Ralph Nader's Green Party platform
By Alan Caruba
web
posted June 26, 2000
Ralph Nader is meandering around as the presidential candidate of The Green Party. The political pundits only talk about how many votes he will take away from Al Gore and isn't it odd that Nader seems to hate him and says nothing bad about Gov. George W. Bush?
Two weeks ago, Nader was a guest on the popular Imus in the Morning radio show and the host, Don Imus, lost his wits. He turned the segment into a love fest with the man who denigrated all of his corporate sponsors, several of whom have donated millions to his ranch in New Mexico for children with cancer.
This from a man who we have just learned is worth millions based on his investment in tech stocks. Now, Nader is suing to participate in presidential debates. So why is Nader running for president? For that, you need to read the platform of the Green Party.
I doubt that any of the pundits have actually read the Green Party Platform.
It's very instructive. "The Association of State Green Parties is dedicated to the values of the international Green movement." Yes, it is an international movement and, like communists in former years, they talk of social justice, human rights, and have added something they call "ecological wisdom."
May I suggest you think about how many human rights exist in communist China and the long history of communism that has always advocated the noblest aspirations while running police states. The Green Party speaks of "true-cost pricing in energy and resource management to protect our natural resource heritage for future generations." Translation; right now in the US, we are living with Green policies that have shut down virtually all new mining, petroleum or natural gas extraction, and downsized the timber industry to the point where we are importing lumber instead of harvesting the vast supplies we have.
Green programs such as the Endangered Species Act have effectively negated all private property rights and stalled development wherever it has been enforced. The EPA clean air policies are responsible for the huge rise in the cost of gasoline and this agency has been attacking utilities providing electric and natural gas power. The Clinton-Gore administration has instituted policies that have shut down access to and multiple-use of our national forests, leading in part to the catastrophic fires raging this year.
The Green Party is calling for "a new definition of wealth that includes clean air and water, biodiversity, health, education, and peace as measures of economic security." This would be a reversion to the old definition of wealth that existed in the Soviet Union and its satellite states. With Nader as president, the Greens would continue to trash the economy as they have done now for more than two decades. It would be impossible to engage in any new investment and development of any kind because the Greens want to "re-wild" half or more of the entire US.
I was reminded of a quote from Al Gore's book, Earth in the Balance. He wrote, "The hard truth is that our economic system is partially blind. It 'sees' some things and not others. It carefully measures and keeps track of the value of those things most important to buyers and sellers, such as food, clothing, manufactured goods, work, and indeed money itself. But its intricate calculations often completely ignore the value of other things that are harder to buy and sell: fresh water, clean air, the beauty of the mountains, the rich diversity of life in the forest, just to name a few. In fact, the partial blindness of our current economic system is the single most powerful force behind what seem to be irrational decisions about the global environment."
This is utter nonsense. Americans have set aside millions of acres of the nation to preserve its natural beauty, but they also recognized the need for "multiple-use", i.e., recreation and access to the natural resources the nation requires. Clinton's set-asides freeze those assets. The things Gore mentions have value because they have been turned into something of use to people. Worse, he does not understand that, when people own property, they do everything they can to protect it. This is true of farmers, ranchers, private forest owners, homeowners, and everyone else. Private ownership of property is the cornerstone of liberty and the Fifth Amendment insures that no private property can be taken for public use "without just compensation." The Green's Endangered Species and Wetlands laws have destroyed this protection.
Money has value because it is backed up by the full faith of the government.
Around the world the US dollar is the only currency recognized to have real value. Al Gore does not like, nor trust, capitalism. He wants to be your next president.
The Green Party is calling for the "immediate decommissioning of all nuclear power plants without passing the cost on to ratepayers." Think about that the next time you turn on a light in your home. Since much of Europe derives its power from nuclear plants, those nations would be plunged back into a new Green Dark Age. That said, the Germans are making plans to decommission their nuclear plants. Do you seriously think they'll run that nation with windmills? The Greens advocate solar power and windmill power. Been tried.
Doesn't work.
Along with eliminating all nuclear power, the Green Party would destruct "all nuclear weapons production facilities and weapons." I am sure the enemies of this nation favor that. We would literally be defenseless against any nuclear threat.
The Green Party "oppose bioengineering, irradiation, and other unsustainable agricultural practices and processes." Now, my friend, you had better understand this means the end of modern agricultural practices that produce twice as much food as organic farming, any new medical breakthroughs to conquer diseases, and the technology that eliminates life threatening pathogens in foods. Result? People will die in ever-higher numbers.
Like Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, and other liberal politicians, the Green Party "will actively work for universal health care" and that means you can kiss off the enormous budget surpluses this nation currently enjoys or can anticipate accumulating. It would create an even bigger Big Government with access to your personal health records and control over the medical decisions affecting whether you live or die.
This is Ralph Nader's platform. It is, in effect, Al Gore's platform.
Still want to vote for either of them? 
Alan Caruba is the founder of The National Anxiety Center where his weekly column, Warning Signs, is posted. He can be reached at acaruba@aol.com.