VOTE JILL STEIN FOR PRESIDENT!

Sixty percent of Americans say they want someone to vote for other than the Democrats and the Republicans. A vote for the Green’s Jill Stein is a step in the direction of building a genuine alternative to the two political wings of corporate America.

THE CORPORATE MEDIA'S dishonest presentation of American politics as a 'contest' between the Democrats and the Republicans might be okay with people who are happy with 'politics as usual', but it has effectively disenfranchised millions of Americans.

Many of those Americans found a voice in the nationwide movement that swept Bernie Sanders to the brink of the Democratic presidential nomination - despite Sanders having to contest with both a hostile corporate media and a Democratic National Committee that flagrantly broke its own rules on neutrality and worked against him.

But Sanders decision to surrender to Clinton and not stand as an independent third party candidate has left his movement without a focus, although it is more than likely to rise again in the future - such is the widespread disgust with American mainstream politics.

It is interesting to note that since Sanders endorsed Clinton he has gone from speaking at rallies of tens of thousands of people to audiences of two hundred people and less. People simply aren’t interested in listening to him tell them why they should vote for the Wall Street approved Hillary Clinton.

But beyond Bernie Sanders, there is a range of third party presidential candidates. For the American left, the most significant of these is Jill Stein of the Green Party, a party that recently declared itself to be ecosocialist in orientation.

Despite polling at anything between 4-6% in the national polls, Stein has been prevented from participating in the three presidential debates by the Commission on  Presidential Debates - which sets the rules and is controlled by the Democrats and the Republicans.

Stein, like Sanders, has also had to contest with a corporate media that is generally hostile to her political views. And the Green Party also cannot compete with the massive advertising budgets that the Democrats and the Republicans command - thanks to the generous funding provided by corporate donors.

But the demands for real political change in America are becoming more insistent and widespread and it is uncertain how the American people will react in the future to the continued dominance of the two political wings of corporate America. While The Commentariat graze placidly, like contented dairy cows, on the latest machinations in the tug of war between Clinton and Trump - the two most unpopular presidential candidates in American history - more and more Americans are looking elsewhere for political answers.

After last Autumn's midterm elections, a Gallup Poll revealed that a record 60 percent of the respondents wanted a third major political party to choose from at the ballot box. They have simply had enough being told the choice is between the Democrats and the Republicans, the electoral equivalent of Coke and Pepsi.

Jill Stein with vice presidential candidate Ajamu Baraka.

Commented Gallup : “At least four in 10 U.S. adults identified as political independents. The 42 percent identifying as independents in 2015 was down slightly from the record 43 percent in 2014. This elevated percentage of political independents leaves Democratic (29%) and Republican (26%) identification at or near recent low points, with the modest Democratic advantage roughly where it has been over the past five years.”

Since 1988, when Gallup began conducting polls on partisanship, fewer Americans have identified as Republican and Democrat and more have identified as independents.

In the end both the Democrats and the Republicans are too deeply embedded in the status quo and too deeply entangled within the vested interests of corporate America to do anything that will about real political and social change The success of Sanders and, yes, Donald Trump, highlights the widespread disillusionment and cynicism with ‘politics as usual'.

While some progressives will force themselves to vote Clinton simply to keep Trump out of the White House, 'lesser evil' politics is, and always has been, a political no exit for the American people. In the long term the goal must be to build a political party in the United States that will genuinely represent the interests of the 99 percent . A vote for Jill Stein is a step in that direction.