Peace, Ecology, Social Justice, and Democracy

Peace

In the 1960s, President Eisenhower warned “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” This complex prefers a state of constant war to maximize profits, reducing the lives of soldiers to an acceptable loss in the pursuit of money.

We reject the notion that there are any benefits from active antagonism toward those raised to mistrust the West. Our desire for their destruction does not lead to a safer, more stable world.

Ecology

Our local environment should not be polluted, and dirty. We have a duty to give ourselves and other living creatures a clean environment that provides fresh air, food, and water. Together as a community we must stop pollution, and enforce laws that keep our environment healthy.

Hurricane Sandy is only the latest storm in a string of climate disasters that make it clear how unprepared we are for the changing world. Environmental wisdom is not just planting trees and buying organic cotton. It means realizing that our planet has limited resources and that we as a species must live within those limitations.

Not only must we stop burning fossil fuels, we must invest in a power grid that responds dynamically to problems and reduces waste. We have built our towns and cities with the expectation of unlimited use. Mass transit is unheard of outside small urban zones, and in most places walkability is similarly a joke. This all must change, to reduce our impact, our dependence on cars, and change the real human isolation that results from working so far from where we live.

Wisdom means having a water policy for the United States, so that our resources remain public, clean, and plentiful.

Social and Economic Justice

All are equal before the law. As a country, we have strived from the beginning to exemplify this principle. First, African-Americans, then women, now LGBT rights. The goal is and always has been the same: equality before the law.

Just as we defend the proclamation that all people have equal value and equal rights, we proclaim that corporations are not people. They do not suffer, starve, bleed, or die. They have no fear, no conscience, and no mercy.

Corporations are a legal fiction, created by us, by our mutual consent as a country, with no inherent rights, only granted ones. We believe that the rights they have been granted are too great and the harm they inflict too real. Greens strongly support Move To Amend to return corporations to their rightful place as a useful legal tool for economic growth.

Wall Street is similarly a construct of fictions. The money traded is not real, the gains and losses not actual, until the money is extracted from the Wall Street Casino through the bank accounts of workers. Greens reject capitalism and advocate for an eco- socialist system that empowers our communities

Wealth IS being redistributed today. It is being redistributed to the top.

Grassroots Democracy

It sounds like a conspiracy theory to say that our government is ruled by corporations. And yet, we know that big banks funnel large amount of money into political campaigns. We know the military-industrial complex self-perpetuates by promising jobs in exchange for contracts. We know that politicians become lobbyists become CEOs. The lack of real tax reform on corporations, the lack of real prosecutions for the Great Recession, the lack of real campaign finance reform are all proof that just because it’s a conspiracy doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

The only remedy, the only one there has ever been throughout history to check the excesses of the rich and powerful is the organized will of the public.

Citizens, actively involved in their communities, are the only ones who can make a difference.

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How Else Will We Make Our World a Better Place?

Green Jobs

The solution to America’s economic crisis is not austerity, as Europe has clearly shown, but jobs. Green jobs are those that help us transform our economy from one dependent on oil and war to one that is sustainable, peaceful, and productive. These jobs can take the form of:

• Green energy construction and consultation
• Teachers
• Architects and builders
• Manufacturing jobs
• Farmers
• Retailers
• Transportation workers