Why I’m running for Congress
By Jason Kishineff
I’m running for Congress as an independent in District 4 [against incumbent Mike Thompson] because business as usual politics are destroying us all and our planet, both parties are complicit, and we need to step up and change our leadership. Every aspect of our system seems to be breaking down, and we need people to step up to change it.
We have been experiencing the worst economic inequality in almost 100 years. A handful of people own more wealth than half of the country combined. Poverty and homelessness have become widespread. Millions of people have been deprived of healthcare to enrich a for-profit healthcare system that ranks, globally, below dozens of universal healthcare systems. And that was before the pandemic.
When the pandemic hit, we were told to stay home and not to work. Many businesses closed. Some of us got a few small checks that added up to one tenth of what most of us needed to pay the rent for the last year. A lot of independent contractors and small business owners couldn’t file for unemployment and didn’t get a lot of help. Meanwhile, every other developed country covered all or most of their worker’s paychecks, which protected small businesses, jobs and families. Our Congress did not. They gave us crumbs while filming videos of expensive freezers filled with luxury ice cream and took vacations when no one else was allowed to.
Now our economic crisis is even worse. The stock market may be fine, but a lot of the rest of us are struggling. It turns out $250 per child per month didn’t end childhood poverty after all. With the eviction moratorium long expired, people have been getting evicted because Congress took away their income and failed to help them survive. Those properties have been bought up by shell corporations owned by multi-millionaires.
Do our “leaders” truly want to repair America’s international reputation? They sure have a funny way of showing it, backing fascists, terrorists and extremists all over the world. Why are we participating in genocide in Yemen? Or seizing money from Afghans, after bombing them for 20 years? Why is the US occupying a third of Syria where we are not wanted? Or Iraq? Why do we have sanctions on free food programs in Cuba and Venezuela? Why did we destroy Libya and then leave it alone to fester in slave markets and violence? Our government cares about human rights? Really? I don’t think so. They care about money. We force Americanism on other countries for corporate profits, not human rights. I can’t think of anything more authoritarian.
I’m not a lawyer or an executive. I’m a pissed-off voter, just like you. And I’m stepping up to do something about it. It’s time to dump the corporate employees in our government and elect everyday people, with common sense. Our current Congressperson is coasting along, not challenging the establishment, just voting the party line. But the party line is corporate-owned and never going to favor you. After decades upon decades of death and destruction for profit, it’s time to do something different. Let’s build a better world where we strive for the greater good, not the lesser evil.
