A PEACE AND JUSTICE AGENDA FOR 2004

The Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and
Socialism (CCDS)

A VISION

This Agenda for Peace and Justice is grounded in a
vision of a world of genuine international cooperation;
just humane laws based upon unqualified respect for the
rights and dignity of every human being; multiracial
unity free of every form of discrimination; and freedom
from want where everyone is entitled to work at a
living wage and has full access to education, health
care, housing, and democratic participation in
political and cultural life.

To achieve this vision, the vast majority of humanity
must control the means of producing wealth—the
factories, the land, and the banks- so that economic
organization and political power operate for the
benefit of the many rather than for the profit of the
few.

Pursuit of this vision urgently requires the defeat of
George W. Bush in 2004. Bush has rewarded his wealthy
friends while engaging in a relentless assault on the
living standards and security of all working people.
The "Bush Doctrine" which is promoting militarism,
preemptive war, dismemberment of the Constitution, and
virulent racism constitutes an extraordinary threat to
a peaceful and just world. Bush and his neo-
conservative collaborators must be stopped in 2004.

A PROGRAM

Defense and Advancement of the Rights of Working People
Worldwide

Corporate globalization renders the interests of
working people everywhere inseparable and indivisible.
International labor solidarity requires struggle
against the super exploitation of people of color, of
workers in the Global South, of women, of young
workers. A Peace and Justice Agenda requires on a
worldwide basis:

– An end to all trade agreements that reduce national
sovereignty and impede the right of nations to regulate
their economies in the interests of their workers.

– The adoption of government policies that protect
existing jobs and promote the creation of new ones
everywhere.

– Workers’ rights, especially the right to form unions.

– Dramatic improvements in wages, benefits, and working
conditions.

– The elimination of tax cuts for the rich, such as the
Bush tax cuts in the United States, and the enactment
of progressive tax policies that do not unfairly burden
working people.

Abolition of the Garrison State and a Foreign Policy
Based on Intervention and War

The garrison state is a military state. The Bush
Administration has established a garrison state to
pursue unchallenged military supremacy and global
empire. It promotes the most insidious corporate
welfare, driven by military expenditures for arms
races, new high-tech weapons on earth and in space, and
further research and development of useless war-making
products. Military spending replaces critical
allocations of resources for housing, education, health
care, job creation, and other crucial government
functions. The garrison state requires obedience at
home and the use of force abroad to justify itself.
This requires repression of civil liberties, the
celebration of violence, and support for deadly
military adventures. A Peace and Justice Agenda
requires:

– an immediate fifty percent cut in military
expenditures combined with the establishment of a job
retraining program for workers in military industries,
the conversion of military technologies to social uses,
and the transfer of savings from military spending to
meet urgent social needs.

– the renunciation of preemptive war and full commitment
to international cooperation, the participation in
international organizations, and the creation of
mechanisms of conflict resolution.

Creation of a Universal Single Payer Health Care System

Health care is a fundamental human right and must not
be subordinated to the rule of profit. A Universal
Single Payer Health Care program would reduce costs by
billions of dollars a year while providing better
immediate and preventive care for everyone. Action must
be taken now to:

– expand both the Medicaid and Medicare programs

– provide immediate relief on prescription drug prices
by repealing the legislation sponsored by the Bush
Administration, which privatizes Medicare, and replace
it with a real program of affordable drugs for seniors

– develop a plan to eliminate all racial disparities in
health care within ten years

– propose legislation to eradicate excess profits of the
insurance, pharmaceutical, nursing home and for profit
hospital industries.

Initiation of a Process to Establish a Humanly
Sustainable Environment

Environmental degradation literally threatens life on
this planet. A concrete program of conversion to clean,
renewable energy will help create a healthy environment
and, at the same time, a massive number of new jobs. It
will offer a powerful alternative to war for oil and
the drive to dominate resource rich areas of the world.

– Legislation is urgently needed to shift tax dollars
from subsidizing oil, coal, and nuclear industries to
the rapid introduction of clean and renewable energy
sources.

– Also the United States government must sign the Kyoto
Treaty on global warming and lead an international
effort to transfer clean energy to poor countries.

Defense of Constitutional Rights and Advance of Human
Dignity

The Bush Administration has launched an unprecedented
assault on civil liberties and policies motivated to
achieve human dignity. A Peace and Justice Agenda
requires:

– The repeal of the Patriot Act and abandonment of plans
for Patriot Act 11. Outrageous open- ended detentions,
deportations and denials of legal rights of immigrants
and foreign nations must be reversed. Documented and
undocumented immigrants must have full legal rights
including the right to the pursuit of citizenship.

– The reaffirmation and protection of affirmative
action.

– An end to capital punishment and the prison industrial
complex.

– Guarantees of reproductive rights and the legalization
of gay marriage.

– Full government commitments to end racism, sexism, and
homophobia. Ending racism, sexism, and homophobia also
requires persistent effort to transform a culture and
media which too often celebrate violence and debase
human dignity into one whose cultural instruments
provide access to knowledge and ideas which lift human
beings and nourish equal economic opportunity and
political empowerment. A Peace and Justice Agenda must
oppose the concentration of media which denies full
access to available cultures and vital information
which the public must have to exercise democratic
rights.

CCDS offers this Peace and Justice Agenda as a starting
point for discussion and action. We urge that it be
taken to community groups, to peace and justice
organizations, to churches, to union locals, and to
electoral campaigns. We ask for responses to the
Agenda: what needs to be added, how to turn proposals
into action; and how to make effective connections
between it and the 2004 elections. Lastly we ask in
what ways CCDS can help the Peace and Justice Agenda
become reality in 2004 and beyond.

Contact:
Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and
Socialism
545 8th Avenue; 14th Floor NE
New York, NY 10018

phone: (212) 868-3733
fax: (212) 868-3334
email: national@cc-ds.org
web: www.cc-ds.org