Candidate for
Member, Green Party County Council; County of Alameda; Supervisorial District 5

When NASA designed a sustainable environment in order to support human life in outer space, it did not include a stock exchange. At the end of their project, the bioengineers, who designed this living machine, did not say to each other, "Hey we made a mistake, there's no monetary element in this life support system to keep human's alive." Stated in this way, the superfluity of money in relation to satisfying the needs of human sustenance is clear. It is like mixing apples and oranges.

That money makes commodity exchange easier, no one denies. Virtually all cultures, throughout human history, have had money to exchange, for commodities, to enhance the luxury, esthetic enjoyment, and one's ability to cope with the environment. No one denies this. However, until recent times, the notion that the support of one's life depended on his cash reserves was an alien notion to humans. That personal security should be contingent upon the machinations, manipulations, ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys of business cycles seems like a particularly frivolous social policy in these unstable times. It is time that we put an end to a system that decides whether people live or die by the size of their bank balance.

We have the knowledge, we have the technology, and we have the skills, to create a society in which a family, any family, can maintain a livelihood without cash income. With the help of permaculture techniques, alternative energy, low cost materials for homebuilding, and enlightened forms of social organization, people can be freed to earn their own livelihoods regardless of what mood the business cycle is in at any particular moment and what other blessings global capitalism wishes to bestow or take away from the local community.

All one needs is to possess the right livelihood and a government that guarantees that that livelihood won't be removed for want of cash. The kind of government that could do this job would be a Personal Security State that guaranteed a sustainable livelihood for everyone.

The connection between personal security and human rights was clearly recognized by the American people during the Great Depression. For this reason, Social Security became a hallmark of the New Deal. It was not until after W.W.II, when the U.S. inherited control over 50% of the world's resources, that the Truman Administration in 1947 quietly changed the U.S. from a Social Security State to a National Security State.

The domestic monetary policies of a national security state, such as ours, undermines personal security and makes money a tool for social control. Organizing human life around national security by corporate manipulation of the culture is simply another form of collectivism, like Communism and Fascism. Indeed, for Mussolini, the State was the Corporation of corporations. It is no coincidence that the major players, who created our national security state, defined themselves as "corporate".

As a Green, I propose to replace the National Security State with a Personal Security State. That is, a state that guarantees not only civil liberty, but personal economic security for all. The Personal Security State sees that the environment is protected for the personal security of each citizen. The environment is, after all, the ultimate infrastructure for all human life.

True freedom can only be guaranteed by a green economy. Modern growth economies put up barriers to self-sufficiency and make personal security contingent upon the condition of the national economy. The National Security State makes Civil liberties contingent upon what whoever is in power interprets to be "national security". Thus human rights are no longer considered inalienable.

Civil liberties without personal security is a sham. Personal security without civil liberties is a prison. When civil liberties, are not grounded in personal security, they become subject to constant erosion and decay. The "free market ideologue" who calls himself a "libertarian", and fancy's himself to be an advocate of "freedom", only deludes himself. Likewise, the socialist who fancies turning industry over to a Government bureauacy while allowing individuals personal autonomy is also living in a separate coma.

If you believe that the seeds of our own destruction are sewn within our Modern industrial economy, you will be happy to find that the green populist view presented here does not contain those seeds. It is an obvious, but overlooked, axiom of economics that the market mechanism can not truly be fair and accurate unless men are exercising free choice. "Free choice" means without desperation or compulsion. Desperation means without personal security. Compulsion means without liberty. Thus the only way to have a truely free market mechanism work, is when personal security is guaranteed to everyone, as well as civil liberty.