Let's talk about Nader's Platform :)

[Element4040]

Equal Rights for Women - Ralph Nader endorses the full eleven-point agenda for economic, social and political rights of women put forward by the National Organization for Women.

Health Care - We need to get the insurance companies out of administering health care, increase patient choice, expand coverage and save money.

Electoral Reform - Our democracy is in a descending crisis. Voter turnout is among the lowest in the western world. Redistricting ensures very few incumbents are at risk in one-party districts.

Corporate Crime - The US needs to crack down on corporate crime, fraud and abuse that have just in the last four years looted and drained trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders and consumers.

Taxes - The complexity and distortions of the federal tax code produces distributions of tax incidence and payroll tax burdens that are skewed in favor of the wealthy and the corporations further garnished by tax shelters, insufficient enforcement and other avoidances.

Media Bias and Concentration - The mass media in the United States is extremely concentrated, and the messages that they send are too broadly uniform. Six global corporations control more than half of all mass media in our country: newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television. Our democracy is being swamped by the confluence of money, politics and concentrated media.

Agriculture Policy - American agriculture is being dominated by two contrary trends in the 21st Century. First, conventional family farm agricultural production is being destroyed by low prices and lack of market access due to mergers, acquisitions by big agribusinesses and their monopsony power over farmers. Second, there is a boom in more sustainable agricultural production and consumption due to increased consumer awareness and demand for healthy, fresh, and nutritious food.

Poverty - As the wealthiest country in the world, with high productivity per capita, a country that produces an abundance of capital, credit, technology and food, we can end poverty.

Workers' Rights -The rights of workers' have been on the decline. It is time to reverse that trend and begin to give worker's – the backbone of the US economy – the rights they deserve.

Restoring Retirement Security - In recent years, hundreds of large companies have broken long-standing pension and health insurance promises to their loyal, longtime employees and retirees.

Fair Trade - NAFTA and the WTO makes commercial trade supreme over environmental, labor, and consumer standards and need to be replaced with open agreements that pull-up rather than pull down these standards.

Federal Budget - The United States needs a redirected federal budget that adequately funds the crucial priorities like infrastructure, transit and other public works, schools, clinics, libraries, forests, parks, sustainable energy and pollution controls.

Rights of Corporations - A national debate is needed regarding the necessity to reverse the dicta in the 1886 Supreme Court Case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad that first awarded the corporation constitutional status as a person and in subsequent decision. Corporations are not human beings, they do not vote; they are artificial entities which should be subordinated to the rights of human beings There can be no equal justice under the law if General Motors or Exxon has all the rights of humans plus all the privileges and immunities to concentrate enormous power and escape responsibility in ways unavailable to the wealthiest of real people.

Education - Education is primarily the responsibility of state and local governments. The federal government has a critical supporting role to play in ensuring that all children -- irrespective of the income of their parents, or their race -- are provided with rich learning environments and equal educational opportunities and upgraded repaired school buildings.

Iraq War and Occupation - The quagmire of the Iraq war and occupation could have been averted and needs to be ended expeditiously, replacing US forces with a UN peacekeeping force, prompt supervised elections and humanitarian assistance before we sink deeper into this occupation, with more U.S. casualties, huge financial costs, and diminished US security around and from the Islamic world.

Civil Liberties and Constitutional Rights - Civil liberties and due process of law are eroding due to the “war on terrorism” and new technology that allows easy invasion of privacy. Americans of Arab descent and Muslim-Americans are feeling the brunt of these dragnet, arbitrary practices. Mr. Nader supports the restoration of civil liberties, repeal of the Patriot Act, and an end to secret detentions, arrests without charges, no access to attorneys and the use of secret “evidence,” military tribunals for civilians, non-combatant status and the shredding of “probable cause” determinations.

Equal Rights for Gays and Lesbians - Ralph supports equal rights for gays and lesbians, including equal rights for same-sex couples. He opposes President Bush’s proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages as adults should be treated equally under the law on this matter.

War on Drugs - The drug war has failed – we spend nearly $50 billion annually on the drug war and problems related to drug abuse continue to worsen. We need to acknowledge that drug abuse is a health problem with social and economic consequences. Therefore, the solutions are – public health, social services and economic development and tender supportive time with addicts in our depersonalized society.

Environment -The epidemic of silent environmental violence continues. Whether it is the 65,000 Americans who die every year from air pollution, or the 80,000 estimated annual fatalities from hospital malpractice, or the 100,000 Americans whose demise comes from occupational toxic exposures or the cruel environmental racism where the poor and their often asthmatic children live in pollution sinks located near toxic hot spots that are never situated in shrubbered suburbs, to cite a few preventable conditions.

Energy Policy - We urge a new clean energy policy that no longer subsidizes entrenched oil, nuclear, electric and coal mining interests -- an energy policy that is efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly.

Consumer Justice - The enforcement of consumer protection laws, especially against the terrible abuses in low-income communities, needs to be given the leadership and resources required. Neither Party in control of our city or national government has concerned itself with such predatory practices. The poor pay more and are expendable to them.

Peace - Our foreign policy must redefine the elements of global security, peace, arms control, an end to nuclear weapons and expand the many assets of our country to launch, with other nations, major initiatives against global infections diseases (such as AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and virulent flu epidemics) which have and are coming to our country in increasingly drug resistant strains.

[Krash]

Go Nader

[Adam D]

I can't argue with any of those.

Definitely a nice list. Now all that has to happen is all Democrats and Republicans stay home on election day and maybe he'd have a chance of getting elected.

[psyon]

Originally posted by Adam D
I can't argue with any of those.