www.greenparty.org/Platform.html
It reflects the majority views of the G/GPUSA membership. G/GPUSA's national officers, spokespeople, and National Committee are expected to act in a manner consistent with the policy framework set by this platform. In keeping with G/GPUSA's structure of "democratic decentralism" where accountability is bottom-up, not top-down, the platform is not binding on the state and local affiliates of the Greens/Green Party USA. This platform, therefore, does not necessarily reflect in every respect the views of Green Party candidates at any level, including Ralph Nader and Winona LaDuke, Green Party candidates for President and Vice-President in 2000. The Greens/Green Party USA is the original Green Party organization in the USA. It carries forward the radical vision of the early Greens based on grassroots political and economic democracy, nonviolence, social justice, and ecological sustainability. Formed as the Committees of Correspondence in 1984, the annual Green Congress changed the name to Green Committees of Correspondence in 1989 and to The Greens/Green Party USA in 1991. G/GPUSA is a membership organization of individual members who participate in affiliated local and state organizations and support the organization with dues scaled to their ability to pay. G/GPUSA is structured as a confederation of local and state affiliates, with 40 local organizations and 19 state organizations, including 15 state Green Parties, affiliated at the time of the May 2000 Green Congress in Chicago. Green politics is an ecological approach to politics that links social and ecological problems. Ecology studies the relationships among organisms and their environment. Political ecology brings human institutions and ideologies into this holistic perspective. We find that the same institutions and ideas that cause the exploitation and oppression of humans also cause the degradation and destruction of the environment. Both are rooted in a hierarchical, exploitative, and alienated social system that systematically produces human oppression and ecological destruction. For the Greens, therefore, the fights against racism, sexism, class exploitation, bureaucratic domination, war, and all other forms of social domination and violence are central to the movement for an ecologically sustainable society. In order to harmonize society with nature, we must harmonize human with human. The Greens carry forward the traditional values of the Left: freedom, equality, and solidarity. We want to create a truly democratic society without class exploitation or social domination. But Greens expand this notion of a classless, nonhierarchical society that is harmonized with itself to include an ecological society that is harmonized with nature as well. To the social movements, the Greens say that in order for humanity to progress toward a democratic society, we must resolve the ecological crisis so that people are still around to enjoy democracy. To the environmental movements, the Greens say that in order to have an ecological society, we must have a democratic society so that people have the power to choose ecological sustainability. To choose ecological sustainability, we must have the power of democracy. The following platform planks are the immediate policy goals we support to move us toward an ecological democracy. An Economic Bill of Rights * Universal Social Security: Taxable Basic Income Grants for all, structured into the progressive income tax, that guarantee an adequate income sufficient to maintain a modest standard of living. Full employment through community-based public works and community service jobs programs, federally financed and community controlled. Paid by the government out of progressive taxes so that social productivity gains are shared equitably. Democratic community control of publicly funded housing programs. Create a single-chamber US Congress, elected by a system of mixed-member proportional representation that combines district representatives elected by preference voting and party representatives seated in proportion to each party's vote. Public financing of parties through matching funds for party dues and small donations up to $300 a year. Use federal investments, purchasing, mandates, and incentives to: + Phase out most chlorinated and other synthetic petrochemicals and phase in natural, biodegradable substitutes. Use federal investments, purchasing, mandates, and incentives to: + Shut down nuclear power plants. Reform ERISA, labor laws, and ESOP tax provisions to enable workers to democratically control their assets. Mandate that workers and the community have the first option to buy on preferential terms in cases of plant closures, the sale or merger of significant assets, or the revocation of corporate charters. Financial and technical incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of other privately-owned banks into publicly-owned community banks or consumer-owned credit unions. Selection of Federal Reserve officers by our elected representatives, not private bankers. Strengthen the regional development mission of the regional Federal Reserve Banks by directing them to target investments to promote key policy objectives, such as high-wage employment, worker and community ownership, ecological production, and inner city reconstruction. Provide an income tax credit for each dependent to replace and fully compensate for the current exemptions and deductions that benefit to the average taxpayer, such as the home mortgage deduction and medical deductions. Put subsidies in the public budgets where they can be scrutinized, not hidden as tax breaks in complicated tax codes. Revenues from the currency speculation tax should be channeled through international agencies into ecologically sustainable, democratically controlled development in poor countries. Existing national income accounts and indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) ignore the ecological foundations of the economy and the value of household production. Ecological accounting will identify the true costs of resource depletion and pollution and hence appropriate eco-taxes to internalize full costs. Social accounting will identify the true value of household production and its contribution to the economy and social well-being. Labor time accounting will record and publish the current and dated labor time for goods and services, establishing the average labor time required for each product. These labor time values will serve as shadow prices against which to judge the fairness of actual market prices. Restore full funding for college degree granting programs in state and federal prisons. End domestic political spying by police, military, and intelligence agencies. Treat drug abuse as a health problem, not a criminal problem. Use a simple formula based on student population with adjustments based on need to help bring up school quality and student performance in poor communities. Maintain central support staff for decentrally administered schools. Healthy food at breakfast, lunch, and after school programs. Teacher pay scales comparable to other professionals with similar education and responsibilities. Stop linking administrator and teacher pay and student graduation and retention to standardized test performance. Stop reducing education to answering multiple choice questions. Put teachers back in charge of ongoing, genuine assessment in the classroom. Free, Diverse and Uncensored Media * Infodiversity: An uninformed people is not free. Create a vital, democratic, diverse media system, delinked from corporate profit objectives and able to present a wide range of issues and ideas in their full complexity, free from censorship by government or by private corporate power. Funding to exceed existing support for for-profit media, including lower mailing rates and tax deductions for donors. Support a decentralized, pluralistic system of multiple national networks and local stations, all independently controlled by boards elected by their publics and their workers. Re-appropriate 6 prime-time hours a day of commercial broadcast time on each station for real public service broadcasting: ...
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