Tag: progressive taxation

Sep 17 2010

Join 100+ Candidates in the Green New Deal Coalition

On July 14th, Green Change announced the campaign for a Green New Deal, a 10-point program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.

Since then over 100 candidates for elected office at all levels have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.

The Green New Deal Coalition will cut military spending, create millions of green jobs, and revive the economy by protecting the planet we depend on.

Green Change is inviting all candidates, individuals and organizations that support a prosperous, sustainable future for America to endorse the Green New Deal.

Read the call for a Green New Deal and sign on today.

To date, 11 candidates for governor, 11 candidates for US Senate, and 33 candidates for US House of Representatives have joined the Green New Deal Coalition.

All agree on the need to cut military spending, fund green public works, ban corporate personhood, pass single-payer health care, restore progressive taxation, ban usury, enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax, legalize marijuana, institute tuition-free public higher education, change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental and safety standards, and pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.

These candidates represent a clean break with the failed policies of the past that have led America down the road to economic and ecological disaster.

The Green New Deal promises a brighter tomorrow for America – one that combines the New Deal’s promise of freedom from economic hardship with decisive action to protect our planet.

You can help build the movement for real change by endorsing the Green New Deal today and asking candidates for elected office to join you.

Jul 19 2010

Join the Green New Deal Coalition

In response to our nation's vast economic and ecological problems, Green Change has launched a campaign for a Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal is an ambitious program to create economic prosperity together with ecological sustainability.

We are building a coalition of candidates, individuals and organizations to support the Green New Deal – starting today.

Join the Green New Deal Coalition now.

Here are the ten policies you endorse by joining the Green New Deal Coalition:

1) Cut military spending at least 70%;

2) Create millions of green union jobs through massive public investment in renewable energy, mass transit and conservation;

3) Set ambitious, science-based greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, and enact a revenue-neutral carbon tax to meet them;

4) Establish single-payer “Medicare for all” health care;

5) Provide tuition-free public higher education;

6) Change trade agreements to improve labor, environmental, consumer, health and safety standards;

7) End counterproductive prohibition policies and legalize marijuana;

8) Enact tough limits on credit interest and lending rates, progressive tax reform and strict financial regulation;

9) Amend the U.S. Constitution to abolish corporate personhood; and

10) Pass sweeping electoral, campaign finance and anti-corruption reforms.

Will you help us turn these ideas into reality?

Sign up for the Green New Deal Coalition now.

The first step is to agree on these ten priorities. The next step is to push for specific policies to make them happen.

We need your help. Share your ideas about a Green New Deal on the Green Change network.

Dec 23 2009

A big Merry Fuck U Christmas from the Uber Wealthy

You may have seen this already, if you subscribe to Alternet, but in case you haven’t, there’s a very heart warming holiday story about the 10 greediest people in America.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read it.   Why raise the blood pressure, why feel bad if I don’t have to?   Can’t I just ignore this, since I’m powerless to do anything about it anyway?

Well, then I read it.  I’m a glutton, right?    And what surprised me about this, this list of piggish financial gluttony, is not just how it even surpassed my expectations as to what greedy corporate assholes these people are, it’s the fact that I hadn’t really heard of any of them.

I pride myself on being pretty well informed, although I don’t go into too many details, especially those of business, it’s just to mind-numbing to dive into that world.   I like to sit back and look at the big picture.   So many that’s why I didn’t recognize hardly any of these people.

Or maybe there’s just so damn many of them, and so many of them are flying under the radar, that most of us still have no idea how we’re being robbed, constantly, and by how many robbers.

Dec 01 2007

Discrimination

Discrimination is not a bad thing.

Discrimination (to distinguish or note differences, discernment) is useful. A finely tuned sense of discrimination can help you tell the difference between (for example) meaningful political discourse and a load of steaming inflammatory bullshit.

People will always make discriminations about characteristics that belong to some of the people around them and not others. Do you remember when you were a child? I remember quite well at the age of seven becoming aware that my friend’s black skin meant something more than its actual color to the adults around me.

The question is what people choose to do with the discriminations they make.

I tend to believe that racism, in the sense of appreciating the beauty of another whose beauty is unlike your own, is a discrimination that is part of being a sentient and esthetically aware human being.

Racism in the sense of exclusion and depriving of others of the best fruits of society on the basis of an arbitrary physical characteristic is a contingent result of history and economics. History cannot be changed, but economics can.

In American society, wealth (and the power that goes along with it) is the key factor to ending racism in the bad sense. The more steeply progressive the tax system, the more social and racial equality will result. GOP and libertarian low-tax schemes are inherently racist, in that they perpetuate the status quo.

The way to end racism is to eat the rich!!