As a former art school student with Skinny Puppy and H.R. Giger inspired paintings on his biker leather, a Leebinator haircut, 1950s style eyeglasses and always smelled like a welding shop when going into the local bookstore to pour over the latest issue of Mondo 2000 and as an adult desperately searching for a political identity which combines both the ideals of absolute freedom and individual exceptionalism of Libertarians and Objectivists with traditional Liberal and Humanist values of social responsibility, equality and compassion, I'm totally embarrassed that I was not familiar with Mondo 2000 publisher R.U. Sirius' political party and run for president in 2000.
I've got nothing to add to this:
THE REVOLUTION PARTY OVERVIEW
No, the Revolution party is not a bunch of wild-eyed insurrectionists hell-bent on the violent overthrow of an oppressive regime.
As founder R.U. Sirius explains it, "The Revolution is a new political party that aims to be the voice of the non-voter, the alienated, the visionaries, the rabble, and the Internet. Combining left and libertarian politics with a kind of post-political futurism and the love of a good laugh, The Revolution¨ intends to bring all the subcultural tribes together to wrest control of worldwide political systems from the drug warriors, the cultural ayatollahs, and the various corporate mega-destructo gangs, ranging from the military-industrial complex to the HMOs ad infinitum."
OFFICIAL PLATFORM STATEMENT FROM THE OFFICIAL WEB PAGE
15 POINT PARTY PLATFORM FOR NATIONAL POLITICS
"NOTE: All of these platform points are stated simply in three-or-less sentences. The reality is far more complex. Each one of these will be detailed, one by one, in the months to come.
1. We will repeal five times as many laws as we pass. We need to simplify and clarify the rules of the game. We will do a better job of enforcing and obeying a few reasonable rules than thousands upon thousands of incomprehensible statutes.
2. End all corporate welfare. Let allegedly-free enterprise stand on its own two feet.
3. No Federal Personal Income Taxes for individuals with incomes of less than $100,000. Encourage states and counties to also end taxation of middle-class and poor individuals. Institute a flat tax on income over $100,000.
4. Legalize most pleasure drugs, prostitution, and gambling. Institute a 'sin tax,' taxing these activities at 100% to make up for some of the funds lost as the result of #3. Use part of this tax income to make counseling and rehabilitation easily available in all locales.
5. Close down the prison/industrial complex. Pardon all prisoners who are in for non-violent crimes involving sums involving $25,000 or less, provided they have no known history of violent activities. Pardon all prisoners listed with Amnesty International.
6. Defend civil liberties. For the first time in recent memory, let's have a federal government that respects The Constitution and The Bill of Rights. Let's have the ACLU and the EFF and other pro-rights organizations inside the federal government.
7. Stop policing the world. Become just another member of the UN, with responsibilities equivalent to our numbers. Reduce the Pentagon's budget by at least 50%.
8. Close down the National Security State. Since the end of World War II, representative democracy has been hostage to the National Security State. Release all secret documents (excluding only those recent ones that present a very clear and present danger), fire the CIA, and reform the federal intelligence apparatus.
9. Put environmental concerns before profits and jobs. On the other hand, put scientific consensus and reason ahead of emotion-based environmentalism. Protect the environment while limiting Orwellian bureaucratic absurdities.
10. Open federally-funded birth control clinics all across the country, guaranteeing women in every locale reasonable access to her legal right to abortion and other forms of birth control.
11. Allow 'autonomous zones.' Offer ways in which localities and even households can -- with a very few limits -- opt out of the system.
12. Re-establish social services at pre-Reagan levels, for starters. Study the possibility of a 'workfare' state that would create an ultimately self-sustaining 'generic' maintenance economy that would involve those who don't receive income independently, or through employment, in the production, distribution, and receivership of life's essentials. Ultimately, an advanced high tech society will need to end the employment/make money ethic entirely or risk a total psychotic break from the social/environmental pollution wreaked by billions of desperate people on a hustle.
13. Study the possibility of restructuring the economic/money system toward making money consistent with actual value in an age where money-as-information is excessively abstracted from the creation of real wealth and unfairly favors those who know how to manipulate it. Also, question the oligarchic power of those who control the money system, such as the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and the World Bank, reforming or possibly eliminating those organizations.
14. Fund a 'Manhattan Project Toward Utopia.' Finance and encourage altruistic scientific and technological projects geared towards breakthroughs that can diminish or eliminate scarcity, disease, and other forms of suffering that most people would prefer not to experience. Establish a principal of universal access to the products of such breakthroughs.
15. Victory Over Horseshit! The political process in America is hostage to certain obvious absurdities that are an embarrassment before the civilized world: like the continuing embargo against Cuba (and particularly the Helms/Burton bill), the excessive numbers of state executions, our refusal to sign the land mine treaty, the opposition to policies like needle exchange that are geared towards slowing down a plague, refusal of funding for international birth control, ad infinitum. Let's have a national government that calls ridiculous horseshit what it is."
R.U. Sirius/The Revolution
There's a book too, titled The Revolution: Quotations from Revolution Party Chairman R.U. Sirius, if you can find it.
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