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Proposal Details

Proposal ID	497
Proposal	PLATFORM: GI and Veterans Rights
Presenter	Platform Committee presenter, Green Party of California sponsor
Floor Manager	David Strand
Phase	Closed
Discussion	07/19/2010 - 08/01/2010
Voting	08/02/2010 - 08/08/2010
Result	Adopted
Presens Quorum	31 0.6666
Consens Quorum	70 0.6666 of Yes and No Votes

Background

CONTACT: Gary Ruskin, 415-472-2859, gary.ruskin@gmail.com

The Green Party of California submits this amendment to update the 2004 platform, and to express our Green values in the more graceful style of the 1996 and 2000 platforms. We eliminated antiquated facts and references, and made the language more clear, concise, and precise.

The 2004 section on GI and Veteran's Rights was quite good. We added a line at the outset to express our Green vision in a single sentence. We strove to include many of the excellent ideas proposed by the Green Party of Georgia.

The Green Party of California's delegation to the GPUS originally voted to approve this proposal in April 2010. In our state, we require 2/3rds for passage. Then, in the spirit of seeking consensus with Greens across the country, we attended 11 platform committee conference calls and read more than 500 suggestions posted on the GPUS Platform Committee website and created at the GPUS meeting in Detroit. Based on these ideas, as well as some of our own, our delegation edited our proposals by wiki and then voted again on these edits in July.

Proposal

Substitute the following language as the new text for the "GI and Veterans Rights" section in Chapter II of the GPUS platform.

Section title: GI and Veteran's Rights

Section subtitle: Fairness for our veterans

Our position: Veterans have made great sacrifices for our nation, and so deserve our respect, kindness and generosity.

Our nation has a moral obligation to provide health care services and disability entitlements to its veterans. Soldiers, who are required to carry out our nation's policies, often with great hardship to themselves and their families, deserve our respect, compassion and commitment to adequate compensation and benefits.

Green Solutions

1. Increase the current pay levels, including monthly combat pay, imminent danger pay and family separation allowances for those risking their lives in combat zones.

2. Provide better care for the wounded, sick and injured soldiers. Restore full funding for veterans’ health programs. Ensure that the Pentagon takes all steps necessary to fully diagnose and treat the physical and mental health conditions resulting from service in combat zones, including post-traumatic stress disorder. Support increased funding for additional clinics to provide services which now are too often delayed or denied throughout the Veterans Affairs system because of overcrowding and budget constraints.

3. Ensure that all pre-deployment physicals are completed within the standard allotted time period, and that medical follow-ups are routinely given to all soldiers.

4. Honor all laws concerning time limits on deployments.

5. Ensure a smooth transition from active military service to civilian life by providing counseling, housing, emergency management, job protection and other support systems.

6. Survey veterans about the impacts of Gulf War Syndrome on them and their families, as well as other possible exposures to nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry. Provide the best medical treatment available to minimize their suffering.

7. Provide recognized, independent veteran organizations with access to military personnel to ensure they are being informed of their rights, including those who are hospitalized due to service related injuries or illnesses.

8. Establish a panel of independent medical doctors to examine and oversee the military policies regarding forced vaccinations and shots, especially with experimental drugs. Insist that the military halt the practice of testing experimental medicines and inoculations on service members without their consent.

9. Enact a new GI Bill, similar to the one that began after World War II and ended in 1981, to provide tuition grants for four years of college or other educational opportunities, low interest loans for housing or business start-ups, and free medical care for military personnel and their families for ten years following separation from the armed forces.

10. Support a transparent and democratic conscientious objection process free of harassment, imprisonment, or deployment to war zones for conscientious objectors. Defend the right of individuals in the military service to modify or completely separate from military involvement because of conscientious objection.

Resources

Time line: Compilation into new 2010 GPUS Platform upon completion of the voting on all proposed amendments.

Time and effort of volunteers to compile the platform

References

Visit the Platform Committee webpage for this proposal at: http://www.gp.org/committees/platform/comments/?p=569.

On the webpage, you can see various formats of the proposal created by the GPUS Platform Committee and the amendment proposal sponsors including the 2004 and 2010 texts side-by-side. You can also read and respond to comments from Greens around the country, including many who are not on the Green National Committee.

Here is the 2004 text which is being replaced:

Support for men and women in the armed forces must go far beyond the rhetoric used to discredit the peace movement in the U.S. today. We believe that the ill-advised and illegal actions of the U.S. administration have unnecessarily put our troops in harm’s way. We further believe that the dangerous burden of fighting the unnecessary war in Iraq, and the wars that may follow, due to the administration’s overly narrow and militaristic response to terrorism is disproportionately borne by families of lesser means. Those who are required to carry out militaristic policies, often with great hardship to themselves, their families, and even the risk of their lives, deserve our respect and our commitment to adequate compensation and benefits.

We recommend the following actions:

a. Increase the current pay levels, monthly imminent danger pay, and family separation allowances for those risking their lives in combat zones.

b. Ensure that all pre-deployment physicals are completed and carried out within the standard allotted time period and that medical follow-ups are routinely done on all soldiers.

c. Establish a panel of independent medical doctors to examine and oversee the policies of the military regarding forced vaccinations and shots, often with experimental drugs.

d. Honor all laws concerning time limits on deployments.

e. Provide better care for the wounded, sick, and injured soldiers returning home. The Pentagon must take all steps necessary to fully diagnose and treat both physical and mental health conditions resulting from service in all combat zones.

f. Ensure a smooth transition from active military service to civilian life by providing counseling, housing, emergency management, job protection, and other support systems.

g. Restore full funding for veterans’ health programs.

h. Request Congress to enact a new GI Bill, similar to the one that began after World War II and ended in 1981, to provide the following benefits:

Tuition grants for four years of college or other educational opportunities.

Low interest loans for housing or business start-ups.

Free medical care for military personnel and their families for ten years following separation from the armed forces – until universal health care becomes a reality.

i. Support and respect Conscientious Objector status during all phases of the process. We fully support the right of individuals in the military service to modify or completely separate from military involvement because of conscientious objection. We call upon all military entities and officers to support a transparent and democratic conscientious objection process free of harassment, imprisonment, or deployment to war zones for those pursuing the conscientious objection process.

j. Recognized, independent veteran organizations must have access to military personnel to ensure they are being informed of their rights. This is especially true for those who are hospitalized due to service related injuries or illnesses.

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