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Media Reform Solutions

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

Return ownership and control of the electromagnetic spectrum to the public. We urge the public to reclaim the airwaves. The privatization of the broadcast airwaves, one of our most important taxpayer assets, has caused serious deformations of our politics and culture. End the privatization of broadcast frequencies and reserve them for the creation of new not-for-profit community broadcasters around the country and for broadband and WIFI networks owned and operated by cities, counties and towns which want to deliver this vital tool to their people at reasonable cost.
Enact tough new anti-trust laws for the media, carve up the big media conglomerates, and follow up with vigorous anti-trust enforcement.
End commercial broadcasters’ free licensed use of the public airwaves. Require market-priced leasing of any commercial use of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Revenues derived from these license fees should be used to fund the operation of community media. Tax electronic advertising to fund democratic media outlets.
Reinstate and strengthen the Fairness Doctrine, to require that holders of broadcast licenses present controversial issues of public importance in an equitable and balanced manner.
Establish substantial public interest obligations for broadcasters and hold them accountable, and revoke licenses from outlets that fail to satisfy these obligations.
Support Public, Educational and Governmental (PEG) Access Television to ensure that citizens and community organizations have the opportunity to create and present their own programming on cable television.
Expand the role of community radio, by expanding the licensing of new non-commercial low power FM radio stations.
Promote greater opportunity for women and minority ownership of media outlets.
We need to promote the continuing and evolving potential of the Internet to build communities, educate, inform, and promote free speech and artistic expression.
Provide broadband Internet access for all residents of this country, so that access to information is a right, not a commodity.
Call for the Federal Communications Commission to consistently classify all Internet service providers, regardless of the type of service (cable, dial-up, satellite, etc.), as telecommunications services.
Call for the specific classification of all Internet service providers as common carriers as used in Title II of the Communications Act.
Support all efforts to achieve net neutrality. Internet users should be able to access any lawful web content they choose and use any applications they choose, without restrictions or limitations imposed by their Internet service provider or government, except for restrictions that exist to prevent spam e-mail, viruses, and similar content that will harm the provider ís network or internet access devices.
Ensure free and equal airtime for all ballot-qualified political candidates and parties on radio and television networks and stations.
Provide public funding for independent nonprofit broadcasters’ to ensure high-quality news and cultural programming with the widest possible range of viewpoints.
Prohibit commercial advertising targeted to children less than 12 years old, as well as advertising in public places such as schools, parks, and government buildings.
Oppose censorship in the arts, media, press and on the Internet.
Reform the Federal Communications Commission so that it is responsive and accountable to the public at large, not just to lobbyists and commercial interests.
Repeal the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act lengthened license renewals to 8 years for both radio and TV, and eliminated the “comparative renewal”. For radio, eliminated all national caps on the number of radio stations in which one party could have an interest and increased to 8 stations the number one party could own in the largest radio markets. For television, raised national ownership caps to having stations that reached no more than 35% of the national audience, with no limits on the number of stations that could be owned as long as their reach was under that cap.
Reduce mailing costs for non-profit and independent magazines and journals, and eliminate them for those that receive less than 20% of their revenues from advertising.
Promote policies to expand investigative reporting on federal, state and local issues.
Promote policies to encourage the people of the United States to watch less television, and instead to spend time with their families, friends and neighbors, and to engage in myriad other constructive, artistic or healthful pursuits.
Create a publicly-controlled “Audience Network” empowered to take airtime from commercial television and radio stations, to broadcast a variety of non-commercial cultural, political, entertainment, scientific or other high-quality programs.

Source: Green Party

Posted in anti-trust, Communications Act, Fairness Doctrine, Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Media, net neutrality, Uncategorized | Tagged advertising, Fairness Doctrine, FCC, Media, net neutrality, public airwaves, radio, WIFI, women | Leave a comment

Media Reform

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

Independent, critical media are essential to an informed and healthy democracy.
Citizens must have ready access to news and information to make responsible informed choices as voters and to carry out their other duties of citizenship.
The United States’ original communications policy was the 1st Amendment. Freedom of the press was guaranteed in the Constitution because an exchange of ideas and an unfettered debate were considered essential components of a democratic society.
Today, however, government policy is designed less to enhance public deliberation than to boost the profitability of media corporations.
Our media laws and rules promote the formation of huge media conglomerates while discouraging competing voices. As a result, the mainstream media is increasingly cozy with the economic and political elites whom they should be investigating. Mergers in the news industry have accelerated, further limiting the spectrum of viewpoints in the mass media.
With U.S. media overwhelmingly owned by for-profit conglomerates and supported by corporate advertisers, investigative journalism is in an alarming decline.
Since governments too often have an interest in controlling the flow of information, we must constantly guard against official censorship. In our society.
However, large corporations are a far more common source of censorship than governments. Media outlets kill stories because they undermine corporate interests; advertisers use their financial clout to squelch negative reports; powerful businesses employ the threat of expensive lawsuits to discourage legitimate investigations. The most frequent form of censorship is self-censorship: journalists deciding not to pursue certain stories that they know will be unpopular with the advertisers.
In response, to fortify the media’s crucial watchdog function and to help create a more diverse and lively exchange of ideas in America. we need to:

Strengthen citizens’ influence over the broadcast media.
Break up the dominant media conglomerates.
Boost the number of community and non-profit news outlets, all to fortify the media’s crucial watchdog function and to help create a more diverse and lively exchange of ideas in America.

For more details on solutions, please see Media Reform Solutions.
Sources: Green Party

Posted in Media, Uncategorized | Tagged advertisers, conglomerates, Media, watchdog | Leave a comment

Land Mines

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

We need to urge our government to sign the Ottawa Treaty banning the production, stockpiling, use and sale of land mines, and assist other nations in unearthing and disabling land mines buried in their lands.

The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or often simply the Mine Ban Treaty, aims at eliminating anti-personnel landmines (AP-mines) around the world.
Sources: Green Party, Ottawa Treaty

Posted in land mines, Ottawa Treaty | Tagged Anti-Personnel Mines, land mines, Mine Ban Treaty, Ottawa Treaty | Leave a comment

Kurdistan

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

The Kurdish people are the largest ethnic group in the world that is without an independent state. As a result, Kurdish people have historically suffered persecution and injustice.

The Kurdish people have been besieged to the point of a current humanitarian crisis in towns such as Kobani, Syria.

We should express solidarity for and affirms the right to self-determination, self-defense, communal autonomy, freedom from persecution, and the release of political prisoners for the Kurdish population.
Sources: Green Party

Posted in Kurdistan, Syria, Uncategorized | Tagged humanitarian, Kurdistan | Leave a comment

Justice for Native Hawaiians – Kanaka Maoli

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

Since illegal annexation in 1898, the federal and state governments have cheated and neglected the native Hawaiian people.

In 1993, the U.S. Congress passed, and President Clinton signed into law, the “Apology Bill” (U.S. Public Law 103-150). This admission of crime states in part, “the native Hawaiians have never lost their inherent sovereignty nor their national home base.”

We should demand justice for Kanaka Maoli. We support the following:

Protecting sacred and culturally significant sites.
Efforts to nurture native Hawaiian culture.
Kanaka maoli leadership and guardianship in protecting gathering rights, and lobbying the legislature to safeguard these rights without interference.
Return of, or fair compensation for, ceded lands.
Immediate distribution of Hawaiian Homelands, with government funds allocated for the necessary infrastructure.
Prohibition of future sale or diminishments of the Ceded Land Trust.
A call for open dialogue among all residents of Hawai’i on the sovereignty option of full independence.
Hawaiian sovereignty in a form that is fair to both native Hawaiians and other residents of Hawai’i.

We should acknowledge and actively endorse the inherent and absolute right of indigenous nations to self-determination, and thereby call upon the U.S. government to reverse its opposition to enactment of the proposed United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in its entirety.
Sources: Green Party

#CriminalJusticeReform

Posted in Apology Bill, Ceded Land Trust, Hawaii, Ingigenous Peoples, Uncategorized | Tagged Hawaii, Indigenous Peoples, Kanaka Maoli, sovereignty | Leave a comment

Justice and Safety for All

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

Today, we say to the prison-industrial-complex that we are going to bring about real criminal justice reform. We are going to end the international embarrassment of having more people in jail than any other country on earth. Instead of spending $80 billion a year on jails and incarceration, we are going to invest in jobs and education for our young people.

End for-profit greed in our criminal justice system, top to bottom by: by banning for-profit prisons and detention centers, ending cash bail, and making prison and jail communications, re-entry, diversion and treatment programs fee-free.
Ensure due process and right to counsel by vastly increasing funding for public defenders and creating a federal formula to ensure populations have a minimum number of public defenders to meet their needs.
Cut the national prison population in half and end mass incarceration by abolishing the death penalty, three strikes laws, and mandatory minimum sentences, as well as expanding the use of alternatives to detention.
Transform the way we police communities by end the War on Drugs by legalizing marijuna and expunging past convictions, treating children who interact with the justice system as children, reversing the criminalization of addiction, and ending the reliance on police forces to handle mental health emergencies, homelessness, maintenance violations, and other low-level situations.
Reform our decrepit prison system, guarantee a “Prisoners Bill of Rights,” and ensure a just transition for incarcerated individuals upon their release.
Reverse the criminalization of communities, end cycles of violence, provide support to survivors of crime, and invest in our communities.
Ensure law enforcement accountability and robust oversight, including banning the use of facial recognition software for policing.

For most of our history as a country, the United States incarcerated people at about the same rates as other western democracies do today. In the early 1970s we had the same low crime rate as today, but we now have an incarceration rate five times higher. Indeed, America is now the world’s leading jailer. We lock up more than 2 million people in America, which is more of our own people than any country on Earth. And that does not include another 5 million people who are under the supervision of the correctional system.

Hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people in America have not been convicted of a crime and are solely in jail because they can’t afford their bail. We are criminalizing poverty.

Due to the historical legacy of institutional racism in this country, mass incarceration disproportionately falls on the shoulders of black and brown people in America. In fact, black Americans are incarcerated at five times the rate of white Americans, and even though people use drugs like marijuana at roughly the same rates across all races, black Americans are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans. These disparities pervade every aspect of the criminal justice system. Black Americans, and especially young black men, are more likely to be stopped by the police, subjected to excessive force, arrested, and jailed than whites.

We must finally make the deep and structural investments to rebuild the communities that mass incarceration continues to decimate.

We must move away from an overly punitive approach to public safety and start focusing on how to safeguard our communities, prevent the conditions that lead to arrests, and rehabilitate people who have made mistakes.

Source: Bernie Sanders

Posted in cash bail, Incarceration, justice, prison, prison-industrial-complex, Prisoners Bill of Rights, racism, three strikes, Uncategorized | Tagged cash bail, criminal justice, criminalization, diversion, for-profit, Incarceration, prison, racism, re-entry | Leave a comment

Iran Nuclear Deal

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

The American people should support the “joint comprehensive plan of action” (Iran Nuclear Deal) signed in July, 2015 by Iran and the P5+1 (five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States plus Germany), and the European Union, which confirms Iran’s status as a zone free of nuclear weapons.

According to the United States National Intelligence Estimate, Iran halted an alleged active nuclear weapons program in the Fall of 2003.

The Iran Nuclear Deal provides that in return for Iran upholding its agreements to rid itself of nuclear material, current economic sanctions by the US, European Union and UN Security Council will be lifted. There should have been a swift elimination of these economic sanctions on Iran and the normalization of relations between Iran and the United States. This never happened.

In keeping with UN resolutions call for a nuclear-free Middle East, Iran has signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, has consistently called for a nuclear-free zone in the entire Middle East and was in full compliance with the Iran Nuclear Deal.

In keeping with UN resolutions call for a nuclear-free Middle East, the Green Party also calls on Israel, the only nuclear power in the Middle East with at least 200 nuclear warheads, to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and sign on to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

However, we need to understand that Israel is currently the only nuclear power in the Middle East with at least 200 nuclear warheads. Israel has refused to dismantle its nuclear weapons program and sign on to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

Sources: Green Party

We should demand an end to this blaring double standard concerning Israel and Iran if we truly want a peaceful nuclear free Middle East.

We need to strongly oppose the current U.S. administration withdrawal from the Iran deal and increased sanctions and various covert and overt interference attempts to destabilize the government and society in Iran.

Michael E. Kerr

Posted in China, France, Germany, Iran, Iran Nuclear Deal, Israel, Middle East, Nuclear Non-proliferation, nuclear weapons, Russia, U.N. Security Council, Uncategorized, United Kingdom | Tagged Iran, Israel, nuclear, Nuclear Non-proliferation | Leave a comment

International Law

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

We need to reduce American militarism. We need our government to follow our Constitution and International Laws when it comes to Foreign Policy.

Michael E. Kerr

As one of the initiators and primary authors of the United Nations Charter, the United States is obligated to conform to the stipulations of the U.S. Constitution, which identifies all such agreements as treaties that hold the authority of U.S. law. The U.S. government is pledged to abide by its principles and guidelines in the conduct of foreign relations and affairs.
We must recognize our government’s obligation to take disputes with other nations or foreign bodies to the U.N. Security Council and General Assembly forum for negotiation and resolution. The U.N. and international laws, treaties and conventions that the U.S. has signed are the framework that controls U.S. military actions abroad.
The U.S. must recognize the sovereignty of nation-states and their right of self-determination.
It is important to recognize and support the right of the U.N. to intervene in a nation-state engaged in genocidal acts or in its persistent violation and denial of the human rights of an ethnic or religious group within its boundaries, and the right to protect the victims of such acts.
The U.S. is obligated to render military assistance or service under U.N. command to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions.
The U.S. must recognize and abide by the authority of the U.N. General Assembly to act in a crisis situation by passing a resolution under the Uniting for Peace Procedure when the U.N. Security Council is stalemated by vetoes.
The veto power enjoyed by the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council needs to be seriously reconsidered as it has been constantly abused against overwhelming decisions by the General Assembly.
We must urge our government to sign the International Criminal Court agreement and respect the authority of that institution.

Sources: Green Party

Posted in constitution, International Law, military actions, Military-Industrial-Media Complex, U.N. Security Council, Uncategorized | Tagged genocidal, International Law, militarism, sovereignty, United Nations | Leave a comment

Insurance Reform

Posted on March 16, 2020 by mekorganic

Clean up the insurance industry. Eliminate special-interest protections, collusion, over-pricing and industry-wide practices that too often injure the interests of the insured when they are most vulnerable. Prohibit bad-faith insurance practices, such as avoidance of obligations and price fixing.

Enact single-payer universal health insurance. Until single-payer is established, we support laws that act to make insurance policies transportable from job to job.
Support and encourage the insurance industry’s efforts for “loss prevention,” that is, to reduce the incidence of death, injuries, disease and other calamities.

Support initiatives in secondary insurance markets that expand credit for economic development in inner cities, affordable housing and home ownership among the poor, sustainable agriculture and rural development maintaining family farms.

Prohibit companies from being the beneficiary of insurance on their own employees.
Source: Green Party