Jokeefe: Created page with "= Platform Topics = Need to integrate these from the [https://masspirates.org/wiki/index.php?title=March_10th,_2019_Boston_Regional_Meeting Boston meeting] * Housing first *..."

2019-12-11T15:16:02Z

Created page with "= Platform Topics = Need to integrate these from the [https://masspirates.org/wiki/index.php?title=March_10th,_2019_Boston_Regional_Meeting Boston meeting] * Housing first *..."

New page

= Platform Topics =

Need to integrate these from the [https://masspirates.org/wiki/index.php?title=March_10th,_2019_Boston_Regional_Meeting Boston meeting]
* Housing first
** everyone has a place to live, providing stability and improving state of mind
** not solely focusing on people who are homeless, but recognizing the increasing cost of housing
* Education reform (but not the neoliberal kind)
** Fix the infrastructure of our schools
** Use technology (only where needed?)
** Centering on student empowerment and help for students to succeed at what they are good at and support them where they have challenges
* Criminal justice
** reducing policing and incarceration
** Increasing harm reduction policies.
** Less punishment, more restorative justice

== Quality Health care for all including dental and mental health care (expanded medicare for all) ==
* Implement community based mental health and wellness programs for those who need it
* We are already paying for everyone
* Merge VA into Medicare for All
* Cuts administrative costs and profits of the private system
* Retrain administrative workers if needed
* Negotiate drug and other medical prices
* Impose consistent prices
* Using compulsive licensing of patents for drugs
* Ending evergreen patents
* Having better funding for drug research that shifts reward system to target health problems not profits
* Better research into the effectiveness of drugs

== Education ==
* Putting Students First
* Innovation in funding that reduces per student disparities in funding. Raising the bottom
* Encouraging critical thinking
* Maximizing the tools available to teachers
* Empowering teachers

== Criminal Justice ==
* Decriminalizing victimless crimes
* Focus on restoration, rehabilitation & education not punishment
* End Civil asset forfeiture
* Fair principles and wages for prison labor
* No disenfranchisement of prisoners. No taxation without representation
* Adequately fund pubic defenders
* Community policing & end arrest/citation quotas
* No private prisons
* Train police in conflict resolution, make them peace officers not police officers
* Make police files public automatically
* No privacy for police while on the job
* End cops being above the law
* Do not break the law to enforce the law

== No eminent domain for private profit ==

== Workers Rights ==
* Pro-union, card check not vote
* OSHA on every work site including government. Keep safe for all involved.

== Public Transportation ==
* Fund MBTA and other public bus systems so they can expand quality, reliability and service
* Maintain roads so they are safe
* End tolls & surveillance on the Pike, Tobin bridge and Boston tunnels

== Government Funding and Taxation ==
* Use systems thinking and true accounting

== Housing & Homelessness ==
* We have an affordability problem
* More cost effective to provide housing for people who are homeless
* Incentivize keeping housing owned by people in the community, not for use as a speculative investment
** Transaction tax paid by non-occupants?
* Improve renters rights: better recourse
** Fund outreach to renters and owners about their rights and obligations

== Drugs ==
* End the drug war: Decriminalize ala Portugal. Focus on addiction as a public health issue.
* Fund Needle exchange programs and programs to help people to deal with addiction
* Treat addiction as a disease not a crime
* Continue to support the legalization of cannabis and its use for those it helps
* End drug testing for government programs

== National Security ==
* End TSA: No more security theater
* End the wars

== Data Privacy: Protecting the privacy of the individual, not the state. ==
* Discard information once you are done processing it.
* What of GDPR should be here? Not right to be forgotten.
* Stop gathering of license plate/surveillance data or expire after X weeks. Do not share with private entities.
* Retain public data locally.
* Body/police surveillance camera data must be available by the accused at a minimum

== Economy ==
* People first; end corporate subsidies
* Measure the people’s economy, not the stockmarket
* Honest accounting that measures the true benefits and costs of the commonwealth
** Use these metrics to make better judgements about government policy
* Government policy should promote competition not monopoly

== Right of Repair/You own what you purchased ==
* Software/media you paid for and download cannot be revoked
* Cannot deny someone legal process using software.
* Lock you out of your house/reposes your car w/o legal decision
* Should not be a felony to modify or examine the software/hardware you purchased
* Companies should not be able to take back stuff you already paid for
* Copyrighted works should eventually become part of the public commons (No Mickey Mouse Law)

== FOIA ==
* All data paid for by the public should be on-line and machine readable/searchable (with personal privacy exceptions)
** That includes all branches of government
** No scanned documents without OCR
* Reduce the time for agencies to respond to requests to 10 days
* Consolidate oversight and enforcement of FOIA into one separate agency
** Under gov appointed by gov/elected by the people? (look at OCPF?)
** Change from legal process to automatic fines for when out of compliance of the law
** Use fines pay for bringing agencies into compliance technologically
*** This saves tax payers money, simplifies the process
** Agency would have regulatory power and can set guidelines/rules (technologies/vendors that have worked)
** Agency can review rules/tech of other agencies and call them out accountable for non-compliance

== Immigration ==
* Make Massachusetts be a sanctuary state
* Abolish ICE
* Establish a path to citizenship for all immigrants
* No taxation without representation; limited voting rights
* Should be a judicial process for deportation with true due process
* Honor agreements regarding asylum seekers and treat them with dignity and due process
* Streamline process to move from one student to worker visa status
* Immunity (amnesty?) for immigrants reporting crime
https://masspirates.org/wiki/March_10th,_2019_Boston_Regional_Meeting
https://masspirates.org/wiki/September_29th,_2018_Party_Conference

= Platform Order =

== What would we implement in our first 100 days of achieving power? ==

* Citizen surveys of police and school systems and municipal government (13 and older)
* End solitary confinement
* Fair pay for fair work (even prisoners)
* Open government additions
** Removing exemptions of the open meeting law for all three branches of government
** Actual enforcement of open meeting law and FOIA
** All data paid for by the public should be on-line and machine readable/searchable (with personal privacy exceptions) That includes all branches of government
** No scanned documents without OCR
** All bills have to be voted on in committee
** All votes have to list who the individual votes
** Reduce the power of house speaker/senate president
** Remove legislative loopholes (no votes in out of session periods). Spell out limits on emergency sessions.
** Require bills only include content relevant to the original purpose of the bill
** Expand whistleblower protections (suggested after the meeting)
* Full decriminalization of private consensual activities and implement effective harm reduction strategies.
* Change the law to use IRV/RCV
* Fully fund the MBTA and all public transit systems
* Pass net neutrality bill
* Have a mock budget with taxes and spending
** Include money for energy conservation fund
** Solar credit?
* Close the fusion centers
* Stop any support for ICE and other related agencies. Prohibit county sheriffs from helping ICE
* Try to increase competition in oligopolies esp. media
* Promote training for creating cooperative operations and tomorrow’s leaders (e for all?)

== What would we implement in our first year of achieving power? ==

* Restorative justice approach for minors
* Implementing changes based on survey results
* Within the first year exonerate and wipe records of all private consensual crimes
* Basic right education
* Fund the development of public transit in Mass.
* Development of high speed broadband in Mass.
* License requirement
** law students have to teach kids their rights
** psychology students to help homeless
* Education
** Expand financial decision making/responsibilities education
** Teaching labor rights and struggles
** Bring back home economics and food preparation
* Require state (MEMA) and municipalities do a climate change/storm risk assessment
** Must include food security, housing, transportation

== What would we implement longer term? ==
* Decentralize federal/state government to county/regions and municipalities
** Reconstitute county governments to make them elected and able to solve regional problems
* Removal of laws that no longer apply especially if they are harmful to individual rights
* Expand the ballot initiative and direct democracy. Institute a people’s veto

2020 Platform Discussion - Revision history

Jokeefe: Created page with "= Platform Topics = Need to integrate these from the [https://masspirates.org/wiki/index.php?title=March_10th,_2019_Boston_Regional_Meeting Boston meeting] * Housing first *..."