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Show THE ZEPHYRIOCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2008 IF YOU WERE PREZ... Zephyr Readers are ready to assume the role of Commander-in-Chief EVAN CANTOR...BOULDER, COLORADO care for profit. Make waiting lists. - Legalize all drugs and provide distribution through state run stores (like the Utah liquor store) — eliminate the Vd appoint Jim Stiles Secretary of the Interior (if he’d take the job). I’d di- criminal Monuments, to prevent We’d come up with a new designation, “Federal Common ‘Increase Lands” perhaps, places that would be off-limits to commercial promotion, whether it be industrial or recreational. Not even open to wilderness outfitters. Consider for a moment one of my favorite proposed places, the North Canyonlands FCL. A few dirt roads, a couple of paved ones. My designation would. prohibit off-road use of motorized vehicles. There could be no uranium mining in Hell Roaring Canyon or coal stripping on the rims of Labyrinth. Such a place is loved by many and coveted by a only a few who are already sickeningly wealthy, whose only concern is a mega-profit they don’t even need. I'd reform the tax code so that the poor paid a smaller percentage of their living income than the rich. The Super-Rich would pay the highest percentage tax, because, damnitall, they can actually afford it with no impact. Then I'd introduce a reverse-welfare tax code. I’d give you a tax break for having no children. More children would equal higher taxes. I’d phase this in over ia fifteen-year period so nobody was thrown into the poorhouse overnight without warning. No more There’s too many humans already. Speaking of tax ing an automobile. The more autornobiles you or you'd pay in an incrementally exponential fashion. economic reward for larger families. breaks, I’d give you one for not ownyour household own, the more taxes I’d include ATVs, ORVs, motorcycles, internal-combustion engines? Not without paying! Your combustion tax would re-build from production, dis- estate taxes and use pro- ceeds to provide first class education to all children in the U.S. so that real equal opportunity is possible. - Pay reparations for slavery to descendants. Appoint national committee to close 90% of prisons and find alternative rehabilitation for those incarcerated except for the most hopeless offenders. - Appoint the Vice President of the U.S. to chair a committee of representatives from every American Indian tribe to find the best way to provide justice for Indians and enable continuation of traditional livelihoods. Honor all treaties still possible to implement (such as the Treaty of Ruby Valley). - Enact a moratorium on boundaries of all cities and towns. Limit development to infill of current human-occupied areas. i - Promote regional production of food, products and services so that overseas shipping to the U.S. becomes rare. Build public infrastructure for virtual conferences, so that airplane travel for business or meetings becomes unusual. Convene with economic advisers of other countries to address global warming and health of the oceans immediately ongoing desecration. element tribution and use and give people better alternatives than drug addiction. Build housing for the homeless so that anyone who is homeless really is on the streets by choice. rect Interior to review citizen wilderness proposals already on the table and approve about 90% of them. I’d assemble a committee to look at remaining federal lands to see what wasn’t yet completely ruined and designate a bunch of National mental health ser- vices available to everyone, and drug & alcohol rehabilitation programs with no IfI were President of the USA, I’d want to stop the senseless killing in Iraq, bring the troops home and let the Iraqis finish the civil war they started a thousand years ago. I'd put the troops to work domestically, on bridges and levees amongst other projects. I’d have scientists advising on these projects so we didn’t just repeat old mistakes. Let's restore the bayous while we're fixing New Orleans. and effectively. No economic alternatives would be out of the realm of discussion, includ- ing democratic socialism. - Fund rapid development of wind and solar power. Restore and expand national network of railroads and provide full employment - dismantling the entire Interstate Freeway system. . AL CORNETT...SLADE, KENTUCKY My first thought as President is to immediately ban all religious groups and make it a criminal offense (death penalty) to even mention religion in Washington, D.C. I would further explain the great difference between organized religion and true, god-oriented, personal spirituality. I realize this penalty is too severe because simple people do not know of the brain-washing crap they have listened to their entire lives. If there’s a god “out there,” he/she/it is surely saying, “Damn, what a hell of a mess I’ve created; I should have known it wouldn’t work on such a small planet. I gave them just enough intelligence to be able to work for me and they’ve created all these damned corrupting factors; its enough to make me lose my religion - uh, uh, I mean, spirituality.” | The second thing that crossed my mind was to ban any Texan from becoming president in the future and turn the state into a giant commune for all those crazies who wish snow-mo’s and the like. You want to desecrate our communal environment with your street-car infrastructures and restore the railroad. Regarding motorized toys, we might just have to get regulation-crazy at places like Bloab. I hate rules and regulations as much as the next independent-minded Luddite rebel, but hell, people, enough is enough. I'd end the War On Drugs and treat addiction medically. I’d legalize marijuana so it could be sold by liquor stores instead of by black-market pushers. Once marijuana was taken out of the pharmaceutical black-market, it would reduce other drug problems radically and empty our prisons of people guilty only of trying to catch a buzz off a harmless plant. I wouldn't legalize heroin and meth and coke, but I wouldn’t throw all the users into crime school (re: prison) for their poor judgment. With marijuana more to be brain-washed and turned into a zombie. Texas seems to be where all the sex-crazy, Jesus-freak characters want to start their little-girl schools. But, that also is a little severe because surely, as Abraham argued with the Lord before Sodom and Gomorra were ‘nucked’ into oblivion, “There's got to be at least one good Texan still wondering in the desert.” Here is the reality of the whole, intelligent design argument wh: ich blows most of the advocates of such beliefs out of their-own realm of understanding: I tell them, yes, I believe in intelligent design, and they always get that satisfying grin, and their eyes sparkle and light up believing they’ve found another “brother.” Then I ex plain that there were several “gods” running around in ancient Mesopotamia long before the corrupted stories found in the New Testament were in existence. These gods, especi: ally Enki and Enlil of the Sumerian pantheon, created man as a worker, not a worshipper, and that is where intelligent design began. This, of course, brings science back into the picture. They don’t want any part of this explanation and that is where the conversation generally ends. readily available, and sold at liquor or tobacco stores, most of these folks wouldn't have the opportunity to experiment with black market drugs. Alcohol and tobacco have their own problems, but they’re already legal and I don’t propose criminalizing them. I would set the drinking age at 18 and introduce a very strict process for driver-education and license issuance. If young people can vote and kill and die in the Army, they ought to be: able to buy beer. We'd tie federal highway funding to an alcohol tax. Meanwhile, legal marijuana would allow the hemp business to get jump-started in North America and that would reduce some of our dependency on plastics and petroleum. I'd change how school funding is arranged. Instead of rich precincts funding fabulous schools for themselves and poor precincts scraping by with crappy schools, I’d take everybody’s school tax and distribute it evenly. If a few rich weasels wanted to send their kids to private school instead of public, fine, go ahead, but they’d still have to pay their school tax. DAVID CREMEAN... I'd create a Manhattan-Project style group working on retrofitting coal-burning power plants to clean up the emissions. There’s got to be a way. I’d get those scientists working UTH DAKOTA on wind and solar, too, but I’d want to fix that coal process first. It’s what we’re most dependent on currently, so let’s fix it. We could even share our wonderful new technologies with China, to help with the global climate challenge. I’d put an end to the whole ethanol If I wer e President, scam. I’d want to seriously examine what the hell can be done about the petroleum business so that the world doesn’t end up in the thrall of a Corporate Petroleum Oligarchy. They’re a business, fer Chrissakes, not a Government! Then I'd sit back with a beer and a lime and take a break. Whew, this being President business is a lot of work, eh? I’m sureI forgot three times as much stuff as I remembered, but at least I got started. I would begin by abolishing all politics and change the name of the country to The Untied States of Anarchia and mandate utter local control. Simultaneously, I would ban my office, along with all forms of ~ wreckreation, autocracy, plutocracy, fascism, communism, capitalism, developers, environmen- tal rape and pillage, mainstream RACHEL WHITE...SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH ‘Bring all U.S. troops home from Iraq immediately. Remove all U.S. military bases from foreign countries. Make 2 year military service mandatory for all able bodied young people (that should stop our imperialistic wars!) - Dissolve the electoral college and institute direct election of the President. Provide ' national funding for all political parties, enact campaign finance reform (outlaw PACs). ‘End the death penalty because it diminishes the value of all life. Provide national healthcare, eliminating private insurance or privately owned health- 15 environmentalism, corporatism, bad Hollywood movies, bad bad writing, bad thinking, human reproduction for at books, least 40 ye. ars, technocrats and technocracy, any more paved roads, (sur)reality TV, royalty, bad beer, poor chocolate, the Drug War, the Military-Industrial Complex, overly egotistical wide receivers, and no doubt a host of other specific thangs. Then I'd retire and write and bike, flyfish and hike, backpack and crike my life away. ‘NEXT PAGE PLEASE |