Counter-Inauguration: An Alternatives Vision

[IndianaGreen]

If you were to check the Indiana forum, you will note that I have been posting on the Counter-Inauguration demonstration that is being planned for downtown Indianapolis, Monument Circle to be precised, on January 20. The following is one of the alternative visions being proposed as being thematic of all the sponsoring organizations, IOW a "people's platform for the future":

Counter-Inauguration: An Alternatives Vision

1. Decrease and withstand terrorism.

The war on Iraq has been a distraction from the war on terrorism since Saddam had nothing to do with al-Qaeda and Iraq was not a terrorist haven (though it is now). We need better surveillance of people and goods coming through our borders. We need to resolve the long-simmering Palestinian occupation and exploit non-western countries less in order to provide less fuel for terrorism. Since many people voted for President Bush because he fanned their fear of terrorism, we need to hold him accountable for really doing something to counteract it.

2. Adopt a humane and enforceable immigration policy

The current approach is not working, especially on our porous southern border. Illegal border crossing is a lucrative and dangerous enterprise alternately easy and perilous. Terrorists could slip through too. The flooding of American corn, facilitated by NAFTA, has undercut agricultural employment in Mexico putting pressure on its cities and our borders. President Bush needs a new policy.

3. Create a viable Palestinian state

The 37-year occupation of Palestine by Israel must end. Israeli wall-building and bulldozing homes and unreasonable security measure and harassment of Palestinians must end. Israeli settlements on occupied land must be dismantled in Gaza first and then, as negotiated, in the West Bank. Palestinian counter-violence must also be contained. President Bush needs even-handedly to pursue the two-state solution he favors and to get the roadmap to peace back on track.

4. Remove our troops from Iraq

Our war on Iraq has been a disaster. You can bomb buildings and oust a tyrant easily, but you cannot conquer a country that does not want to be liberated. Nor can you create peace without prior planning. The American occupation of Iraq has cost us far too much in terms of money spent and soldiers and civilians killed. President Bush needs to do what he can to make the Iraqi election later this month ostensibly valid and then turn over stabilizing Iraq to more competent nations.

5. Uphold civil liberties specified in the US Constitution

The effective right to vote must be upheld through mechanisms that work, lines that are not unreasonable, and equal actual opportunity to vote across racial lines plus a verifiable paper trail and possibility of recount after elections. We have no right to detain profiled American citizens or foreign nationals indefinitely without due process. We have no business torturing Iraqi citizens. Confirmation of President Bush's current and eventual appointments to the Justice Department and the Supreme Court must be incumbent on upholding the Constitution.

6. Promote women’s rights

In the US, the most dangerous place for a woman to be is in her own home. Women earn 77% of what men earn and have to pay for childcare as well. Households headed by a single woman are most likely to live in poverty. Concern for family values entails reduction of domestic violence, equal employment opportunities for women, childcare subsidies, and aid to the poor. Rather than pressuring the Supreme Court to curtail a woman’s right to an abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy, President Bush should support legislation to enhance women’s lives.

7. Pursue gay rights

Legally-permitted discrimination against gay citizens in employment and housing must end. Gays have a right to freedom from harassment in schools and elsewhere. The thousand benefits that come with marriage plus spousal benefits at work need to be accorded to gay couples through legally recognized gay unions and domestic partnerships. President Bush needs to withdraw support for an inappropriate and discriminatory marriage amendment to the US Constitution and to become more vocal in his support for giving legal recognition to gay unions.

8. Increase the minimum wage

While seeking a “living wage” in municipalities is very worthwhile as a stopgap, the national minimum wage needs to be raised. Having topped $8 per hour in today’s dollars in the 1980s, the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour has declined ever since in constant dollars. People should not work full-time for a full year and remain under the poverty line. As President of all the people, Mr. Bush needs to aid hard-working low-income citizens by supporting an increase the minimum wage.

9. Provide universal health care

The United States is the only major industrialized nation with no comprehensive national system of health care. Employer-provided health insurance puts an undue burden on employers and runs out where it is needed most: low-wage jobs are least likely to include health benefits. Poor people live sick and then go to emergency rooms in public hospitals for acute care, which costs far more than routine care. President Bush needs to push for publicly-financed health care for every citizen.

10. Maintain a habitable planet

We need clean air, clean water, healthy forests, arable land, wildlife and wilderness protection, population control, restricted burning of fossil fuels, and pollution abatement. We need to develop alternative fuels so that we can reduce the dependence on foreign oil that has skewed our foreign policy, pollute less, and survive the exhaustion of the planet’s petroleum reserves. The Bush administration needs to abandon its denial of global warming, remove its support for corporate intrusion, stop favoring the oil industry, protect endangered species, and intensify rather than relax pesticide and pollution safety standards.