The Green Party scares me...

[Balt]

I wanted to see what all the big deal with Nader was about, so I figured I should check to see what the Green Party is about (besides conservation).

Green Party Values

A couple of things really alarm me, but also make me happy that the Green Party will never win the election:

Nonviolence
It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to our current patterns of violence at all levels, from the family and the streets, to nations and the world. We will work to demilitarize our society and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments.

If you think you can get rid of nuclear weapons, you are already naive. In a perfect world we would all take apart our nukes and hold hands, but in a perfect world nukes never would have been built at all, would they?
Nuclear technology is like fire on a greater scale, it's knowledge which cannot just be thrown away by merely taking apart nuclear weapons. If the US got rid of our nukes (or our military) you can be sure the last thing that would result in this world is peace.
Somehow I don't see Nader talking Saddam into giving up his nuclear weapon research. The "without being naive about the intentions of other government" statement is just a load of BS if you think you can ever demilitarize, given the way the world is.


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 that is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for racial and sexual equality, but what that paragraph proposes seems to make the impression they want equality in ALL things (including economic). That sounds suspiciously like Socialism to me. You can't take away people's property (which includes their money) without reason. "Making things equal" doesn't satisfy that requirement, in my opinion.

TRUE equality will never exist, unless you want the government to handicap everyone to bring them to the same level. That seems cruel to say, but if you think about what true equality would mean, it would be a nightmare.

There is some short story about that very subject that I don't recall, but it didn't paint a pretty picture.

I'm not supporting the Democratic or Republican party, but I sure as hell won't support the Green Party either. The Green Party seems far to the left of Al Gore.

P.S. - I am not trying to start a flame war, if you want to support the Green Party that of course is your choice and your right. I am just stating I was shocked at some of the elements of their platform.

 

[Russ]

They're a nut farm, populated by Sierra Club whackos, Green Peacer dorks and Peta fruits. The only reason they've gotten any attention at all, is because Nader is on the ticket.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Tripleshot]

Another example of a Russ understatement.

 

[Napalm381]

There are things in the economic portion of their platform that are even scarier.:

Periodic Review of Corporate Charters: A public corporate charter review process for each corporation above $20 million in assets every 20 years to see if it is serving the public interest according to social and ecological as well as financial criteria.

Democratic Conversion of Big Business: Mandatory break-up and conversion to democratic worker, consumer, and/or public ownership on a human scale of the largest 500 US industrial and commercial corporations that account for about 10% of employees, 50% of profits, 70% of sales, and 90% of manufacturing assets.

Democratic Banking: Mandatory conversion of the 200 largest banks with 80% of all bank assets into democratic publicly-owned community banks. Financial and technical incentives and assistance for voluntary conversion of other privately-owned banks into publicly-owned community banks or consumer-owned credit unions.

Democratize Monetary Policy and the Federal Reserve System: Place a 100% reserve requirement on demand deposits in order to return control of monetary policy from private bankers to elected government. Selection of Federal Reserve officers by our elected representatives, not private bankers. Strengthen the regional development mission of the regional Federal Reserve Banks by directing them to target investments to promote key policy objectives, such as high-wage employment, worker and community ownership, ecological production, and inner city reconstruction.

Obviously none of them have ANY sort of economic schooling whatsoever.

 

[konichiwa]

The Grandeur that is Russ has been reduced to name calling. *sigh*

 

[Russ]

konichiwa,

It is an accurate description of those that subscribe to the greenie wienie party's oddball platform.

Russ, NCNE

 

[konichiwa]

It's still rather childish. I'd hope that you could come up with something with a little more substance than resort to the tactics of a fourth grader. Guess not.

 

[SilentBoB]

Do the right thing then, and vote Libertarian tomorrow.

 

[konichiwa]

That's what I'll be doing.

 

[JellyBaby]

Of course, no party is perfect. The Libs are a better overall third-party but many consider them "radical", "extreme" and "dangerous" as well. Nader's a bright fellow and does quite well in front of a camera/podium. It's annoying the Green Machine is the leading third-party right now -- Darth Nader is takin' percentage away from Browne! If nothing else, though, I'd love to see Darth enter the debates in 2004.

 

[Balt]

Yeah, Libertarian all the way.

I honestly don't think most people know what the Green Party is about. They seem to think the Green Party wants environmental conversation and it ends there. Then again, if the Green Party is just a bunch of fanatics, I guess they know more about their party than most Americans.

 

[brandc]

The Green party sounds Red to me.



<< Do the right thing then, and vote Libertarian tomorrow. >>


Ideally yes, but first things first. Get rid of the scum, then maximize freedom.

 

[Russ]

<< I'd hope that you could come up with something with a little more substance than resort to the tactics of a fourth grader. >>



konichiwa,

Do you actually read anything in this forum? What do you think the target audience consists of? Fifty-year old rocket scientists?

Russ, NCNE

 

[OS]

So that makes it ok to resort to name calling?

 

[KotchY]

So your trashing the green party eh? well, does'nt seem like your parties are any better, look a the current issues with our goverment, seems to me that your parties are worse

 

[Russ]

Damn, what is this? A bunch of newbies?

Russ, NCNE

 

[ElFenix]

holy nuts i was told by the green guys on campus that the platform that eliminates corporations and all the rest of it was some radical fringe group, not the main US green party. looks like i was wrong. these people must be stopped! they want to undermine the economy of the united states, nevermind the rest of the world, and destroy the sanctity of property! ever heard of a little phrase, &quot;life, liberty, and the pursuit of property?&quot; well, you can screw the third one, and part of the second one too if these guys get to do everything they want.

 

[Tiger]

The Green party is nothing more than socialists and commies with a socially acceptable name.
Do you really think that Nader would be pulling his 4-5% nationally if they came right out and embraced their socialist manifesto with the name &quot;the socialist party&quot;?

 

[JellyBaby]

Russ,

<< Damn, what is this? A bunch of newbies? >>

When you said that, given your icon, I immediately imagined a Borg cube surrounded by tiny federation frigates. Amusing! But I amuse easily.

ElFenix,

Greed is good. Greed is right. -Wallstreet

 

[Balt]

So your trashing the green party eh? well, does'nt seem like your parties are any better, look a the current issues with our goverment, seems to me that your parties are worse


You obviously didn't even read my post or the subsequent ones in which I said I was a Libertarian. My &quot;parties&quot; are NOT republican and democrat, which I clearly stated in my first post.

But regardless, I'd take a Democrat or a Republican before I'd ever let a socialist government tell me they need &quot;equality&quot; so they can just take everything of mine that they want.

How you can even support such ideals is beyond me.

 

[Russ]

JellyBaby,

Ah, yes, Gordon Gekko. One of the most inspiring speeches ever given.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Moonbeam]

The most scary thing about Green party ideas are that they are true.
It's not easy being green.

 

[DABANSHEE]

Well seeing that the whole point of an economy is to distribute wealth &amp; income, one could then say an economy where the gap between the rich &amp; poor is widening, must therefore be a disfunctional economy.

Personally I'm all for sacrificing the corporate elites for the sake of the enviroment. Afterall would our descendents thank us if we (for example) let Japanese woodchip concerns continue to woodchip old growth forests, thereby adding to habitat loss &amp; species extinction, just for a quick buck or 2.

When you get down to it the whole concept of economic growth is the same philosophy as that of a cancer cell &amp; its raping our planet clean, just like the way cancer's killing my mum. Why do we need econmic growth anyway, if everyones doing ok - if if people are taking more than what they really need &amp; what the planet can afford to give, they should be tax at a higher rate, afterall its the greedy who are raping the planet, either those who are greedy for material things, or those who are being greedy with the future by having more than 2 kids.

Already, because of all the poisons we have added to the enviroment, males are now half as fertiles as their fathers were at the same age. Now this wouldn't be so bad if it was just humans - there are too many bloody humans arround anyway (personally I think everyones tax should go up &amp; extra 5% with every kid they have), but its also happening to wildlife - many species of frog are unlikely to see out the next 10 years, because of mutations caused by too many estrogens (emissions from the synthetics industries) in the atmospere &amp; water (frogs bodies absorb moisture). Actualy over the last 50 years species have been going extinct a 1000 times quicker than they could evolve to learn to cope with us.

The simple fact is until we rayne in corporate greed &amp; the philosphy of economic growth, we will have no enviroment worth saving &amp; a tax on greed is a good start.

 

[Napalm381]

<< Well seeing that the whole point of an economy is to distribute wealth &amp; income, one could then say an economy where the gap between the rich &amp; poor is widening, must therefore be a disfunctional economy. >>

Distribute wealth/income - yes. Distribute them equally - no way.


<< Why do we need econmic growth anyway, if everyones doing ok >>

Everyone is NOT doing ok, and economic growth is a far better way to improve peoples lives than redistributing wealth. Economic growth creates wealth. Redistribution does not. Instead of taking from some to give to others, why not create more to give to the less well off? It's a win-win situation.

 

[DABANSHEE]

Well everyones doing ok in places like the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc, because of more equitable (not equal) distribution. Even people on the dole in the Netherlands get more than people on the minimum wage in the US.

The simple fact is, even in more capitalist leaning mixed economies, such as the US, income/wealth is also re-distrubuted as only a small minority of taxpayers (arround 15%) are truelly productive in a economic sense. For example when a business owners rakes his 15% or whatever net profit from a business, thats income/wealth being re-distributed to him that was created by his employees on the line. Its the same with lawyers, accountants, clerks, etc &amp; god forbid IT workers - if all lawyers died tonight the world would still be just as productive tomorrow. Using the example of IT workers, I wonder if the average IT worker would analyse what proportion of his work was truelly productive, or what percentage of the clients he serves, actually do something with that IT service that's productive, I'd say less than 10% or something. There are whole industries that are not productive - look at the tourism industry all it does is encourage people to spend money in one area, at the cost of them not spending it in another area, Its the same with the advertising industry, all it does is encourage someone to spend money on a certain product at the cost of them not spending that money on another product. It doesn't even provide a service, just another tax on productivity. They claim they support things like TV networks, but direct payments, via tax or licenses (such as what supports the BBC) is cheaper on the community - here in Australia the govt owned ABC, costs each Australian 8c a day, while the commercial networks costs each Australian 50c a day, through businesses having to charge more for there products to cover advertising - look at coca-cola, coke would be half the price if they didn't advertise.