At the National Press Club this morning, Dr. Jerome Segal announced his presidential candidacy as the nominee of the newly formed Bread and Roses Party, (www.BreadandRoses.US), and Dr. Segal also articulated the basics of a new political outlook called: Bread and Roses Socialism.
Dr. Segal is a philosopher and internationally known conflict resolution practitioner. In 1987 he was part of the first delegation of Jewish-Americans to open dialogue with Yasser Arafat and the PLO leadership in Tunis. In 2006 Segal carried a message of moderation from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to President George Bush, in which the Hamas leader sought an opportunity to govern, having just won the Palestinian elections.
At the press conference, Segal revealed that he has been in dialogue with the Iranian government, including a long meeting with Iran’s foreign minister and believes it is possible to achieve a re-set in US/Iran relations and US/Israeli relations. He said, “The key is achieving a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians.” He then laid out a detailed policy proposal that included a US defense treaty with Israel, admission of Palestine to the UN, and a US Embassy to Palestine in East Jerusalem. He would end aid to Israel in the advent of an annexation of the West Bank.
Segal’s academic work has centered on the intersection of philosophy and economics, and he is the author of Graceful Simplicity: The Philosophy and Politics of the Alternative American Dream. In 2018, he challenged Senator Ben Cardin in the Maryland primary and then went on to found The Bread and Roses Party.
Segal characterizes himself as a utopian socialist. Speaking of his candidacy he said, “We are a party of ideas. We do not expect to supplant either of the two parties, but rather to change the American conversation. We see electoral politics as the primary free speech arena in America. It is the time when Americans are listening and thinking. We hope to be intellectual yeast.”
“Based on my experience in the Senate campaign, I am convinced that Americans are deeply hungry for a new way of thinking of our economic life and how it relates to the deeper aspects of human happiness. Most of us understand that what we are doing to ourselves and our children does not make sense, yet we feel caught.”
“For most people, their American Dream is not to get to the top of the pyramid. It is to have very secure income sufficient for meeting basic needs, and to have the ability to choose meaning over money, and to have more leisure to do those things in life that are most important.”
The Bread and Roses policy agenda includes:
– A major redistribution of income and wealth leading to broad equality of condition.
– Democratic ownership of the means of production, whereby the bottom 90% of Americans would own 75% of corporate America.
– A guarantee of employment.
– Income sufficient to meet the needs of a simpler lifestyle, no matter how one made one’s living.
– Increased leisure.
Segal said, “We can bring these goals together with a new definition of economic progress as the sustained decline in Need Required Labor Time – that is, how many hours someone has to work in order to meet basic needs.”
“If we can secure the minimum for a simple life, people will choose meaning over money, and we will re-purpose schooling towards education in history, humanities and the arts, and free our children from the ever-worsening competition for a limited supply of so-called good jobs. We can ensure a right to a childhood.”
The Bread and Rose perspective is detailed at www.SegalforPresident.org