Nov 05 2009

Bring Out Your Planks!

In working on the Planet Versus profit project we are attempting to build a populist structure to channel the energy for change that is beginning to make itself felt here on what we like to call The Planet Earth.

As a carpenter, I can tell you that there is virtually no structure that can be built without a platform!

Here is a start, add your edits and ideas and additional planks in the comments!


From Wikipedia

Just substitute movement for party and this is what we are talking about.

A party (movement) platform, also known as a manifesto, is a list of the actions which a political party (movement) supports in order to appeal to the general public for the purpose of having said party’s (movement’s) candidates voted into office. This often takes the form of a list of support for, or opposition to, controversial topics. Individual topics are often called planks of the platform.

Iow, a platform is a quick and easy political hook. People can see what you stand for and then investigate further or join right in. Though platforms, and especially the planks of the platform.

To me the following are the No Brainers:

1) You Are Not Helpless or Powerless

    1a) The People, united, cannot be defeated. By banding together to make our voice heard, we can change the Planet.

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Meade



2) We MUST Save the Planet From Climate Crisis

    2a) It is imperative to shift the worlds resources, economics, and politics from the current aim of producing profit for less than one percent of the Planets population to a new aim of preserving and restoring our planet so that all People can live in harmony with the only planet we have.

    2b) We can either change our way of life from a competitive world run ONLY for profit for the elite to a more balanced approach, where the interests of the vast majority of people on the earth are represented. And continue to have a habitable planet. The lives of the wealthy elite are going to change. No matter what, all of our lives are. We have the choice of how our lives will change, either through continuing competition, pitting the wealthy elite against the rest of the 7 billion People on the planet, or change to a system of cooperation that still allows for the economic and societal personal advancement of the hard working industrious individual.

3) Economic Equality and Justice

    3a) Every Human has a Right to Food, Clean Water, and Health Care. It is the first responsibility of every government to provide these Rights for their People.

    3b) Every Human has an equal right to succeed or fail on their own merit, not hindered by the existing system that favors the wealthy elite.

    3c) By providing economic justice, including equal access to capital and credit, the worlds economy (in harmony with the ecological systems of the Planet) can grow in new and exciting ways. Unhampered by the wealthy elite discouraging competition through control of capital and financial markets.

4) Education. The Planet’s greatest resource is it’s people. Only by educating, developing and applying this resource equally can the Human Race reach it’s potential.

    4a) In order to survive Climate Crisis new technology, industries and ideas must be born and developed. Humans have always invented their way out of crisis. By developing our Planetary educational systems, we are allowing and empowering the inventiveness of the Human Race.

5) Political Reform

    5a)Public Financing of All Elections. It has become painfully apparent that not only do the wealthy elite control the economy, but that they also control a disproportionate amount of the political system to hold and increase their power. Establishing Public Financing will remove a significant portion of the corrupting influence of private money on the results of elections, as well as the legislation that is passed by our political bodies.

    5b) Eliminating Corporate Personhood. Corporations are the vehicle through which the wealthy elite influence politics, economics, and society in general. They are the most powerful force in the world today bar none and that power corrupts every facet of our lives. By restoring accountability and responsibility to the corporate sector, their undue power and influence would be curtailed. Thus allowing the rest of humanity to prosper and thrive, without the wealthy elite controlling competition for food and energy production and distribution, as well as control over other increasingly scarce resources such as water, thus taking them out of the hands of The People.

Ok it is a start! Dig in, suggest and comment and edit….and please harshly critique! I left out a section on equal rights for women, gays, and children, anyone want to take a crack at it? What other basics of reform are there that I missed? In what other ways can we address the needs of The People?

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  1. Photobucket

  2. Okay back to work… some good stuff here: Progressive Platform of 1912…!!

    The conscience of the people, in a time of grave national problems, has called into being a new party, born of the nation’s sense of justice. We of the Progressive party here dedicate ourselves to the fulfillment of the duty laid upon us by our fathers to maintain the government of the people, by the people and for the people whose foundations they laid.

    We hold with Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln that the people are the masters of their Constitution, to fulfill its purposes and to safeguard it from those who, by perversion of its intent, would convert it into an instrument of injustice. In accordance with the needs of each generation the people must use their sovereign powers to establish and maintain equal opportunity and industrial justice, to secure which this Government was founded and without which no republic can endure.

    This country [planet] belongs to the people who inhabit it. Its resources, its business, its institutions and its laws should be utilized, maintained or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest.

    It is time to set the public welfare in the first place.

    THE OLD PARTIES

    Political parties exist to secure responsible government and to execute the will of the people.

    From these great tasks both of the old parties have turned aside. Instead of instruments to promote the general welfare, they have become the tools of corrupt interests which use them impartially to serve their selfish purposes. Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

    To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

    The deliberate betrayal of its trust by the Republican party, the fatal incapacity of the Democratic party to deal with the new issues of the new time, have compelled the people to forge a new instrument of government through which to give effect to their will in laws and institutions.

    Unhampered by tradition, uncorrupted by power, undismayed by the magnitude of the task, the new party offers itself as the instrument of the people to sweep away old abuses, to build a new and nobler commonwealth.

    A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE

    This declaration is our covenant with the people, and we hereby bind the party and its candidates in State and Nation to the pledges made herein.

    …needs some tweaking. :-/

    • Edger on November 5, 2009 at 20:45
    • #

    shall have equal human rights under law, without exception.

  4. to take this over to babelfish for translation…

    We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [humankind] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men [The People], deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, – That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

    Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. – Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain [plutocracy] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.

    okay Im reactive still that Maine (and California) can vote away peoples rights…  “unalienable Rights”. pffft.

  5. what be all this false talk about planks?

    Pirates are we and we don’t talk planks unless someone is in need of a walk off’em.  

    Republicans first and lesser forms of filth following behind’em…..shark food they be arrr!

  6. here

    THIRD PART – THE INTERNATIONAL DIMENSION OF DEMOCRACY

    24. Democracy must also be recognised as an international principle, applicable to international organisations and to States in their international relations. The principle of international democracy does not only mean equal or fair representation of States; it also extends to the economic rights and duties of States.

    25. The principles of democracy must be applied to the international management of issues of global interest and the common heritage of humankind, in particular the human environment.

    26. To preserve international democracy, States must ensure that their conduct conforms to international law, refrain from the use or threat of force and from any conduct that endangers or violates the sovereignty and political or territorial integrity of other States, and take steps to resolve their differences by peaceful means.

    27. A democracy should support democratic principles in international relations. In that respect, democracies must refrain from undemocratic conduct, express solidarity with democratic governments and non-State actors like non-governmental organisations which work for democracy and human rights, and extend solidarity to those who are victims of human rights violations at the hands of undemocratic régimes. In order to strengthen international criminal justice, democracies must reject impunity for international crimes and serious violations of fundamental human rights and support the establishment of a permanent international criminal court.

    some very good wording and concepts there…

    [from]SECOND PART – THE ELEMENTS AND EXERCISE OF DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT

    19. A sustained state of democracy thus requires a democratic climate and culture constantly nurtured and reinforced by education and other vehicles of culture and information. Hence, a democratic society must be committed to education in the broadest sense of the term, and more particularly civic education and the shaping of a responsible citizenry.

    20. Democratic processes are fostered by a favourable economic environment; therefore, in its overall effort for development, society must be committed to satisfying the basic economic needs of the most disadvantaged, thus ensuring their full integration in the democratic process.

    21. The state of democracy presupposes freedom of opinion and expression; this right implies freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

    22. The institutions and processes of democracy must accommodate the participation of all people in homogeneous as well as heterogeneous societies in order to safeguard diversity, pluralism and the right to be different in a climate of tolerance.

    23. Democratic institutions and processes must also foster decentralised local and regional government and administration, which is a right and a necessity, and which makes it possible to broaden the base of public participation.

  7. What of the means of production which belongs to one of us, belongs to all.

  8. http://rawstory.com/2009/10/so…

    can not be ended even by the destruction of the American empire.  I mean there are entire globalist organizations which need to be “taken out” here in order to affect any semblance of change ever.  My I suggest as priority the CFR,the Bilderberg group and the Trilateral Commission.

    George Soros, for advocating turning the US into Red China should be at the top of the list.

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