Peter Isaac Diamondstone (December 19, 1934 – August 30, 2017) was an American lawyer and socialist politician from the state of

Vermont Vermont () is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, New York (state), New York to the west, and the Provinces and territories of Ca ...

, best known as a

perennial candidate A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates are most common where there is no limit on the number of times that a person can run for office and little cost ...

and co-founder of the

Liberty Union Party The Green Mountain Peace and Justice Party (GMPJP), formerly known as the Liberty Union Party (LUP) until 2021, is a socialist political party in Vermont, United States. LUP was formed in 1970 by progressives to contest the 1970 Senate election. ...

. He ran for various Vermont political offices, always unsuccessfully, in every election cycle from 1970 until 2016.

Early life

Diamondstone was born in the New York borough of

The Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

in 1934 and raised in the borough of Queens, the son of Mildred and Jess Diamondstone. His father was a dentist and a socialist. In 1944, at the age of nine, Diamondstone got a job passing out flyers for the fourth presidential campaign of

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

. He served in the

U.S. Army The United States Army (USA) is the primary land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of the United Stat ...

from 1954 to 1956. Diamondstone received a J.D. degree from the

University of Chicago Law School The University of Chicago Law School is the Law school in the United States, law school of the University of Chicago, a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. It employs more than 180 full-time and part-time facul ...

in 1960 and moved to Vermont in 1968, where he soon entered the political scene.

Career

Diamondstone, along with former U.S. Congressman

William H. Meyer William Henry Meyer (December 29, 1914 – December 16, 1983) was an American politician and Member of the United States House of Representatives from Vermont. Biography Born in Philadelphia, he attended the public schools of the city and gra ...

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from the state of Vermont. He is the longest-serving independ ...

(who is a current U.S. Senator), and others, founded the Liberty Union Party in 1970. From then until his death, he ran every two years for various political offices, never receiving more than 8% of the vote in general elections. While Diamondstone usually carried the Liberty Union banner in his political campaigns, he occasionally ran under other party labels and even entered Democratic and Republican primaries. In

2000 2000 was designated as the International Year for the Culture of Peace and the World Mathematics, Mathematical Year. Popular culture holds the year 2000 as the first year of the 21st century and the 3rd millennium, because of a tende ...

, he was the official Democratic nominee for U.S. House of Representatives and placed a distant third, behind Bernie Sanders (running as an independent) and Republican Karen Ann Kerin. Diamondstone arrived late to a debate for U.S. Congress in 1980, and was told he would not be able to participate. He remained in the debate area and was arrested. He was also arrested in 1996 while attempting to participate in a debate for U.S. Congress, for which he was a candidate. In 2006, Diamondstone was escorted off stage and charged with disorderly conduct after cursing at students in the audience and repeatedly speaking past his allotted time during a U.S. Senate debate. Once a friend and political ally of Bernie Sanders, the two gradually drifted apart as Sanders transitioned into mainstream electoral politics. In 1984, Diamondstone passed out anti-Sanders flyers, calling him a "

Quisling ''Quisling'' (, ) is a term used in Scandinavian languages and in English to mean a citizen or politician of an occupied country who collaborates with an enemy occupying force; it may also be used more generally as a synonym for ''traitor'' or ...

" and criticizing him for endorsing Democratic presidential nominee

Walter Mondale Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale (January 5, 1928April 19, 2021) was the 42nd vice president of the United States serving from 1977 to 1981 under President Jimmy Carter. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Minnesota from 1964 to 1976. ...

. He did not endorse Sanders' 2016 presidential candidacy and referred to him as a

war criminal A war crime is a violation of the laws of war that gives rise to individual criminal responsibility for actions by combatants in action, such as intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostage ...

for supporting the 1999

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Serbia and Montenegro, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombing ...

Political positions

Diamondstone was a supporter of Vermont seceding from the United States. He advocated for community ownership of the

means of production In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the ...

as well as

nationalization Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization contrasts with p ...

of the healthcare system and increasing the number of paid leave and paid vacation days. Diamondstone also believed in disbanding the

Vermont National Guard The Vermont National Guard is composed of the Vermont Army National Guard and the Vermont Air National Guard. Together, they are collectively known as the Green Mountain Boys. Both units use the original Revolutionary War-era Flag of the Green Mo ...

and replacing it with a civilian militia. He opposed

water fluoridation Water fluoridation is the controlled addition of fluoride to Public water supply, public water supplies to reduce tooth decay. Fluoridated water maintains fluoride levels effective for cavity prevention, achieved naturally or through supplem ...

genetically modified food Genetically modified foods (GM foods), also known as genetically engineered foods (GE foods), or bioengineered foods are foods produced from organisms that have had changes introduced into their DNA using various methods of genetic engineering. G ...

, and the

HPV vaccine Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines are vaccines intended to provide acquired immunity against infection by certain types of human papillomavirus. The first HPV vaccine became available in 2006. Currently there are six licensed HPV vaccines: ...

, which he referred to as a "Big Pharma sham". Diamondstone was an advocate of eliminating the

voting age A legal voting age is the minimum age that a person is allowed to Voting, vote in a democracy, democratic process. For General election, general elections around the world, the right to vote is restricted to adults, and most nations use 18 year ...

. He also wanted to open

hearings In law, a hearing is the formal examination of a case (civil or criminal) before a judge. It is a proceeding before a court or other decision-making body or officer, such as a government agency or a legislative committee. Description A hearing ...

to investigate conspiracy theories relating to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. Diamondstone, while coming from a Jewish family, was an opponent of

Zionism Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...

, claiming, "Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. As a matter of fact, probably about 90 percent of all Zionists are Christians." He endorsed withdrawing all military aid to Israel and criticized "war crimes and genocide" perpetrated by the Israeli government. Ideologically, he identified as a "nonviolent

revolutionary socialist Revolutionary socialism is a political philosophy, doctrine, and tradition within socialism that stresses the idea that a social revolution is necessary to bring about structural changes in society. More specifically, it is the view that revolu ...

". He argued it is an imperative for

capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically through several stages and is defined by ...

to end, to be replaced by a socialist economic system.

Personal life

Diamondstone married Doris Lake in 1957. They had four children. He was an

atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...

. Diamondstone died at his home in

Dummerston, Vermont Dummerston is a New England town, town in Windham County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,865 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is home to the longest covered bridge still in use in Vermont. Its borders include three m ...

on August 30, 2017, at age 82. According to his wife, he was suffering from several ailments, including heart and kidney diseases, and had been recently released from the hospital. Diamondstone also suffered from leg sores which required him to wear shorts to stay comfortable. Upon his death, Bernie Sanders said, "I first met Peter Diamondstone over 45 years ago. While I have not had any real contact with him for many, many years, I have the feeling that he never changed. Peter was a very independent thinker, unafraid to express his (often controversial) point of view on any subject. As a result, he forced people to examine and defend their own positions. No small thing. In his own way, Peter played an important role in Vermont politics for many decades."

Electoral history

1970s

1980s

1990s

2000s

2010s

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Diamondstone, Peter 1934 births 2017 deaths 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century Vermont politicians 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century Vermont politicians Activists from Vermont American atheists American pacifists Jewish American atheists 20th-century American Jews American lawyers Jewish socialists Liberty Union Party politicians Politicians from Brattleboro, Vermont People from Dummerston, Vermont Politicians from Queens, New York University of Chicago alumni Vermont Democrats Vermont Progressive Party politicians Vermont Republicans Vermont lawyers Vermont socialists