OPINION: I’m voting Green in the presidential race. This is why.

I wish Democratic candidate Kamala Harris the best of luck in the remaining days of this turbulent presidential campaign and hope with all my heart that she defeats Donald Trump and prevents him from returning to power and destroying our democracy. But I’m voting for the Green Party presidential ticket this election, and I’d like to explain why.

First and foremost, the Green Party aligns more closely with my own values ​​and philosophies than our country’s major political parties, and I have been extremely impressed with what I have learned about presidential candidate Jill Stein and her running mate Butch Ware.

Second, Alaska’s electoral system allows me to make the Greens my No. 1 choice and the Democrats my No. 2. If the Green Party is eliminated in the early rounds of voting (which it almost certainly will be), the Democratic Party team of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz then gets my “back-up” vote, so no harm is done to that pair.

Third, whether I choose ranked choice or not, in the deep-red, pro-Donald Trump state of Alaska, I can “vote my conscience” and not have to worry about hurting Harris and Walz’s election chances .

And yet, to be honest, I have misgivings about the Democrats and would only reluctantly support them even though we live in a swing state, if only for the sake of defeating Donald Trump, who poses a grave danger to our democracy, our country.

My decision to vote Green in this presidential election is largely motivated by the independent, progressive “Democracy Now!” team. DN has become one of my favorite resources to better understand what is happening in our country and around the world. It presents the news through a very different lens than the mainstream corporate media and even PBS (another of my major news sources, along with the local newspaper).

Led by host and executive director Amy Goodman, an experienced, award-winning and highly regarded journalist, DN explores in-depth issues of social and environmental justice, and the show’s guests often present minority or marginalized perspectives, as well as views that are also well informed. and authoritative.

One of the ongoing humanitarian crises that DN has reported extensively in the year I’ve been covering it is Israel’s criminal military assault on Gaza (and, more recently, Lebanon).

Through the testimony of a long line of experts – from historians to medical professionals (many of them Americans or other “Westerners” who have spent time in Gaza over the past year), to humanitarian workers, former members of the Biden administration who resigned from his Israel-Gaza policy, journalists, authors and more on the ground – Goodman and her team have presented overwhelming evidence that not only has Israel committed war crimes under the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu, but that the United States, under the leadership of President Joe Biden, has been a partner in these war crimes.

Let me note here that I was already opposing our country’s unwavering support for Israel’s horrific attack on Gaza before I was introduced to this in-depth reporting and analysis. But the program has deepened my understanding of what is happening there, while increasing my sadness at the ongoing tragedies and my annoyance and disgust at the Biden administration and our country’s politics more generally.

Biden’s years of complicity and his hypocritical statements about Israel’s genocidal actions are inexcusable to me. And so far, Kamala Harris has shown no substantive breaks with Biden’s philosophies and actions. I fear that she too will continue our country’s unapologetic political and military support for Israel – a country, it could be argued, that under Netanyahu’s leadership has become a rogue state, even a terrorist state.

This brings me to a recent edition of DN, in which Goodman and co-host Juan Gonzalez interviewed Green Party presidential and VP candidates Stein and Ware.

Some background on the two: Stein is running for the third time in a presidential race with the Green Party, is, among other things, a Harvard-educated physician, a pioneering environmental health advocate, and an activist who has worked to correct many of our culture’s ills to heal and ‘revive democracy’. Ware is an activist and also a professor at UC Santa Barbara, where he teaches African and Islamic courses while “specializing in the history of empire, colonialism, genocide, and revolution.”

Stein and Ware emphasize that they offer alternative solutions to numerous crises facing Americans—particularly lower-income citizens—that both Democrats and Republicans have failed to adequately address. These solutions range from “Medicare for All” to “free healthcare for all.” public higher education, to control nationwide leasing of 16 million units of so-called social housing (to better meet housing needs and address homelessness), to cut the military budget and, above all, to to end the genocidal war in Gaza… to which the American people vehemently object.”

The Green Party also has a very different view on immigration and border security than Trump or Harris, rightly pointing out that many of our country’s international policies have contributed greatly to our country’s immigration crisis. That policy must change if we want to achieve a more sensible and humane solution and real immigration reform.

There is also the existential crisis of climate change, and the need to take more concrete steps to address that crisis, including and especially the need to transition from fossil fuels to green energy technologies, much faster and more completely than the Biden administration (and Congress) seems willing.

While I am not a member of the Green Party, I believe this should be a bigger part of our national political and cultural conversation. Its leaders and ideals offer hope and a more progressive, humane, and environmentally friendly alternative to the Democratic-Republican “duopoly.”

As Stein noted in the Democracy Now! interview: “The American people are calling for other options… You know democracy is about competition. The American people are begging for other options. They have a right to know who those options are.”

Now that I better understand the option they represent, Stein and Ware have my vote, without doubt or hesitation.

Anchorage nature writer and advocate for wildlife and natural areas Bill Sherwonit is a widely published essayist and author of more than a dozen books, including “Living with Wildness: An Alaskan Odyssey” and “Animal Stories: Encounters with Alaska’s Wildlife.”

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