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CTGP Article |
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CTGP Article |
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NEWS - (oprima aquí para español) September 5, 2008 DUFFEE, GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS, ON BALLOTNORWALK, CT—Richard Duffee, Green Party candidate for Congress in the 4th congressional district, is on the ballot. The Secretary of the State's announcement, dated August 26, reached Fairfield County Green Party Secretary David Bedell September 2—without a stamp or postmark. For the first time, the Green Party has candidates for Congress in all five districts of Connecticut: Stephen Fournier in the 1st, G. Scott Deshefy in the 2nd, Ralph Ferrucci in the 3rd, Richard Duffee in the 4th, and Harold H. Burbank II in the 5th. Heading the list of Duffee's platform items is his demand that the US fully comply with international law. Because, he says, "Our worst international problems are blowback from our illegal activities," he holds that the US should ratify the charter of the International Criminal Court and grant it jurisdiction to prosecute US war criminals such as Bush, Cheney, Rice, and Wolfowitz. He also holds that Bush and Cheney should be impeached and indicted under US law. He argues that all covert operations of the CIA should be banned because they are, by definition, offences against the laws of the nations where they are carried out. "We must give the rest of the world adequate cause to believe that we are no longer intent on violating their rights." Duffee is committed to lowering carbon emissions by at least 80% by 2030 without using nuclear power, which is so dangerous that insurance companies refuse to insure nuclear facilities. He recommends projects similar to FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930's, only this time with a mission to retrofit buildings with insulation and LED lighting, to create solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen, and hydro power, and mass transportation as good as Europe's. Pointing out that decentralization reduces energy prices, he advocates giving home and building owners loans to develop on-site power generation, which can be repaid by subsequent contributions of electricity to the grid. Because health care is a human right, Duffee advocates universal single-payer health coverage. Because legal rights should not depend on income, Duffee wants to revitalize the Legal Services Corporation and fund it at the Canadian level. Duffee demands that all the Constitutional law Bush and Cheney have vandalized be restored. Believing that corporations have usurped individual and human rights, he advocates eliminating the rights corporations have gained by the legal fiction that they are persons. Duffee advocates law distinguishing between a corporation's earnings attributable to productivity and earnings attributable to transfer, and that the latter be subject to maximum taxes. "For example," he said, "profits from a pharmaceutical like Xanax, 100 one-milligram tabs of which sell for $136.79, a 569,958% markup over the cost of its active ingredients, 2.4 cents, should be taxed at well over 99% to force the prices down and stop the ruthless exploitation of illness." Rather than merely maximizing profit to investors, which is an anti-democratic project, we should maximize benefit to human beings, and to do this we must learn to conceive value in terms of purchasing power parity, the law of diminishing returns, and environmental impact. He believes our disastrous present course of empire stems from dependency on other countries for resources and labor, so we should recreate our industrial base using non-polluting Green technology. Duffee wants to eliminate all US weapons of mass destruction, shut down the 725 US military bases outside US borders and in Puerto Rico (our oldest colony), redesign the military to be wholly defensive, and work with international organizations to steadily reduce any remaining need for the military. "Why are we squandering 3 trillion dollars on war when we could be vastly improving our lives instead?" Asked about his opponents, Duffee said, "They face the same problem Lyndon Johnson faced: all their good intentions will be destroyed by war." More information about the Duffee for Congress campaign can be found on the website, www.richardduffee.com |
