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Make our society sustainable within the next 15 years while strengthening our economy, assuring our freedoms and privacy, and increasing our sense of security.

Introduction:
Each element in this plan has a very practical purpose in being there – read all the way through before evaluating the plan on the basis of any one element.  Have suggestions, questions or comments?  We are ready to listen!

 Plan Outline                 

[Go to Full Plan ]    [Go to 12 Key Goals]   [Go to Why This Plan?]  
 
Part 1 Survival = Security

98% Clean Renewable Energy

Comprehensive Natural Resource Management

Restore the health of our food chain

Stabilize population growth

Part 2 Prosperity = Security

Structure economy around real value

Restore ethics in business

Make Government more efficient

Reform Law Enforcement and Defense spending

Part 3 Freedom = Security

Commitment to civil liberties and safeguarding privacy

Voting reform

Campaign finance reform

Restore the integrity of our information sources

Full Plan

In many cases more information can be found by clicking on individual entries.  If you don’t find a link ask us a question on the forum!

Part 1 Survival = Security

 -98% Clean Renewable Energy
This means an enormous investment into solar, wind, geothermal and energy storage technologies and the gradual elimination of fuel-based energy consumption.

-Comprehensive Natural Resource Management
Water, minerals, timber and other raw materials are produced and extracted in a sustainable non-polluting manner.

-Restore the health of our food chain
Clean up the oceans and rivers and restore topsoil.  Reform the fishing industry.  Eliminate the use of harmful chemicals in food production.

-Stabilize population growth
Implement comprehensive sex education programs and increase distribution of contraception worldwide.  Make education more available to women worldwide.

Part 2 Prosperity = Security

-Structure economy around real value
Eliminate economic growth based on virtual or paper value.  Increase the percentage of our economy that produces goods and services and reduce investment into speculation. Provide business incentives to encourage long-term investment in areas critical to the survival of our society (energy, resource management etc.)  Eliminate restrictions on domestic hemp production and encourage investment into hemp-based alternatives to fossil fuels and timber products.

-Restore ethics in business
Renew social responsibility requirements in corporate charters.  Create tax incentives for linking executive compensation to performance.

-Restore ethics in government and increase the competency of government officials.
Implement comprehensive campaign finance reform.  Create new lobbying rules that guarantee equal access to representatives.  Increase transparency of government activities by publishing expenditures and measuring the performance of elected officials on the web.

-Make Government more efficient
Increase competition for government contracts.  Provide incentives for government agencies to reduce budgets and staff.  Use models to evaluate the effectiveness of social programs.  Restructure taxes to provide incentives for competition, small business development, and entrepreneurialism.  Simply tax code and eliminate loopholes.  Eliminate earmarks and other “pork” programs. 

-Restructure Defense spending to focus on current threats and reduce waste.
Eliminate non-essential programs such as cold war big-ticket items and space-based defense programs.  Reform NASA to focus on sustainability technology and climate change.  Increase competition for defense contracts and provide incentives for defense contractors to reduce costs.  Increase support and benefits to troops.

-Restructure law enforcement spending.
 Reform law enforcement to focus on violent and organized crime and reduce spending on petty and youth crime – focus on education and away from incarceration for non-violent offences and reduce the prison population.  Eliminate the drug war – decriminalize drugs and emphasize treatment, legalize and tax” natural drugs” like marijuana.

Part 3 Freedom = Security

Restore democracy:

-Commitment to civil liberties and safeguarding privacy
Formally renew national commitment to the Bill of Rights and create a 21st Century amendment that addresses modern issues like electronic privacy concerns.

-Voting reform
Implement transparency program for voting procedures and electronic voting and tabulation, and establish strict standards for disqualifying votes.  Standardize ballots and provide increased education and support to help confused voters understand how to make sure their votes are accurate.  Eliminate efforts to discourage or prevent people from voting and implement increased penalties for those who seek to intimidate voters or election officials.

-Level the playing field in politics
Implement equal access lobbying rules and comprehensive campaign finance reform.  Reinstate the equal time provisions in broadcasting and other measures to require media to offer equal access to all qualified candidates.    Increase the amount of public funds available to qualified candidates. 

-Restore the integrity of our information sources.
Regulate media to protect news functions from profit considerations (mainly through tax incentives), restore the fairness doctrine and equal time provisions.  Create national awards programs to give free publicity to the best news services.  Implement program to make the Internet accessible to every American and more fully utilize the web as a way to distribute information about government activities and programs.  Limit the consolidation of news services to insure a diversity of opinions in the media.

12 Key Goals

-60% clean renewable energy within 10 years, and 98% by 2024.

-Cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2024.

-Stabilize population growth by 2024.

-Balanced budget within 8 years

-Complete campaign finance reform within 4 years.

-Increase in manufacturing and service jobs by 10% within 8 years

 -Complete installation of nationwide broadband access network within 8 years.

-Achieve an overall reduction of waste and pollution by 30% by 2024.

-Rebuild fishing stocks to sustainable levels within 10 years.

-Reduce timber harvest to sustainable levels within 10 years.

-Reform farming practices to reduce runoff by 50% within 10 years.

-Implement mining reform to reduce contaminants to 50% of current levels within 10 years.

Why this plan?
There are many issues we do not agree on, but we all agree that we wish to survive, prosper and feel more secure.  The plan is based on those objectives.  The plan reflects the understanding that the more profitable a particular course of action is the faster it will occur.  Business always moves more quickly than government or other institutions if it is their interest to do so.  The role of government is to express the will of the people in what parts of the economy they wish to have developed and how their money is spent.

The plan also reflects the understanding that it is unlikely human nature is going to change anytime soon.  Rather than attempt to change human nature society gets better results when it adjusts to human nature.

Everything in this plan is working or has been achieved on some scale somewhere in the world today.  This is a Real World plan and does not rely on theories or base any of its components on idealism.

Why this component?
-Create programs to make education more available to women worldwide.
There is a very consistent relationship between the average level of education in a culture and birth rates – the higher the level of education the lower the birthrates.  Also, as education increases women tend to wait longer before having children and have lower rates of teenage and unwanted pregnancy.  

-Encourage development of domestic hemp production and technologies.
Industrial hemp has the potential to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and timber products.  Hemp can be grown in soils unsuitable for food crops and produces extremely nutritious high protein seeds while renewing the soil.  Hemp composites (the resins and fibers) offer a cost-effective sustainable alternative to plastics and petroleum based composite materials.  Hemp can replace a significant percentage of domestic cotton production, which quickly depletes topsoil.  Development of hemp products and technologies will create jobs and provides a new export crop and source of exported materials and goods.

-Restructure Defense spending to focus on current threats and reduce waste.
Defense spending represents the largest amount of all public expenditures and is hugely inefficient.  According to Donald Rumsfeld, Sectary of Defense for the Bush Administration approximately 2/3 of the Defense budget is for big-ticket cold war era programs that have no application in modern warfare.  The Defense budget also lacks accountability and as such wastes huge amounts of funds by not requiring contractors to be cost-effective.  A huge savings could be realized while strengthening the military by redirecting funds to modern warfare equipment and providing better support for troops.

-Restructure law enforcement spending.
Law enforcement spending is perhaps the second largest national expenditure after Defense if you include the total cost of the Drug War and incarceration.   The US currently has the highest rate of incarceration in the world – even exceeding South Africa during Apartheid.  Most of these inmates are non-violent offenders, and most of them are in for drug offences.  This is a lot of money spent housing people who could be working and paying taxes.  We simply cannot afford to have this many people in prison.

The costs of fighting the drug war abroad and domestically (not including the cost of incarceration) exceed $200 billion per year according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.  As enforcement has increased violence continues to escalate.  More and more law enforcement officials are reporting that harsh enforcement measures are not working long-term and are largely responsible for drug-related violence.  The countries that have decriminalized drugs consistently find that drug-related violence has virtually been eliminated from their society and reduced levels of drug usage among young people.  Tax revenues from taxing drugs like marijuana would be substantial and stop the flow of money out of the country.  This is a war we simply cannot afford to continuing fighting.  We need a fresh approach on drug policy that uses methods that are proven to be cost-effective, humane, and sensible.

-Restore the integrity of our information sources.
Most of us rely on the media to learn what is going on in the world outside of our personal experience.  This gives the media enormous power to influence public opinion and promote controversy.  Unless the information provided in the media is accurate and unbiased we as a society cannot make responsible and informed decisions.