Green Party candidate Laura Wells gave this speech at the Poor People’s Rally held on January 18 in Sacramento, California.
My name is Laura Wells and I am running as a Green Party candidate for Controller. I am calling for a California state bank, so we can invest our money in California and not Wall Street. Ellen Brown is running for Treasurer as a Green Party candidate and she literally wrote the book on state banks. Elect us and we will roll up our sleeves and take care of the money here in California.
The main thing I want to say is that we the people have so much power. We are not even aware how much power we have, but the 0.1% knows. They spend billions of dollars to try to convince us to vote for their corporate candidates. Their corporate candidates are the Democratic and Republican Party.
I could make a pretty good case for the fact that Jerry Brown is the worst governor in the country. After three years with him in office, California has these two things: the highest percentage of super-super-rich people AND the highest poverty rate in the country. Every single statewide office – Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Controller, Treasurer, Public Insurance Commissioner, and Superintendent of Public Schools, as well as both US Senators – every single one of them is a Democrat.
They have a two-thirds majority in both Houses of the Legislature. And how many of the bad parts of Proposition 13 got fixed in the last three years? Zero, zero, zero. They give us half-measures and half-truths.
It is time for us to do what the 0.1% is afraid we are going to do: stop voting for their corporate candidates. And part of that is yes, vote, do vote. They love it when we don’t vote. The primary is coming up on June 3, 2014. Don’t vote in every race. Some races only have corporate candidates. But vote every time you see a “no corporate money” candidate. That will be a Green or a Peace and Freedom, and occasionally others.
Check out Richmond, California, which is the biggest city in the entire country that has a Green Mayor. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin has not just the guts, but the backing to go up against the biggest corporation in California, which is Chevron, and now she’s going up against Wall Street banks. What does that take? Refuse to take corporate money – that’s what it takes. She and her colleagues don’t even have a majority, they just have to be at the table – and you know what they say, if you’re not at the table you’re on the menu.
So what we need to do is vote. Do not obey the 0.1%. Let’s vote for people who don’t take corporate money, because we really do have as much power as they are afraid we have. Thank you.
Laura Wells: End poverty, vote for candidates who don’t take corporate money
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