I would like to be Public Citizen Number 2 this year.
Why would I run for the Vice Presidential slot in the United States, with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket? Because it matters.
Electoral politics matters. Why? Because people in Washington, D.C., make decisions which affect Indian country. They often make bad decisions. Slade Gordon makes decisions and he is an elected official. It matters because people died for the right to vote in this country, to have the dignity of having a voice in the future of the nation. It matters because a vote is something worth casting in dignity, not going to the polling place and choosing between the least of two evils.
Public policies affect Indian country and they are forwarded by elected officials. Every year new legislation introduced to dump nuclear waste in Western Shoshone territory is supported by a goodly number of "American representatives."
Every few years, the Alaskan delegation introduces legislation to milk oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and trash the ecosystem, the Gwichin and the caribou, and those are elected officials. Every year, there are more proposed encroachments on Native sovereignty, on our way of life, on subsistence harvesting, there is more misuse of our funds and our resources Ð all by these officials in government. So, while we wait for accountability by the government, not to big corporations, but to those of us who live here, let us engage them in the many ways needed to make change.
Who is the Green Party? The Green Party is active in some 80 countries and has elected officials in many European countries including Germany, Denmark and Great Britain. There are 25 active state Green Parties in the United States. The primary principles of the Green Party are ecological wisdom, non-violence and grass-roots democracy.
What will I speak to, respect for treaty, sovereign and subsistence rights; the return of public landholdings within and adjacent to Indian reservations (including, for instance, that 90 percent of the Black Hills under federal control). I will urge increased funding for reservation and urban communities so our people are not forced to live in near squalor (in the richest country in the world).
I will work to ensure that if you get your teeth pulled at Indian Health Service, you will get your new teeth in the same fiscal year. I will call for a demilitarization of American Foreign Policy, including closing down the School of the Americas, and to stop the major flow of American military aid to countries like Colombia.
I would work to create self-sustaining peace and promote a dignified equity in Third World countries (including l00 percent debt relief). I will work for the establishment of a Peace and Reconciliation Commission modeled after South Africa's, and seek reparations for American Indians, based on reparations allocated to Jews by German industries for the use of Jewish slave labor, and reparations to Japanese Americans.
I will argue for a living wage in our communities, so working families do not have to live in poverty and are able to work in jobs that have meaning and dignity. I will propose transformation of American energy policy and look toward a renewable energy program founded on wind and solar energy, drawing from the growing numbers of Native wind projects, as possible sources for energy for not only our communities, but many American communities.
I will join with Ralph Nader as my running mate to call for restraints on corporate power and corporate welfare. And finally, I will argue for environmental justice and an amendment to the constitution to protect us and the commons for the Seventh Generation from now.
Maybe in talking about these issues, our voices will have some resonance in the public debate. If the two main parties are afraid of losing votes, they may listen to our issues. In a recent Zogby poll, Nader drew 5.3 percent of the overall response. Of the independent vote, Nader had 8.9 percent and 5.7 percent of the Democratic respondents. Nader even tallied a small but noticeable 2.1 percent of the Republican votes. This could be of concern in a tight election.
What about the other guys? George W. Bush has $100 million dollars or so to spend on this campaign while Ralph Nader, the Greens and I have pennies in comparison. I am aware that someone needs to stop him: The state of Texas under his leadership is ranked 50th in spending for teachers salaries, 49th in spending for the environment, 48th in per capita funding for public health, 47th in delivery of social services, 41st in per capita spending on public education and 42nd on child support collections.
At the same time, it is fifth in percentage of people living in poverty, first in air and water pollution, first in percentage of poor working parents without insurance, first in children without health insurance and first in executions.
I am painfully aware that Al Gore has big money as well. As I listen to the vice president espouse his views on campaign finance reform, I look at his investment portfolio and have to ask how that might influence public policy. Gore owns substantial stock in Occidental Oil Co., which is working to exploit oil reserves under Uwa land in Colombia.
At the least, what the Green Party can do in this campaign is raise these questions. I believe, that we can begin, through the leadership of Ralph Nader, a man with integrity and a four-decade commitment to defense of citizenry.
If Ralph Nader is Public Citizen Number One, I would like, in this election year, to be viewed as Public Citizen Number Two. I will try and work on these issues, because they matter.