Consider all ballot choices: vote your values, make it count

Some 20+ years ago I began my time as a community member and student at CSB+SJU.

As a first-year I lived on Mary 3 with Faculty Resident Brother Robin, and in my junior and senior years I was a resident assistant.

I got a brush of journalism for a couple of years on the staff of The Record as a writer and later news editor. With some of my fellow Johnnies and Bennies, I went on three alternative spring break trips and an education and service border trip to El Paso/Juarez.

And like anyone attending CSB+SJU, I was steeped in The Rule of Benedict and Benedictine tradition. Eventually, after a healthy amount of dabbling in various coursework, I wound up majoring in political science.

That, coupled with my values and experiences inside and outside the classroom, led me to an on campus talk by former Green Party Gubernatorial candidate Ken Pentel in the fall semester of 2004.

Pentel’s message focused on the four pillars of the Green Party: social & economic justice, ecological wisdom, nonviolence and grassroots democracy, which was something so sorely missing (and still very much today) from our public discourse and public policy.

Hearing him also became life changing for me on a personal and public level.

Inspired by Pentel’s talk, I began attending CSB+SJU Campus Greens meetings and later became heavily involved with the club.

I initially met my partner, Megan, on a junior year alternative spring break trip to Jonah House in Baltimore.

However, it was not until our senior year when Megan and I were co-presidents of the Campus Greens and began dating that we really got to know one another and began our lifelong partnership.

Fast forward to today, 20 years after I was introduced to the Green Party, our country and our world are at a tipping point.

We are amid endless war, widening economic and social inequality and a climate emergency.

The weight of Wall Street and the American empire are killing us all— from the streets of Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon to the streets of Asheville, N.C.

In the 2024 presidential race, there is one ticket that is anti-genocide, pro-worker, anti-war and pro-climate action with the possibility of winning the Electoral College.

That is Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein and her vice-presidential running mate (and native Minnesotan) Butch Ware.

They share the values of many Americans and are clamoring for the policies supported by a large percentage of Americans.

Palestinian and Muslim Americans, socialists, anti-war and immigrant activists, the Abandon Harris coalition, economist Jeffrey Sachs, journalist Chris Hedges and people from many walks of life are now rallying behind #SteinWare2024.

I urge you to join them and me.

Back in 2005, the community of Jonah House regularly prayed for the nonviolent collapse of the U.S. empire (and may likely still do today).

I certainly understand voting alone will not bring about the future we long for, but I believe the choices we make on the 2024 ballot could be a catalyst to the collapse of the U.S. empire.

In the words of Frederick Douglas, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Butch Ware will be visiting the Twin Cities on Monday and Jill Stein will be visiting the Twin Cities on Oct. 18 and Oct. 19.