Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland

Bill Stant has a vision for a new American democracy. In it, power flows from the people, not the almighty dollar. And the people are responsible, active, and engaged.

"I know it's quaint," he told a meeting of the Monroe County Green Party last week. "I know it's old fashioned. But democracy, and the health of democracy, depend on virtuous citizens."

Stant, a Brown County financial planner, does more these days than just talk about new democracy and power to the people. As a candidate for Secretary of State on the Green Party ticket, he works to implement his vision on a daily basis. But, he said, he needs a community of virtuous citizens behind him to make it happen.

Indiana has the fifth most restrictive ballot access laws for third parties in the nation, Stant told the handful of Greens who gathered at the Monroe County Public Library to hear his second run through his "stump speech." He must get roughly 30,000 petition signatures by next June, five months before the race, just to get his name on the ballot.

"I mean, that's preposterous," he said. But desperate times require bold action. And the "savage inequalities" in 21st Century American economics and rampant corruption in the political system demand it.

"In a business-dominated society, money is power," he said. "Money therefore fuels the political machine." Average voters know this, and it has created a "crisis of legitimacy" in the political system at large and widespread cynicism, alienation, and apathy among voters.

"If you go along with it," Stant told the Greens, "if you accept it, if you walk away from it in disgust, let's face it, you get the government you deserve."

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