Corporate lobbyists own both major parties. The 99% Movement has the energy, but is not yet focused into a political strike force.
Perhaps the next step for this movement is a viable third party: the Progressive People's Party of America. We need candidates and concrete legislative plans. But first we need a focused party platform. Here's a potential one to get the discussion moving.
Perhaps the next step for this movement is a viable third party: the Progressive People's Party of America. We need candidates and concrete legislative plans. But first we need a focused party platform. Here's a potential one to get the discussion moving.
* Rid politics of private money: institute public campaign financing.
* Cut military spending in half. Bring home the troops. The age of empire is over.
* Cut military spending in half. Bring home the troops. The age of empire is over.
* Link educational reform to the green economy: Make sustainability the basis of public school curriculum. Inspire students to develop clean energy technologies, and life-styles of environmental harmony. Use game theory and internet computer gaming to pool the nation's collective intelligence and produce collaborative solutions to green energy problems.
* Extend the 7% FICA withholding tax to all earned income, funding single-payer national Medicare for all citizens. This will grow new businesses, because entrepreneurs won’t have to worry about health insurance for their families and employees.
* Stop lying about Social Security, which is perfectly solvent. Just quit robbing the SS fund to pay other debts.
* Use tax incentives to promote worker-owned cooperatives as an alternative to corporations, so that companies are run by the people who actually make the products, not stockholders on Wall Street. (The successful pattern for this is the Mondragon company is Basque Spain: LINK).
* Drop the international banking cartel and the Federal Reserve. Instead create a network of publicly-chartered regional banks and credit unions. Explore the use of barter-credits to replace debt.
* End agribusiness subsidies. Instead, subsidize a network of local organic family-owned farms.
* Drop the two big lies of Reaganomics. (1) Wealth that accumulates at the top does not trickle down to create American jobs. (2) A nation must tax wealth to survive.
* Therefor, stimulate job growth by ending Bush tax cuts, and use the revenue to rebuild America’s crumbling infrastructure: roads, bridges, pipelines, electrical grids, wind farms, rural high-speed broadband, and rapid transit for cities. Give priority to sub-contractors who employ green technology.
Yes we can make real change.
(Published in McKlatchy Newspapers including: The Olympian, Olympia WA, May 31 and the Tacoma News Tribune, July 9)
(Published in McKlatchy Newspapers including: The Olympian, Olympia WA, May 31 and the Tacoma News Tribune, July 9)
No comments:
Post a Comment