Paula Jean Swearengin: Sens. Capito and Manchin belong in jail
"We live in one of the poorest & sickest states in the country, but I know it’s not just us... Why does it have to be so damn hard to get these people to do their jobs? They are bought and paid for.."
By DOUGLAS J HARDING
Paula Jean Swearengin, People’s Party candidate engagement director and former candidate for U.S. Senate, said during a Labor Day Occupy Congress protest at the U.S. Capitol building that West Virginia Sens. Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin should go to jail for their complicity in widespread suffering across the state.
“West Virginia and Appalachia are plagued by one of the biggest addiction epidemics in the country,” Swearengin said before being arrested on the Capitol steps. “And you want to know who the biggest drug dealers are? It’s the people who work in this building—people like Shelley Moore Capito and Joe Manchin. They’re bought and paid for by industry and the pharmaceutical companies. Instead of making $175,000-a-year, they need to be in jail.”
According to Open Secrets, Manchin’s top campaign contributor throughout his career in government is Viatris, a global pharmaceutical company formed last year when Upjohn merged with Mylan, the drug-making company where Manchin’s daughter, Heather Bresch, served as president and CEO.
Capito’s top campaign contributors throughout her career include several of the same corporations and industries that contribute to Manchin’s campaigns, including FirstEnergy Corp and Goldman Sachs.
Swearengin said the West Virginia senators are just two examples of countless politicians across the country neglecting responsibilities to serve and protect their struggling constituents.
“Even people that I love—AOC and Cori Bush—are selling out,” Swearengin said. “They voted in Nancy Pelosi, and AOC gave $100,000 to the people that are killing us in Appalachia and across the country. This is why I left the Democratic Party, in addition to the racist implosion of the Democratic Party in West Virginia. As a candidate, I faced more opposition from the Democratic Party than I did from Republicans. Republicans and Democrats are bought and paid for by the same people. It’s a big tent and we’re not allowed in it.”
As explained in a Left Voice article published earlier this year:
“In the end, only five Democrats declined to support Pelosi’s bid [for House Speaker]— a decrease compared to the 15 who did not support her reelection in 2019.. And though Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership she represents have faced a fair amount of rhetorical criticism from the left wing of the party, every single opposing vote came from the right wing of the Democratic Party. Notably, despite their clashes with Pelosi over the last couple of years, every member of the Squad voted to keep her at the head of the Democratic Party in the House.”
Additionally, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez received criticism earlier this year when her Courage to Change PAC donated more than $100,000 to right-wing Democrats, several of whom actually returned the money or declined it outright.
Some leftists and progressive Democrats, including former Arizona congressional candidate Eva Putzova, argued that the donations— many received by candidates whose campaigns rely primarily on corporate donations— “add[ed] obstacles for [progressive] challengers” to conservative Democrats and “signal a retreat from the theory of change upon which Ocasio-Cortez originally ran.”
Swearengin said opposing the two-party system and working to remove corporate campaign contributions from the political process are two fundamental ways to fight back against the rampant corruption in federal and local governments.
“I’ve buried a lot of my family to cancer and black lung but also to suicide and addiction, and we live in one of the poorest and sickest states in the country, but I know it’s not just us,” Swearengin said. “I’ve organized with people from South Dakota and from Flint. I’ve run for office, and I am a grandmother and a mother. I would cut my leg off for my children. Why does it have to be so damn hard to get these people to do their jobs? Because they are bought and paid for. We have to get dark money out of politics.”
For more information about #OccupyCongress, visit https://peoplesparty.org/vote-to-occupy-congress/.
The West Virginia Holler is an affiliate of The Tennessee Holler and is powered, in part, by West Virginia Can’t Wait.
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