Ajamu Sibeko Baraka, October 25, 1953 (Chicago, Ill.) -
VP candidate for Green Party of the United States (aka Independent aka DC Statehood Green Party aka Green Independent Party aka Green Rainbow Party aka Pacific Green Party aka Progressive Party aka Unaffiliated aka Mountain Party) (2016)
VP candidate for Wake Up (2016)
Running mate with nominee: Jill Ellen Stein (b. 1950)
Running mate with nominee: Charles R. Zerilli
Popular vote (Stein): 1,355,128 (0.99%)
Popular vote (Zerilli): 0 (0.00%)
Electoral vote: 0/538
The campaign (Stein):
Jill Stein was nominated as the Green Party standard bearer for the second time in 2016. Her official running-mate was Ajamu Baraka.
Stein's direction had veered a bit since 2012. In the 2016 election some critical observers felt she was starting to demonstrate what critics call "conspirituality," where New Age followers and the more cultish Trump adherents overlap in their denial of science and embracing a multitude of conspiracy theories. For example, the belief that Big Pharma controls the government regulatory agencies and vaccinations are harmful. Although Stein did not go full anti-vaxxer, she was accused by critics of pandering to that demographic through the use of linguistic "dog whistles." Critics also contended she used the same method in suggesting Wi-Fi causes brain damage and that the 9/11 attack deserved more investigation.
Although even skeptics agreed the Greens seemed to be more reality based when it came to environmental science, they pointed out their medical science was quite another thing (which is ironic considering Stein is a doctor), as demonstrated on the Green webpage--
Greens support a wide-range of health care services, not just traditional medicine which too often emphasizes “a medical arms race” that relies upon high-tech intervention, surgical techniques and costly pharmaceuticals. Chronic conditions are often best cured by alternative medicine. We support the teaching, funding and practice of holistic health approaches and as appropriate, the use of complementary and alternative therapies such as herbal medicines, homeopathy, naturopathy, traditional Chinese medicine and other healing approaches.
The rise and fall of the Bernie Sanders campaign left a good sized number of voters without a home. The Green Party was able to seize upon this opportunity. The Greens disdained Sanders' method of working within a major party, and felt everything the Democrats co-opted from them, such as the Green New Deal, became watered down after it had been essentially mainstreamed (hmm, interesting accidental aquatic wordplay there). Stein also did not seem to care if Trump emerged the winner in 2016--
The answer to neofascism is stopping neoliberalism. Putting another Clinton in the White House will fan the flames of this right-wing extremism. We have known that for a long time ever since Nazi Germany. We are going to stand up to Donald Trump and to stand up to Hillary Clinton!
Stein told the media she would step aside if Sanders was willing to run for President in the Green Party. She felt Clinton could do more damage if elected because she was competent where Trump was clearly in over his head.
The fact her running-mate Baraka was outspoken about his embrace of certain conspiracy theories did not help with the Greens escaping the "woo" image that took off like a rocket with Cynthia McKinney in 2008 and was now solidifying in 2016. He was particularly interested in what he viewed as US-generated "false flag" operations.
Baraka also held an unorthodox opinion regarding the 2015 Charlie Hebdo shootings. An essay he wrote on the subject includes this sample--
Je Suis Charlie has become a sound bite to justify the erasure of non-Europeans, and for ignoring the sentiments, values and views of the racialized “other.” In short, Je Suis Charlie has become an arrogant rallying cry for white supremacy that was echoed at the white power march on Sunday in Paris and in the popularity of the new issue of Charlie Hebdo.
It was published as part of his article, "The Paris Attacks and the White Lives Matter Movement" in Kevin Barrett's anthology entitled ANOTHER French False Flag?: Bloody Tracks from Paris to San Bernardino with contributions by Holocaust deniers, 9/11 Truthers, anti-Semites, and other conspiracy theorists. Baraka was forced to issue a statement that he had no idea of the overall scope of the monograph and found himself on the defensive for most of the campaign.
Baraka was not a fan of President Obama, who he called an "Uncle Tom," nor of Sen. Sanders and the majority of his supporters--
In their desperate attempt to defend Sanders and paint his critics as dogmatists and purists, the Sanders supporters have not only fallen into the ideological trap of a form of narrow “left” nativism, but also the white supremacist ethical contradiction that reinforces racist cynicism in which some lives are disposable for the greater good of the West.
And as much as the ‘Sandernistas ’ attempt to disarticulate Sanders “progressive” domestic policies from his documented support for empire (even the Obamaite aphorism “The perfect is the enemy of the good” is unashamedly deployed), it should be obvious that his campaign is an ideological prop – albeit from a center/left position – of the logic and interests of the capitalist-imperialist settler state.
The silence of the left on Yemen is not a trivial matter. The fact that so many white leftist supporters of Sanders can politically and psychologically disconnect his domestic program from his foreign policy positions that objectively support U.S. and Western neoliberal hegemony means that not only have they found a way to be comfortable collaborating with imperialism, but that they have also decided that they can support the implicit hierarchy that determines from an imperial perspective that lives in the White West matter more than others.
This is not to suggest that everyone who might find a way to support Sanders is a closet racist and supporter of imperialism. I know plenty of folks of all backgrounds who “feel the Bern.” There is, however, an objective logic to their uncritical support that they cannot escape and which I believe represents the ongoing crisis of radicalism in the U.S. and Europe.
For some reason Howie Hawkins once again ended up as a stand-in VP, this time in Minnesota, Vermont, and Washington. He was quoted by Politico during the Green convention with a statement that turned out to be prophetic--
The biggest threat to the Democrats isn't losing votes to the Greens ... Working class whites say, well, the Democrats don't have all that much for us. And Trump sounds like he's mad at the system. So they throw a protest vote to him ... the African-American, Latino, Asian working class. Barack Obama got them out twice, but he didn't do a lot for them, and he's not on the ticket this time.
Stein finished in 4th place with 1,457,288 votes (1.06%), the second highest result in the history of the Party. Of that, the Stein/Baraka team accounted for 1,355,128 votes. The ticket had their strongest results in: Hawaii (2.97%), Oregon (2.50%), Kansas (1.98%), California (1.96%), Maine (1.91%), Alaska (1.80%), and Montana (1.60%).
Some pundits point to Stein's percentages in Wisconsin (1.04%), Pennsylvania (0.81%), and Michigan (1.07%)-- all swing states that voted for Trump who won by margins below the Green total-- and accuse her of being a spoiler as they accused Nader in 2000. However, in all three states the Libertarians had considerably higher percentages than the Greens, placing third, which complicates the "spoiler equation." If anything, a case could be made both third parties drew away a significant number of "Protest Voters" who otherwise would have voted for Trump and he won those states in spite of that.
Baraka endorsed Howie Hawkins in 2020.
The campaign (Zerilli):
Charles R. Zerelli of Staten Island, N.Y. was a registered write-in in Minnesota and Washington under a party called Wake Up. In Minnesota he indicated Baraka was his running-mate.
One of Zarelli's Youtube's summarizes his platform in the introductory text--
After finding out that Radio-Active-Readings are approaching Cali. Shores.. Charles wants Fukuashima STOPPED NOW. Waters heating-up WILL spawn Poison gasses. SEE THIS VIDEO NOW.!! He will go there and do this for America AND The Worlds benefit. "I'm Ready to go to China and help them ..to help US. Redefining what a National Security Emergency really is.. A business plan and HOW Carbon-Foot-Print IS effecting US. Charles really cares for US, our retirement and our kids-kids NOW - Cha
No votes were reported.
Election history: none
Other occupations: US Army (Vietnam War), Amnesty International board member and regional director, executive director of the US Human Rights Network, teacher, editor, columnist
Notes:
Awarded the US Peace Prize by the US Peace Memorial Foundation in 2019.
