It’s been a sad development, and difficult for many liberal activists to deal with. Rocky Anderson, the former Salt Lake City mayor who had excited large numbers of progressive Americans with his pledge to run for President without accepting help from corporations, now appears to have reversed course.
Rocky Anderson has joined the pro-corporate political party Americans Elect. Americans Elect was set up and gained ballot access using the profits from Wall Street hedge funds. Americans Elect is controlled by the very corporate elites and political insiders that Rocky Anderson said he was campaigning against.
To say that Rocky Anderson has lost his credibility with voters is an understatement.
“Rocky Anderson promised that he would fight against corporate influence over politics, but now he’s actually helping to make it become even worse than it already is,” writes one voter.
This weekend saw the establishment of a Facebook page of upset former supporters of Rocky Anderson is urging voters to shift their allegiance to Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who has been able to gain ballot access without resorting to the corporate assistance that Rocky Anderson now enthusiastically embraces.
That seems like a good way to go to me. Stein for President 2012!
Jill Stein decided to start showing up to Occupy protests all the sudden while Rocky has been leading protests and rallies for years. They both support Occupy but one has a much better record addressing the issues OWS cares about. Rocky is the candidate of the 99%
when Occupy gets covered on CNN and in the New York Times has it “embraced” the 1%?
Rocky Anderson has actually worked on issues the 99% cares about his entire life. He is the candidate of the 99% and he always has been. Rocky is the progressive with a record.
Joshua, that’s not accurate. Jill Stein attended occupy protests from the start, and has been politically active in protest movements for years.
Jill Stein remains an anti-corporate presidential candidate, while Rocky Anderson has bought into the pro-corporate system of the Americans Elect party.
What’s more, Rocky Anderson sacrificed his credibility be joining with Americans Elect just weeks before Americans Elect crashed and burned. Rocky Anderson showed us that he lacks judgment. While the other rats were jumping off the burning ship, the Rocky Anderson rat jumped on board. Not a great move.
That’s like saying Paul sold out by running as a Republican. I may not support many of Paul’s views, but he does seem to stand up for what he believes in- more than you can say for most of the actual Republicans or Democrats. Maybe I’m wrong, but did it not help his campaign? Getting his name on the front page of Americans Elect is a good thing.
(Haven’t been to this site before so maybe you already answered it somewhere.) Anyways, I have not heard of these issues with Americans Elect. Care to elaborate? Its seems pretty open sourced . I don’t know much about the funding, but simply saying “rich people put money into so its evil” ignores that their are a handful of rich people who actually care about others a little bit. Its not the best situation, but changing a system from the inside is a lot easier than scaling the wall of the fortress.