Filed under: Sustainability
So a few months ago, some friends met and put together a list of planks they’d like to see in the platforms of folks running for public office. One of us e-mailed the list out to the group and asked if that covered it all. Since I hadn’t been to the meeting, I of course had to add my two cents. My efforts to copy and paste the group list and my additions have turned out messy, so I’ll have to try again when I’m not rushing to get to work — but here’s a teaser, one of my favorite additions to the list:
–Create a Department of Peace, with a cabinet-level director (I suggest the Dalai Lama, Ram Dass, Ry Cooder or Nina Utne). The department is funded with the money that used to make up 25% of the defense budget. Within 5-10 years, the percentages reverse, so that the Peace Department gets 75% and DOD gets 25% or less. My ideal DOP is staffed with generous numbers of mothers, grandmothers, First Nation elders, musicians, artists, poets, teachers, investigative journalists, veterans of war, healers, shamans, and leaders from many diverse traditions with histories of cultivating peace. Community process is how decisions are made (a la my favorite Utopian novel, The Fifth Sacred Thing)
Wishing you peace in the holidays and always — more planks later –
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Here is the original list of planks from that meeting of 18 local friends. I won’t post names, but if any of the people who were there want to speak up and claim ownersihp, go for it. I’ll wait to see if anyone responds, has additions they’d like to make, etc., before posting the rest of my additions to the list.
Stop the Iraq war, with an immediate pullout of troops
Tax reform for a more progressive income tax
Separation of church and state
Restoration of checks and balances
Truly effective campaign finance reform
Lobbying reform
Uniform voting procedures for all states for federal elections
Free universal health care
Protect the environment
Sign the Kyoto accords
Strongly support education, especially for underprivileged kids
Fuel conservation and research into alternative sources of energy
Censure President Bush
Impeach Bush
Restore the judicial branch of government as an independent entity
Ensure women’s reproductive choice, support Roe v. Wade
End the wiretapping of U.S. citizens and prosecute the perpetrators
Reduce military spending by 25%
Change sentencing guidelines so we have a lower incarceration rate
Change marijuana laws to be equivalent to liquor laws
Free university education for all who are qualified
Change the situation where people with felony convictions cannot vote or get jobs
Give widespread exposure to countries that have strict anti-abortion laws, and what it means to women there
Remove welfare from corporations with the same zeal as when we removed it from poor people
Unblock the ban on morning-after pill prescriptions
Reform education with money and effort; testing is not the answer
Professionalize teachers by raising standards so it becomes a self-governing profession
Provide decent programs for the mentally ill and drug addicts; don’t let them sit in prison
Provide health care and educational programs for returning veterans
Pay our debt to the U.N., and help reform the U.N.
Do not give public money to any private schools
Break up the mega-media monopoly
Break up the Internet monopoly and have free community Internet service; no control by satellite
Repeal Medicare drug plan; reform the pharmaceutical industry
No privatization of Social Security
Ensure rights for gays, lesbians, transgendered people
Find candidates with the guts to take on the NRA
Find candidates with the guts to legalize some illegal drugs
Eliminate the death penalty
Provide for stem-cell research
Repeal the “personhood” status of corporations
Charter corporations for the public good (Swedish model)
Do away with corruption in sports, give the Olympics back to Greece to stay there
Condom dispensers in every public school, including elementary
That’s it – I’d love to see what others think of this list
Comment by communitarian December 14, 2006 @ 1:54 pmOkay, here’s the list of suggested additions to that list that I sent back to the group:
“Protect the environment” is great — I have some specific suggestions….
–Also legalize the non-smoking kind of hemp, a fast-growing renewable resource that could provide for many of our needs currently filled by less sustainable resources and methods. In addition to growing really fast and taking lots of CO2 per acre out of the atmosphere, hemp can be used to make very high quality paper, cloth, extremely nutritious oil and seed butter, and lower grade seeds can be used to make biodiesel.
–Take some of that money that we stop using to subsidize big corporations, and put it towards some serious research into sustainable energy (Brazil is making the ethanol energy equation work with sugarcane–making sugar, molasses and biodiesel at the same site, and powering the factory by burning the byproducts), why can’t we?); biodiesel; tax incentives for green/sustainable building/remodeling, etc.)
–Take some more of that same money and put it towards serious R&D/incentives for developing a cradle-to-cradle/biomimicry approach to design, manufacturing and recycling.
–Serious economic incentives for community building, environmental activities like community composting, community gardens, etc.
–Ban GMOs once and for all
–Reform agriculture and agribusiness to support family farms and increasingly localized production and distribution of food (saves energy for transportation and cooling/storage), and move rapidly towards healthier, more nutritious and imminently more sustainable growing practices such as organic, permaculture and biodynamic methods (saves energy by getting free of petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides)
–Teach children and rehabilitate prisoners with organic gardens and recycling at every school and prison. Not only would it be therapeutic, they would also be raising some of their own very healthy food, ultimately providing better nutrition and saving money for education and corrections systems.
–Give meaningful tax incentives for cities, corporations or individuals who go into existing but struggling or even abandoned communities and apply principles/practices of community-friendly planning and sustainable building/remodeling to bring life back to existing infrastructure; provide equivalent or greater obstacles or economic penalties for those who pave over farmlands and wildlands to build more cul de sac subdivisions and mega Wal Marts.
–Get serious about auto emission and mileage standards
–Develop and implement a plan to replace all petrochemical, nuclear and hydroelectric power plants with sustainable alternatives by the year 2030. Reduces dependence on foreign and domestic oil, creates jobs, stimulates economy and research, and allows us at last to un-dam many of America’s great rivers and begin restoring those ecosystems.
To move on from strictly environmental suggestions to more general ideas for the greater good–
–Serious economic support for complementary medicine – require insurers to cover homeopathy and Chinese herbs; tax breaks or insurance rate reductions for people who cultivate wellness through various lifestyle choices (diet, not smoking, exercise, meditation etc.)
–Take condoms in schools a few steps farther. Serious education about sex and procreation, the responsibilities of parenthood, the realities of STDs. If some people object, they can let their children go to an extra P.E. class, or work in the school gardens instead.
–Serious tax incentives for mom and pop business and other small businesses; tax incentives for people choosing to shop small and/or penalties for shopping at WalMart and other mega box chains. Require WalMart, when abandoning a store and its vast parking lot, to fix it up as a park and community center — which includes ripping up some of the pavement and planting trees and flowers, and refurbishing the interior to function as meeting hall, activity center, child care center, fitness/meditation/classrooms, etc. Maybe they have to escrow funds sufficient to do this before they’re given a building permit.
–Put white collar criminals and elected/appointed government officials behind bars, in real prisons (not country clubs like Maxwell AFB in Montgomery), and let them taste the rewards not only of their transgressions against the public trust, but also experience the law and order system they’ve created, from the inside.
–Restore the airwaves to public ownership: reform the FCC and broadcast media; require broadcasters to devote significant amounts of primetime airtime to real news coverage and other programming for the public good. (Have y’all seen Good Night and Good Luck?).
–Get politics out of public broadcasting; fund PBS and NPR sufficiently by creating untouchable trust funds that will guarantee their funding and their editorial freedom no matter who’s in the White House
–Give tax breaks or some sort of incentive to people who choose to homeschool their children. (I know this one could be controversial and seen as similar to giving public money to private schools, but until the public schools meet the educational needs of all students, many parents feel they have no choice but to homeschool. It’s a huge financial commitment from which we as a family are still recovering $$-wise.)
Wow, once I got started, I sort of couldn’t stop.
Comment by communitarian January 27, 2007 @ 6:31 pm