Maine Senate- Human Rights

8/14/2019 Maine Senate- Human Rights

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HUMAN RIGHTS

ANDINTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS



HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONALRELATIONS

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Laurie Dobson’s Responses….…………………………………….3

Herb Hoffman’s Responses……...…………………………………6

Tom Ledue’s Responses…………………………………………….8




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1. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would reverse the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and restorethe writ of habeas corpus? Yes. It's unthinkable to tamper with our inalienable rights and attempt to alienate them from our citizens. Inmy campaign's indictment of Bush for war crimes we have shownhow the Military Commissions Act is illegal and have established thecase law precedent in a legal memo which can argue this whenput to the test. We must empower our citizens to defy andrepudiate tyranny.

2. Do you believe that the US should operate prisons outside of itsborders? No.

3. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would abolish the death penalty? Yes. Death is wrong, death isabhorrent and allowing our public officials to put people to deathgives them a power which encourages them to see themselves asnot mere public servants but, above the law. We cannotencourage anti-humanism in our people.

4. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would initiate hearings that might lead to the criminalprosecution of elected officials and contractors involved in warcrimes and constitutional violations? Absolutely. I have called for Bush and Cheney to be indicted for war crimes on a municipallevel, in Kennebunkport. Recently, my campaign has underwrittenand provided an enforceable ordinance for a town to use whichcould, we believe, successfully try this case on a local municipal

basis. Since these are the most egregious of crimes and include allother war crimes within them (wars of aggression) they are'cognizable' under international law which is part of our laws, thehighest laws of our land. We must not provide any opportunity for future tyranny and we must unravel the opportunities created tosecure their escape. Our country is much too demoralized to allowthem to walk away from a 'Katrina'd' country.




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5. When, if ever, do you consider the use of military force to beappropriate? I do not. It has to be the last method and it signals thefailure of diplomatic methods. We must stop being failures.

6. Do you believe that economic sanctions or embargoes are aneffective tool of foreign policy? No. Deterrence by peacefulmethods is more effective. Look at how countries came into Cubato help it recover from the sanctions imposed by our country. This isa better way. We have not nearly explored the potential we havefor creating a good neighbor atmosphere in the world. If it cancivilize children and barbaric savages by models of good behavior,we can by our example, prove that good neighbor policies canwork for countries of the world. The principles are the same; what isrequired is our consent and willingness to regulate and control thewarlike factions at work in the corporate party politics of today.

7. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would enable undocumented immigrants currently working inthe United States to attain legal resident status and, eventually, fullcitizenship? Yes. A path to naturalization is the only humanesolution. It will take an education process which teaches tolerance,diversity and inclusion. My method for helping reduce thedesperation of our people, so that they are receptive to newcitizens and to a dialogue of civilizations, rather than a clash, is toprovide incentives and economic security. We should return toKennedy's investment tax credit for businesses and a living wage of$15 per hour. We can do this if we restructure our tax system to be

equitable by means of a securities tax. I proposed this in my 12 StepRecovery Program to Fend off the Bush Depression, which wasarticulated before any other candidate put out a detailedeconomic plan and before Nader put his securities tax plan beforethe public. We must make our country economically secure andcivilized through enlightened education.




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8. Do you believe that the US should become party to the KyotoProtocol? Yes.

9. What will you do to eliminate poverty? On every level in our countrywe must understand the need to focus on the 'advantage of theother' as our national maxim and salvation from corruption anddestruction of our moral identity. As Americans, we understand thisconcept--it saved us when we arrived in this country anddepended upon our survival by the Indians, who took it uponthemselves to help us to endure and prevail. We slaughtered them.This blight upon our national character has yet to be fullyaddressed. We faced slavery. Now we must face poverty andoppression. We must be channels of peace and follow the prayer of St. Francis into the reality of our daily practices. If we can helpwin a war by sacrifice, war bonds and rationing, we can solvepoverty and oppression and violent extremism. It is thefundamental challenge of our day. We solved cholera, we'vesolved many diseases. We did it by civilization and enlightenedcultural responses to our challenges. We can counter the perils weface, the fears we face, in the same immortal way: by insisting onthe advantage of the other as a national policy, right down to our everyday municipal, individual levels of existence. This is the onlytype of state sponsored religion I would embrace as ideology—“thegolden rule”. But it can and must be put into programs, intopractice and into our governmental policy.




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1. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would reverse the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and restorethe writ of habeas corpus? Yes.


3. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would abolish the death penalty? Yes.

4. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would initiate hearings that might lead to the criminalprosecution of elected officials and contractors involved in warcrimes and constitutional violations? Yes.

5. When, if ever, do you consider the use of military force to beappropriate? When there is a clear and present danger to theintegrity of the nation. Military force should only be used for thedefense of the nation.

6. Do you believe that economic sanctions or embargoes are aneffective tool of foreign policy? No. As currently practiced by theU.S., they tend to disproportionately harm the innocent.

7. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would enable undocumented immigrants currently working inthe United States to attain legal resident status and, eventually, fullcitizenship? Yes, those with no criminal records.

8. Do you believe that the US should become party to the KyotoProtocol? Yes.

9. What will you do to eliminate poverty? Support the conversion of"defense" [read, "offense"] appropriations to peace industries thatwill contribute to the quality of life, create jobs, and provide




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additional funds for social programs. Education and health careare key to the elimination of poverty. I favor universally availablepre-kindergarten and the restoration of student loan programs.Universal, single-payer health care [Medicare for all] will assure thatthose currently in poverty will have access to health care, which willdrastically improve their quality of life and access to opportunities.Universal, single-payer health care will also prevent others fromsliding into poverty as they struggle to pay medical bills. The federalgovernment must also become proactive in providing options todrug use which is related to poverty, crime and incarceration.There are many effective therapeutic programs available which arecurrently not emphasized, nor funded, as an alternative to the ill-conceived "war on drugs."




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1. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would reverse the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and restorethe writ of habeas corpus? Yes. Not honoring habeas corpusundermines the inalienable rights of all Americans and peopleworldwide.


3. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would abolish the death penalty? Yes. The death penalty isboth ineffective and regressive; it is not in line with the highest idealsof our nation.

4. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislationthat would initiate hearings that might lead to the criminalprosecution of elected officials and contractors involved in warcrimes and constitutional violations? Yes. It is our first duty to honor our constitution and the rule of law. If we do not honor this dutywith investigative and/or criminal action, we invite more of thesame abuses.

5. When, if ever, do you consider the use of military force to beappropriate? We must always ask ourselves, “What kind of a power do we want to be?” We must always act in accordance with our ideals. We must wield our might with the light of wisdom. The mostsuccessful generals never have to bring their troops to war.

Peace demands vision and commitment to action. The UnitedStates has the capacity to be a beacon of hope and a bastion ofsupport for the inalienable rights of all. We can support peace far more effectively by fighting AIDS, diphtheria, malaria and other scourges around the planet than we ever will with our ownweapons of mass destruction.




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Most war is mere folly, nothing more. Too often we have gone towar because leaders have not been able to lift themselves enoughto get to the negotiating table, men who have not even had thedecency to look over their shoulder to see whom they are asking torisk everything, and for what reason… War is inevitably horror uponhorror. Children dying, day after day. Parents screaming. Grownmen who cannot even look in the eye of the men they are killingbecause they don’t know why they are killing. They do not knowwhat thought has brought them to this place, and most of all theyfear that it is no thought that did. No euphemism can change thatreality.

However, there have been those moments in history whengrievances against peoples’ inalienable rights, especially that to livewithout fear, have outweighed the risks of war. We must alwaysask: what is the best course of action for all of the people involved,for all countries, for the human race, and for the planet? Our decisions must be based upon the strong commitment to thecommon good.

The question one must ask oneself is this: Will war kill more than itsaves? It seems ridiculously simple, but it is a formula that we havegotten away from. If a man kills one person and saves ten, mostpeople would think that worth the loss, if you can think of it thatway. But if he kills ten to save one, one must seriously contemplatethe worth of the action. Entering World War Two was justifiableconsidering that the bloodshed of the Axis Powers was not likely tostop until it covered the earth, (This does not justify all of the Allied

decisions during the war, some of which were heinous - such as thebombing of Dresden.) When we did not intervene in Rwanda andallowed the Rwandan genocide to happen we disgracedourselves. With little risk to ourselves or the UN Troops that werealready there, we could have stopped that bloodshed and yet didnot.




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Conscience, courage, and fearlessness in doing the right thing areessential for our war decision-making. We must choose ahead oftime to be committed to peace and to the wellbeing of all. Wemust never be swept up in the emotion of the day. When we go towar it must be the last resort in our efforts to protect life.

6. Do you believe that economic sanctions or embargoes are aneffective tool of foreign policy? No. The goal of foreign policyshould be to engage all nations to help create a safer world inwhich the inalienable rights of all people are increasingly better supported and in which there is less and less suffering. Rarely willdisengagement, exclusion, and isolation produce such results.Rather, they are likely to sow the seeds of resentment, anger andviolence. At the same time, there may be situations in whichcollective pressure from the community of nations is the bestalternative to create conditions that lead to needed change.

7. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would enable undocumented immigrants currently working inthe United States to attain legal resident status and, eventually, fullcitizenship? Yes. We need policy that corrects the root causes ofpeople needing to risk all to immigrate illegally.

8. Do you believe that the US should become party to the KyotoProtocol? No.

9. What will you do to eliminate poverty? In simplest terms, our government’s responsibility in providing for the inalienable rights of

our people to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is to look out for the wellbeing of all of our people, both in good times and inbad, across the broad spectrum of our society. Certainly, allpeople will not aspire to achieve the same station in life, but our policies do not have to guarantee that they cannot. Instead our policies to deal with poverty need to guarantee opportunity is therewhen people fall on bad times or live in otherwise unsupported




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situations. Across a wide variety of situations we need to be readyto provide the tools that people need to take care of themselves.Our countrymen and women cannot pull themselves up by their own bootstraps if they do not have any boots. Currently 100 millionAmericans live in or on the edge of poverty.

Millions of our people fall through the cracks in the system: theabused child on a long waiting list for help, the teen with no homeor bed to go to, the pregnant mother with no prenatal care, thementally ill with no treatment, the elderly freezing in their homes….They are those who consume most of their energy on their ownsurvival. They have no opportunity to develop or use their own giftsand talents and are effectively suppressed from engaging their bestwith our society. People who are marginalized to a place in whichthey can just scrape by – or worse – are not in a position to be ableto contribute much of anything to the greater good.

We need to work together to create conditions in this country thatsupport the economic self-reliance of our people and in doing sowe will reduce the need for a safety net for our people. We mustredirect federal investment to support the basic pillars upon whichpersonal economic success and self-reliance can be built. Breakingthe cycle of poverty requires strong, integrated network of supportand intervention. We must change our attitude towards careinstead of neglect as a beginning.

We must:•Make a national commitment to reduce poverty by 50% in the

next five years.•Make a national commitment to reduce childhood poverty by90% in 10 years.

To do so must develop:Housing Security•We must help the homeless and impoverished into low income




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housing that is energy efficient and low maintenance and gettingthem out of inadequate housing, providing families a way to getout of dangerous and abusive situations into safe havens.

Healthcare Security•Make immediate steps to provide universal, equitable access toquality healthcare for ALL AMERICANS.•We must develop a health care system that takes care of mentaland physical health, a system that allows wellness care, dentalservices and nutritional health for all citizens.

Job Security•Protect manufacturing jobs through fair labor and greencertification requirements of all imports.•Create new jobs for people who need a pathway out of poverty.•Commit to leading a green technology national productioninitiative; this could create hundreds of thousands of jobs quickly.•An expanded Americorps job program

Education Security•Universal access to pre-school.•Early literacy intervention•Adult literacy intervention•Greater support for our poorest schools.•Service-to-college program•Technological literacy•Financial literacy education•Job retraining

Environmental Security•Enforce environmental law to protect all Americans, especially thepoor who are often exploited by environmental abuse or neglect.•Reassess food safety and make appropriate changes.•Chemical Safety•Consumer Safety




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Energy Security:•Fully fund Low Income Energy Assistance program (LIEAP), make anational commitment toward energy efficiency while also making anational commitment to strengthen our communities by developinglocal clean, renewable power generation.

As for paying for this:

The crux of this issue is THAT WE ARE PAYING FOR THE GREAT COSTOF POVERTY RIGHT NOW in the great currency of despair andpotential lost. We must recognize that investing in our people is our best economic plan for a stable and sustainable economic future.The cost of the status quo is both needless and staggering.Compare the cost of imprisoning a young man for ten years vs.providing that same young man as an angry teenager withcounseling… Compare the cost of providing childcare to a child ofa single mother so that she can take classes to empower herself tocontribute in our new economy vs. the cost of allowing her and her child to scrape by in poverty without the opportunity provided bythat education… It is only when people are fed and clothed andeducated, that we will move beyond our old models of the statusquo and really see what we as a people, as leaders in our world,can accomplish in this new century. As long as millions of our people are out there, on their own, living from day to day with littlehope for tomorrow, they will be unable to make the contributionsthat are within them already. Investing in our most disadvantagedpeople will ultimately lead to a better future for all Americans; bypromoting and supporting the well-being of our people, we will

diminish the need for welfare and the associated monetary costs.

•We must shift subsidy priorities from large to small – -From corporations that are seeing record profits tocommunity based action programs that can work if they geta little financial help,-From multinational agribusinesses to food stamp and




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school nutrition programs that provide local healthy foods-From agribusiness to farm cooperatives and local suppliers ofhealthy food.

•Additional assistance funding can be provided through claiming apeace dividend as we leave Iraq.

As a nation we need to recall that these are basic human needsand they help define individual security. We are all more securewhen our neighbors are secure in meeting their basic needs.

In regards to poverty worldwide: Briefly, we need to export our ideals instead of exporting our military wares. We need to invest inthe seeds of peace abroad: clean water, healthy local crops, localself-reliance for basic needs. The more that we follow fair tradepractices, the better off the people off the world will be.

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