[Platform] campaign planks

[david rolde]

The campaign platform sub-committee of expcom has been
working on a campaign platform or campaign focus
document to be presented to this Saturday's nominating
convention.  The document will take the form of a list
of focus areas or planks, each of which will be as
succinct as possible - preferably two sentences each. 
At the convention there will be discussion of this
document in small groups. There will be suggestions
for additions or changes from the small groups. Then
there will be a call for concerns. Then there will be
a call for a consensus to adopt the document as a work
in progress that will serve as a basis for the issues
that the slate of candidates campaign will talk about
and run on.  So far we are thinking that 14 planks
will be presented. Roughly titled  these 14 planks are
healthcare, abolish poverty, equal marriage, women's
rights and abortion, elections,  taxes, housing, fair
employment, criminal justice reform, empire & war,
immigrant rights, ecological justice, public
transportation,  and public education.
 
Drafts of 11 of these planks, that have been agreed to
by members of the subcommittee, are below. I will post
again with drafts of the remaining three planks
(women's rights & abortion, criminal justice reform,
and empire & war) as soon as I can pending further
consultation.  

Please post comments to this list as soon as you can.
We need to get this printed up before the convention. 
I volunteer to get this printed so that we don't have
to meet Ron's printing deadline.
 
* Healthcare is a right not a commodity. The
Green-Rainbow Party supports single-payer healthcare
for everyone. Medical decisions should be made by
patients and practitioners not by bureaucrats, and
money should go to treatment not to corporate profit.

* The Green-Rainbow Party is part of a movement to
abolish poverty in Massachusetts and worldwide. We
support economic human rights including living wages
for all jobs and a guaranteed income for everyone.

* The Green-Rainbow Party strongly supports equal
marriage rights for same sex couples. A majority
cannot be allowed to take away the rights of a
minority. The Green-Rainbow Party supports economic
human rights, open immigration, and the legalization
of communal households so that people won't be trapped
into marriages by financial or legal necessity.

* Government should be more participatory, responsive
to the concerns of minorities and to people of diverse
backgrounds, less centralized and bureaucratic, and
should not be controlled by corporate interests.
Green-Rainbow Party supports government-funded clean
elections, best choice/instant runoff voting,
proportional representation, and a multi-party system
which fusion voting would undermine.

* The tax system should be used to reduce wealth
inequality and to make sure that everyone's basic
economic needs are met. The Green-Rainbow Party seeks
to establish a truly progressive and comprehensive
income tax or wealth tax, while phasing out regressive
taxes, fees and the lottery as sources of public
funding. Tax profits not wages.

* Housing is a right, The Green-Rainbow Party supports
all programs that would make decent universal
affordable housing a reality.   We support rent
control, appropriation of unused buildings to be used
for housing, and sufficient funding for housing while
phasing out shelters and prisons. 

* The Green-Rainbow Party supports workers rights
including the right to organize, living wages for all,
and a shorter work-week.   We support local economies
and worker-run businesses, and we oppose the growth of
corporate monopolies.

* The Green-Rainbow Party supports immediate full
implementation of equal rights, including the vote,
for all immigrants in Massachusetts regardless of
citizenship or visa status.

* All children and adults must be supported in
achieving their fullest individual potential, and
resegregation in the schools must be reversed. Free
public education at every educational level should be
funded on a per-student basis through statewide
progressive taxation. Democratic local control of
curriculum and standards should be strengthened. The
Green-Rainbow Party opposes mandated graduation
requirements such as the MCAS, and we seek to end
military recruiting and militaristic education in
public schools.

* The government must rebuild the public
transportation infrastructure and develop it to the
point where people will use public transportation
instead of private cars. Public transportation must be
affordable and available in all communities.

* The Green-Rainbow Party is gravely concerned about
global warming and ecological destruction, which first
threatens the survival of those most marginalized, but
ultimately all of us and all life on the planet. We
support unilateral action to reduce emissions and all
forms of pollution, increase conservation, greening of
our communities, and shifting the burden of pollution
away from communities in poverty.

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