to be delivered by public and private resources under a
streamlined medicare/medicaid system. Draft
Draft Vision of America in a Peaceful, Prosperous World
(Revised November 30, 2009)
(Reader - please provide critical comments and additional items for each of the below areas to the compiler – Ron Fisher, DFPA@aol.com 703-725-7849.)
"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction,
is the first and only legitimate object of good government."
--Thomas Jefferson
This document provides a draft Vision of America and a Peaceful, Prosperous World with open-ended, comprehensive lists of:
A. Goals.
B. Concerns, challenges, problems and issues, etc. that stand or could stand in the way of attaining this vision and these goals.
C. General underlying causes of these concerns, challenges and issues.
D. Proposed solutions, reform, change actions, legislation, mechanics, etc. which must be done to address the concerns, problems and issues, and their underlying causes identified under parts B. and C. above and to realize the vision and goals.
By providing an integrated list of goals, concerns and solutions, cooperative efforts can be found. For example, deteriorating roads and bridges could be repaired by an underemployed workforce using funds now being wasted on pork barrel earmarks, unneeded offensive weapon systems, the Iraq War, redundant government projects, etc.
INTRODUCTION
Please read “The Problem of the Twentieth Century (An essay providing an economic history of mankind), http://www.wethepeoplenow.org/economic_history_mankind.pdf, before this document. It is an absurd injustice that in this world of plenty, thousands of children die each day from malnutrition and preventable, curable diseases while the U.S. Congress appropriates and the Administration spends over three and one half billion dollars a week of taxpayers’ money fighting illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Before the invention of the steam engine and other technologies a little over 200 years ago, it took over 95% of the world’s population to barely provide the food, clothing and housing for all the people of the world.
Worker productivity, new technologies, methodologies, education, training, etc. make it possible today for less than 5% of the world’s population to provide food, clothing and housing for all the people of the world.
As proof of this, according to Forbes, a couple of years ago:
• The aggregate annual sales of the world's 2000 largest public companies, was $24 trillion. This amounted to about 41% of the world's gross domestic product (approximately $59T) that year.
• These 2000 companies employed about 68 million employees, which was less than 1.1% of the world’s population (6.45B) that year.
Assuming that each of the employees, on the average, is the breadwinner for a family of four, it also means that these 2000 corporations pay wages that support about 4.5% of the world's population while selling about 41% of the food, goods, fuels, housing, services, etc. to the entire world.
Since this is a world of plenty, there is no reason that we the people can’t have and realize very meaningful goals.
We believe that the overall goals of our society, governments and other institutions should be to:
1. Have a population of healthy, happy, free, secure individuals that care for one another. To realize this everyone should have:
a. Meaningful employment opportunities at living wages reasonable close to their home
b.Affordable:
i. Decent homes
ii. Healthy food
iii. Clean water for drinking, washing, bathing and laundry
iv. Personal and commercial community banking, savings, and loan services
v. Broadband access
vi. Recreation, sports, entertainment, theater, art, vacations, etc. (live and via multimedia)
c. Quality, medicare/publicly funded, single payer, comprehensive, health care (physical, dental, emotional, vision, hearing, and long term care)
d. Meaningful, free pre-K through college education and lifetime vocational training programs
e. Safe, stable, secure, clean, protected and preserved environments, natural resources, water and air
f. Protected civil and economical rights and equitable, restorative justice
2. Not use violence or engage in wars or conflict
3. Provide a level playing field for all businesses
4. Provide effective, efficient governments
5. Implements fair, simple, progressive income/revenue and property taxes on individuals and large businesses/corporations
B. Concerns and Challenges
What are the challenges and concerns that prevent attaining these goals? Most of the challenges and concerns will provide opportunities for employment, investment, etc.
1. Promise of Jobs and Campaign Finance Donations
a. Corporation executives, special interest groups and lobbyists exercise excessive control over legislation and policy decisions. Major aspects of health care systems have been turned over to drug and insurance companies. Energy policy has been turned over to big oil companies.
b. Document A on this website provides an "economic history of mankind" and shows that there are more than enough resources in the world for everyone. With automation and other productivity gains, five per-cent of the world's population could provide food, clothing and housing for the entire world. There is no excuse for any child in the world to not have nutritious food, comprehensive health care, clean water, adequate housing and a pre-kindergarten through college education.
c. Why do we still have children homeless, cold and hungry in the midst of plenty?
d. The primary reason - the actions and inactions of many of our current "business men" and public servants.
e. The authors of Document A faulted many of our "businessmen" who keep prices and their profits up by curtailing production, paying low wages and with layoffs. This keeps many in poverty and debt and provides even more unemployed workers willing to work for even lower wages and borrow money at predatory interests rates. Today's "businessmen," as described by the authors, include many of the executives of our banks and financial institutions including the Federal Reserve.
f. Business men, bankers, and special interest groups bribe our public servants with campaign contributions and promises of high paying jobs when they leave government service.
g. As payback for these bribes, our public servants:
i. Have put individuals in the government who are plundering the Treasury.
ii. Have illegally and unconstitutionally given or committed $23.7 trillion to stockbrokers and bankers which they have used for massive bonuses, to acquire other banks and financial institutions and for risky investments, which are being guaranteed by the federal government.
iii. Are rewarding defense contractors with profits from:
(1) Two illegal, unconstitutional wars/occupations and illegal attacks on Pakistan.
(2) Manufacturing massive sells of unneeded weapons.
iv. Have repealed aspects the Glass-Steagall Act and other regulations and are inadequately enforcing hardly any regulations on commodity, trading, the stock market and insurance companies.
v. Are rewarding insurance companies by not providing single payer or a public health insurance options
vi. Are awarding bankers by allowing predatory interest rates and unconscionable late fees by banks.
vii. Have allowed corporations to violate anti-theft laws.
viii. Are not enforcing the rule of law.
2. Lack of employment “opportunities” that pay reasonable wages, i.e. chronic worldwide unemployment and low and stagnant wages for many workers with jobs.
a. New automation, technologies, methodologies, education, training, worker productivity, etc. make it possible today for less than 5% of the world’s population to provide the food, clothing and housing for all the people of the world. Businessmen have not increased wages commensurate with the increases
b. Employment opportunities also being lost due to consolidations and mergers, outsourcing and free trade versus fair trade agreements.
c. This has resulted in decreasing tax revenues and social security deposits and hurt the nation’s fiscal health increased unfunded obligations (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.), budget deficits, balance of payment deficits.
d. Without job opportunities and employees being paid reasonable wages, there will be less customers to buy goods. With less purchases there will be more lay-offs and lower wages, loss of tax revenues, etc., and the economy will spiral downward with increasing budget deficits.
3. Wars, conflicts, empire building, violence, using military force to coerce resources from the rest of the world., etc. .
a. Iraq and Afghanistan occupations
b. Illegal US attacks, threats, covert operations against Iran
c. Other wars and conflicts, e.g. West Bank, Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Darfur, Kosovo
d. U.S. history of use of force and violence
e. Nuclear weapons and fissile material proliferation
f. The United States government spends as much on weapons, munitions and a standing army as all the rest of the world combined.
g. The United States arms industry exports more weapons and munitions than any other country in the world. Some of the explosive material in these munitions are used by adversaries in improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
h. Large numbers of U.S. troops are needlessly stationed in Germany, South Korea and small detachments in over eighty countries.
i. The U.S. spends considerably more on foreign military aid than on foreign economic aid.
4. Wealth divide
a. Regressive tax systems
b. Increasing poverty
c. Decreasing personal savings
d. The exponential increase of wealth and property in the hands of a very few rich individuals and corporations
5. Out-of-control spending
a. Congress has in effect surrendered its responsibility for appropriations in large part to the executive branch, special interest groups and the Federal Reserve, has loss control of the process and is avoiding direct accountability.
b. Failure to grapple with the difficulties of maintaining constant and adequate oversight.
c. Pork-barrel spending and earmarks. Much of the funds for earmarks comes from the Department of Defense and Services O&M (operations and maintenance) accounts which would normally be used for such things as body armor and hardening vehicles against roadside bombs
6. Interest on the national debt is huge and rising.
7. The majority of career politicians from the two major parties:
i. Are unwilling to address and solve the issues of war, health care, environment, education, immigration, trade, net neutrality etc.
ii. Answer only to campaign contributors and special interest groups and their party leadership, not to the people.
iii. Unwilling to fix our electoral process in ways that make it fair for all to participate.
8.“Citizens’ faith in government officials is failing everywhere.”
9. Instead of protecting individual’s rights, government officials are violating the rights of many people.
10. Congress has passed unconstitutional laws including:
a. The Patriot Act
b. The Joint Resolution on Iraq
c. Military Commission Act of 2006
d. FISA Supplement
e. The War Authorization Act
11. Shortages of affordable housing/shelter
12. Chronic water shortages for drinking, hygiene, irrigation, industry, etc.
13. The stock market, instead of being a means to raise capital for businesses and provide investment opportunities has become more like a gambling casino where insiders and the rich take money from small investors.
14. Nuclear weapons proliferation
15. Israel says Gaza is no longer occupied; yet it denies Palestinians access to jobs, travel, commerce, education, and medical care. Its military has turned the Gaza Strip into an open-air concentration camp controlled by land, sea and air. In the past year, the people of Gaza have barely had enough to eat, as Israel withholds food and energy in an attempt to starve them into submission
16. High percentage (90%) of mass media owned by five major companies
17. Election campaigns and elections
a. Divisive politics
b. Individuals putting parties ahead of the people and the country
c. Campaign finance
d. Endemic gerrymandering so that “politicians can pick voters instead of voters picking politicians”
e. 50% of all elections have only one name on the ballot
C. Underlying Causes of the Concerns and Challenges
1. Lack of an understanding of such things as human nature, democracy, practice of ethics,
2. Deficiencies in early child development and education for example
a. Stern parent versus nurturing parent approach
b. Cooperation versus competition
c. Pampering versus child solving own problems
d. Ostentatiousness
3. Lack of understanding of:
a. Semantics, linguistics, framing, communications, etc.
b. Reasoning, human nature, character, ethics, values, principles, integrity, accountability, teamwork, courage, humane instincts including cooperation, civility, caring for others, etc.
c. The U.S. Constitution, international treaties, rule of law, civil rights, meaning of sovereignty of the people, democratic processes, the legal system, restorative justice, etc.
4. Individuals spending considerable time on electronic media (the average grade school student 6.5 hours per day) at the expense of socially interacting with each others, sports, exercising, etc.
5. Individuals, primarily the rich, obsessed with financial and material wealth/comfort, and are supporting and helping to elect and reelect leaders who are sending their bills to future generations and/or using military force to coerce resources from the rest of the world.
6. Negative traits: vindictiveness, bullying, apathy, greed, etc.
7. Waste, abuse, fraud
8. Corruption
9. Bureaucracy
10. Poverty
11. Deficiencies in democratic skills
12. Lack of educational opportunities
13. Personnel errors
14. Lack of or improper education or training
15. Poor or faulty information, rules, regulations, documentation, legislation
Work to be done to accomplish reform and change actions which address concerns, problems, issues and their underlying causes.
Table of Contents:
4. Reform Congress, Executive Branch, Lobbyists and Campaign Finances
5. Information, Education and Training Program.
6. Health Care, Medicare & Social Security
7. Peace, Diplomacy and Defense
12. Civil Rights, The Constitution & The Laws
15. Fair and Constitutional Immigration Legislation, Policies and Practices
16. Transportation and Traffic
20. Congress, Lobbyists and Campaign Finances
1. Peace, Diplomacy and Defense
a. End Occupations/Wars. Refine and execute the Draft Proposed Plan to End Iraq and Afghanistan Wars/Occupations, End 0ffensive and Covert Operations in Pakistan and Bring the Troops Home. http://www.wethepeoplenow.org/proposed_plan_iraq.pdf. Key elements of this plan include:
i. Initiate an immediate cease fire and an orderly withdrawal of all U.S., NATO and Coalition forces and US military contractors from Iraq and Afghanistan
ii. Bring home US military forces from bases stationed in areas Japan, Korea, Germany and all the other 140 countries where our troops are stationed. Get out of the empire-building business. Reintegrate these soldiers into the National Guard, workforce, education system and/or civil conservation corps.
iii. Cease all offensive, covert CIA or military operations and threats against Iran or any other country, without a formal declaration of war by Congress.
iv. Develop and execute comprehensive open ended plans for the U.S. role to resolve the U.S./Iran & U. S./Syria crises with an emphasis on greater diplomacy. Ask your Representative to co-sponsor H.R. 5056 and support hearings that will promote direct negotiations with Iran without preconditions. Ask them to take this action with the goal of creating a new and productive dialogue between the two countries.
v. Legislator vote against, and senators filibuster against, any additional funds for the occupation of or any offensive operations in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
vi. Do not enact "sanctions" against Iran and any other nations.
vii. Replace all military aid and weapons sales with foreign economic aid.
b. Global cooperation & diplomacy instead of bullying, threats and war.
c. Return Control of State Guards to governors. If federal troops are used in time of emergency, they become under the control of the Governor of the State. Repeal the Montgomery Act. (See Gov Perpich’s efforts http://www.guncite.com/court/fed/sc/496us334.html)
2. Put America to Work. Refine and execute the Plan to Put America and the World to Work, Jumpstart the Economy, End the Recession and Avoid a Massive World Wide Depression, http://www.wethepeoplenow.org/put_america_to_work.pdf
3. Reform Financial Systems. Refine and execute the Plan to Reform and Regulate Financial Systems and Resolve Foreclosures, Mortgages, Derivatives, and Banking Crises, http://www.wethepeoplenow.org/reform_financial_sys.pdf
4. Reform Congress, Executive Branch, Lobbyists and Campaign Finances
a. Reform and reorganize Congress and the Executive Branch. Eliminate duplicated authorization and appropriation committees/subcommittees and departments, organize by function and hold individual legislators and officials responsible. For example, everyone on the Agriculture Committee and the Department of Agriculture should be responsible for insuring that everyone in the country has access to affordable, healthy food. Similarly, there should be health, clean water, clean air, affordable housing, etc. committees/subcommittee and corresponding Departments or sections of .
b. Eliminate pork, wasteful or unnecessary spending, and "pay backs" to special interest groups.
c. Enact the Twelve Step Program for Congressional Reform from “Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security”, by Winslow Wheeler. Get money, corporation executives and their lobbyists out of politics and insure that the people have control over their government.
5. Information, Education and Training Program. Refine, expand and implement the first phase (which will cover from now until U.S. military personnel are brought home from around the world) of the Peoples Information, Education and Training Program. A proposed draft outline is at http://www.wethepeoplenow.org/peoples_information_and_education_program.pdf. This plan includes informing and educating everyone possible on all elements of this vision.
6. Health Care, Medicare & Social Security
a. Enact the United States National Health Insurance Act, H. R. 676 or substantially
similar legislation to provide nationwide single payer medicare, comprehensive,
universal, physical, dental, mental health and long term care (LTC) and free
prescription drugs for all
to be delivered by public and private resources under a
streamlined medicare/medicaid system.
According to the report, Single Payer /Medicare Healthcare for All (http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economic_study_2009.pdf) this would:
i. Create 2,613,495 million new permanent, good-paying jobs
ii. Boost the economy with $317 billion in increased business and public revenues
iii. Add $100 billion in employee compensation
iv. Infuse public budgets with $44 billion in new tax revenues
b. Make hospitals like Walter Reed (which is scheduled to be closed and other city, county, state and federal hospitals/clinics and community health centers) into government owned, not for profit contractor operated (GOCO) Medicare/Medicaid, hospitals/clinics that educate, train and qualify doctors, nurses, dentists, nurses aids and other health care personnel.
c. Build 1000 new modern hospitals and clinics equipped with the latest technology
d. Pay family and friend care-givers as who are taking care of disabled, mentally retarded or elderly needing long term care.
e. Improve effectiveness and reduce cost of health care:
i. Study and implement lessons learned from health care systems in other countries and Medicare/Medicaid and Tri-Care for Life programs which are “single payer” systems
ii. Publicize and employ best practices
iii. Promote healthy lifestyles and preventive care
iv. Use Tele-medicine and other modern technology
v. Phase out the use of latin terminology
vi. Pay:
(1) Reasonable salaries/wages for doctors, dentists, nurses, medical and dental clinics, emergency rooms, trauma centers, emergency response/ambulance personnel, etc. for the time they spend providing single payer health care rather than by individual patient appointments/treatments
(2) Prorated share of the cost of supplies, rent and equipment usage based on the portion of the time spent providing single payer health care.
vii. Use management type contracts
viii. Repeal the Medicare Part D pharmaceutical legislation and have Medicare negotiate drug prices along with the Veterans Administration and Department of Defense
ix. Prohibit corporations from owning patents
x. Eliminate unconstitutional patent extensions
xi. Oppose government funds, including medicaid and medicare, being used to buy health insurance from private companies. Approximately one-third of all money that goes into insurance companies is not used for health care. These companies make more money when they deny coverage
xii. Oppose forcing individuals to buy health insurance from for-profit companies.
xiii. Incorporate auxiliary services such as radiology, anesthesiology, pathology in the hospital with one bill.
xiv. Oppose stock market investments from individual social security accounts.
xv. Reward individuals who practice preventative medicine, eat properly, exercise, control their weight, etc. expanding the number of individual eligible for free prescription drugs under Medicare/Medicaid.
a. U. S, see to it that the UN provides security guarantees for Israel
b. Demand that Israel and Palestinian officials:
i. Negotiate honestly with one another
ii. End the occupation of the West Bank.
iii.Uphold the rights of Palestinians and Israelis guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
iv. Resolve through negotiations all UN Resolutions and the right of return of the more than 700,000 Palestinians removed from their lands to create Israel.
v. Negotiate an end to Israeli’s blockade of and control over Gaza and cease denying Palestinians access to jobs, travel, commerce, education, medicalcare, food and energy.
c. Cease all military aid and weapon sales to Israel. Use this funding to purchase selected Israeli settlements in the West Bank and turn them over to the Palestinians with the caveat that they be weapons free.
d. Require that Israel cease the use of any weapons supplied by the U.S. for any offensive purposes including operations in the Palestinian territories.
e. Provide immediate massive relief to the people of Gaza.
f. Provide for the timely establishment of a Palestinian State.
g. Demand that Palestinian officials recognize Israel as a state and that terrorist attacks cease.
h.Uphold the rights of Palestinians guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
i. Resolve through negotiations the 65 UN Resolutions against Israel and the right of return of the more than 700,000 Palestinians removed from their lands to create Israel.
8. Nuclear Weapons: resolve the United States-Iran situation and commence the phase out of all nuclear weapons
9. Nuclear weapons are illegal as stated in the book Nuclear Weapons are Illegal, The Historic opinion of the World Court and how it will be enforced, edited with an introduction by Ann Fagan Ginger, Executive Director of the Meikeklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, Berkeley, California
10.Any U.S. threats to attack Iran, conduct any clandestine or offensive operations against Iran or invoke economic sanctions against Iran or any other country unless Congress has specifically declared war on that country are illegal, unconstitutional and immoral, and must cease.
11.The U.S. should:
a.Assist in maintaining the Middle East WMD/Nuclear Weapons Free Zone and insure that there are no nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction on any U.S. Ships or in possession of any other U.S. forces deployed in the Middle East as required by article 14 UN Security Council Resolution 687. This resolution calls for "establishing in the Middle East a zone free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles for their delivery."
b.Take the lead on the cessation of the nuclear arms race and complete disarmament as required by Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which requires: pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.
c. Cease expending any funds on any nuclear weapon development programs or to improve or refine existing programs.
d. Build on ongoing initiatives and develop a comprehensive Plan for the United States Role in Global Nuclear Disarmament which includes identifying obstacles and the underlying reasons for these obstacles and proposes short and long range solutions.
12.Accomplishing the above will strengthen the U.S. government's position when requesting that other states such as Iran and North Korea not develop nuclear weapons and will encourage Iran and other countries to help with the grave problems in Iraq and Afghanistan.
a. Provide full funding and attention to securing all nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon materials.
b. Conduct meaningful negotiations with all of the world's nuclear powers and Iran and the phase out of all nuclear weapons.
c. Immediately remove all U.S. weapons of mass destruction including any nuclear weapons from the Mideast as required by Article 14 of UN Security Council resolution 687.
d. Eliminate funding for nuclear weapon development and improvement programs including bombplex/"complex transformation", the reliable replacement warhead (RRW) programs and any other nuclear proliferation initiatives. This is required by Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
e. Eliminate all funding for anti-ballistic missile systems and their deployment anywhere in the world.
13. Terrorism. Officials of the United States should:
a. Cease use of the metaphor "war on terror," eliminate specific funding for the war on terror and treat terrorist acts as crimes.
b. Develop a comprehensive Plan to Address and Reduce/Eliminate Terrorist Acts including
i. Identify the underlying cause of terrorist acts.
ii. Proposes short and long range solutions to eliminate terrorist acts. These solutions should include in particular supporting wide spread economic development and jobs and education and training programs all over the world.
a. Establish the Department of Peace & Non Violence.
b. Conduct comprehensive world-wide negotiations for reducing and ultimately eliminating offensive weapons.
c. Drastically cut the bloated wasteful military budget by:
i. Rescind All War Supplementals.
ii. Modify Defense Appropriations Acts to eliminate/reduce spending on offensive weapon systems. e. g. convert aircraft refueller tanker to wild fire fighting planes.
iii. Conduct a phased conversion of a large portion of the armed services to the National Guards, Reserves, and the Civil Conservation & Engineering Corps, as the world disarms.
iv. Do not design or deploy weapons in space.
15. Civil Rights, The Constitution & The Laws
a. Enforce the rule of law with civil, human, economic, etc., rights observed for all the people of America and the world.
b. Strengthen and make the United Nations, UN Agencies, UN peacekeeping forces, etc. more functional.
c. Strengthen and make the International Criminal Court more functional.
d. Oppose restrictions on Habeas Corpus and other rights, overturn the Military Commission Act (MCA) of 2006.
e. Overturn the U.S. Patriot Act.
f. Implement restorative justice programs based on confining only those who are a threat to society or themselves, restitution, contrition, keeping detainees busy, etc. throughout the criminal justice system.
g. Cease the use of the metaphor "war on drugs", and reform many aspects of this program.
h. Oppose the death penalty.
i. Break up media monopolies by enforcing anti-trust laws and taxation.
j. Retain Roe v. Wade, while taking actions to reduce unwanted pregnancies.
k. Close prisons at Guantanamo immediately.
l. Insure detainees are treated humanely, their rights are observed and end "advanced interrogation techniques", warrantless arrests and searches, secret detentions and renditions.
m. Rescind the FISA Amendment Act and insure warrantless wiretapping of people is not done.
n. Oppose constitutional bans on same sex civil unions and marriages.
o. Support the right to same-sex civilunions.
p. Support the right to same-sex marriages.
q. Insure Internet neutrality.
r. Oppose Presidential signing statements as unconstitutional, null and void.
a. Provide meaningful publicly supported pre-k through college education for all.
b. Immediately provide publicly supported universal pre-kindergarten programs that ensure all children 3, 4 and 5 years old have access to a high-quality full-day, full-calendar-year pre-kindergarten education, H.R. 4060, the "Universal Pre-kindergarten Act" ("http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.4060:"), or equivalent.
c. Rescind certain features of "No Child Left Behind" including emphasis on test results, necessity to "teach to the test" and punitive measures based on low test scores.
d. Use encouragement and nurturing to decrease/eliminate school drop outs and suspensions.
e. Create more vocational education opportunities in high school for everyone and in particular for students who do not intend to immediately go to college.
f. Track students after their graduation to obtain feedback for schools.
g. Students who do not master grade level reading, writing and arithmetic should receive special attention.
h. Encourage parents to be involved in children’s schools, attend parent-teacher conferences, PTA meetings, etc.
a. Attempt to observe the Kyoto Protocols and immediately hold a follow-up Kyoto conference.
b. Support development of clean, renewable energy sources
c. Do not permit ANWR or off-shore drilling at this time.
d. Freeze the sale or lease of off-shore drilling areas.
e. Oppose Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
18. Fair and Constitutional Immigration Legislation, Policies and Practices
a. Develop humane, fair and legal and constitutional immigration policy, legislation and practices.
b. Take measures to reduce the underlying causes of increased immigration, including increasing foreign economic aid.
c. Rescind funding for the immigration border fence
d. Pass the USA Family Act (HR 440). This bill when passed will:
i. Offer immigrants a clear road map to legal status in the United States.
ii. Grant legal permanent residence to immigrants who have been living in the U.S. for five or more years
iii. Offers conditional legal status and work authorization to all law-abiding immigrants living in the United States for less than five years.
iv. Revokes current laws that bar certain people who live abroad from re-entering the U.S. for a period of three to 10 years, as well as portions of the law that place immigrants at risk of deportation for having committed minor, nonviolent offenses in the past.
e. The U.S. cannot continue with a system in which millions of workers and their families live in fear and are subject to economic exploitation. There is no place in our country for second-class status.
f. Until this bill or equivalent is passed, the rights of all the people including immigrants must be protected and fair and constitutional policies and practices put in place for all its people including immigrants. These policies and practices should recognize that the U.S. is an immigrant nation and affirms that we are a nation of the people and for the people not just citizens. Constitutional and other rights apply equally to all the people of the U. S. not just citizens.
19. Transportation and Traffic
a. Trains and trolleys including high speed interstate rail, light rail and city metro systems along existing right-of-ways
b. No privately owned toll roads and toll lanes for example around the beltway
c. Dedicated bus lanes on highways and in cities
d. Natural gas powered and hybrid buses.
e. Develop comprehensive open ended integrated international, national, regional, state, district, and locality plans that consider global warming, energy prices and progressing technologies.
a. End corporate personhood.
b. Indict corporation executives who commit unlawful acts and not the corporation
c. End corporation ownership of patents.
a. Ban assault weapons
b. Require background checks for all gun purchases
a. In a reiterative process:
i. Examine past, current and planned spending and current spending priorities.
ii. Examine past, current and planned taxes and revenue generation.
b. As necessary, adjust current and planned spending. Reduce/eliminate unneeded nuclear and other offensive weapons, corporation subsidies and other unnecessary government spending.
c. Drastically reduce Department of Defense budgets and spending.
d. As required by the Constitution return control to Congress of all Federal government appropriations, loans, grants, expenditures, and all other distribution of funds, including those made by the Federal Reserve.
e. Oppose the Federal Reserve providing grants, loans, guarantees etc. to bond dealers, investment banks, stock brokers, etc. without prior, express Congressional approval.
f. Eliminate corporate welfare/subsidies.
g. Eliminate funding for the School of the Americas.
h. Use management and services type contracts that in general pay by the hours, day, or month instead of fixed price and profit as a percentage.
i. Drastically reduce government spending on programs that do not promote the general welfare.
23. Congress, Lobbyists and Campaign Finances
a. Reform and reorganize Congress and the Executive Branch. Eliminate duplicative authorization and appropriation committees/subcommittees and departments. Organize by function and hold individual legislators and officials responsible. For example, everyone on the Agriculture Committee and the Department of Agriculture should be responsible for insuring that everyone in the country has access to affordable, healthy food. Similarly, there should be health, clean water, clean air, affordable housing, etc. committees. Get money, corporation executives and their lobbyists out of politics and insure that the people have control over their government.
b. Eliminate pork, wasteful or unnecessary spending, and "pay backs" to special interest groups.
c. Enact the twelve step program for congressional reform from “Wastrels of Defense: How Congress Sabotages U.S. Security”, by Winslow Wheeler.
a. Fair, progressive individual and corporation income/revenue and property taxes.
a. Determine and implement ways to identify, nominate and elect/confirm cooperative, ethical public officials, legislators, judges, executives, etc. throughout the public and private sectors who care for all people, promote the general welfare, follow the rule of law, protect peoples rights, etc.
b. Eliminate gerrymandering, Use contiguous democratic logical districts (see www.fixthelines.com).
c. Uniform, fair ballot access for federal candidates.
d. Loosening third party ballot restrictions.
e. Universal voter registration.
f. Direct Election of the President by popular vote(http://www.nationalpopularvote.com) . Get rid of the Electoral College.
g. Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) which allows voters to rank their choices. If no candidate gets a majority of the vote – over 50% - then the lowest number of first place votes is eliminated and the second place votes are counted. This continues until a candidate secures a majority.
h. Extended Election Hours. Either hold elections on weekends or move it to a holiday like Columbus Day in October.
i. Media Access for third party contenders to include broadcast time on public airwaves and inclusion in debates.
j. Secure the Vote - Ensure the security of our voting instruments whether it is via a paper trail or some better method. Six years since the Florida debacle should have provided secure voting machines. Electronic machines subject to manipulation are not the answer.
k. Public Campaign Financing - Instituting a fair and equitable method of public campaign financing that reduces taxpayer burden. Here's how: It costs the country more now under the current system that forces candidates to raise exorbitant sums of money from corporate and private donors (read: elitists). The winner is then beholden to the group of financiers that paid for that victory which creates a corrupt system of pay backs (no-bid contracts) and legislation (energy bill subsidizing oil and gas; prescription drug bill favoring pharmaceutical companies) that raids our Treasury at an enormous cost to the taxpayer - the real owners of our country.
l. Voting representation in Congress for the citizens of the federal District of Columbia (which also gives them an Electoral College vote).
m. Recruit and encourage citizens to run for office as Independents because career politicians from the two major parties have proven themselves incapable of solving the complex issues of war, health care, environment, education, immigration, trade, net neutrality etc. which the current members of the two major parties are not willing to address. who only answer to campaign contributors.