Green Commons

It has been suggested by some that the Green Party ought to support an amendment to the US Constitution requiring the federal government to balance the budget each fiscal year. Although I appreciate the application of fiscal responsibility and I can understand the appeal, forcing a balanced budget is not sound policy and precludes the use of Keynesian fiscal policy prescriptions.

In my previous post, Part I, I explained how I came to the conlusion that "deep ecology" should inform Green Politics. This was posted here and also on a the GPUS_FreeSpeech email list. Howie Hawkins responded to a question about "social ecology" and I obtained his permission to post that repsonse here, because it leads me into a new consideration.

Hawkins wrote:

In another blog installment today titled Corporate Tax Jujitsu I advocated a tax reform that would increase personal income taxation on the high-income earners in a progressive fashion.

The current orthodox economic view of increasing taxation on the wealthiest is that it will harm the economy and paradoxically lower total tax receipts. Their assertion is that growth solves all economic problems; savings provides the engine for growth; and that the wealthiest save the most of their incomes. They conclude that lowering the taxes of rich people actually enables the Treasury to collect more taxes from a larger economy.

The business conservatives are screaming for a corporate income tax cut. They claim that the tax rate that US corporations must pay is far higher than their overseas competitors. They are right...kind of. Some are screaming for the rate to be dropped to 25%. We should publicly agree and take it to the extreme by calling for the rate to be cut to 0%.

The Green Party ought to apply a surprising jujitsu move by coming out strongly in favor of the complete elimination of corporate income taxation. After you lift your jaw up off the floor, hear me out.

As we know, Martin Luther King, Jr day is a holiday on Wall Street. However, it was no holiday, today, for overseas markets.

The world's stock market exchanges had a dark day today. Maybe not a 'black' day, but certainly dark grey. The German DAX index dropped 7.2%. The UK's FTSE 100 dropped 5.5%. The French CAC 40 dropped 6.8%. Same kinds of numbers all over the world.

The Asian and European markets will experience their Tuesday before we in the US open tomorrow morning. In fact, as I write this the Tuesday far east markets are down 2-4% already. If they have another big day on the downside, we could see a 7-12% plunge here on Tuesday.

If the DOW drops 7% tomorrow, that would be a drop of 847 points! If the DOW drops more than 1000 points tomorrow, hold you breath and your loved ones.

It appears to me that that traffic on this site is ramping up. I believe this is the site where Greens will converge to share thoughts and opinions (which is one of the reasons I haven't, ahem, updated my own site in quite some time). With that in mind, I offer the following suggestions to build on the theme update done a while ago...

Detroit Greens are in solidarity with Elaine Brown. She is a prominent African-American political leader, author and thinker who joined the Green Party of Georgia, ran for office, and offered her candidacy to the Green Party for president in 2008. Now, she has renounced her membership and resigned from the presidential campaign. Her life-long devotion to ending racial oppression and commitment to revolutionary political struggle was not respected in the Green Party.

I have given a lot of thought about the relationship between the ideas of deep ecology and the politics of the Green Party. I have never before tried to put my ideas down in a concrete statement as to why I believe that this relationship is critical to the success of the party.

This is rather long, but probably needs to be. I will need to follow it up with further explorations of the topic over the next several weeks.

Press Release-January 17, 2008

Dennis Spisak calls for supports of Ohio Senate Bill 221 and More Green Jobs for our Valley

Http://VoteSpisak.tripod.com

Dennis Spisak, Green Party Candidate for State Representative for the 60th District announced he supports Ohio Senate Bill 221which calls for support of
clean energy for Ohio.

Washington is a buzz with the idea of providing a short-term fiscal policy stimulus. The rhetoric regards "concern for Americans" and "doing the right thing for America." The reality is that this gimmick is about vote buying.

This tiny demand-side stimulus is far too small to have any lasting impact, likely to be taken back via the inflationary effect, and fails to address the real problem at hand: long-term income distribution.

If you listen to main stream media, you would think that the only issue regarding the rights of Indian tribes have to do with Gaming. In California, where I live, there are four initiative measure on the ballot February 5 that would expand gaming for four tribes. The number of television ads that you see about these initiative measues far exeeds the number of ads you see for all presidential candidates combined.

I sent the links to the great candidate debate to my friends and Greens. This is what one of my co-workers got out of viewing the debate.

Interesting….the chosen Green candidate mentioned something about repealing the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

I looked it up and found the facts very disturbing. This is another subtle attempt by the elite to erode our Constitutional rights by using the politics of fear and half-truths. If we can be detained as citizens without trial on a broad and sweeping generality like enemy combatant, what’s next?

Does Nader have a lot of Cisco stock? I do not think we Greens can support any union busting organization. We really need to get to know those who seek our support.

The Los Angeles Times published the results of their latest opinion poll in this morning's paper:

In California, it's Clinton and McCain
by Cathleen Decker
Los Angeles Times, January 15, 2008

What can we do if Nader wins the California Green Party primary. His name is on our ballot and I find this very disturbing. Am I alone?