her plan.
Stein's 2016 platform says that she will "democratize the Federal Reserve". Stein has argued that the Wall Street bailout was unconscionable and a "waste". In 2012, Stein opposed the raising of the debt ceiling, arguing that the U.S. should instead raise taxes on the wealthy and make military spending cuts to offset the debt.
Stein supports the creation of sustainable infrastructure based on clean renewable-energy generation and sustainable-community principles to stop what her party sees as a growing convergence of environmental crises in water, soil, fisheries, and forests. Her vision includes increasing intra-city mass transit and inter-city railroads, creating complete streets that safely encourage bike and pedestrian traffic, and regional food systems based on sustainable organic agriculture. In February 2016, she said that "real unemployment is nearly 10%, 2x as high as the official rate."
Stein has said she believes in having "the government as the employer of last resort". When asked in an August 2016 interview what this entailed, she said that the idea was a "very broad brushstroke" but that a position paper was forthcoming. When asked how this would be done, Stein answered, "that is an aspirational goal at this point. We do not have a specific program." She argues that such a policy is not good for teachers, children, or communities, but does benefit device manufacturers. Stein has described quantitative easing as a "digital hat-trick" and "magic trick that basically people don't need to understand any more about than that it is a magic trick." However, CNBC notes that the Federal Reserve is an independent government agency and the President cannot dictacte the Fed's asset-buying programs.
Electoral reform
Stein is critical of the two-party system, and argues for ranked-choice voting as a favorable alternative to "lesser evilism". Calling for "more voices and more choices", the Stein campaign launched a petition demanding that all candidates appearing on a sufficient number of state ballots to be theoretically electable should be invited to participate in the presidential debates.
Energy and environment
Stein proposes that the United States transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030, She has spoken against nuclear energy, saying it "is dirty, dangerous and expensive, and should be precluded on all of those counts." In 2012, Stein said, "three times more jobs are created per dollar invested in conservation and renewables. Nuclear is currently the most expensive per unit of energy created." Stein says that she will "ensure that any worker displaced by the shift away from fossil fuels will receive full income and benefits as they transition to alternative work." She would close US overseas military bases and has said that they "are turning our republic into a bankrupt empire". and to "restore the National Guard as the centerpiece of our defense". She was critical of the Ukrainian government formed after the Ukrainian Revolution of 2014, saying that "ultra-nationalists and ex-Nazis came to power." She met with president Putin in Moscow in December 2015 at a banquet celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Russian state television network RT. While in Russia, Stein criticized Russian and American military spending, as well as the state of human rights in the U.S.
On the subject of NATO, Stein has said that NATO has violated international law in Libya, and that it is part of "of a foreign policy that has been based on economic and military domination".
After U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces captured Manbij from ISIL in August, Stein tweeted, "To Syrians who escaped Manbij because of U.S.-led forces, I'm sorry our weapons terrorized you for two years."
She has said that her approach to the Syrian Civil War would be to put in place a weapons embargo, freeze funds going to ISIL and other terrorist groups, and push for a peace process leading to a ceasefire.
Stein has been highly critical of Israel, accusing the Israeli government of "apartheid, assassination, illegal settlements, blockades, building of nuclear bombs, indefinite detention, collective punishment, and defiance of international law." She supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel and regards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a "war criminal". Upon the death of Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel, Stein praised him in a tribute on her Facebook page, but deleted the post when commenters criticized Wiesel's Zionism.
Regarding disputes in the South China Sea, Stein has said, "it is wrongheaded for to deal with territorial rights on the borders of China." Stein later clarified her official statement, saying "Before the Brexit vote I agreed with Jeremy Corbyn, Caroline Lucas and the UK Greens who supported staying in the EU but working to fix it."
In 2012, Stein favored maintaining current levels of international aid spending.
Health
Stein is in favor of replacing the with a "Medicare-for-All" healthcare system When asked in August 2016 whether she supported a ballot measure in Colorado to create the first universal healthcare system in the nation (ColoradoCare), Stein said she was not ready to endorse the plan, citing concerns about gaps and loopholes in the ballot measure.
Stein has been critical of subsidizing unhealthy food products and of "agri-business" for its advertisements encouraging unhealthy eating. She has said that due to agri-business, Greeks no longer have the healthy diets they once did. received endorsements from six experts on public health. In the 2016 election, Stein was criticized for adopting political positions based on what critics have called "out-of-the-mainstream" views on science-related topics.
Homeopathy
Regarding homeopathy, Stein said in May 2016 that "just because something is untested doesn't mean it's safe", but argued that it is problematic that "agencies tied to big pharma and the chemical industry" test medicines.
Pesticides and GMOs
In Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging, Stein concludes her section reviewing the literature on pesticides by saying: "any but not all studies find that acute high-dose and chronic lower-dose occupational exposures to some neurotoxic pesticides are linked to an increased risk of cognitive decline, dementia or Alzheimer's disease."
Stein and her coauthors wrote, "Twenty million American children five and under eat an average of eight pesticides every day through food consumption. Thirty-seven pesticides registered for use on foods are neurotoxic organophosphate insecticides, chemically related to more toxic nerve warfare agent developed earlier this century." They further noted the ubiquity of these pesticides in the home and at schools, citing Schettler et al. for the claim that "The trend is toward increasingly common exposures to organophosphates. For example, chlorpyrifos detections in urine increased more than tenfold from 1980 to 1990."
Stein supports GMO labeling and a moratorium on new GMOs until they are proven safe, and would phase out GMO foods. Jordan Weissmann, Slate<nowiki/>'s business and economics editor, wrote in July 2016 that Stein's position on GMOs contradicts extensive scientific study.
Spending on scientific research
In 2012, Vote Smart reported that Stein wanted to "slightly decrease" spending on space exploration. She favored maintaining current levels of spending on scientific and medical research.
Vaccines and mercury
In an interview with the Washington Post, Stein stated that "vaccines have been absolutely critical in ridding us of the scourge of many diseases," and said that "here were concerns among physicians about what the vaccination schedule meant, the toxic substances like mercury which used to be rampant in vaccines. There were real questions that needed to be addressed. I think some of them at least have been addressed. I don’t know if all of them have been addressed." The Guardian says that "research has shown schedule-related concerns about vaccines to be unfounded, and that delays to vaccines actually put children at greater risk. Anti-vaxx campaigners often claim that there are dangerous compounds in vaccines, though decades of safe vaccinations contradict the claim and no evidence shows that trace amounts that remain in some approved vaccines cause any harm to the body." Dan Kahan, a professor at Yale who has studied public perception of science, says that it is dangerous for candidates to equivocate on vaccines, "Because the attitudes about vaccines are pretty much uniform across the political spectrum, it doesn’t seem like a great idea for any candidate to be anti-vaccine. The modal view is leave the freaking system alone."
In response to a Twitter question about whether vaccines cause autism, Stein first answered, "there is no evidence that autism is caused by vaccines," then revised her tweet to "I'm not aware of evidence linking autism with vaccines." In a later interview, Stein answered "no" to the question "do you think vaccines cause autism?" She called this a "nonsense issue, meant to distract people" and likened it to smear campaigns used in previous presidential elections, citing the "Swiftboat issue" or the "Birther issue," no mention was made of vaccines.
Wi-Fi
In a question-and-answer session, Stein voiced concern about in schools, saying, "We should not subjecting kid’s brains especially to that... and we don’t follow this issue in our country, but in Europe where they do, you know, they have good precautions about wireless. Maybe not good enough, you know. It’s very hard to study this stuff. You know, we make guinea pigs out of whole populations and then we discover how many die." According to the , "no adverse health effects are expected from exposure to ". In an op-ed on the subject of Wikileaks, Stein argued that Assange was doing what journalists should be doing but are not, and added that whistle-blowers have been increasingly subject to "character assassination" and prosecution during the Obama administration. In her view, it is heroic to resist the media and political elite's control of information.

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