Political Issues that Matter for 2008
Remember, these issues represent the tip of the political iceberg. But they are indicative of the corporate domination of the Democratic and Republican parties. Click on any of the issues in the table below for more information the issues that matter for 2008, or find out more about the Nader/Gonzalez position on other
important issues, including the environment, social, fiscal, market, labor, political and foreign policy.
Shift the Power
To illustrate how little has changed in four years, other than conditions becoming worse, the 2008 Nader/Gonzalez campaign is posting these policy positions on various injustices, necessities, and redirections that were prepared initially for the 2004 Nader/Camejo campaign. Such a short historical context should give our supporters and viewers an even greater sense of urgency to stop the corporate interests' and the corporate governments' autocratic control -- and the resulting deterioration -- of our society and country.
After more than 300 years of de facto affirmative action to benefit white males, we definitely need affirmative action for people of color and women to offset enduring historic wrongs as well as present day inequalities.
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American agriculture is being dominated by two contrary trends in the 21st Century. First, conventional family farm agricultural production is being destroyed by low prices and lack of market access due to mergers, acquisitions by big agribusinesses and their monopsony power over farmers. Second, there is a boom in more sustainable agricultural production and consumption due to increased consumer awareness and demand for healthy, fresh, and nutritious food.
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Civil liberties and due process of law are eroding due to the "war on terrorism" and new technology that allows easy invasion of privacy.
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The Nader campaign believes it is time to break our addiction to fossil fuels. The evidence of global warming is mounting. We threaten the global environment with our continued use of fossil fuels. Not only is this an ecological threat, it is a tremendous economic threat, facing all of humanity.
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The enforcement of consumer protection laws, especially against the terrible abuses in low-income communities, needs to be given the leadership and resources required. Neither Party in control of our city or national government has concerned itself with such predatory practices. The poor pay more and are expendable to them.
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The US needs to crackdown on corporate crime, fraud and abuse that have just in the last four years looted and drained trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders and consumers. Among the reforms needed are resources to prosecute and convict the corporate executive crooks and to democratize corporate governance so shareholders have real power; pay back ill-gotten gains; rein in executive pay; and enact corporate sunshine laws, among others.
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Education is primarily the responsibility of state and local governments. The federal government has a critical supporting role to play in ensuring that all children -- irrespective of the income of their parents, or their race -- are provided with rich learning environments, equal educational opportunities, and upgraded and repaired school buildings.
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Our democracy is in a descending crisis. Voter turnout is among the lowest in the western world, and America ranks in the bottom three of countries that hold free elections. The reasons for this democracy crisis are many: Redistricting ensures very few incumbents are at risk in one-party districts, and paperless voting machines call into question whether every vote is being counted. Barriers to full participation of candidates proliferate, making it very obstructive for third party and Independent candidates to run. These problems silence alternative viewpoints and decrease voter confidence.
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We urge a new clean energy policy that no longer subsidizes entrenched oil, nuclear, electric and coal mining interests -- an energy policy that is efficient, sustainable and environmentally friendly. We need to invest in a diversified energy policy including renewable energy like wind and other forms of solar power, more efficient automobiles, homes and businesses -- a policy that breaks our addiction to oil, coal and atomic power.
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The epidemic of silent environmental violence continues. Whether it is the 65,000 Americans who die every year from air pollution, or the 80,000 estimated annual fatalities from hospital malpractice, or the 100,000 Americans whose demise comes from occupational toxic exposures, or the cruel environmental racism where the poor and their often asthmatic children live in pollution sinks located near toxic hot spots (that are never situated in shrubbered suburbs), preventable, harmful, situations abound.
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The complexity and distortions of the federal tax code produces distributions of tax incidence and payroll tax burdens that are skewed in favor of the wealthy and the corporations further garnished by tax shelters, insufficient enforcement and other avoidances.
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NAFTA and the WTO make commercial trade supreme over environmental, labor, and consumer standards and need to be replaced with open agreements that pull up rather than pull down these standards.
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The United States needs a redirected federal budget that adequately funds crucial priorities like infrastructure, transit and other public works, schools, clinics, libraries, forests, parks, sustainable energy and pollution controls.
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The state of health care in the United States is a disgrace. For millions of Americans it is a struggle between life, health and money. The Nader Campaign supports a single-payer health care plan that replaces for-profit, investor-owned health care and removes the private health insurance industry (full Medicare for all).
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President George W. Bush is the most impeachable American president in the history of our country. He is guilty of at least five high crimes and misdemeanors.
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Immigration presents challenges and opportunities for the United States. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States is undergoing an unprecedented wave of immigration. According to the Census, during the 1990s, an average of more than 1.3 million immigrants — legal and illegal — settled in the United States each year. In less than 50 years, the U.S. Census Bureau projects that immigration will cause the population of the United States to increase from its present 288 million to more than 400 million.
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Nader favors a two-state solution and believes that the United States needs to highlight the broad and deep peace movement in Israel and its counterparts among Palestinians and among Americans of the Jewish faith.
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In late September, Senator Obama said to the Democrats – vote for the bailout. Senator McCain said to the Republicans – vote for the bailout. President Bush said to the Congress – vote for the bailout.
But the American people were fed up. They told their members of Congress – if you vote for the bailout, we will vote against you.
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Since January 2001, 2.7 million jobs have been lost and more than 75% of those jobs have been high wage, high productivity, manufacturing jobs. Overall 5.6% of Americans are unemployed while 10.5% of African Americans are unemployed. Unemployment among Latinos is nearly 30 per cent higher than January 20, 2001.
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The Justice System in America is shifting from protecting the people to protecting the profits and power of corporations. The United States prison binge has resulted in over two million people being incarcerated – the US now holds one out of four of the world's prisoners, half of them non-violent. We call for rejecting Tort reform and instead for reforming the Injustice system, including abolishing the death penalty.
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The mass media in the United States is extremely concentrated, and the messages that they send are too broadly uniform. Six global corporations control more than half of all mass media in our country: newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television. Our democracy is being swamped by the confluence of money, politics and concentrated media.
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The current political strategy of pre-emptive war in the Middle East is a disaster for both the American people and the people of the region. Nader/Gonzalez would reverse this policy.
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As the wealthiest country in the world, with high productivity per capita, a country that produces an abundance of capital, credit, technology and food, we can end poverty. Yet, according to the Bureau of the Census, poverty and hunger for children and adults is increasing rather than decreasing -- 34.6 million Americans lived in deep poverty, 12.1% of the U.S. population.
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The three documents below provide the "tools of democracy" that shift the power so people can regain control of their government, empower themselves as consumers, and strengthen themselves as workers. Without the facilities making it easy for Americans to band together to develop organizations with staff and budget to protect their interests, workers, consumers, and voters have few ways to challenge those organized for other purposes - for example, corporations organized with contrary policies and demands.
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The plight of the Tibetan people is one of the great human rights tragedies of the Twentieth Century. The Chinese government has brutally oppressed the people of Tibet and engaged in a conscious campaign to wipe out traditional Tibetan culture.
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The rights of workers have been on the decline. It is time to reverse that trend and begin to give workers, the backbone of the US economy, the rights they deserve. Workers need a living wage not a minimum wage; access to health care and no unilateral reductions in medical benefits and pensions for current employees and retirees. Employers should not be able to avoid these benefits by hiring temporary workers or independent contractors.
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