lorna salzman for president! [a guest post]

here’s a campaign platform I would back. I received it via email from a friend, and lorna has graciously allowed it to be posted on this blog.

Lorna Salzman is radical environmentalist, writer, bird watcher, atheist, former candidate for the US Green Party’s presidential nomination (2004). You can find more of her writing here.

My (imaginary) campaign for president

After hearing that the Waxman/Markey energy bill was over 1400 pages long, I quickly decided to announce that my campaign for president in 2012 will feature this promise: to veto any bill put on my desk that is over 100 pages long. Any bill that an ordinary citizen can’t read. Any bill over 100 pages must be filled with pork.

In keeping with my distaste for “big government”, I will shrink some parts of government such as the Pentagon while increasing other parts like education and health care. I will oppose any legislation funding or authorizing military intervention in foreign countries unless congress has made an official declaration of war.

My unqualified support for the Constitution and civil liberties means I will abolish Homeland Security, protect offensive speech, and decriminalize marijuana as long as alcohol and tobacco are legal.

To defend the separation of religion and state, I will oppose any and all special treatment of and favors to all religions, and will take action against any manifestation of sharia law or Christian or Jewish fundamentalism, against female genital mutilation, and against the covering of the face of women in public. “Honor killings” will reap castration and life in prison without parole.

I will establish a cabinet position for women’s rights to formulate policies to protect and expand women’s rights and standing in muslim countries, as well as an agency empowered to stop child slavery and forced prostitution wherever it exists.

In order to restore a truly free market, I will support a carbon tax, with revenues returned to citizens as dividends, and will oppose government subsidies and tax breaks to industry and private business, including the energy sector.

I will defend and strengthen the Endangered Species Act, Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, OSHA and all other federal environmental laws, and will propose a timetable for zero discharge of all pollutants from industrial processes. I will make restoration and protection of ocean fisheries a priority.

I will work vigorously for a universal single payer health plan, with the intent of taking insurance companies out of the health business and profits out of health care. This shall be funded through the income tax.

I will seek to tax large corporations at 50% as existed in the 1950s, and will increase personal income tax on all earnings over $300,000.

I will oppose the use of eminent domain and public tax breaks for private purposes.

I will work to abolish the World Trade Organization and NAFTA and similar treaties, and to radically reform the World Bank and IMF so as to put environment, social justice, women’s empowerment, health, and renewable energy technologies at the heart of all foreign aid projects.

I will make mandatory energy efficiency and an end to deforestation among my top priorities, along with imposition of a Border Tax Adjustment (BTA) on carbon-intensive imports from countries that refuse to curb their greenhouse gas emissions.

I will work for high-speed rail networks and regional public transit across the country.

I will seek mechanisms to discourage exurban and suburban sprawl.

I will end agricultural subsidies, direct and indirect, and will provide incentives for community and regional agriculture and food supply.

I will support science and environmental education, especially the teaching of evolution at all levels.

(I also support omnivory; a ban on cursing in public to be replaced by words like “Rats”, “Holy moley”, “horsefeathers”, “golly”, “gee whiz”; prohibiting the sale of pastry and cookies not made with butter; a stiff tax on the purchase of television sets; a ban on hyphenated ethnic descriptions (African-American, Italian-American, etc). unless one of the person’s parents was actually born in that foreign country); and recycling of liposuction fat as a biofuel).
Lorna Salzman
www.lornasalzman.com

“Modern science-based civilization is but a thin veneer for fundamental medieval notions divorced from empirical evidence” – Andrew Glikson

“We are already fighting World War III and I am sorry to say we are winning. It is the war against the earth”…..Raymond Dasmann

“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction” (B. Pascal).

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