OFFICIAL NATIONAL

Green Party
Platform






As adopted at the National Nominating Convention
Denver, Colorado June 24, 2000
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GREEN PARTY PLATFORM



A Call To Action
Platform Preamble
Green Key Values

I. DEMOCRACY
A. Political Reform
B. Political Participation
C. Community
D. Foreign Policy

II. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY
A. Education
B. Health Care
C. Economic Justice / Social
Safety Net
D. Tax Justice / Fairness
E. Management-Labor
Relations
F. Criminal Justice
G. Civil And Equal Rights
H. Free Speech
I. Native Americans
J. Immigration / Emigration
K. Housing
L. National Service

III. ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY
A. Energy Policy
B. Nuclear Issues
C. Waste Management
D. Fossil Fuels
E. Renewable Energy
F. Transportation Policy
G. Clean Air / Greenhouse
Effect / Ozone Depletion
H. Land Use
I. Water
J. Agriculture
K. Biological Diversity

IV. ECONOMIC
SUSTAINABILITY
A. Eco-Nomics
B. Re-asserting Local Citizen
Control Over Corporations
C. Livable Income
D. Community Involvement
E. Small Business And Job
Creation
F. Trade
G. Rural Development
H. Banking For People
I. Insurance Reform
J. Pension Reform
K. Anti-Trust Enforcement
L. Advanced Tech / Defense
Conversion
M. The National Debt
Green Party
PO Box 18452
Washington, D.C. 20036
202-232-0335
www.greenpartyus.org - www.gp.org
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A CALL TO ACTION

The GREEN PLATFORM is an
evolving document, a living work-in-
progress that expresses our commitment to
creating meaningful and enduring change in
the political process. Our Partys first
priority is to value-based politics, in
contrast to a system extolling exploitation,
consumption, and non-sustainable
competition.
We believe in an alternative,
independent politics and active, responsible
government.
We believe in empowering citizens
and communities.
We offer hope and a call to action.
In this platform we make our case
to change the way our government operates
to change the quality of our everyday lives
to build a vision that brings new and
lasting opportunities.

PLATFORM PREAMBLE

As the new century dawns, we look
back with somber reflection at how we have
been as a people and as a nation. Realizing
our actions will be judged by future
generations, we ask how with foresight and
wisdom, we can renew the best of our past,
calling forth a spirit of change and
participation that speaks for a free and
democratic society.
We submit a bold vision of our
future, a PLATFORM on which we stand:

An ethic of KEY VALUES leading to a
POLITICS OF ACTION.
A hopeful, challenging plan for A
PROSPERING, SUSTAINABLE
ECONOMY.
A call to CREATE and CONSERVE a
rich, DIVERSE environment
characterized by a sense of
COMMUNITY.

What we are proposing is a vision
of our common good that goes beyond
special interests and the business of politics.
What we are proposing is an
INDEPENDENT POLITICS, a democratic
vision that empowers and reaches beyond
background and political loyalty to bring
together our combined strengths as a
people.
We, the GREEN PARTY, see our
political and economic progress, and our
individual lives, within the context of an
evolving, challenging world.
As in nature, where adaptation and
diversity provide key strategies of survival,
a successful political strategy is one that is
diverse, adaptable to changing needs, and
strong and resilient in its core values:

DEMOCRACY, practiced most
effectively at the grassroots level and in
local communities.
SOCIAL JUSTICE and EQUAL
OPPORTUNITY, emphasizing
personal and social responsibility,
accountability, and non-violence.
ENVIRONMENTAL and ECONOMIC
SUSTAINABILITY, balancing the
interests of market- and value-driven
business, of the community and land, of
living and future generations.

Looking to the future with hope
and optimism, we believe we can truly
change history that together we can make
a real difference in the quality of our lives
and environment. Our common destiny
brings us together across our nation and
around the globe. It is for us to choose how
we will be remembered. It is for us to
choose the future we are creating today.

GREEN KEY VALUES

1. GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Every human being deserves a say
in the decisions that affect their lives and
not be subject to the will of another.
Therefore, we will work to increase public
participation at every level of government
and to ensure that our public representatives
are fully accountable to the people who
elect them. We will also work to create new
types of political organizations which
expand the process of participatory
democracy by directly including citizens in
the decision-making process.

2. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND EQUAL
OPPORTUNITY
All persons should have the rights
and opportunity to benefit equally from the
resources afforded us by society and the
environment. We must consciously confront
in ourselves, our organizations, and society
at large, barriers such as racism and class
oppression, sexism and homophobia,
ageism and disability, which act to deny fair
treatment and equal justice under the law.

3. ECOLOGICAL WISDOM
Human societies must operate with
the understanding that we are part of nature,
not separate from nature.
We must maintain an ecological
balance and live within the ecological and
resource limits of our communities and our
planet. We support a sustainable society
which utilizes resources in such a way that
future generations will benefit and not suffer
from the practices of our generation. To this
end we must practice agriculture which
replenishes the soil; move to an energy
efficient economy; and live in ways that
respect the integrity of natural systems.

4. NONVIOLENCE
It is essential that we develop
effective alternatives to societys current
patterns of violence. We will work to
demilitarize, and eliminate weapons of mass
destruction, without being naive about the
intentions of other governments.
We recognize the need for self-
defense and the defense of others who are in
helpless situations. We promote non-violent
methods to oppose practices and policies
with which we disagree, and will guide our
actions toward lasting personal, community
and global peace.

5. DECENTRALIZATION
Centralization of wealth and power
contributes to social and economic injustice,
environmental destruction, and
militarization. Therefore, we support a
restructuring of social, political and
economic institutions away from a system
which is controlled by and mostly benefits
the powerful few, to a democratic, less
bureaucratic system. Decision-making
should, as much as possible, remain at the
individual and local level, while assuring
that civil rights are protected for all citizens.

6. COMMUNITY-BASED
ECONOMICS AND ECONOMIC
JUSTICE
We recognize it is essential to
create a vibrant and sustainable economic
system, one that can create jobs and provide

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a decent standard of living for all people
while maintaining a healthy ecological
balance. A successful economic system will
offer meaningful work with dignity, while
paying a living wage which reflects the
real value of a persons work.
Local communities must look to
economic development that assures
protection of the environment and workers
rights; broad citizen participation in
planning; and enhancement of our quality
of life. We support independently owned
and operated companies which are socially
responsible, as well as co-operatives and
public enterprises that distribute resources
and control to more people through
democratic participation.

7. FEMINISM AND GENDER EQUITY
We have inherited a social system
based on male domination of politics and
economics. We call for the replacement of
the cultural ethics of domination and control
with more cooperative ways of interacting
that respect differences of opinion and
gender. Human values such as equity
between the sexes, interpersonal
responsibility, and honesty must be
developed with moral conscience. We
should remember that the process that
determines our decisions and actions is just
as important as achieving the outcome we
want.

8. RESPECT FOR DIVERSITY
We believe it is important to value
cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and
spiritual diversity, and to promote the
development of respectful relationships
across these lines.
We believe that the many diverse elements
of society should be reflected in our
organizations and decision-making bodies,
and we support the leadership of people
who have been traditionally closed out of
leadership roles. We acknowledge and
encourage respect for other life forms than
our own and the preservation of
biodiversity.

9. PERSONAL AND GLOBAL
RESPONSIBILITY
We encourage individuals to act to
improve their personal well-being and, at
the same time, to enhance ecological
balance and social harmony. We seek to
join with people and organizations around
the world to foster peace, economic justice,
and the health of the planet.

10. FUTURE FOCUS AND
SUSTAINABILITY
Our actions and policies should be
motivated by long-term goals. We seek to
protect valuable natural resources, safely
disposing of or unmaking all waste we
create, while developing a sustainable
economics that does not depend on
continual expansion for survival. We must
counterbalance the drive for short-term
profits by assuring that economic
development, new technologies, and fiscal
policies are responsible to future
generations who will inherit the results of
our actions.

QUALITY OF LIFE
Our overall goal is not merely to
survive, but to share lives that are truly
worth living. We believe the quality of our
individual lives is enriched by the quality of
all of our lives. We encourage everyone to
see the dignity and intrinsic worth in all of
life, and to take the time to understand and
appreciate themselves, their community and
the magnificent beauty of this world.

I. DEMOCRACY

Democracy must empower all citizens to:
obtain timely, accurate information
from their government;
communicate such information and
their judgments to one another through
modem technology;
band together in civic associations
in pursuit of a prosperous, just and free
society.
The separation of ownership of major
societal assets from their control permits the
concentration of power over such assets in
the hands of the few who control rather than
in the hand of the many who own. The
owners of the public lands, pension funds,
savings accounts, and the public airwaves
are the American people, who have
essentially little or no control over their
pooled assets or their commonwealth.
A growing and grave imbalance
between the often-converging power of Big
Business, Big Government and the citizens
of this country has seriously damaged our
democracy.
Corporations have perfected socializing
their losses while they capitalize on their
profits.
Its time to end corporate welfare as we
know it. The power of civic action is an
antidote to abuse. As we look at the
dismantling of democracy by the
corporatization of society, we need to
rekindle the democratic flame. As voter
citizens, taxpayers, workers, consumers and
shareholders, we need to exercise our rights
and, as Jefferson urged, counteract the
excesses of the monied interests.

A. Political Reform

1. The Green Party, proposes a
COMPREHENSIVE POLITICAL
REFORM AGENDA calling for real
reform, accountability, and responsiveness
in government.
2. Political debate, public policy, and
legislation should be judged on its merits,
not on the quid pro quo of political barter
and money.
3. We propose comprehensive CAMPAIGN
FINANCE REFORM, including caps on
spending and contributions, at the national
and state level, and/or full public financing
of elections to remove undue influence in
political campaigns.
4. We will work to ban or greatly limit
POLITICAL ACTION COMMITTEES and
restrict SOFT MONEY contributions.
5. We support significant lobbying
regulation, strict rules that disclose the
extent of political lobbying via gifts and
contributions. Broad-based reforms of
government operations, with congressional
reorganization and ETHICS LAWS, must
be instituted. At every level of government,
we support Sunshine Laws that open up
the political system to access by ordinary
citizens.
6. We recognize individual empowerment,
full citizen participation, and
PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION as
the foundation of an effective and
PLURALISTIC democracy.
7. We demand choices in our political
system. This can be accomplished by
proportional representation voting systems
such as: 1) Choice Voting (which is
candidate-based) 2) Mixed Member Voting
(which combines with district
representation) ; and/or 3) Party List (which
is party based), and semi-proportional
voting systems such as: 1) Limited Voting
and 2) Cumulative Voting. All are used
throughout the free world and by U.S.
businesses, and community and non-profit
groups to increase democratic
representation. We call on local
governments to lead the way toward more
electoral choice and broader representation.
8. We believe in MAJORITY RULE.
Accordingly, we call for the use of
INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING in chief
executive races (mayor, governor, president,
etc.) where voters can rank their favorite
candidates
(1,2,3, etc.) to guarantee that the winner has
majority support and that voters aren't
relegated to choosing between the "lesser of
two evils."
9. We believe in MULTI-PARTY
DEMOCRACY (for partisan elections) as

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the best way to guarantee majority rule,
since more people will have representation
at the table where policy is enacted.
10. The Electoral College is an 18th century
anachronism. We call for a constitutional
amendment abolishing the Electoral College
and providing for the direct election of the
president by Instant Runoff Voting. Until
that time, we call for a proportional
allocation of delegates.
11. We encourage building alternative,
grassroots institutions that support
participatory and direct democracy at the
local level. Political reform goes beyond
elected politics, ultimately residing in
choices each of us makes in our own lives.
12. Using our voice to help others find their
voice, a national Green Party should spring
from many sources: state and local Green
Party electoral efforts, individual efforts,
political involvement and direction at every
level. As Greens, we look toward forming
bioregional confederations to coordinate
regional issues based on natural and
ecosystem boundaries instead of traditional
political ones.

B. POLITICAL PARTICIPATION

1. Greens advocate direct democracy as a
response to local needs and issues, where all
concerned citizens can discuss and decide
questions that immediately affect their lives,
such as land use, parks, schools and
community services. We would decentralize
many state functions to the county and city
level and seek expanded roles for
neighborhood boards and associations.
2. We call for more flexibility by states and
local decision-making.
3. We advocate maintaining and enhancing
federal guarantees in the areas of civil rights
protections, environmental safeguards, and
social safety net entitlements.
4. We endorse and advocate citizen rights to
INITIATIVE, REFERENDUM and
RECALL. We believe that these tools of
democracy should not be for sale to the
wealthy who pay for signatures to buy their
way onto the ballot. Therefore we call for a
certain percentage of signatures gathered to
come from volunteer collectors.
5. We call for citizen control of
REDISTRICTING processes and moving
the backroom apportionment process into
the public light. Minority representation
must be protected and secured in order to
protect minority rights.
6. We will act to broaden voter participation
and BALLOT ACCESS, urging
UNIVERSAL VOTER REGISTRATION
and an ELECTION DAY HOLIDAY.
7. We believe that a binding None of the
Above option on the ballot should be
considered.
8. We believe that providing free television
and mail under reasonable conditions for
every qualified statewide, congressional,
presidential candidate and party can move
the political process toward increased
participation.
9) We support statehood for the District of
Columbia. The residents of D.C. must have
the same rights as all other U.S. citizens to
govern themselves and to be represented in
both houses of Congress.
10. Individual participation in the life of our
local community in community projects
and through personal, meaningful, voluntary
activity is also political and vital to the
health of community.
11. We support citizen involvement at all
levels of the decision-making process and
hold that DIRECT ACTION can be an
effective tool where peaceful democratic
activism is appropriate. We support the
right to non-violent direct action that
supports green values. We call for the
implementation of Children's
Parliaments, whereby representatives
elected by students to discuss, debate and
make proposals to their city councils and
school boards.

C. COMMUNITY

Community is the basic unit of green
politics because it is personal, value-
oriented and small enough for each member
to have an impact. We look to community
involvement as a foundation for public
policy. Social diversity is the well-spring of
community life, where old and young, rich
and poor, people of all races and beliefs can
interact individually and learn to care for
each other, to understand and cooperate.
We emphasize a return to local, face-to-face
relationships that humans can understand,
cope with, and care about.
Within the Greens, as we look at
community issues, it is a guiding principle
to think globally, act locally. Community
needs recognize a diversity of issues, and
LOCAL CONTROL recognizes a variety of
approaches to solving problems, one that
tends to be bottom up not top down.
Green politics does not place its faith in
paternalistic big government. Instead, we
believe face-to-face interactions are
essential to productive and meaningful lives
for all citizens.
The Green vision includes building
communities that nurture families, generate
good jobs and housing, and provide public
services; creating cities and towns that
educate children, encourage recreation, and
preserve natural and cultural resources;
building local governments that protect
people from environmental hazards and
crime, and motivate citizens to participate in
making decision.
The Green vision calls for a GLOBAL
COMMUNITY of communities,
recognizing our immense diversity,
respecting our personal worth, and sharing a
global perspective. We call for A
POLITICS OF 2000, which acknowledges
our endangered planet and habitat. Our
politics responds to global crisis with a new
way of seeing our shared
INTERNATIONAL SECURITY.
We conceive of a new era of
international cooperation and
communication, a set of responses nurturing
CULTURAL DIVERSITY, recognizing the
interconnectedness between communities,
and promoting opportunities for cultural
exchange and assistance.

1. We call for increased PUBLIC
TRANSPORTATION, and convenient
playgrounds and parks for all sections of
cities and small towns, and funding to
encourage diverse neighborhoods.
2. We support a rich milieu of art, culture,
and significant (yet modestly funded)
programs such as the National Endowment
for the Arts and National Endowment for
the Humanities.
3. We call for social policies to focus on
protecting FAMILIES. The young our
citizens of tomorrow are increasingly at
risk. A CHILDRENS AGENDA should
be put in place to focus attention and
concerted action on the future that is in our
children.
4. Programs must be encouraged to ensure
that children, the most vulnerable members
of society, will receive basic nutritional,
educational and medical necessities.
5. A universal, federally funded
CHILDCARE program for pre-school and
young schoolchildren should be developed.
6. Family assistance such as the EARNED
INCOME TAX CREDIT, available to
working poor families in which the parent
supports and lives with the children, should
be maintained and increased to offset
regressive payroll taxes and growing
inequalities in American society.
7. We support successful PRE-NATAL
programs and HEAD START.
8. It is our realization that a living family
wage is vital to the social health of
communities.
9. The actuarial protection of SOCIAL
SECURITY is essential to the well-being of
our seniors, and the maintenance of the

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systems integrity is an essential part of a
healthy community.
10. We support the leading-edge work of
NON-PROFIT PUBLIC INTEREST
GROUPS, and those individuals breaking
out of careerism to pursue NON-
TRADITIONAL CAREERS in public
service.

D. FOREIGN POLICY

As we look back at the wars and
deprivations of the past, and set our minds
to overcoming continued conflicts and
violence, we realize the difficulties inherent
in encouraging democracy, and of
advancing THE CAUSE OF PEACE. With
the end of the Cold War has come a more
complex set of challenges in how our nation
defines its NATIONAL SECURITY. Our
present task is to rid ourselves of the residue
of the geopolitical conflict of East versus
West, with its bloated defense budgets,
thousands of unneeded nuclear weapons and
major troop deployments overseas. Greens
support sustainable development and social
and economic justice across the globe.
Reducing militarism and reliance on arms
policies is the key to progress toward
collective security.

1. With half of all discretionary spending
now going to the military, the president
requesting spending even the Pentagon
thinks is wasteful, and the Congress
proposing even more than the president
requests, Greens believe the more than $300
billion DEFENSE BUDGET MUST BE
CUT. The Green Party calls for military
spending to be cut by 50% over the next 10
years, with increases in spending for social
programs. Preventive diplomacy, a strong
economy and humane trade relations are our
best defense. We must maintain a viable
American military force, prudent foreign
policy doctrines, and readiness strategies
that take into account real, not hollow or
imagined threats to our people, our
democratic institutions and U.S. interests.
Even so, Greens seek strength through
peace.
2. The Green Party would press for the
immediate start of the negotiation of a treaty
to abolish nuclear weapons, and for the
completion of those negotiations by the year
2002. We would cut off all funding for the
development, testing, production, and
deployment of nuclear weapons, and also
cut off funding for nuclear weapons
research. All nuclear weapons should be
taken off alert and all warheads removed
from their delivery vehicles.
3. We call for our foreign policy
establishment to engage in a national debate
on how we can convert to a PEACETIME
ECONOMY. We believe our nations
ultimate strength is in its people and a
healthy economy. These will best protect
our national security interests over the long-
term.
4. We endorse a reordering of priorities as
to how our nation can best achieve national
security. The Green Party asserts that
security and liberty prosper together.
HUMAN RIGHTS are the foundation of
EMERGING DEMOCRACIES and
international relations. We argue that the
support of democracy, human rights and
respect for international law should be the
cornerstone of American foreign policy.
5. We endorse ending support for repressive
regimes. We believe the United States and
all nations should abide by World Court
decisions. We support the right of habeas
corpus being available to any person
anywhere whose imprisonment violates
fundamental norms of international law.
6. It is our belief that the massive debt owed
by the Third World is causing immense
misery and environmental destruction.
FOREIGN AID must be addressed in the
context of retiring this debt and not forcing
structural adjustments via the
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
(IMF) and WORLD BANK on the
economies of the underdeveloped world.
7. We call for a more enlightened policy on
the part of INTERNATIONAL AGENCIES
and their financial arms which takes into
account the impact of international debt
management. The United States should rein
in the IMF and World Bank, whose policies
have wreaked havoc, and demand that loans
be conditional on human rights and labor
rights records, social and environmental
impact statements, and the providing of
basic health and education.
8. INTERNATIONAL LAW and
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS are
inseparable. We do not support a world-
view that relies on accommodation of
tyranny or repressive regimes.
9. We encourage policies that work to assist
the FORMER SOVIET UNION in its move
toward a government based on rights and a
more open political and economic system.
10. We support peace in the MIDDLE
EAST based on respect for civil liberties
and human rights.
11. We endorse human rights policies in
regard to relations with CHINA, SOUTH
AFRICA and other nations with a history of
rights violations.
12. We support the end of the economic
blockade of Cuba. Unjust economic
coercion by one state against another
constitutes a violation of human rights.
13. We demand, along with Green Parties
around the world, that the United States
support the international anti-personnel
mine treaty.
14. As stated in the United Nations
Universal Declaration of Human Rights -
Article 25, the U.S. Green Party, one of
more than eighty Green Parties
internationally, calls for the global adoption
of basic human rights. Everyone has the
right to a standard of living adequate for the
health and well-being of [themselves] and of
[their] family, including food, clothing,
housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in
the event of unemployment, sickness,
disability, widowhood, old age or other lack
of livelihood in circumstances beyond
[their] control.
15. We believe in the core RIGHT of
SELF-DETERMINATION; of the special
character and needs of INDIGENOUS
PEOPLES; of the essential importance of
balancing economic development in the
THIRD WORLD with a respect for the old
ways.
16. We trust that NON-VIOLENCE
provides a road to PEACE. We understand
the right of self-defense, yet believe we
must move beyond behavior that
perpetuates violence. We oppose structural
and direct violence of all kinds: assaults
against individuals, families, nations and
cultures, the environment and the biosphere.
17. We endorse an EXPANDED PEACE
CORPS.
18. We encourage the important work of
NON-GOVERNMENT
ORGANIZATIONS (NGOs), much in
evidence at the United Nations Earth
Summit in 1992 and in efforts to
democratize the World Trade Organization
in 2000.
19. Essential in any broad definition of
SECURITY, whether defined in national,
international or global terms, is that we
must find ways to secure and preserve our
common Earth, sustainer of all life. We
must look to domestic and international
regulation to protect the global ecology,
utilizing the UNITED NATIONS and
related agencies as well as regional
associations to advance our mutual interests.
20. We must build on the Earth Charter
that came out of the 1992 U.N.
environmental Earth Summit. New
definitions of what constitutes real security
between nations must be debated and
adopted by the foreign policy community.


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II. SOCIAL JUSTICE AND
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

A. EDUCATION

The failing report card of American
education is troubling for most every
American. Who fails to see the connection
between our investment in education and
our success as a people? Who believes there
is no relation between personal achievement
and a quality education an education that
teaches creative and critical thinking skills
and a respect for lifelong learning? Where
can we best make a difference in our future?
The Green Party maintains that access
to quality education for all Americans is the
difference that will lead to a strong and
diverse community. The Green Party seeks
fundamental change in our priorities at the
national and local levels, within the public
and private sectors, in the classroom and at
home, to make education our first priority.

1. Greens support EDUCATIONAL
DIVERSITY. We hold no dogma absolute,
continually striving for truth in the realm of
ideas. We open ourselves consciously and
intuitively to truth and beauty in the world
of nature. We view learning as a lifelong
process to which all people have an equal
right.
2. Education starts with CHOICE and
within public education we believe in broad
choices. Magnet schools, Site-based
Management, Schools within Schools,
alternative models and parental involvement
are ways in which elementary education can
be changed to make a real difference in the
lives of our children. CURRICULUM
should focus on SKILLS, both basic skills
that serve as a solid foundation for higher
learning, and exploratory approaches that
expand horizons, such as distance learning,
interactive education, computer
proficiencies, perspectives that bring an
enriched awareness of nature (biological
literacy), intercultural experiences, and
languages.
3. We advocate creative and noncompetitive
education at every age level, and the
inclusion of cultural diversity in all
curricula. We encourage hands on
approaches that encourage a multitude of
individual learning styles.
4. PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY should
be encouraged by finding ways to help
support parents in their efforts to help
support their children as more families
confront economic conditions demanding a
greater deal of time be spent away from
home. Parents should be as involved as
possible in their childrens education;
values do start with parents.
5. STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY is also
key to developing intrinsic capabilities.
Greens hold strongly to empowerment of
individuals; therefore, we support each
student recognizing their own personal
responsibility: to strive to achieve their
fullest potential as an individual.
6. FEDERAL POLICY on education should
act principally to ensure equal opportunity
to a quality education.
7. Educational funding formulas at the
STATE LEVEL need to be adjusted as
needed to avoid gross inequalities between
districts and schools. Educational grants
should provide necessary balance to ensure
equal educational access for minority,
deprived, special needs and exceptional
children. In higher education, federal
college scholarship aid should be increased
and aimed at excluding no qualified student.
8. Our teachers find they are underpaid,
overworked and rarely supplied with the
resources necessary to do the work most are
sincerely trying to do to reach their students.
It is time to stop disinvesting in education,
and start putting education at the top of our
social and economic agenda.
9.. We call on all Greens to include
education as a regular part of our meetings
so we can be clear about what unites us as
well as what divides us.
10. We call for equitable state and national
funding of school education and the creation
of schools controlled by parent-teacher
governing bodies.
11. We support after-school programs for
latchkey children.
12. We advocate state funding for DAY
CARE that includes school children under
the age of ten when after-school programs
are not available.
13. Classroom teachers at the elementary
and high school levels should be given
PROFESSIONAL STATUS, and salaries
comparable to related professions requiring
advanced education, training and
responsibility.
14. Principals are also essential components
in effective educational institutions. We
encourage state Departments of Education
and school boards to deliver more
programmatic support and decision-making
to the true grassroots level i.e., the
classroom teacher and school principal.
15. Use of computers in the early grades
should not supplant the development of
basic interpersonal, perceptual and motor
skills as a foundation for learning.
16. We call for the teaching of non-violent
conflict resolution at all levels of education.
17. We recognize the viable alternative of
HOME-BASED EDUCATION.
18. We support a host of innovative and
critical educational efforts, such as BI-
LINGUAL EDUCATION, CONTINUING
EDUCATION, JOB RETRAINING,
MENTORING AND APPRENTICESHIP
PROGRAMS.
19. Dispute resolution is an important part
of resolving classroom or after-school
disputes, and a life skill that all children
should learn.
20. We are deeply concerned about the
intervention in our schools of corporations
that promote a culture of consumption and
waste. Schools should not expose children
to commercial advertising. Schools must
safeguard students privacy rights and not
make available private student information
upon corporate (or federal government)
request.
21. Within higher education, we oppose
military and corporate control over the
priorities and topics of academic research.
22. We support tuition-free post secondary
(collegiate and vocational) public
education.
23. In an economy that demands higher
skills and a democracy that depends on an
informed, educated electorate, opportunities
for universal higher education and life-long
learning must be vastly expanded.
a.) Short of tuition-free schooling,
student-loans should be available to all
students attending college, and they should
be repayable as a proportion of future
earnings, rather than at a fixed rate.
b.) On the same terms, individualized
training accounts should be made available
to students who choose to pursue vocational
and continuing education.
24. Freedom of artistic expression is a
fundamental right and is a key element in
empowering communities and moving us
toward sustainability and respect for
diversity. Artists can create in ways that
foster healthy, non-alienating relationships
between people and their daily
environments, communities, and the Earth.
This can include both artists whose themes
advocate compassion, nurturance, or
cooperation; and artists whose creations
unmask the often-obscure connections
between various forms of violence,
domination, and oppression, or effectively
criticize aspects of the very community that
supports their artistic activity. The arts can
only perform their social friction if they are
completely free from outside control.
The Green Party supports:
a.) Alternative, community-based
systems treating neither the artwork nor the
artist as a commodity.

8
b.) Eliminating all laws which seek to
restrict or censor artistic expression,
including withholding of government funds
for political or moral content.
c.) Increased funding for the arts
appropriate to their essential social role at
all levels of government: Local, State and
Federal.
d.) Community-funded programs
employing local artists to enrich their
communities through public art programs.
These could include, but would not be
limited to, public performances, exhibitions,
murals on public buildings, design or
re-design of parks and public areas,
storytelling and poetry reading, and
publication of local writers.
e.) The establishment of non-profit
public forums for local artists to display
their talents and creations. Research, public
dialogue, and trial experiments to develop
alternative systems for the valuation and
exchange of artworks and for the financial
support of artists (e.g., community
subscriber support groups, artwork rental
busts, cooperative support systems among
artists, legal or financial incentives to
donate to the arts or to donate artworks to
public museums).
f.) Responsible choices of non-toxic,
renewable, or recyclable materials and
choosing funding sources not connected
with social injustice or environmental
destruction.
g.) Education programs in the
community that will energize the creativity
of every community member from the
youngest to the oldest, including neglected
groups such as teenagers, senior citizens,
prisoners, immigrants, and drug addicts.
These programs would provide materials
and access to interested, qualified arts
educators to every member of the
community who demonstrates an interest
h.) Incorporating arts education studies
and activities into every school curriculum
with appropriate funding and staffing. We
also encourage local artists and the
community to contribute time, experience,
and resources to these efforts.
i.) Diversity in arts education in the
schools, including age-specific hands-on
activities and appreciative theoretical
approaches, exposure to the arts of various
cultures and stylistic traditions, and
experience with a variety of media,
techniques and contents.
j.) The integration of the arts and
artistic teaching methods into other areas of
the curriculum to promote a holistic
perspective.

Greens view learning as a lifelong and
life-affirming process to which all people
should have access. We cannot state more
forcefully our belief that in learning, and
openness to learning, we find the foundation
of our Platform.

B. HEALTH CARE

Fundamental reform of our nations
health care system is necessary to provide
affordable, quality and accessible health
care for all Americans. Currently, we are the
only industrialized country without a
national health care system. Unfortunately,
we have a private insurance system that
insures only the healthiest people,
systematically denying coverage to
individuals with pre-existing conditions
and routinely terminating coverage to those
who become ill.
The Green Party considers health
care a human right, and therefore supports a
single-payer national insurance program for
the United States. This program would be
publicly financed at the national level,
administered locally, and privately
delivered, i.e., private physicians, hospitals,
and other health care providers would
remain private and competitive, and
consumers given full choice of provider.
It would cover all standard medical
procedures, treatment, diagnosis, etc. as
well as drug treatment, dental care,
medication, chronic and terminal illness,
and abortion. The program must include
equal coverage for treatment of mental
illness. All Americans must be covered
under this plan, regardless of employment,
income, housing, age, or prior medical
condition.
The Green Party believes, based on
comparison with other nations that have
enacted similar programs, that such a
program would be more economical and
would save money in many areas. In order
to enact this program, we must dismantle
the current managed care system.
The current systems high costs
and widely recognized failures demand that
bold, not incremental steps, be taken.

1. Alongside the many Americans calling
for action that makes health care a right, not
a privilege, the Green Party states with a
clear voice its strong support for
UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE.
2. We call for passage of legislation at the
national and state level that guarantees
comprehensive benefits for all Americans.
A single-insurer system funded by the
federal government and administered at the
state and local levels remains viable and is
an essential barometer of our national health
and well-being.
3. We support maintaining private medical
providers, including doctors, hospitals and
clinics
4. As we support cost savings by small
business, we note it is estimated that
businesses will save significantly compared
to their current premiums an estimated
$900 billion under a proposed SINGLE-
PAYER National Health Trust Fund plan.
5. We endorse NATIONAL HEALTH
INSURANCE and demand that Congress
again propose and act to support the
practical and moral imperative of Universal
Health Care. Major features of this health
care legislation should include:
a.) UNIVERSAL ACCESS without
concern for work status or health history;
b.) FREEDOM OF HEALTH CARE
CHOICE so patients can choose their own
clinics, doctors or other health care
professionals;
c.) substantial COST SAVINGS
through annual, global budgets, national fee
schedules, and streamlined administration
which acts to eliminate the waste of the
current system;
d.) COMPREHENSIVE BENEFITS,
without insurance premiums, deductibles or
co-payments, including hospital and
physician care, prescription drugs, dental
and vision care, reproductive and
preventative care, and defined mental health
benefits;
e.) a focus on RURAL HEALTH
SERVICES;
f.) and continued support of MEDICAL
RESEARCH into the quality, effectiveness
and appropriateness of medical care.
6. MEDICARE provides health care for
nearly 40 million Americans over the age of
65. Medicare: Part A is financed by the
Medicare Trust Fund, which is replenished
by payroll taxes. But as the major portion of
the Funds financing moves from these
dedicated payroll taxes and premiums to
general funds, the Funds trustees predict
insolvency looms, putting Medicare is at
risk. In order to correct this, we would
vigorously pursue savings and cuts from
abundant waste and fraud, eliminate costly,
unnecessary services that benefit providers
more than patients, and rein in
pharmaceutical industry rip-offs.
7. MEDICAID, which pays for basic
medical assistance for the disabled, blind,
pregnant women, and children in families
who have no insurance, also must be
protected and put on a firm financial
footing.
8. The prices of all kinds of medication
must be publicly supervised, with federal

9
controls, and be set with respect to the
needs of patients and consumers, instead of
demands for commercial profit.
9. Successful reform of our health care
system must start with WELLNESS
education; that is, PREVENTATIVE health
care. It is each of our responsibilities to tend
to our own health through education, diet,
nutrition and exercise.
10. The Surgeon General has stated that a
large percentage of illness is diet related;
therefore improving the quality of our
nations FOOD SUPPLY and our personal
eating habits will go a long way toward
improving our health care system by
reducing the need for care.
11. We support a wide-range of health care
services, not just traditional medicine that
too often emphasizes a medical arms race
relying upon high-tech intervention and
surgical techniques.
12. We support the teaching of holistic
health approaches and, as appropriate, the
use of complementary and alternative
therapies such as herbal medicines,
homeopathy, acupuncture, and other healing
approaches.
13. We oppose the arrest, harassment or
prosecution of anyone involved in any
aspect of the production, cultivation,
transportation, distribution or consumption
of medicinal marijuana. We also oppose the
harassment, prosecution or revocation of
license of any health-care provider who
gives a recommendation or prescription for
medicinal marijuana.
14. As a matter of appropriate professional
responsibility, we support INFORMED
CONSENT LAWS to educate consumers to
potential health impacts.
15. PRIMARY CARE, through a renewed
attention to family medicine as opposed to
increased medical specialization, is
appropriate and necessary.
16. Special attention must be given to
WOMENS HEALTH ISSUES, including
reproductive rights and family planning.
17. We believe the right of a woman to
control her own body is inalienable. It is
essential that the option of a safe, legal
abortion remains available.
18. Medical research must be increased,
and alternative therapies actively sought, to
combat breast cancer.
19. We call for adequate SOCIAL AND
HEALTH SERVICES being made available
to those who have special needs: the
mentally ill, the handicapped, those who are
terminally ill.
20. We call for wider implementation of
hospice care.
21. We believe an all out campaign must be
waged against AIDS and HIV, and we will
press for the implementation of the
recommendations of the National
Commission on AIDS. We call for
prevention awareness and access to
condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. We
condemn HIV-related discrimination; would
make drug treatment and other programs
available for all addicts who seek help;
would expand clinical trials for treatments
and vaccines; and speed up the FDA drug
approval process.
22. In matters of international trade, the
United States must respect the measures
other nations take to ensure public health,
and must not use medication, medical
equipment, and other medical necessities --
and threats of withholding them -- as
leverage for political reasons or as extortion
for the sake of commercial profit. We
oppose any embargo or economic sanction
that would cause the suffering of innocent
civilians.

C. ECONOMIC JUSTICE/SOCIAL
SAFETY NET

The passage of the 1996
WELFARE ACT by Congress, and its
signing by the President, confronts us with
hard choices. Democrats and Republicans
seem to be saying we cannot afford to care
for children and poor mothers. In ending
over fifty years of federal policy
guaranteeing cash assistance for poor
children, Congress has set in motion a
radical experiment that will have a profound
impact on the lives of the weakest members
of our society. How will the states, city and
county governments, local communities,
businesses, churches all of us respond?
We believe we have a special
responsibility to the health and well-being
of the young. Yet we see the federal safety
net being removed and replaced with
limited and potentially harsh state welfare
programs. How will social services be
adequately provided if local resources are
stretched thin already?
We believe our community
priorities must first protect the young and
helpless. Yet how will state legislatures and
agencies, under pressure from more
powerful interests, react? We believe local
decision-making is important, but we
realize, as we learned during the civil rights
era, that strict federal standards must guide
state actions in providing basic protections.
As the richest nation in history, we should
not condemn millions of children to a life of
poverty, while corporate welfare is
increased to historic highs.

Welfare: A Commitment to Ending Poverty

The health of the planet is
inseparably bound to the health of our
human communities. Greens understand that
an unjust society is an unsustainable society.
When communities are stressed by poverty,
violence and despair, our ability to meet the
challenges of the post-industrial age are
critically impaired. A holistic, future-
focused perspective on how we distribute
resources in this country will consider the
effects of such distribution not just on our
present needs, but on the seventh generation
to come.
The ones who suffer most from
economic injustice are children - those who
will inherit the social and environmental
problems of the 20th century, and who will
carry the responsibility of sustaining our
society into the next millennium. Ensuring
that children and their caregivers have
access to an adequate, secure standard of
living should form the cornerstone of our
economic priorities.
It is time for a RADICAL
PARADIGM SHIFT in our attitude toward
support for families, children, the poor and
the disabled. Such support must not be
given grudgingly; it is the right of those in
present need and AN INVESTMENT IN
OUR FUTURE. We must take an
uncompromising position that the care and
nurture of children, elders and the disabled
are essential to a healthy, peaceful and
sustainable society. We should recognize
that the work of their caregivers is of social
and economic value, and reward it
accordingly. Only then can we hope to build
our future on a foundation of healthy,
educated children who are raised in an
atmosphere of love and security.

1. We believe that all people have a right to
food, housing, medical care, a living wage
job, education, and support in times of
hardship.
2. We believe that work performed outside
the monetary system has inherent social and
economic value, and is essential to a
healthy, sustainable economy and peaceful
communities. Such work includes, but is not
limited to: child and elder care;
homemaking; voluntary community service;
continuing education; participating in
government; and the arts.
3. We call for restoration of a federally
funded entitlement program to support
children, families, the unemployed, elderly
and disabled, with no time limit on benefits.
This program should be funded through the
existing welfare budget, reductions in
military spending and corporate subsidies,
and a fair progressive income tax.

10
4. We call for a graduated supplemental
income, or negative income tax, that would
maintain all individual adult incomes above
the poverty level, regardless of employment
or marital status.
5. We advocate reinvesting a significant
portion of the military budget in family
support, living wage job development, and
work training programs. Publicly funded
work training and education programs
should have a goal of increasing peoples
employment options at living wage jobs.
6. We support public funding for the
development of living wage jobs in
community and environmental service, for
example, environmental clean-up, recycling,
sustainable agriculture and food production,
sustainable forest management, repair and
maintenance of public facilities,
neighborhood-based public safety, aids in
schools, libraries and childcare centers, and
construction and renovation of energy-
efficient housing. We oppose enterprise
zone give aways which benefit
corporations more than inner city
communities
7. The accumulation of individual wealth in
the U.S. has reached grossly unbalanced
proportions. It is clear that we cannot rely
on the rich to regulate their profit-making
excesses for the good of society through
trickle-down economics. We must take
aggressive steps to restore a FAIR
DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME. We
support tax incentives for businesses that
apply fair employee wage distributions
standards, and income tax policies that
restrict the accumulation of excessive
individual wealth.
8. Forcing welfare recipients to accept jobs
that pay wages below a livable income (a
living wage) drives wages down and
exploits workers for private profit at public
expense. We reject workfare as a form a
slave labor.
9. Corporations receiving public subsidies
must provide livable wage jobs, observe
basic workers rights, and agree to
affirmative action policies of such
distribution not just on our present needs,
but on the seventh generation to come.

D. TAX JUSTICE / FAIRNESS

Middle-class and poor people are
paying an ever greater proportion of federal
taxes, and too often local and state taxes are
unfair and regressive. The tax code is a
labyrinth of deductions, loopholes,
exemptions and write-offs, the result of
insider- and industry-lobbying that has
damaged our economy as it has served the
interests of big business and financial
institutions.

1. We call for SYSTEM-WIDE TAX
REFORM that acts to simplify the tax
system.
2. Subsidies, export incentives, tax
loopholes and tax shelters that benefit large
corporations now amount to hundreds of
billions of dollars each year and must be cut
to the bone.
The high price of corporate welfare
corrupts the political process by
encouraging the exchange of political favors
for campaign donations. Corporate tax
breaks are ultimately paid for by higher
taxes on the middle class; they distort the
rules of the marketplace and seldom serve a
larger public purpose.
We call for a tax policy that moves to
eliminate loopholes and other exemptions
that favor powerful interests over TAX
JUSTICE. Small business, in particular,
should not be penalized by a tax system
which benefits those who can work the
legislative tax committees for breaks and
subsidies.
3. We support substantive and wide-ranging
reform of the tax system that helps create
jobs, economic efficiencies and innovation
within the small business community.
4. We believe fiscal and tax policies should
confront and end destructive corporate
welfare and subsidies. Smaller businesses
are Americas great strength. Greens believe
government should have a tax policy that
encourages small- and socially responsible
business.
5. Where corporations act with corporate
citizenship, that is, with fiduciary
responsibility that includes the interests of
their community and employees as well as
shareholders, we support appropriate tax
incentives.
6. We call on new approaches to taxation,
such as ENVIRONMENTAL TAXES as a
partial substitute for income taxes. Taxing
industrial pollution is an idea long overdue.
Environmental taxes of this type, and true-
cost pricing, will aid in transforming major
industries from being non-sustainable in
their use of natural resources to being
sustainable in character.
7. We believe that we must take a closer
look at the costs and benefits of
consumption and VALUE-ADDED TAX
approaches.
8. We do not support a FLAT TAX, but
agree that the host of deductions and
adjustments to income, dividends and
miscellaneous revenue afforded under the
current system to those at the top produces
cynicism on the part of most Americans
toward their tax system and government.
9. We would raise corporate taxes. The
corporate share of taxes has fallen from
33% in the 1940s to 15% today, while the
individual share has risen from 44% to
73%, according to the Alliance for
Democracy.
10. Greens support progressivity in taxation
as a matter of principle, believing that those
who benefit most from the system have a
responsibility to return more, their fair
share.
11. We believe a central goal of tax policy
should be transparency that is, a system
that is simple, understandable, and resistant
to the machinations of special interests.
12. The Green Party opposes the
privatization of Social Security. The
Social Security trust fund, contrary to
claims being made by Republican and
Democrat candidates, is not about to go
broke and does not need to be fixed by
Wall Street. The alleged demise of Social
Security benefits is based on what
economist and former Clinton cabinet
member Robert Reich has called the wildly
pessimistic assumption that the economy
will grow only 1.8% annually over the next
three decades. At a more realistic 2.4% a
year, Reich points out (what the current
White House budget predicts for the next
five years), the fund is flush for the next 75
years.
Considering that the bottom 20% of
American senior citizens get roughly 80%
of their income from Social Security, and
that without Social Security nearly 70% of
black elderly and 60% of Latino elderly
households would be in poverty, it is critical
that the public protections of Social
Security are not privatized and subjected to
increased risk based on misleading
projections of shortfalls.

E. MANAGEMENT-LABOR
RELATIONS

1. In the PRIVATE SECTOR, we
acknowledge the many challenges
responsible SMALL BUSINESS must
overcome to remain competitive with big
business, and we support addressing these
obstacles by creating cooperative
relationships and effective communication
in the workplace.
2. The concepts of ECONOMIC AND
WORKPLACE DEMOCRACY must be
expanded in management-labor negotiations
because the decisions a company makes
affects its employees, its consumers, and the
surrounding communities. In order to
protect the legitimate interests of these
various constituencies, as well as the natural
environment, people in each of these groups

11
must be empowered to participate in
economic decision-making.
3. There should be no compromise of basic
WORKER RIGHTS.
4. We support a fair MINIMUM WAGE,
which, adjusted for inflation, is still well
below the purchasing power it had
throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
5. We endorse federal legislation to address
problems associated with large plant
closings; WORKPLACE SAFETY and
Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) reform; and
National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)
reform.
6. We particularly support substantive
reforms toward workplace democracy in
large corporations, especially reform that
impacts socially and environmentally
irresponsible big business.
7. We endorse legal rights to organize and
join unions with democratically elected
leadership.
8. We encourage the use of mediation as a
tool for resolving disputes in the workplace.
9. We support the right to strike without
being permanently replaced.
10. We support employee stock ownership
plans (ESOPs) with functioning,
democratic structures; and cooperative
ownership and management.
11. In the PUBLIC SECTOR, Greens are
concerned with an employees right to join a
union, and with associated COLLECTIVE
BARGAINING rights.
12. Good government demands effective
and efficient management, that is, wisely
spending the peoples hard-earned tax
dollars. We support initiatives between
management and labor that produce better
government through performance,
productivity and accountability.
13. We believe government is truly the
peoples business and serious reform
proposals should be given close attention.

F. CRIMINAL JUSTICE

1. A plan to revitalize our economy must be
a central element of any overall plan to
reduce crime. Fear of violent crime is
growing and it is our belief that the breaking
of the bonds of community, the economic
and social root causes of crime, must be
addressed in the same way politicians today
propose putting more firepower on the
streets; threatening criminals with harsher
sentences (three strikes and youre out);
and building more prisons.
2. The advent of a prison industrial
complex in the United States has become a
national disgrace. The Green Party raises a
united voice in opposition to the terrible
inequities within the criminal justice system,
the systemic injustice and prejudice, the
lack of adequate legal representation for the
poor and under privileged, the gross
punishments mandated under punitive
sentencing laws that fill the jails, prisons
and penitentiaries with non-violent
offenders.
3. The Green Party opposes privatizing of
prisons.
4. Any attempt to combat crime must begin
with restoration of community; positive
approaches that build hope, responsibility
and a sense of belonging.
5. Young men and women must have access
to work that pays a family a living wage.
6. We would initiate social programs that
are alternatives to gangs, such as Gang
Intervention Units. Practical education
with a real promise of a future is needed if
we are to expect long-term success in this
struggle, especially against street crime and
hard drug trafficking.
7. We encourage our political leaders to
remember that an ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure. With the costs of
maintaining a prisoner far outstripping the
costs of educating a child, or the costs of
providing job training, or job creation
incentives, or providing adequate social
services and a social net to those in need,
we believe it is only appropriate to focus on
where our societal intervention can be most
successful and effective.
8. At the same time, we must develop law
enforcement approaches that are firm and
directly address VIOLENT CRIME, street
crime, and trafficking in hard drugs.
Violence that creates a climate of further
violence must be stopped.
9. While toughening penalties for violent
crimes, it is inappropriate to have a de facto
policy of leniency to WHITE COLLAR
CRIME. We believe broad corporate crime
legislation should be enacted and enforced.
We support efforts that target the worst
cases of corporate (and governmental and
defense industry) illegality, and we support
resultant sentencing (and fines) that acts
with teeth as an effective deterrent.
10. We recommend establishing effective,
independent CIVILIAN REVIEW of
complaints of police misconduct.
11. We support the Brady Bill and
thoughtful, carefully considered GUN
CONTROL.
12. We endorse PRISON EDUCATION
and JOB TRAINING.
13. We support innovative approaches to
rehabilitation, and transitioning of non-
violent criminals back into their
communities.
14. We do not support, as a matter of
conscience, the DEATH PENALTY.
15. We support JUDICIAL REFORM that
opens up the court system, makes it
affordable and convenient to ordinary
citizens, and provides for more efficient
administration of justice.
16. We support tough DWI laws.
17. We call for consistent policy of
protection against VIOLENCE IN
SCHOOLS.
18. We endorse federal funding for RAPE
CRISIS CENTERS and DOMESTIC
VIOLENCE SHELTERS. We call for rape
and domestic violence prevention and
education programs and stiffer sentences for
people convicted of domestic violence.
19. VICTIMS RIGHTS must be guarded
and protected. Victim-impact statements are
appropriate vehicles for achieving full
justice, and restitution should be considered
in many cases to ensure victims will not be
lost in the complexities of criminal justice.
20. We support decriminalization of
VICTIMLESS CRIMES, for example, the
possession of small amounts of marijuana.
21. We call for legalization of industrial
hemp and all its many uses.
22. We oppose the illicit activities of the
international drug trade and the illicit
money laundering that often accompanies
the drug cartels. We call for a revised view
of the drug problem and an end to the
war on drugs, recognizing that after over
a decade of strident law-and-order
posturing, the problems with hard drugs
have only worsened.
23. We call for expanding drug counseling
and treatment for those who need it.
24. We believe mandatory drug testing
violates civil rights; therefore, we oppose
mandatory testing.
25. We favor innovative sentencing and
punishment options, including community
service for first-time offenders and Drug
Court diversion programs. We support
alternative sentencing for non-violent
crimes (i.e. community service) and
guaranteed education within prison
G.E.D. courses and college courses as well
as skill training and dispute resolution.

G. CIVIL AND EQUAL RIGHTS

The foundation of any democratic
society is the guarantee that each member of
society has equal rights. Respect for our
constitutionally protected rights is our best
defense against discrimination and the abuse
of power. We should treasure and celebrate
our peoples differences and diversity.
We recognize an intimate connection
between our RIGHTS as individuals and
our RESPONSIBILITIES to our neighbors

12
and the planet. The balance between rights
and responsibilities is found as we provide
for the maximum participation of everyone
in the decisions affecting our well-being,
our economic security, our social and
international policies.

1. As Greens, we uphold the key value of
respect for diversity. We recognize that the
development of the United States has been
marked by conflict over questions of race.
Just as we acknowledge that our Nation was
formed only after Native Americans were
first displaced, we also acknowledge that
the institution of slavery had as its
underpinnings the ideology and practice of
white supremacy, which we as Greens
condemn. We know that, in slavery's
aftermath, discrimination and racial
violence against people of color continues
to be a social problem of paramount
significance, even today. We condemn
discrimination and violence against anyone
but also recognize that people of color have
borne the brunt of racial violence and
discrimination throughout the history of the
United States.
a.) Therefore, we call for an end to
official support for any remaining badges
and indicia of slavery and specifically call
for the immediate removal of the
Confederate battle flag from any and all
government buildings because we recognize
that, to many, this remains a painful
reminder of second-class status on the basis
of race.
b.) In addition, we support efforts to
overcome the aftereffects of over 200 years
of discrimination and, hence, support
affirmative action.
c.) Furthermore, we recognize that
people of color have legitimate claims in
this country to reparations in the form of
monetary compensation for these centuries
of discrimination. We also uphold the right
of the descendants of the African slaves to
self-determination, as we do for all
indigenous peoples.
2. We, as Greens, are committed to
establishing relationships that honor
diversity; that support the self-definition and
SELF-DETERMINATION of all people;
and that consciously confront the barriers of
racism, sexism, homophobia, class
oppression, ageism, and the many ways our
culture separates us from working together
to define and solve our common problems.
3. We affirm the right to openly embrace
SEXUAL ORIENTATION in the intimate
choice of who we love.
4. We support the rights of gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgendered people in
housing, jobs, civil marriage and benefits,
child custody and in all areas of life, the
right to be treated equally with all other
people.
5. We affirm the right to worship or not to
worship as each one chooses.
6. We support affirmative action to remedy
discrimination, to protect constitutional
rights and to provide equal opportunity
under the law.
7. The Green Party abhors punitive
discrimination in any form, and thus
condemns the practice of those law
enforcement agencies in the country which
are guilty of discriminatory racial
profiling, stopping motorists, harassing
individuals, or using unwarranted violence
against suspects with no other justification
than race or ethnic background.
8. We also favor strong measures to combat
official racism in the forms of police
brutality and racial profiling directed
against people of color. We agree with
groups such as Amnesty International,
which has recently said that police brutality
has reached epidemic levels in the United
States and we call for effective monitoring
of police agencies to eliminate police
brutality and racial profiling.
9. We support effective enforcement of the
VOTING RIGHTS ACT, including
language access to voting.
10. We will resist discriminatory English-
only pressure groups. We call for a national
language policy that would encourage all
citizens to be fluent in at least two
languages.
11. We strongly support the vigorous
enforcement of CIVIL RIGHTS LAWS, the
aggressive prosecution of hate crimes, and
the strengthening of legal services for the
poor.
12. We support the full enforcement of the
Americans with Disabilities Act to enable
all people with disabilities to achieve
independence and function at the highest
possible level. Government should work to
ensure that children with disabilities are
provided with the same educational
opportunities as those without disabilities.
13. WOMENS RIGHTS must be protected
and expanded to guarantee each womans
right to be a full participant in society, free
from sexual harassment, job discrimination
or interference in the intensely personal
choice about whether to have a child.
14. We support the EQUAL RIGHTS
AMENDMENT.
15. The EQUAL EMPLOYMENT
OPPORTUNITIES COMMISSION
(EEOC) should actively investigate and
prosecute sexual harassment complaints.
Women who file complaints must not be
persecuted and should be protected under
federal and state law. We must enshrine in
law the basic principle that women have the
same rights as men, and promote gender
equality and fairness in the work force to
ensure women receive equal pay for jobs of
equal worth.
16. Consumers have the right to adequate
enforcement of the federal and state
CONSUMER PROTECTION LAWS.
Health and safety is paramount and we
oppose lax or inappropriate regulatory
actions.
17. Consumers have the right to participate
in decisions that affect their lives and
protect their interests beyond simply voting
on election day. We support the creation of
CONSUMER ADVOCACY AGENCIES
(for example, along the model of the Illinois
Citizen Utility Board) to protect the
interests of consumers against the corporate
lobbyists who have essentially (and too
often successfully) argued against the rights
of consumers before the regulatory
agencies. We would require that legal
monopolies and regulated industries (for
example, electric, gas, water, and telephone
utilities) set-up statewide CONSUMER
ACTION GROUPS to act on behalf of and
advocate for consumer interests.
18. We call for consumer legislation to
outlaw the use of animals in cosmetics and
household product testing; in tobacco and
alcohol testing; and in weapons
development or other military programs.
19. We call for reforms to better inform
consumers about the products they are
buying; and where and how they are made.
We endorse truth in advertising, including
the clear definition of words like recycled
and natural.
20. We call for the restoration of
consumers rights to file class actions suits
against manufacturers of unsafe products
and restrictions on secrecy agreements that
act to prevent lawsuits by not revealing
damaging information.
21. We support whistleblower rights laws.
22. We support a citizens right of access to
justice. Our system of justice must be made
convenient to rich and poor alike, guarding
it against big business attempts to regulate
and, in effect, control our civil justice/civil
jury system.
23. Recently proposed bills that encroach
on civil liberties, such as the Crime Bill of
96 and the Terrorist Bill of 97, as well as
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
which circumvents the 4th Amendment and
opens the door for CIA to spy domestically
on U.S. citizens, are of special concern to
the Green Party. The Bill of Rights must
remain a fundamental touchstone in defense
of our civil rights.

13
H. FREE SPEECH

As we look to the foundation of our
freedoms, it should be remembered that the
Constitution of the United States is not only
the supreme law of the land but is also the
original source of other laws. In Article I,
the Constitution spells out the legislative
powers that are vested in Congress, which
ultimately affect the personal and business
lives of us all. In the Bill of Rights, the
Constitution sets forth the fundamental
rights and freedoms of all people, rights and
freedoms that cannot be denied or abridged
by Congress, or by any other branch or level
of government.
An informed electorate is critical to
good government. The scope of the First
Amendment is extensive and prohibits any
law which would abridge the freedom of
speech, or of the press, most clearly in
reference to political matters. Our legal
right to criticize government is essential to
the effective working of democracy.

1. We support openness in government, not
secrecy, and endorse the FREEDOM OF
INFORMATION ACT (FOIA) as a way of
guaranteeing access to government
decision-making.
2. We recognize that access to information
has profound consequences to our
democracy, and we have concerns regarding
the concentration of information in the
hands of fewer and fewer corporations. The
FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS
COMMISSION (FCC) must promulgate
telecommunications policies that ensure the
First Amendment rights of viewers and
listeners. New and existing technologies
must provide outlets for scientific and
cultural expression and enhance the
electoral process. The affordable access
and universal access provisions of the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 should
be interpreted by the FCC for what they are
a clear mandate for the
telecommunications industry to make
advanced communications systems
affordable and equitably available to all
American schools and libraries.
3. As Greens, we support those who urge
the public to reclaim the public airwaves.
The privatization of the broadcast airwaves
one of our most important taxpayer assets
has caused serious deformations of our
politics and culture. The basic problem is
that private broadcasters control what the
public owns. And in return for free licenses
to use taxpayer property, broadcasters give
us a steady stream of increasingly coarse,
redundant, superficial programming and, of
course, exclusively decide who says what
on our public airwaves.
4. The Green Party supports community
radio, particularly those rulemaking
petitions before the F.C.C., which allow for
a new service of small, locally-owned FM
stations.
5. The concentration of power that has
characterized the telecommunications
industry must be limited. A wide span of
programming and information, genuine
citizen access, diversity of views, respect
for local community interests, news, public
affairs and QUALITY CHILDRENS
PROGRAMMING the FCC should
closely monitor applications for license
renewals to the public airwaves to ensure
that these public interest criteria are met.
6. Although we see regular assaults on the
freedoms of speech enshrined in our
nations founding documents, we oppose
censorship in the arts, media (including the
World Wide Web and Internet), and press.
We encourage individual and social
responsibility by artists, creative media,
writers and all citizens.

I. NATIVE AMERICANS

Native American culture is worthy of
protection and special respect. As Greens
we feel a special affinity to the respect for
community and the Earth that many Native
peoples have at their roots.

1. We recognize both the SOVEREIGNTY
of Native American tribal governments and
the governments trust obligation to Native
American people.
2. The federal government must renew its
obligation to deal in good faith with Native
Americans; to honor its treaty obligations;
adequately fund programs for the betterment
of tribal governments and their people;
affirm the RELIGIOUS RIGHTS of Native
Americans in ceremonies (American
Indian Religious Freedom Act); provide
funds for innovative economic development
initiatives, EDUCATION and public
HEALTH PROGRAMS; and respect land,
water and mineral rights within the borders
of reservations and traditional lands.
3. We support efforts to broadly reform the
BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS (BIA) to
make this vast agency more responsible, and
responsive, to tribal governments.
4. We support the just settlement of the
claims of the thousands of Native American
URANIUM MINERS who have suffered
and died from radiation exposure. We
condemn the stance of secrecy taken by the
Atomic Energy Commission during this era
and its subsequent claim of government
immunity, taken knowingly (and
immorally) at the expense of Native
peoples health and safety.
5. We support the complete clean-up of
those mines and tailing piles that are a
profoundly destructive legacy of the Cold
War era.
6. We recognize that Native American land
and treaty rights often stand at the front-line
against government and multinational
corporate attempts to plunder energy,
mineral, timber, fish, and game resources,
polluting water, air, and land in the service
of the military, economic expansion, and the
consumption of natural resources.
Therefore, we support legal, political, and
grassroots efforts by and on behalf of
Native Americans to protect their traditions,
rights, livelihoods, and their sacred spaces.

J. IMMIGRATION / EMIGRATION

Our nation was built with a rich
tapestry of immigrants and we must
continue to respect the potential
contributions and RIGHTS of our new
immigrants.

1. Preferential quotas based on race, class,
and ideology should be abandoned for
immigration policies that promote fairness,
NON-DISCRIMINATION and family
reunification.
2. We support policies that reflect our
constitutional guarantees of freedoms of
speech, association and travel.
3. We find particular attention should be
given those minorities who are political
exiles and refugees, including Russian Jews,
mid-East Kurds, Tibetans and Haitians.
4. Our relationship with our neighbor to the
south, Mexico, needs to be given added
attention. Our border relations and
reciprocal economic opportunities should be
a central concern of government that is
looking to improved economic,
environmental and social conditions for
both peoples.
5. We oppose those who seek to divide us
for political gain by raising ethnic and racial
hatreds, blaming immigrants for social and
economic problems.

K. HOUSING

1. Decent, AFFORDABLE HOUSING for
every American must be a component of a
campaign at the federal, state and local
level.
2. We hold that government should play an
activist role in the availability of housing. A
COORDINATED HOUSING PLAN that is
broad and inclusive should devote resources
to non-profit community housing projects,

14
private sector investments and appropriate
public housing initiatives that encourage
individual ownership over time.
3. We encourage low-density, low-impact,
site-specific designs that encourage human-
scale development and environmentally
sensitive planning.
4. Pension funds and community
development banks can be targeted and can
become important sources of new funding.
Subsidies, trade-offs with developers, and
the creative use of city and county zoning
ordinances should be emphasized to
increase the affordable housing stock
available within local communities
depending on need.

L. NATIONAL SERVICE

1. We must create new opportunities for
citizens to serve their communities.
ALTERNATIVE SERVICE to the military
should be encouraged.
2.We advocate the formation of a
CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS
(CCC) with national leadership, and state
and local affiliates, to spearhead efforts to
work on the tasks of environmental
education, restoration of damaged habitats,
reforestation, and cleaning up polluted
waterways. Providing land and resource
management skills will challenge young
people while encouraging social
responsibility.


III. ENVIRONMENTAL
SUSTAINABILITY

A. ENERGY POLICY

If we do not alter our energy use soon
and drastically the ecological crisis may
be exacerbated past a point where it can be
resolved. A comprehensive energy policy
must be a critical element of our
environmental thinking. Investing in
ENERGY EFFICIENCY and
RENEWABLE ENERGY is key to
sustainability.
Just as ecological materials
management is governed by the concept of
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (in priority
order), ecological energy management must
be governed by the principle of
Conservation, Efficiency, and Clean
Renewables. Of highest importance is to use
less, then to use wisely, and to have clean
production of what is used.

1. Extensive conservation measures will
bring huge resource savings for both the
economy and the environment.
Conservation, along with energy efficiency
and renewables, is an essential part of an
effective energy policy. The Greens call for
pervasive efforts on the energy conservation
front. We encourage the creation and design
of human environments that are as energy-
efficient as possible, recognizing that yet
further conservation efforts are a significant
means to meeting our future energy needs
without further energy production.
Similarly, we support the phasing out of the
most ecologically harmful sources of
energy.
2. We call for the development of STATE
ENERGY POLICIES that include taxes
and/or fines on energy waste, and the
funding of energy research, including
credits for alternative and sustainable
energy use such as solar, wind, hydrogen
and biomass.
3. Greens also support enacting mandatory
carbon reduction measures and setting the
bar for carbon emissions at a percentage
well below the best appropriate technology.
4. In order to aid in the rapid replacement of
extremely polluting energy systems (nuclear
and coal-fired power plants), natural gas
power plants could help provide needed
replacement power until conservation,
efficiency and truly clean renewables are
fully phased in. Natural gas power plants
should not be used to feed an increase in
energy demand.
5. Thanks to technological innovation
prompted by regrettably limited federal
support, photovoltaic cells now cost one-
tenth what they did 20 years ago, and wind-
generated power costs one-fifth what it did
10 years ago. It is now estimated that the
total RENEWABLE ENERGY contribution
to our nations energy use could realistically
be 10% by the year 2010 and 20% by the
year 2020 but only if increased emphasis
is placed on renewable energy. We urge that
new construction be required to achieve
substantial portions of its heating energy
from the sun in the next few years.
Incentives/disincentives should be put in
place to move utilities toward establishing
SOLAR POWER STATIONS to augment
and eventually supplant fossil-fuel
generated electricity.
6. TRUE-COST PRICING, which reflects
the realistic cost of products including
ecological damage and externalities caused
during the manufacturing process, must be
adopted to achieve accurate financial
accounting. Only with a shift in the way we
are seeing, can we accurately assess our
energy choices and costs and the long-
term impacts of the energy decisions we are
making.

B. NUCLEAR ISSUES

1. The Green Party recognizes that there is
no such thing as nuclear waste disposal.
All 6 of the low-level nuclear waste
dumps in the United States have leaked.
There are no technological quick fixes
which can effectively isolate nuclear waste
from the biosphere for the duration of its
hazardous life. Therefore, it is essential that
generation of additional nuclear wastes be
stopped.
2. The Green Party calls for the early
retirement of nuclear power reactors as soon
as possible (in no more than 5 years) and for
a phase-out of other technologies that use or
produce nuclear waste. These technologies
include non-commercial nuclear reactors,
reprocessing facilities, nuclear waste
incinerators, food irradiators and all
commercial and military uses of depleted
uranium.
3. Current methods of underground storage
are a danger to present and future
generations. Any nuclear waste management
strategies must be aboveground,
continuously monitored, retrievable and
repackageable, and must minimize
transportation of wastes.
4. The Green Party strongly opposes any
shipment of high-level nuclear waste across
the United States to the proposed Nevada
waste repository at Yucca Mountain or
any other centralized facility. The Green
Party believes that this proposal is part of a
move to re-fire a fast-track, commercial
nuclear industry, if they can get their unsafe
waste product safely disposed of.
5. We call for cancellation of the WASTE
ISOLATION PILOT PLANT (WIPP), the
nations first weapons complex nuclear
dump, in southern New Mexico.
6. We call for independent, public-access
radiation monitoring at all nuclear facilities.
7. We support applicable environmental
impact statements (EIS) and National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis
with citizen participation at all nuclear sites.
8. We support an immediate and intensive
CAMPAIGN TO EDUCATE THE
PUBLIC about nuclear problems, including
disposal, clean-up and long-term dangers.

C. WASTE MANAGEMENT

1. Legal requirements and standards for
businesses applying for zoning permits
should be formulated to require disclosure
of toxics which may be used.
2. Past violations, illegal use and misuse of
hazardous materials have to be remedied
appropriately. Those responsible for toxic
waste dumping, spills, and contamination on
or off their sites should be responsible for

15
costs of complete clean-up. In addition, we
call for levying sizable fines on those found
guilty of violating such standards.
3. We endorse a revisiting of Superfund
legislation to make these clean up laws
more effective.
4. Waste management is a critical challenge
to the survival of the modern world. Real
reductions in per capita consumption of
materials, and significant increases in the
efficiency with which materials are used, is
a problem that must be faced sooner rather
than later. We support RECYCLING at
every level of the economy. We endorse
SOURCE REDUCTION and municipal
programs that particularly focus on
household recycling.
5. We oppose INCINERATION of
municipal solid waste, sewage, non-
biological medical waste, and toxic waste.
We support a moratorium on any new
incinerators that burn such materials and a
rapid shutdown of existing incinerators that
do so.
6. We oppose shipping of toxic wastes
across national borders, and the
SHIPMENT OF TOXIC/HAZARDOUS
OR RADIOACTIVE WASTES, without
regulation, across any political borders.
7. We oppose the exportation, under any
circumstances, of chemicals that are
prohibited in the United States.
8. Environmental justice demands that poor
communities, minority and under-
represented communities not bear an unfair
burden when it comes to disposal of toxic
wastes.
9. The environmental problems associated
with the personal computer and electronics
industry are growing worse. The Green
Party believes these environmental issues
must be identified and addressed:
a.) Pollution. The manufacture of
computer chips, computers and peripherals
involves a host of chemicals that end up in
our water, air, and landfills. Cleanup is a
major cost, an "externality" that must be
addressed. Health costs associated with the
use of computers and electronic devices are
not insignificant and range of work-related
injuries and illnesses. At work, at home and
on the road the digital era is ubiquitous. The
shift mandated by the FCC from analog to
digital communications systems (including
HDTV), as just one example, will produce
tens of millions of out-of-date televisions
and monitors over the next decade. The
chemicals in these devices are dangerous
and should not be allowed to simply be
deposited in land fills or disposed of in a
way that will produce long-term health
damaging and adverse environmental
effects.
b.) Power. Energy bills associated
with the electronics industry are rising and
alternative sources of power are needed.
Cleaner, cheaper green energy has to
become a universal goal.
c.) Paper consumption. The demand
for printing paper puts pressure on
dwindling forests. Clear cutting continues
with all the attendant environmental
damage. The pollution caused by mills is
considerable, and the production of white
paper is particularly damaging. Alternative
paper stock, and recycled papers, should
become the norm.
d.) Packaging. The excessive amounts
of plastic, cardboard and Styrofoam many
manufacturers use to package computers
and software are an increasing problem.
These non-biodegradable materials
contribute layers to landfills. Its time to
have a complete makeover of the electronics
packaging industry.
e.) Recycling. All the materials
associated with the personal computer and
electronics industry must be identified as
recyclable and recycled wherever possible
as part of a closed-loop system.

D. FOSSIL FUELS

1. We are aware of the environmental
hazards that accompany the use of fossil
fuels and of their non-sustainability and
eventual depletion. We call for
TRANSITION ENERGY STRATEGIES,
including the use of relatively clean-burning
natural gas, as a way to reorder our energy
priorities and over-reliance on traditional
fuels.
2. We call for a gradual phase-out of
gasoline and other fossil fuels. Until
gasoline driven cars can be replaced, we
advocate FUEL EFFICIENCY standards, a
gas guzzler tax on new low mileage
vehicles, and a gas sipper rebate on high
mileage vehicles.
3. We advocate fair buybacks of the most
polluting and least efficient vehicles to
remove these vehicles from the road.
4. We oppose further development of our
nations outer continental shelf for oil
drilling or exploration.
5. We acknowledge the relative benefits that
can be achieved in the production of and
use of NATURAL GAS in current
economic alternatives and transition
strategies.
6. Public ownership and/or strong public
regulation of UTILITIES should be
encouraged to advance energy efficient
policies. Appropriate tax-exempt bonds
should be authorized to finance public
ownership in utilities. Tax-exempt bonds
should be authorized to allow publicly
owned utilities to finance conservation,
energy efficiency, and renewable energy
projects.

E. RENEWABLE ENERGY

1. Overall, it is essential in the long-term
that ALTERNATIVE ENERGY SYSTEMS
be put in place that produce goods that are
durable, repairable, reusable, recyclable,
and energy-efficient, using both non-toxic
materials and nonpolluting production
methods.
2. We call on regulatory agencies to include
life-cycle considerations in their standard-
setting process for product approval. We
promote citizen participation in this process.
3. Ultimately, environmentally destructive
technologies, processes, and products
should be replaced with alternatives that are
environmentally benign.
Producers/manufacturers must look to
redesigning their products. Legislation that
will assist this transition (including bans,
taxation, recycled content standards and
economic incentives/disincentives such as
taxation, special fees, and/or deposits) will
be required in a any concerted move toward
system-wide sustainability.

F. TRANSPORTATION POLICY

1. We encourage providing a broad range of
incentives for ALTERNATIVE
TRANSPORTATION, including natural
gas vehicles, solar and electric vehicles,
bicycles and bikeways, and MASS
TRANSIT.
2. As a nation we must push for motor
vehicle fuel efficiency, raising the standard
to a minimum of 45 miles per gallon by
2005.
3. We must require that an increasing
percentage of the Federal motor fleet is
converted to natural gas and aims at being
pollution free over the next decade.
4. We must expand our countrys network
of rail lines, high speed regional passenger
service, and urban light rail systems.
5. We support efforts to develop
inexpensive, efficient solar cells, chips and
panels via industrial grade silicon and
other advanced materials.
6. We endorse converting our nations
weapons complex and labs toward civilian
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. We
are especially interested in public/private
partnerships that work to create
breakthrough battery technology which
would enable electric cars (and all solar
electric applications) to become energy
efficient and market competitive.


16
G. CLEAN AIR / GREENHOUSE
EFFECT / OZONE DEPLETION

Climate change presents very real
economic and social opportunities for new
and sustainable jobs from new energy
technologies, including both energy
efficiency and renewables. Yet, too often,
the focus of debate has been only on the
pain of adjustment to carbon reductions, this
because of the influence of multinational
business on government policies.
With only 4% of the earths people, the
United States produces more than 20% of
emissions. From 1990 to 1996, total U.S.
emissions grew by an amount equal to what
Brazil and Indonesia produce every year.
Per capita, the United States emits 85%
more than Germany, twice as much as
England and Japan, and currently nearly 10
times as much as China.
The Green Party urges the U.S.
Congress to act immediately to address the
critical global warming and climate change
issues. When the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to
oppose any global warming treaty that does
not also bind developing countries to
specific, if smaller, emissions reductions in
the future, which many industrializing
countries oppose, it put a roadblock in the
way of progress by all nations.
Greens believe the following are
possible, if we are to make a start on
protecting our global climate. It is
imperative that we strive for no less:

1. An early target must still be set to prevent
emissions rising so far that future reductions
become even more difficult. There must be
commitments for 2005.
2. Avoiding loopholes is now even more
important than an ambitious target. Unless a
very ambitious target is set, which now
seems unlikely, allowing sinks and trading
within the protocol will create such
loopholes that no real reductions will occur.
Trading and sinks must be left until there is
much more scientific precision about how
they are measured.
3. Nuclear power is not an acceptable
alternative to fossil energy. We should not
accept country commitments that depend on
increasing nuclear capability. We must join
the solar age.
4. Targets are not enough without credible
policies and measures to achieve them. We
urge all governments to table a list of the
policies and measures they intend to adopt
to attain their target, for example eco-taxes
and energy performance standards.
5. The Green party endorse the Contraction
and Convergence model under discussion
at international talks, which as proposed
would eventually give every human being
an equal right to the atmosphere, as the
most practical way to achieve justice and
participation for developing countries.
6. The strict, comprehensive protections of
the Clean Air Act must be maintained and
enhanced if we are to keep in place effective
federal programs that deal with urban smog,
toxic air pollution, acid rain and ozone
depletion. State and local clean air
initiatives should advance and improve
national efforts. As an example, California
has taken the lead in legislation moving
forward stricter clean air and fuel efficiency
standards, and vehicle and fleet
conversions. These programs should serve
as a model for other local, regional and state
initiatives.
7. It is said that U.S. industries emit over
20% of greenhouse gases globally. As a
nation, we must implement public and
private initiatives at every level to support
the GLOBAL CLIMATE TREATY
signed at the Earth Summit in 1992,
committing industrial nations within a time
framework to reducing emissions to 1990
levels.
8. The Earths atmosphere, according to
informed scientific opinion, is in great
danger due to man-made chemicals and
hydrocarbon emissions. Chloro-
fluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochloro-
fluorocarbons (HCFCs), and other related
ozone-depleting substances should be
banned as soon as is possible.
9. GREENHOUSE GASES and the threat
of GLOBAL WARMING must be
addressed by the international community in
concert, through international treaties and
conventions, with the industrial nations at
the forefront of this vital effort.

H. LAND USE

Greens are advocates for the Earth. All
the rivers, lakes, landscapes, forests, and
wildlife. This is our birthright and our home
- the green Earth.
When we see the first picture ever
taken of our green oasis from space,
photographed from the window of the
Apollo flight, we marvel at the preciousness
of life.
We remember John Muir's and Edward
Abbey's call to protect what is critical to our
spirit. Experiencing the wilderness calls us
to preserve pristine nature. We are
advocates for our home. Our advocacy is
based on our love of nature and our
recognition that it is beyond us.
Greens take a BIOREGIONAL VIEW
of the ecosystem, acknowledging political
boundaries while noting that the land, air
and water, the interconnected biosphere, is a
unique and precious "community",
deserving careful consideration and
protection. Greens support restructuring
institutions to conform to bioregional
realities. We feel that, just as the planetary
ecology consists of nested systems at
various scales, so must our programs and
institutions of ecological stewardship be
scaled appropriately.
Guided by our sense of stewardship, we
feel that all land use polices, plans, and
practices should be based on sustainable
development and production, the
reduce-reuse-recycle ethic, and the
encouragement of balance between
optimum and diverse use of land.

1. Land Ownership and Property Rights
We encourage the social ownership and
use of land at the community, local, and
regional level, for example in the form of
community and conservation land trusts,
under covenants of ecological
responsibility.)
2. Communities and Urbanism
Greens find inspiration in building
healthy, livable communities. Communities
must be designed or redesigned so that they
are built with energy efficiency in mind, on
a human scale, with integrated land uses.
Such integrated land uses should provide,
for example, ready access between home
and work, and to schools, a local supply of
food, shopping, worship, medical care,
recreation and natural areas. Integrated land
use should also de-emphasize individual
motorized transport and place more
emphasis on ecologically responsible mass
transit, bicycling, and the pedestrian.
We promote urban design and
architecture that does not alienate, but
fulfills, the spirit and that is compatible with
human, social, artistic, and environmental
values. Greens support the concepts
advanced by the NEW URBANISM
movement. As there is much to learn about
human-scale development and neighborly
social interaction from historical patterns of
urbanism, we support historic preservation.
Recreational opportunities are the
beginning of lifelong appreciation of our
natural environment. We should all have
opportunities to experience nature firsthand.
3. Land Use Planning
It is imperative that we as a nation find
a means to CONTROL URBAN SPRAWL.
The ecological, social, and fiscal crises
engendered by sprawl are becoming
ever-more apparent. Greens enthusiastically
endorse the Metropolitics movement, which
seeks to control sprawl by integrating such
measures as urban growth boundaries, tax
base sharing, fair housing, and metropolitan

17
transportation. Urban areas can be
revitalized through brownfields
redevelopment although standards for the
clean up of contaminated sites must not be
lowered. Rural areas and farmland should
be preserved, through such measures as
purchase of development rights.
WATERSHED PLANNING should be
undertaken to mitigate the impacts of urban
development on our streams, rivers, and
lakes. Storm water management, soil
erosion and sedimentation control, the
establishment of vegetative buffers, and
performance standards for development are
appropriate measures in this area. Special
attention must be given to the restoration
and protection of riparian areas, which are
critical habitats in healthy ecosystems.
4. Natural Resource Management
Greens believe that effective land and
resource management practices must be
founded on stewardship, such as
incorporated in a land ethic as articulated
by Aldo Leopold.
a.) Stringent natural resource
management should serve to prevent
activities that adversely affect public and
adjacent lands. We call for repeal of the
Mining Act of 1872. We demand a halt to
federal mineral, oil and gas, and resource
giveaways, royalty holidays, and flagrant
concessions to the mining, energy and
timber industries; and an immediate
crackdown on their evasions and fraudulent
reporting.
b.) We call for strict CLEAN-UP
ENFORCEMENT of industrial-scale
natural resource extraction activities, for
example, of tailings, pits and run-off from
mining operations via agreement with
companies that can include posting of
site-restoration bonds prior to
commencement of operations. The regional
long-term environmental and social impacts
of any resource extractions should be
minimized, and the land restored to a
healthy ecological state.
c.) We call for a halt to all current
international funding policies that promote
destruction of forest ecosystems and we call
for an end to the trade in endangered
hardwoods. We support laws that promote
paper recycling and mandate
SUSTAINABLE FORESTRY practices that
promote biodiversity.
d.) We urge protection of old growth
forests, a zero-cut policy banning industrial
timber harvest on federal and state lands, a
ban on all clear-cutting, and a reduction of
road building on public lands.
e.) We advocate raising grazing fees on
public land to approximate fair market value
and significant grazing reforms. We support
policies that favor small-scale ranchers over
corporate operations (which are often used
as tax write-offs, a practice which
undermines family ranches).
f.) We must promote the preservation
and extension of wildlife habitat and
biological diversity by creating and
preserving large continuous tracts of open
space (complete ecosystems so as to permit
healthy, self-managing wildlife populations
to exist in a natural state. We oppose any
selling off of our National Parks, the
commercial "privatizing" of public lands;
and/or cutbacks or exploitation in our
national wilderness areas.
g.) Public involvement in decision
making via active and well-funded
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
DISTRICTS and COUNCILS will aid a
long-term process on the use of federal and
state trust lands which are currently
controlled by the Bureau of Land
Management (BLM), National Forest
Service, National Park Service, and State
Land Offices.
h.) We support banning indiscriminate
wildlife damage control practices and
abolishing the ANIMAL DAMAGE
CONTROL agency that has been renamed
Wildlife Services.
i.) We urge comprehensive baseline
mapping of our nations biodiversity
resources.

I. WATER

Together we must look ahead and plan
for future water uses, as well as todays
needs. Who can disagree that clean and
sufficient water resources will determine
what kind of future we have?

1. With the longer term in mind, we call for
elimination of wasteful subsidies on the use
of water in agriculture and for municipal
water rates to be set high enough, or that
other INCENTIVES/DISINCENTIVES be
set in place, to discourage the wasteful use
of water.
2. We support the federal Clean Water
Act setting strict requirements for sewage
discharges, wetland protection and water
quality standards. Recent moves to rollback
protections would in effect create a dirty
water act. Our right to clean water is non-
negotiable.
3. Given the profound importance of clean
water, we support the establishment of
federal, state, and local GROUNDWATER
PROTECTION agencies with authority to
establish standards for the use of water; to
provide tough and timely enforcement of
laws enacted; and to protect our aquifers
from overuse, depletion and contamination.
4. We endorse alternative solutions to water
treatment and clean-up, for example
CONSTRUCTED WETLANDS and
biological remediation.
5. We acknowledge Native American rights
regarding water, and urge fair and equitable
solutions with tribes on the part of the
courts and State Water Engineers.

J. AGRICULTURE

The human species is at the top of the
food chain and is, therefore, very vulnerable
to the degrading of the environment and the
loss of species. If for no other reason than
our own preservation, we should work to
protect our environment and the diversity of
our regions and planets rich life forms.
Factory farming (industrial farming)
threatens to further erode the family farms
and the general quality of life in our rural
areas. Family farms are the basis of
community-based economics and essential
to rural development and a healthy, diverse
economy.
The consequences of factory farming
are devastating. Open pits of putrefying
animal wastes are allowed to discharge into
rivers and streams, degrading water and air
quality, killing aquatic life and posing
serious threats to human health and the
environment.
Corporate industrial farming practices
are inhumane and cause unnecessary
suffering to animals. Industrial farming has
changed the type of food we eat, and studies
are now demonstrating that nutritional value
has been decreased, with resultant immune
system impacts.
The story of industrial farming needs to
be told. The Green Party strongly opposes
the rampant and damaging policies of
corporate industrial farming and calls for a
national shift away from these practices.
The Green Party opposes the
biodevastation that Monsanto and related
biotech companies are engaged in. The
actions of Monsanto in trying to subvert
labeling of RBGH need to be exposed.
Monsanto and other biotech companies
need to be brought into the light and their
actions made public. For example, over half
the soybean production in the United States
(for example, Roundup Ready soya) is the
result of genetically modified seeds.
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs)
are the new stealth product of the U.S.
transnational corporations.
The acquiescence of the U.S.
government to biotech-friendly capitalism,
despite the loud protests of governments
and peoples around the world, is a scandal.

18
It is unacceptable that consumers
purchasing soy products, for example, do
not know whether they are eating or
drinking genetically modified organisms. If
a fish gene has been transferred to a crop to
make it more tolerant of cold, consumers
should know that theyre ingesting a
genetically modified food organism. If a
gene has been added to seed stock to make
that crop more capable of being heavily
doused with pesticides like RoundUp,
consumers should be warned.
Genetically modified Terminator
seeds that are more about intellectual
property rights and corporate profit than
they are about sustainable agricultural
practices, Third-world economic
independence, and health, should be
banned. Labeling should fully disclose
where genetically engineered (and/or
irradiated) food is being supplied.
Consumer choice needs to be based on full
and complete disclosure. Whether it is Bt
corn, genetically modified maize, or GM
oilseed that finds its way into a menu of
other products, the consumer needs to know
and choose.
Ralph Nader has called for
consumer revolts. The time has come. The
Green Parties and the Green Platforms
around the world are united in opposition to
genetically engineered vat food that is
being shoved down our throats. The
arrogance of U.S. biotech firms needs to be
shown for what it is food production for
profit, not health. Food will be a key part of
the next milleniums struggle for
democracy. The Green Party stands in
opposition to a gen-food future as delivered
by unaccountable mega-transnational
corporations.

1. We call for the establishment of an
ecologically based sustainable agricultural
system that moves as rapidly as possible
towards regional/bioregional self reliance.
2. An adequate FOOD SUPPLY is tied to
many of our nations domestic, export,
foreign aid, geopolitical and related
overseas goals. We support anti-hunger and
Food Stamp programs at home, and
support assistance to foreign countries and
their people that moves them toward SELF-
SUFFICIENCY and sustainability in food
production.
3. WORLD HUNGER can be best
addressed by FOOD SUPPLY
INDEPENDENCE. Population growth and
accompanying deprivation, which has led to
increased poverty and environmental
destruction in the Third World, can be
replaced by a decent standard of living, and
sustainable populations and growth. Goals
and policies that aim at sustainable
production to end hunger while preserving
the environment are crucial for success of
these efforts. Food security is a base-line
necessity.
4. We call for phasing out the use of man-
made pesticides and artificial fertilizers, and
funding for research to find acceptable
alternatives.
5. We support Integrated Pest
Management techniques, as an alternative
to current chemical-based agriculture.
6. We support the adoption of organic
certification standards and support regional
efforts to broaden this effort by reaching out
to and identifying growers and buyers of
organic produce.
7. We call for a reconsideration of the
potentially far-reaching and unforeseen
effects of seed and plant hybridization and
especially of genetic engineering in
agricultural systems. We are particularly
concerned about loss of and increasing
threat posed to plant diversity, which must
be saved, maintained and enhanced if we
are to have an authentic ALTERNATIVE
GREEN REVOLUTION, based on
diversity, sustainable agriculture and local
self-empowerment.
8. We generally oppose the patenting of life
forms, including gene-splicing techniques,
and call for a moratorium on agricultural
genetic engineering while an evaluation of
its effects on ecological and social
sustainability is carried out. The
implications of a corporate takeover, and
resulting monopolization of genetic
intellectual property by the
bioengineering industry, are immense. With
the introduction of the worlds first
genetically engineered (and duly patented)
tomato, we need to re-examine our
governments oversight of this untested,
unproven field.
9. We advocate REGIONALIZING our
food system and decentralizing agricultural
lands, production, and distribution.
10. We support research, within the public
and private arenas, including educational
institutions, for sustainable, organic, and
ecologically balanced agriculture.
11. The Green Party supports the strongest
organic standards. California has had the
highest standards of any state for organic
foods labeling. These standards were
authored by those in the industry, growers,
manufacturers and those in the business of
livestock raising and feed production.
Proposed USDA standards should be based
on the highest standards.
Currently, organic food is priced such
that it is beyond the means of low-income
consumers. Rather than allow for a system
whereby only the wealthier in society get to
eat safer and healthier foods, there must be
remedies in place to protect all consumers.
First, the use of sewage sludge or hazardous
wastes as fertilizer, the use of food
irradiation and the use of genetic
engineering must be banned in ALL food
production. Other aspects addressed in
organic standards, such as the use of
intensive animal confinement and the use of
persistent, toxic pesticides must be phased
out as well for all food production. Until
these take place, there should be an end to
government price supports, which aid in
non-organic food production and
government subsidies should be shifted such
that the cost of organic food products is

K. BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY

Ecological systems are diverse and
interlocking, and natures survival strategy
can best be found in the adaptability that
comes as a result of biological diversity.
Although many people may think first of
tropical rainforests in reference to the
richness of (and threat to) biological
diversity, we believe diversity close to home
is worthy of saving, as are the myriad
species within the rainforest and its teeming
canopy.

1. The Green Party supports a strong,
enforceable ENDANGERED SPECIES
ACT based on the principles of
conservation biology.
2. We look to the CONVENTION ON
BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY, first adopted
at the Earth Summit in 1992, as a primary
statement of purpose regarding how we can
act to preserve and sustain our common
genetic resources. Greens emphasize
conservation of natural populations and
ecosystems, and we seriously question the
demands of the US to amend this
unprecedented international agreement on
behalf of the biotechnology and
pharmaceutical industries, with their
insistence upon protection of their
intellectual property and technology
transfer rights. Within these demands are
inconsistencies which can threaten the
Conventions overall goals.
3. We encourage support of and public
access to seed banks and seed collections
that emphasize DEEP DIVERSITY,
particularly through traditional and
heirloom seeds.
4. We call for wide-spread education on the
critical importance of efforts being made
(including backyard biodiversity
gardening) to replant indigenous plant life
where it has dwindled or been lost.

19
5. Corporate agribusiness is founded on F-1
hybrid seeds, proprietary products that
cannot be saved season-to-season and have
to be bought from the company store at each
new planting. We discourage monopolistic
production of high-tech hybrid seeds, the
basis of the evolving industry of
MONOCULTURE agriculture i.e.,
agribusiness which relies on NON-
SUSTAINABLE METHODS (single crop
varieties bred with industrial traits and
grown with high energy, chemical and
pesticide inputs).
6. We know that agriculture and food
comprise the worlds largest economic
market. We find it of great concern that the
practices of corporate agribusiness are
leading, as scientists are beginning to point
out, to diminishing yields; increasing
petrochemical fertilizer and pesticide costs;
serious topsoil loss; non-point, runoff
pollution of waterways and aquifers; and the
return of resistant pests and blights
requiring ever-larger doses of
environmentally harmful pesticides,
herbicides, fungicides, and/or miticides.
7. Monocultures have also led to a massive
loss of biodiversity as they have displaced
traditional varieties and seed stocks. We
encourage the use of diverse natural
varieties, those passed down over many
generations, called open-pollinates
because they can be grown out, the best
plants seeds being saved season to season.
In practice, we support this as the basis of
an Alternative Green Revolution,
sustainable agriculture that is closely
connected to the environment, and not
dependent on outside companies and their
industrial monopolies.
8. We oppose in principle international
trade agreements (NAFTA, GATT and the
WTO in particular) which have precedent-
setting provisions protecting transnational,
corporate control of the INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY of genetic material, hybrid
seeds and proprietary products.
9. Greens call for a move away from
corporate control of agriculture (and the
resultant extinction of traditional plant
varieties) and instead envision a healthy and
sustainable food system, based on crop
diversity, community empowerment, self-
sufficiency, cooperative marketing,
recycling, seed saving, local (and fresh)
production, and organic methods.
10. The struggle over the production and
quality of our food supply is critical and has
yet to be determined. The outcome of this
struggle will have an intimate connection to
our personal health and the future biological
diversity of our environment. We believe
strongly that we must work to bring this
message every community throughout the
world.
11. Cloning is a challenge to basic Green
philosophy. Since the efforts to clone
animals, and eventually, humans, has been
undertaken by profit-making corporations,
the purpose behind such projects is to
manufacture commodities. To classify a
human (or any part thereof, including
human DNA or body organ) as a
commodity) is to turn human beings into
property.
12. Finally, as Greens, we must add that the
mark of a humane and civilized society truly
lies in how we treat the least protected
among us. To extend rights to other
sentient, living beings is our responsibility
and a mark of our place among all of
creation. We find cruelty to animals to be
repugnant and criminal. We call for an
intelligent, compassionate approach to the
treatment of animals.


IV. ECONOMIC
SUSTAINABILITY

A. ECO-NOMICS

We can learn from indigenous people
who believe that the earth and its natural
systems are to be respected and cared for in
accordance with ecological principles.
Concepts of ownership should be employed
in the context of stewardship, and social and
ecological responsibility. We support
environmental and social responsibility in
all businesses, whether privately or publicly
owned.
To create an enduring society, we must
devise a system of production and
commerce where every act is sustainable
and restorative. We believe that all business
has a social contract with society and the
environment (in effect a fiduciary
responsibility), and that socially
responsible business and shareholder
democracy can be models of prospering,
successful business.

1. We call for an economic system that is
based on a combination of private
businesses, decentralized democratic
cooperatives, publicly owned enterprises,
and alternative economic structures, all of
which put human and ecological needs
alongside profits to measure success, and
are accountable to the communities in which
they function.
2. Community-based economics constitutes
an alternative to both corporate capitalism
and state socialism. It is very much in
keeping with the Greens valuation of
diversity and decentralization.
Recognition of limits is central to a
Green economic orientation. The drive to
accumulate power and wealth must become
recognized for what it is, a pernicious
characteristic of a civilization headed, ever
more rapidly, in a pathological direction.
Greens advocate that economic relations
become more direct, more cooperative, and
more egalitarian.
Humanizing economic relations is just
one aspect of our broader objective: to
consciously and deliberately (albeit
gradually) shift toward a different way of
life characterized by sustainability,
regionalization, a more harmonious balance
between the natural ecosphere and the
human-made technosphere, and a revival of
community life.
Our communitarian perspective is
antithetical to both Big Business and Big
Government. It distinguishes the Greens
and will enable us to make a unique
contribution toward deriving political and
economic solutions for the 21st century.
3. Greens support a major redesign of
commerce. We endorse true-cost pricing.
We support production that eliminates
waste. In natural systems, everything is a
meal for something else. Everything
recycles, there is no waste. We need to
mimic natural systems in the way we
manufacture and produce things.
Consumables need to be designed to be
thrown into a compost heap and/or eaten,
for example. Durable goods would be
designed in closed-loop systems, ultimately
to be disassembled and reassembled.
Toxics would be safeguarded and could
have markers identifying them as
belonging, in perpetuity, to their makers.
4. We need to remake commerce to
encourage diversity and variety, responding
to the enormous complexity of global and
local conditions. Big business is not about
appropriateness and adaptability, but about
power and market control. Greens support
small business, responsible stakeholder
capitalism, and broad and diverse forms of
economic cooperation. We argue that
economic diversity is more responsive than
big business to the needs of diverse human
populations. Sustaining our quality of life,
eco-nomic prosperity, environmental health,
and long-term survival demands that we
adopt new ways of doing business.
5. Greens support a definition of
sustainability where we openly examine the
economy as a part of the ecosystem, not as
an isolated subset in which nothing but
resources come in and products and waste
go out and never the economy and the real
world shall meet.

20
B. RE-ASSERTING LOCAL CITIZEN
CONTROL OVER CORPORATIONS

Currently, corporations possess more
rights and freedoms than natural human
persons. Through a series of judicial
rulings, and by virtue of their ability to
control governments and economies by
virtue of wealth, corporations have
judicially rewritten our Constitution and
have emerged as unaccountable, unelected
governments. The Greens, therefore,
support all reforms that seek to supplant
governmental regulation of corporations
with communities that seek to define
corporations. In the interim, Greens support
measures that hold executives and officers
of corporations directly liable for harm that
results from their decisions.
When we look at the HISTORY OF our
states, we learn that citizens intentionally
defined CORPORATIONS through charters
the certificates of incorporation. In
exchange for the charter, a corporation was
obligated to obey all laws, to serve the
common good, and to cause no harm. Early
state legislators wrote charter laws to limit
corporate authority, and to ensure that when
a corporation caused harm, they could
revoke its charter.
In the late 19th century, however,
corporations claimed special protections
under the Constitution. Large companies
used legal power to assert legal authority
over what to make and how to make it, to
move money, influence elections, bend
governments to their will. They insisted that
once formed, corporations may operate
forever, with the privilege of limited
liability and freedom from community or
worker interference in business judgments.
It is inappropriate for investment and
production decisions that can shape our
communities and lives to be made
essentially from afar, in boardrooms,
closed-door regulatory agencies, and
prohibitively expensive courtrooms.
It is unacceptable to have the level of
influence now being exerted by corporate
interests over the public interest. We
challenge the propriety and equity of
corporate welfare in the form of tax
breaks, subsidies, payments, grants,
bailouts, giveaways, unenforced laws and
regulations; and historic, continuing access
to our vast public resources, including
millions of acres of land, forests, mineral
resources, intellectual property rights, and
government-created research.
We call for revisiting what one
Supreme Court Justice called, when
referring to the history of constitutional law,
the history of the impact of the modern
corporation upon the American scene. We
believe that corporations are neither
inevitable nor always appropriate. Judicial
and legislative decisions that have made it
possible for big business to stay beyond the
reach of democracy need to be re-examined.
Legal doctrines must be continually
revised in recognition of the changing needs
of an active, democratic citizenry. Huge
multi-national corporations are artificial
creations, not natural persons uniquely
sheltered under constitutional protections. It
is time to support local government and
state government attempts to DEFINE
CORPORATIONS and to prevent these
entities from exercising democratic rights
which are uniquely possessed by the citizens
of the United States.
One point remains unequivocal:
Because corporations have become the
dominant economic institution of the planet,
they must address and squarely face the
social and environmental problems that
afflict humankind.

C. LIVABLE INCOME

1. We affirm the importance of access to a
livable income.
2. Job banks and other innovative training
and employment programs which bring
together the private and public sectors must
become federal, state and local priorities.
People who are unable to find decent work
in the private sector should have options
through publicly funded opportunities.
3. Workforce development programs must
aim at moving people out of poverty a
living wage campaign and living wage
standard will go a long way toward
achieving this goal.
4. We urge that a national debate be held
and broad public mandate be sought
regarding (fiscal and monetary) economic
strategies and policies as they impact wages.
This debate is long overdue. The growing
inequities in income and wealth between
rich and poor; unprecedented discrepancies
in salary and benefits between corporate top
executives and line workers; loss of the
American dream by the young and
middle-class each is a symptom of
decisions made by policy-makers far
removed from the concerns of ordinary
workers trying to keep up.
5. A clear living wage standard should serve
as a foundation for trade between nations,
and a floor of wage protections and
workers rights should be negotiated and set
in place in future trade agreements. The
United States should take the lead on this
front and not allow destructive, corporate
predatory practices under the guise of free
international trade.

D. COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Reforms to allow communities to have
influence in their ECONOMIC FUTURE
should be implemented, including:
1. Locally owned small businesses, which
are more accessible to community concerns.
2. Local production and consumption where
possible.
3. Consumer co-ops, credit unions,
incubators, microloan funds, local
currencies, and other institutions that help
communities develop economic projects.
4. Allowing municipalities to approve or
disapprove large economic projects case-
by-case based on environmental impacts,
local ownership, community reinvestment,
wage levels, and working conditions.
5. Allowing communities to set
environmental, human rights, health and
safety standards higher than federal or state
minimums.
6. We support a national program of
INVESTING IN THE COMMONS; to
rebuild the infrastructure of communities; to
repair and improve transportation lines
between cities; and to protect and restore
the environment. A federal capital budget
should be put in place and applied in a
process that assesses federal spending as
capital investment.
7. We endorse DIRECT DEMOCRACY
through TOWN MEETINGS, which
express a communitys wishes on economic
decision-making directly to local
institutions and organizations.

E. SMALL BUSINESS AND JOB
CREATION

1. Greens support an economic program that
combats concentration and abuse of
economic power. We support many
different initiatives for forming successful,
small enterprises that together can become
an engine (and sustainable model) of job
creation, prosperity and progress. Small
business is where the jobs are. Over the past
decade and a half, all new net job growth
has come from the small business sector.
2. The Green economic model is about true
prosperity Green means prosperity. Our
goal is to go beyond the dedicated good
work being done by many companies
(which is often referred to as SOCIALLY
RESPONSIBLE BUSINESS or VALUE-
DRIVEN BUSINESS) and to present new
ways of seeing how business can help create
a sustainable world, all the while surviving
in a competitive business climate.
3. We believe that conservation should be
profitable and employment should be
creative, meaningful and fairly
compensated.

21
4. ACCESS TO CAPITAL is often an
essential need in growing a business.
There should be a comprehensive set of
approaches to making loans available to
small business at rates competitive to those
offered big business. Financial institutions
unfairly favor large corporations and the
wealthy when determining how to work
their loan portfolios. Government needs to
reform current lending practices. We
support disclosure laws, anti-redlining
laws and a general openness on the part of
the private sector as to what criteria are
used in making lending decisions.
5. As lending institutions have obligations
to the health of their local communities, we
oppose arbitrary, or discriminatory practices
which act to deny small business access to
credit and expansion capital. We oppose
disinvestment practices, in which lending
and financial institutions move money
deposited in local communities out of those
same communities, in effect often damaging
the best interests of their customers and
community.
6. The present TAX SYSTEM acts to
discourage small business, as it encourages
waste, discourages conservation, and
rewards consumption. Big business has used
insider access to dominate the federal tax
code. The tax system needs a major
OVERHAUL, to get it up and running in a
way that favors the legitimate and critical
needs of the small business community.
RETENTION OF CAPITAL, through
retained earnings, efficiencies, and savings,
is central to small business remaining
competitive. Current tax policies often act
to unfairly penalize small business.
7. Government should reduce wherever
possible unnecessary restrictions, fees, and
red tape. In particular, the Paper
Simplification Act should be seen as a way
to benefit small business and it should be
improved in response to the needs of small
businesses.
8. We support the full deductibility of
health insurance premiums paid by the self-
employed.
9. Overall we believe that Federal and State
government must pay more attention to
putting forward policies that work on behalf
of small business, and break their cycle of
excessive welfare for big business.
10. State and local government should
encourage where appropriate businesses that
especially benefit the community.
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
INITIATIVES should include citizen and
community input. The type and size of
businesses provided incentives (tax, loans,
bonds, etc.) should be the result of local
community participation.
11. Pension funds, the result of workers
investments, should be examined as
additional sources of capital for small
business. Definitions of fiscally prudent
need to be broadened within acceptable
margins of safety to include investments
beyond the current practices (and a credit
rating system) almost exclusively benefiting
large corporations. Investment managers
need to be given discretionary powers to
channel these monies, now in the trillions of
dollars, into productive small and mid-sized
businesses at the local level.
12. Insurance costs need to be brought
down by means of active engagement with
the insurance industry. Insurance pools, for
example, of the kind offered businesses in
the association, Business for Social
Responsibility, need to be expanded.
13. One-stop offices should be set-up by
government to assist individuals who want
to change careers, or go into business for
the first time.
14. HOME-BASED BUSINESSES and
NEIGHBORHOOD-BASED BUSINESSES
need to be assisted by forward-looking
planning, not hurt by out-of-date zoning
ordinances. Telecommuting and home
offices should be aided, not hindered, by
government.

F. TRADE

1. We reject trade agreements negotiated in
secret and unduly influenced by corporate
attorneys and representatives. In particular,
we oppose the NORTH AMERICAN FREE
TRADE AGREEMENT (NAFTA), the
GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS
AND TRADE (GATT), and its progeny, the
WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
(WTO). They threaten the constitutional
power of Congress and local sovereignty,
and they effectively limit the participation
of citizens in decisions. Instead, they create
administrative bureaucracies which will be
run by corporate interests unaccountable to
public input or even legal challenge.
2. We demand that these agreements be
updated to include more specific
environmental, worker, health and safety
standards in the text itself, not as side
agreements, and full funding of existing
environmental/health commitments (for
example, the North American Development
Bank and Border Environmental
Cooperation Commission).
3. We reject any agreement which threatens
the authority of states and local
communities to establish more stringent
health, safety and environmental standards.
4. We reject agreements that negotiate
downward our basic environmental, health,
safety and labor standards, including the
right to bargain collectively, a reasonable
minimum wage, prohibitions against child
and forced labor, and which threaten and
violate human rights generally. The historic
role of the United States has been to raise
living standards, not to be dragged down by
the lowest common denominator abroad.
5. The Tobin tax, named for the economist
who first proposed it, calls for a small sales
tax on cross border currency transactions.
The purpose is to suppress market volume
and volatility and help restore national
sovereignty over monetary policy. In view
of the growing disparity between the rich
and poor in the United States and the world,
and in light of the negative impacts of
monetary speculation in the Asian crisis
of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and
Russia, as well as similar crises in Brazil,
Mexico and many other countries in the late
90s, the Green Party urges that state and
international governments work together to
impose an effective form of Tobin tax.
In the last ten years, international
moneychanging has grown in volume from
$200 billion to $1.8 trillion daily with
dangerous consequences for countries
caught in a speculative riptide. Even a small
tax of .01% to .05% would cool the
speculative fever and raise between $75
billion and $250 billion annually. While
reining in grievous financial abuses, the
Tobin tax receipts could be devoted to
reducing world poverty, funding
international peacekeeping, and attacking
environmental problems.

G. RURAL DEVELOPMENT

Economic development in rural areas
spans many agencies of government, but
eventually comes back to prospering,
healthy farms and ranch lands. Recreation,
local business, schools and education,
health care and energy availability all are
necessary to support diversified, successful
rural economies.

1. RURAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY
should begin with the local people.
FAMILY FARMS are the backbone of a
sustainable rural economy. They are more
likely than corporate agribusiness to follow
ecological practices that enrich the land; to
use labor-intensive rather than energy-
intensive farming methods; and to support
agricultural biodiversity. Because of their
smaller scale and production methods, they
are more likely to produce food products
that are healthier for consumers. Federal,
state and local governments should provide
financial assistance to small farmers to help
them compete against agribusiness.

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2. Price-fixing and anti-competitive actions
of the corporate agricultural giants must be
confronted aggressively.
3. Programs must be implemented by the
federal and state government that add value
to the production from family farms to help
them remain competitive.
4. Government should encourage BANK
POLICIES that spread their loan portfolios
beyond corporate agriculture and ranching,
and the big, subsidized grazing permit
holders, in order to diversify local
economies.
5. We support COOPERATIVE
VENTURES to broaden markets of local
producers.
6. We encourage state-assisted PRODUCT
MARKETING EFFORTS and RURAL
DEVELOPMENT BANKS.

H. BANKING FOR PEOPLE

1. We support a broad program of reform in
the banking and savings and loan industry
that acts to ensure that their
COMMONWEALTH OBLIGATIONS to
serve all communities are met. We
understand that the present system is
skewed to service first and foremost large
businesses, transnational corporations and
wealthy individuals. Since lending
institutions are chartered by the state to
serve the best interests of communities, the
privileges that come with being given power
at the center of commerce carry special
responsibilities.
2. The government should take serious steps
to ensure that low- and moderate-income
persons and communities, as well as small
business, have access to banking services,
affordable loans and small-business
supporting capital.
3. We support the extension of the
COMMUNITY REINVESTMENT ACT
and its key performance data provisions to
provide public and timely information on
the extent of housing loans, small business
loans, loans to minority-owned enterprises,
investments in community development
projects and affordable housing.
4. We believe Congress should act to
charter COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
BANKS, which would be capitalized with
public funds and work to meet the credit
needs of local communities.

I. INSURANCE REFORM

1. We endorse wide ranging INSURANCE
INDUSTRY REGULATION to reduce the
cost of insurance by reducing its special-
interest protections; collusion and over-
pricing; and excessive industry-wide
practices that too often injure the interests
of the insured when theyre most vulnerable
and in need.
2. We call for actions at the federal and
state level to rein in bad faith insurance
actions including the standard practice of
attempting legal avoidance of obligations,
and the current widespread practice of price
fixing.
3. We support federal law that acts to make
policies transportable from job to job and
seeks to prevent insurance companies
rejection of applicants for prior
conditions. This is a move in the right
direction but in no way addresses the scope
of the problem, whether in health insurance,
life insurance, business, liability, auto or
crop insurance.
4. We support initiatives in secondary
insurance markets that work to expand
credit for economic development in inner
cities; affordable housing and home
ownership among the poor; transitional
farming to sustainable agriculture; and for
rural development maintaining family
farms.

J. PENSION REFORM

1. Working people, who own over $3
trillion in pension monies (deferred wages
in effect), should have financial options for
where their money is invested apart from
the current near-monopoly exerted by a
handful of managers, banks, insurance
companies, and mutual funds. We do not
believe the overuse of pension funds for
corporate mergers, acquisitions and
leveraged buyouts is appropriate or
productive.
Yet, the current system has allowed vast
amounts of American workers hard-earned
money to be squandered on job-ending,
plant-moving, corporate downsizing. The
irony of investing pension funds in
corporate decisions that undercut workers
rights, employment, and retirement while
hugely rewarding non-productive
speculation should no longer be ignored.
2. PENSION FUNDS are gigantic capital
pools that can, with government support, be
used to meet community needs and benefit
workers and their families directly.
3. Corporate-sponsored pension funds (the
biggest category of funds) should be jointly
controlled by management and workers, not
exclusively ruled by management.
4. Federal law must be changed so that
pension funds need simply seek a
reasonable rate of return, not the prevailing
market rate, which greatly restricts where
investments can be made.
5. A secondary pension market set up by the
government to insure pension investments
made in socially beneficial programs needs
to be considered as one method that could
greatly expand the impact of this capital
market, as has been demonstrated in the
case of federally insured/subsidized
mortgage lending.
6. Prudent pension fund investing can and
should be made on behalf of those whose
best interests are served by having their
money both make money and do good work.
Creating jobs and supporting employment
programs in public/private partnerships can
become a priority as we seek to expand
opportunities where the jobs are (toward
small business, not transnational business).
Why not look to targeting the under- and
un-employed? We believe there are myriad
opportunities for a profound shift to occur
in how the capital of Americas workers is
best put to use.

K. ANTI-TRUST ENFORCEMENT

1. We support strong and effectively
enforced ANTI-TRUST REGULATION to
counteract the concentration of economic
power that carries a severe toll on the
economy. The anti-trust division of the
Justice Department has had its scope and
powers reduced over the past decade. Media
mergers concentrating power in the hands of
media giants have been ineffectively
challenged. An explosion of unregulated
mergers and acquisitions, spin-offs and
leveraged buy-outs has overwhelmed the
federal governments capacity to provide
effective oversight. Financial and trading
markets have become particularly
vulnerable to insider trading. Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC)
regulation of these markets has seriously
fallen short. Overall, what we see in
unchecked market power is corruption, self-
serving abuse of the democratic, political
process, price gouging, loss of productivity
and jobs, reduced competitiveness, and an
array of predatory market practices that
history has documented in detail about
monopolies at work.
2. Although the pressure on Congress from
the trans- and multi-national corporations is
fierce when it involves effective oversight
and accountability, we call for the federal
government to step up and enforce the
existing anti-trust laws and regulations
and tighten the laws as necessary.
3. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
must vigorously oversee mergers where the
combined sales of the companyies exceed
$1 billion.
4. The Justice Department must redefine its
definition of relevant market share in
assessing mergers.

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5. The Congress must enact its calls for
competitiveness by stopping illegal
monopolistic practices.
6. We oppose the largesse of government in
the form of massive corporate entitlements.

L. ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY AND
DEFENSE CONVERSION

The conversion of defense-related
technologies to a peacetime technology-
based economy is a major challenge. We
must ask ourselves what we are to make of
our nations defense-related industrial base
in the face of the collapse of the Soviet
threat to our vital interests and resultant
need for a winding down of national
security spending.

1. CONSOLIDATION of the nuclear
weapons complex should move toward
alternative civilian technologies and non-
proliferation work, not toward a new
generation of nuclear weapon design and
production.
2. The Green Party, recognizing the need
for de-escalating the arms race which
continues unabated in spite of the end of the
'Cold War", strongly opposes putting
nuclear weapons, lasers and other weapons
in space in a new militarization policy that
is in clear violation of international law.
3. We generally support defense
TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER efforts,
particularly new INDUSTRIAL
APPLICATIONS and developments in the
areas of advanced communications,
alternative energy, and waste management.
4. Let us go forward with government and
civilian space programs; RESEARCH
INITIATIVES in transportation, advanced
products and manufacturing; industrial
applications, appropriate technologies and
technology transfer; environmental
sampling and monitoring; systems testing;
laser communications; high speed
computers; genetic mapping (with
Genome project results in the public
domain).
5. Let us devote a larger percentage of our
nations research and development budget,
both private and public, toward civilian use
and away from military use. Let us become
more competitive in developing consumer
products and addressing our chronic trade
imbalance in this fashion not by
increasing exports of military weapons and
technologies.
6. Advanced telecommunications
technologies (many of which came
originally from defense applications) such
as fiber optics, broadband infrastructure, the
Internet and the World Wide Web hold
great promise for education, decentralized
economies, and local control of decision-
making. We believe we must move toward
decentralization in these efforts carefully
protecting our individual rights as we go
forward.
Advanced and high definition TV,
digital communications, and wireless
communications hold promise and
challenge. For example, the public airwaves
that will accommodate the new generation
of telecommunications technology should
not be free giveaways to media giants. An
auction and built in requirements that attach
to these licenses to act in the public
interest is needed. Technology provides a
tool we must use these tools appropriately
and ethically.
Myriad opportunities for technical
excellence and continued economic
achievement, apart from strategic, tactical
and defense-related weapons systems, are in
front of us. We urge Congress, all of
government, and a forward-looking private
sector to take up this challenge.
7. We call for a federal Technology
Assessment Office to examine how
technology fits in with life on Earth, in our
neighborhoods and the quality of our daily
lives.

M. THE NATIONAL DEBT

For many years the federal government
borrowed hundreds of billions of dollars.
Money that should have been going into a
better safety net for the poor, homes for
the homeless, new business and jobs,
research and development, roads and
bridges, schools and the technologies of
tomorrow, has been lost to servicing the
national debt (currently over $5 trillion).
We now have surpluses and projected
larger surpluses. However, we cannot
ignore the consequences of our nations past
deficits and the related costs of debt service.
Working people and the small business
community are shouldering a
disproportionate amount the debt burden.
Yet the incurring of the federal debt was, to
a large degree, the end product of those who
were on watch during the Cold War and
military-defense industry buildup. Hundreds
of billions were lost in the savings and loan
bailout. The billions upon billions were lost
on loopholes, tax breaks, and
transnational/multinational corporate tax
avoidance. Hundreds of billions were lost
due to a failed tax code that has been, in
effect, held prisoner to special interests and
has produced historic gross inequities
between corporate America and working
Americans. During the 1980s, our national
debt grew from approximately $1 trillion to
over $5 trillion.
During that time, we refused to fund
Social Security, food stamps, public
housing, higher education, public
transportation, etc., etc. In effect when you
neglect the economic well-being of the
society and refuse to protect the
environment, the result can hardly be
described as a surplus.

1. We must continue to move toward
reduction in the national debt and we must
make up for the neglect that the deficits
caused.
2. We believe a comprehensive approach
that forms a basis for a DEBT
REDUCTION AND NEGLECT
REDUCTION PLAN would include debt
payback; increased revenues; and decreased
expenditures in some areas.
3. We support increases in domestic and
discretionary spending that is our nations
essential safety net, protecting those most
in need. We support increases in the portion
of entitlement benefits (one-fifth) that go to
the children, the lowest income, aged, blind
and disabled. These include food stamps,
family assistance, Medicaid, and
supplementary security income.
4. We support increased funding for Social
Security, public housing, higher education,
public transportation, environmental
protection, renewable energy and energy
conservation.
5. To help make up for our nations neglect,
we support tax increases on mega-corporate
and wealthy interests; defense budget
reductions (see FOREIGN POLICY); and
entitlement reductions to those who can
afford reductions most. Entitlement
spending is over one-half of the federal
budget. One way to reduce entitlement costs
substantially would be by means testing,
i.e. by scaling back payments to the six
million citizens in families with incomes
over $50,000 annually.



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Green Party
PO Box 18452
Washington, D.C. 20036

202-232-0335

www.greenpartyus.org
www.gp.org