I was born in Burlington, Vermont, to New England Quaker parents and raised in a household full of music and concern for the well-being of mankind. My mother was a biochemist and musician, and my father, a medical doctor, also played trumpet in the town band. When he was drafted to go to Vietnam, he served there in a public-health capacity, and our family moved to Sandia Base in New Mexico, where, as a very young child, I witnessed the anguish of the families of fallen soldiers and wished fervently for the war to end.
After a year as an exchange student in Sweden and a year at Hamilton College in New York, I transferred to New England Conservatory of Music, where I first encountered the presidential campaign of Lyndon LaRouche, a strong advocate for economic development of the “Third World,” who had just been indicted in Boston on politically motivated charges. The case fell apart as exculpatory evidence emerged, only to be revived in the “rocket docket” of Alexandria, Virginia, where LaRouche and several associates were convicted of bogus charges and given lengthy prison sentences. Rather than being deterred by the political persecution he faced, I presumed the legal witch hunt, including the illegal seizure of multiple publications of the LaRouche movement, indicated that he was considered a threat to an unjust system, and embarked on a 35-year collaboration with him and his associates, including his wife Helga Zepp-LaRouche, who leads the Schiller Institute to this day.
At LaRouche’s request, I joined a national slate of younger Congressional candidates in 2011, when I called for the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act and the impeachment of then-President Barack Obama. These positions appeared to be radical at the time but were proven to have been well-founded by later events.
After moving to New York, I ran for U.S. Senate in 2022 and again in 2024 as an independent candidate. In a state where ballot access has been deliberately made nearly impossible by tripling the signature requirement, I remain the only independent or minor-party candidate to successfully qualify in a statewide race—twice—through an all-volunteer effort.
On the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence from the British Empire, it should gladden the hearts of all Americans to observe that the colonial system has reached its end. The nations of the global south, led by China’s ambitious commitment to poverty eradication, are building thousands of miles of new land and maritime transport corridors that have increased connectivity and raised the standard of living for billions of people. By 2050, the continent of Africa will be home to 2.5 billion souls. America must have a plan for productive partnership with these growing nations.
Instead of welcoming this movement for self-determination, representatives of the old British Empire from London and Wall Street, as well as our criminalized so-called “intelligence agencies,” are putting us all in mortal danger by trying to stop the natural progression of humanity toward freedom.
I believe the American government must uphold the principles enshrined in our Declaration of Independence and the Preamble to our Constitution in the spirit so beautifully expressed by John Quincy Adams in his July 4, 1821 address to the Congress where he said of that Declaration:
The interest, which in this paper has survived the occasion upon which it was issued; the interest which is of every age and every clime; the interest which quickens with the lapse of years, spreads as it grows old, and brightens as it recedes, is in the principles which it proclaims. It was the first solemn declaration by a nation of the only legitimate foundation of civil government. It was the corner stone of a new fabric, destined to cover the surface of the globe. It demolished at a stroke the lawfulness of all governments founded upon conquest. It swept away all the rubbish of accumulated centuries of servitude. It announced in practical form to the world the transcendent truth of the unalienable sovereignty of the people….
I live in Orange County, New York, with my husband Christopher and our rescue dog, Baxter.
Join me, to make America’s next 250 years better than the first, as we rededicate ourselves to the principle of true human freedom “everywhere in the world.”*
*From President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms Speech”
