A new political platform for the 21st century

A New Political Platform for the 21st Century


Below are key points of a new political platform for the 21st
century. This new agenda represents an end to corrupt American
imperialism, and the beginning of an honest American republic that has
just one face, not two.

1) We must dismantle our military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
return the land to the sovereign nation of Cuban. We should develop
full relations with Cuba and apologize to the Cuban people for
interfering in Cuba's internal affairs for so many decades. America
must declare to the world that we will no longer meddle in the private
affairs of other nations, and will not get involved in civil wars and
the petty squabbles of other nations. We must specifically declare
that we will never get militarily involved in the ongoing conflict
between Taiwan and mainland China. We should normalize political and
trade relations with North Korea and do everything we can to make their
government and people feel safe. The United States of America must
forcefully state that we will no longer tolerate the meddling of
foreign nations in our own government and political system, and we
should make illegal lobbying by any group, foreign or domestic, that
promotes aid and special privileges for just one foreign nation. This
law would specifically include the powerful and notoriously
anti-democratic American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).

2) We must force Israel back to its 1967 borders by threatening Israel
with a full trade and arms embargo and develop a timetable for the
Israeli withdrawal from all lands Israel illegally stole in the 1967
war with our help. We must apologize to the Palestinian people for
financing their ethnic cleansing and offer Palestinians substantial
long term reparations in exchange for dropping their demands for a
right of return to Israel's pre 1967 borders. While ideally a right of
return is desirable, it is impractical in this situation due to the
extreme animosities between the sides, making a full separation of
independent states a much more realistic solution.

3) We must dismantle and evacuate all US military bases on foreign soil
and make Japan and Europe spend the money needed to defend themselves.
We must immediately end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and bring home
all American troops. We must increase spending on research into the
cause and potential cures of Gulf War Syndrome and offer a presidential
and Congressional apology to all the victims of this disease for the
abuse they have suffered at the hands of our own government. We must
make illegal any form of torture and officially define the term
'interrogation' as simply talking to prisoners. 'Interrogation' should
no longer be used as a cynical hidden code word for creating pain and
suffering in other human beings.

4) We must end both the space shuttle and space station programs and
terminate any plans to go to the moon and Mars. NASA's efforts should
be focused on cost effective unmanned missions and in developing an
effective system to deflect potentially catastrophic impacts with
comets and asteroids. We need to spend more money on medical research,
including funding stem cell research as needed.

5) We must reduce military spending and work to balance the budget. We
must maintain a low national income tax system that offers incentives
for wealth production, while ending efforts to abolish the inheritance
tax. The inheritance tax has no negative incentives for wealth
creation and helps prevent the build up of wealth in a few rich family
dynasties, which in the long run is better for everyone, including the
very rich themselves.

6) We must end subsidies for farmers growing corn for alcohol
production, as crop based fuels use more energy in their production
than they provide as fuel. The entire crop based fuel effort is simply
welfare for farmers and is itself pollution causing and bad for the
environment.

7) We must forever ban the use of all exotic and potentially toxic fuel
additives and should mandate just one safe, national gasoline formula
in both regular and high test versions, and mandate its use all year
round. The many different gas formulas and seasonal standards increase
fuel shortages and raises the costs of fuel, while providing no real
benefit to the environment.

8) We should increase the mandated miles per gallon standards for cars,
vans, and trucks to a reasonable, non-utopian, level. Our president
needs to explain to the American people that better gas mileage is
essential for our survival as a nation and Congress should mandate
higher levels of insulation for new home and commercial building
construction.

9) We need to quickly change our laws to allow the US military to be
used for border patrol. We must create an impenetrable barrier of
troops and fence between the US and Mexico and implement an effort to
expel all illegal immigrants. We should never allow amnesty for any
illegal immigrant. Our government must recognize illegal immigration as
one of the top threats to American's political and ecological survival.


10) We must start building safe, advanced technology nuclear reactors
and plan a switch-over to a hydrogen fuel based economy, creating
hydrogen gas by the electrolysis of water via electricity from nuclear
reactors. Some energy may be obtained from geothermal and other
natural sources, but the hard fact remains that fission nuclear power
is the only clean energy solution we will have for a very long time.
It is time to grow up and realize that you cannot make an omelet
without breaking eggs. While all energy systems cause problems and
dangers, nuclear energy is generally safe and does not contribute to
global warming. It is currently the only way to eliminate our
dependence on foreign oil. It is far better to spend money on hydrogen
fuel manufactured safely on US soil than it is to spend money on
foreign oil, which in the end is more expensive if you add up all the
costs of pollution damage and the vast political entanglements
importing oil entails. Money spent at home tends to stay at home, and
creating high paying industrial jobs in America will increase tax
revenues, thus helping balance our state and Federal budgets.

The switch-over to nuclear power will take decades and we must
allow full oil drilling rights in Alaska and other areas now so that we
can survive as a nation until the switch-over is complete. Solar and
wind power sound good to the uniformed, but are currently insufficient
in energy potential to meet our vast national needs. Alternate energy
research must be funded, but we need to work with what we have on hand
now, and the only proven, affordable energy technology we currently
posses is fission nuclear power.

Christopher Calder

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