Dunbar 2012!

This is a brief overview of my current platform:I've permanently injured my back working long days as a cook and exhausted myself with late nights as a bartender. I've been jaded by the ivory tower bureaucracy of academia. I've been beat down and brained-out as a teacher. I've dulled my senses with click-clack office work. And I've decided that the working world is completely fucked up. As president I hope to initiate a mandatory 5-week paid vacation for all full-time American workers as well as either a four-day work week or a six hour work day. We are underpaid and overworked, kept too busy to think and too bored to grow. Instead of working in these isolated bubbles called jobs, we should be afforded more time to work as groups to build sustainable, interconnected communities, that is, making real lives for ourselves.I strongly believe in the inherent and immeasurable value of wild spaces, wildlife, and the natural environment. It should be the priority of every nation and particularly the US to focus its energies on creating a sustainable economy that constantly seeks to preserve the health of our natural resources and ourselves and which recognizes the deep biological bonds between humans and nature.A healthy population and healthy environment depends upon peace and social stability. While we in the US have afforded ourselves such freedom for the most part, our government's foreign policies seem almost hellbent on denying much of the developing world these basic rights. While we chastise other countries for the possession or proliferation of WMDs, etc, we have the largest stockpile of nuclear and conventional weapons in the world and are continuously spending taxpayer's money to develop new and more efficient ways of killing and implementing these weapons in wars around the world.Although the total elimination of all such weapons will take generations, I believe we should start now with the most dangerous weapons and de-nuke America. Along these lines we should be using the incredible manpower of our armed forces to aid our fellow nations rather than dismantling them with the hopes of rebuilding them in a way which benefits our industries. These actions depend upon us starting to think as a single planet rather than these single, isolated countries in an endgame for resources. A collective "spaceship earth" line of thinking is much more in line with reality than the "out of sight, out of mind" philosophy which seems to govern so many contemporary government and social policies.The education of the individual in our society has been a low priority in this country for its entire existence. If we truly want a democratic nation, we need to pour our resources into a system of education designed to make such an informed citizenry, rather than churning out good little wage slaves in constant competition with each other, in constant fear of losing those precious bio-survival tickets called money, and at a constant loss for purpose in life beyond consumption of material goods and services.In line with this educational referandum is the need to revise our penal system. Millions of American men and women are incarcerated at taxpayers' expense for non-violent crimes while corporations commit crimes against human health and well-being on a daily basis without reproach. where is the government that looks after the people and not the interest of corporations? where is the government which seeks to aid and rehabilitate individuals instead of tossing them into the horrifying reality of the the modern prison system? Where are the laws defending the people from mammoth corporations designed to do nothing but churn out profit for (mostly wealthy) stockholders? We live in (and involuntarily support through our tax system)an unjust society which perpetuates injustice around the globe. And we're the only one's who can change it.The values underlying all of these issues (the environment, peace and social justice, education, workers' rights, health care) are, for the most part ignored or ridiculed in the mainstream media (remember the laughs that followed Kuchinich's noble concept of a peace department?). This tendency isn't a reflection of the values of the American people, but rather a result of the values of the engine behind the media -- the corporations which own and advertise in the media. Journalists around the world face the loss of their jobs unless they follow the strict editorial demands of the corporations that run their papers, magazines, and television stations. And these corporations logically seek to promote stories and newsmakers who promote and support them. While the government, the media, and multinational corporations grow more and more cozy, information becomes stifled, outsider opinions are silenced, and viewers are treated to a shrinking set of messages which color their day-to-day decision making, including who they elect. While we seek out information sources that are both reputable and compassionate to the health, safety, and edification of the citizenry, we must also dismantle the corrupt and unethical media conglomerates which currently rule the radio, internet, tv, and print media. Again, a democracy can only exist in an informed society.