HUMAN RIGHTS

AND
INTERNATIONAL
RELATIONS
HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Laurie Dobson’s Responses….…………………………………….3

Herb Hoffman’s Responses……...…………………………………6

Tom Ledue’s Responses…………………………………………….8

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would reverse the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and restore
the writ of habeas corpus? Yes. It's unthinkable to tamper with our
inalienable rights and attempt to alienate them from our citizens. In
my campaign's indictment of Bush for war crimes we have shown
how the Military Commissions Act is illegal and have established the
case law precedent in a legal memo which can argue this when
put to the test. We must empower our citizens to defy and
repudiate tyranny.

2. Do you believe that the US should operate prisons outside of its

borders? No.

3. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would abolish the death penalty? Yes. Death is wrong, death is
abhorrent and allowing our public officials to put people to death
gives them a power which encourages them to see themselves as
not mere public servants but, above the law. We cannot
encourage anti-humanism in our people.

4. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would initiate hearings that might lead to the criminal
prosecution of elected officials and contractors involved in war
crimes and constitutional violations? Absolutely. I have called for
Bush and Cheney to be indicted for war crimes on a municipal
level, in Kennebunkport. Recently, my campaign has underwritten
and provided an enforceable ordinance for a town to use which
could, we believe, successfully try this case on a local municipal
basis. Since these are the most egregious of crimes and include all
other war crimes within them (wars of aggression) they are
'cognizable' under international law which is part of our laws, the
highest laws of our land. We must not provide any opportunity for
future tyranny and we must unravel the opportunities created to
secure their escape. Our country is much too demoralized to allow
them to walk away from a 'Katrina'd' country.

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

5. When, if ever, do you consider the use of military force to be

appropriate? I do not. It has to be the last method and it signals the
failure of diplomatic methods. We must stop being failures.

6. Do you believe that economic sanctions or embargoes are an

effective tool of foreign policy? No. Deterrence by peaceful
methods is more effective. Look at how countries came into Cuba
to help it recover from the sanctions imposed by our country. This is
a better way. We have not nearly explored the potential we have
for creating a good neighbor atmosphere in the world. If it can
civilize children and barbaric savages by models of good behavior,
we can by our example, prove that good neighbor policies can
work for countries of the world. The principles are the same; what is
required is our consent and willingness to regulate and control the
warlike factions at work in the corporate party politics of today.

7. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would enable undocumented immigrants currently working in
the United States to attain legal resident status and, eventually, full
citizenship? Yes. A path to naturalization is the only humane
solution. It will take an education process which teaches tolerance,
diversity and inclusion. My method for helping reduce the
desperation of our people, so that they are receptive to new
citizens and to a dialogue of civilizations, rather than a clash, is to
provide incentives and economic security. We should return to
Kennedy's investment tax credit for businesses and a living wage of
$15 per hour. We can do this if we restructure our tax system to be
equitable by means of a securities tax. I proposed this in my 12 Step
Recovery Program to Fend off the Bush Depression, which was
articulated before any other candidate put out a detailed
economic plan and before Nader put his securities tax plan before
the public. We must make our country economically secure and
civilized through enlightened education.

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

8. Do you believe that the US should become party to the Kyoto

Protocol? Yes.

9. What will you do to eliminate poverty? On every level in our country

we must understand the need to focus on the 'advantage of the
other' as our national maxim and salvation from corruption and
destruction of our moral identity. As Americans, we understand this
concept--it saved us when we arrived in this country and
depended upon our survival by the Indians, who took it upon
themselves to help us to endure and prevail. We slaughtered them.
This blight upon our national character has yet to be fully
addressed. We faced slavery. Now we must face poverty and
oppression. We must be channels of peace and follow the prayer
of St. Francis into the reality of our daily practices. If we can help
win a war by sacrifice, war bonds and rationing, we can solve
poverty and oppression and violent extremism. It is the
fundamental challenge of our day. We solved cholera, we've
solved many diseases. We did it by civilization and enlightened
cultural responses to our challenges. We can counter the perils we
face, the fears we face, in the same immortal way: by insisting on
the advantage of the other as a national policy, right down to our
everyday municipal, individual levels of existence. This is the only
type of state sponsored religion I would embrace as ideology—“the
golden rule”. But it can and must be put into programs, into
practice and into our governmental policy.

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would reverse the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and restore
the writ of habeas corpus? Yes.

2. Do you believe that the US should operate prisons outside of its

borders? No.

3. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would abolish the death penalty? Yes.

4. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would initiate hearings that might lead to the criminal
prosecution of elected officials and contractors involved in war
crimes and constitutional violations? Yes.

5. When, if ever, do you consider the use of military force to be

appropriate? When there is a clear and present danger to the
integrity of the nation. Military force should only be used for the
defense of the nation.

6. Do you believe that economic sanctions or embargoes are an

effective tool of foreign policy? No. As currently practiced by the
U.S., they tend to disproportionately harm the innocent.

7. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would enable undocumented immigrants currently working in
the United States to attain legal resident status and, eventually, full
citizenship? Yes, those with no criminal records.

8. Do you believe that the US should become party to the Kyoto

Protocol? Yes.

9. What will you do to eliminate poverty? Support the conversion of

"defense" [read, "offense"] appropriations to peace industries that
will contribute to the quality of life, create jobs, and provide

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additional funds for social programs. Education and health care

are key to the elimination of poverty. I favor universally available
pre-kindergarten and the restoration of student loan programs.
Universal, single-payer health care [Medicare for all] will assure that
those currently in poverty will have access to health care, which will
drastically improve their quality of life and access to opportunities.
Universal, single-payer health care will also prevent others from
sliding into poverty as they struggle to pay medical bills. The federal
government must also become proactive in providing options to
drug use which is related to poverty, crime and incarceration.
There are many effective therapeutic programs available which are
currently not emphasized, nor funded, as an alternative to the ill-
conceived "war on drugs."

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would reverse the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and restore
the writ of habeas corpus? Yes. Not honoring habeas corpus
undermines the inalienable rights of all Americans and people
worldwide.

2. Do you believe that the US should operate prisons outside of its

borders? No.

3. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would abolish the death penalty? Yes. The death penalty is
both ineffective and regressive; it is not in line with the highest ideals
of our nation.

4. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would initiate hearings that might lead to the criminal
prosecution of elected officials and contractors involved in war
crimes and constitutional violations? Yes. It is our first duty to honor
our constitution and the rule of law. If we do not honor this duty
with investigative and/or criminal action, we invite more of the
same abuses.

5. When, if ever, do you consider the use of military force to be

appropriate? We must always ask ourselves, “What kind of a power
do we want to be?” We must always act in accordance with our
ideals. We must wield our might with the light of wisdom. The most
successful generals never have to bring their troops to war.

Peace demands vision and commitment to action. The United

States has the capacity to be a beacon of hope and a bastion of
support for the inalienable rights of all. We can support peace far
more effectively by fighting AIDS, diphtheria, malaria and other
scourges around the planet than we ever will with our own
weapons of mass destruction.

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Most war is mere folly, nothing more. Too often we have gone to
war because leaders have not been able to lift themselves enough
to get to the negotiating table, men who have not even had the
decency to look over their shoulder to see whom they are asking to
risk everything, and for what reason… War is inevitably horror upon
horror. Children dying, day after day. Parents screaming. Grown
men who cannot even look in the eye of the men they are killing
because they don’t know why they are killing. They do not know
what thought has brought them to this place, and most of all they
fear that it is no thought that did. No euphemism can change that
reality.

However, there have been those moments in history when

grievances against peoples’ inalienable rights, especially that to live
without fear, have outweighed the risks of war. We must always
ask: what is the best course of action for all of the people involved,
for all countries, for the human race, and for the planet? Our
decisions must be based upon the strong commitment to the
common good.

The question one must ask oneself is this: Will war kill more than it
saves? It seems ridiculously simple, but it is a formula that we have
gotten away from. If a man kills one person and saves ten, most
people would think that worth the loss, if you can think of it that
way. But if he kills ten to save one, one must seriously contemplate
the worth of the action. Entering World War Two was justifiable
considering that the bloodshed of the Axis Powers was not likely to
stop until it covered the earth, (This does not justify all of the Allied
decisions during the war, some of which were heinous - such as the
bombing of Dresden.) When we did not intervene in Rwanda and
allowed the Rwandan genocide to happen we disgraced
ourselves. With little risk to ourselves or the UN Troops that were
already there, we could have stopped that bloodshed and yet did
not.

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Conscience, courage, and fearlessness in doing the right thing are

essential for our war decision-making. We must choose ahead of
time to be committed to peace and to the wellbeing of all. We
must never be swept up in the emotion of the day. When we go to
war it must be the last resort in our efforts to protect life.

6. Do you believe that economic sanctions or embargoes are an

effective tool of foreign policy? No. The goal of foreign policy
should be to engage all nations to help create a safer world in
which the inalienable rights of all people are increasingly better
supported and in which there is less and less suffering. Rarely will
disengagement, exclusion, and isolation produce such results.
Rather, they are likely to sow the seeds of resentment, anger and
violence. At the same time, there may be situations in which
collective pressure from the community of nations is the best
alternative to create conditions that lead to needed change.

7. Are you willing to introduce, co-sponsor and/or promote legislation

that would enable undocumented immigrants currently working in
the United States to attain legal resident status and, eventually, full
citizenship? Yes. We need policy that corrects the root causes of
people needing to risk all to immigrate illegally.

8. Do you believe that the US should become party to the Kyoto

Protocol? No.

9. What will you do to eliminate poverty? In simplest terms, our

government’s responsibility in providing for the inalienable rights of
our people to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is to look
out for the wellbeing of all of our people, both in good times and in
bad, across the broad spectrum of our society. Certainly, all
people will not aspire to achieve the same station in life, but our
policies do not have to guarantee that they cannot. Instead our
policies to deal with poverty need to guarantee opportunity is there
when people fall on bad times or live in otherwise unsupported

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situations. Across a wide variety of situations we need to be ready

to provide the tools that people need to take care of themselves.
Our countrymen and women cannot pull themselves up by their
own bootstraps if they do not have any boots. Currently 100 million
Americans live in or on the edge of poverty.

Millions of our people fall through the cracks in the system: the
abused child on a long waiting list for help, the teen with no home
or bed to go to, the pregnant mother with no prenatal care, the
mentally ill with no treatment, the elderly freezing in their homes….
They are those who consume most of their energy on their own
survival. They have no opportunity to develop or use their own gifts
and talents and are effectively suppressed from engaging their best
with our society. People who are marginalized to a place in which
they can just scrape by – or worse – are not in a position to be able
to contribute much of anything to the greater good.

We need to work together to create conditions in this country that

support the economic self-reliance of our people and in doing so
we will reduce the need for a safety net for our people. We must
redirect federal investment to support the basic pillars upon which
personal economic success and self-reliance can be built. Breaking
the cycle of poverty requires strong, integrated network of support
and intervention. We must change our attitude towards care
instead of neglect as a beginning.

We must:
•Make a national commitment to reduce poverty by 50% in the
next five years.
•Make a national commitment to reduce childhood poverty by
90% in 10 years.

To do so must develop:
Housing Security
•We must help the homeless and impoverished into low income

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housing that is energy efficient and low maintenance and getting

them out of inadequate housing, providing families a way to get
out of dangerous and abusive situations into safe havens.

Healthcare Security
•Make immediate steps to provide universal, equitable access to
quality healthcare for ALL AMERICANS.
•We must develop a health care system that takes care of mental
and physical health, a system that allows wellness care, dental
services and nutritional health for all citizens.

Job Security
•Protect manufacturing jobs through fair labor and green
certification requirements of all imports.
•Create new jobs for people who need a pathway out of poverty.
•Commit to leading a green technology national production
initiative; this could create hundreds of thousands of jobs quickly.
•An expanded Americorps job program

Education Security
•Universal access to pre-school.
•Early literacy intervention
•Adult literacy intervention
•Greater support for our poorest schools.
•Service-to-college program
•Technological literacy
•Financial literacy education
•Job retraining

Environmental Security
•Enforce environmental law to protect all Americans, especially the
poor who are often exploited by environmental abuse or neglect.
•Reassess food safety and make appropriate changes.
•Chemical Safety
•Consumer Safety

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HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

Energy Security:
•Fully fund Low Income Energy Assistance program (LIEAP), make a
national commitment toward energy efficiency while also making a
national commitment to strengthen our communities by developing
local clean, renewable power generation.

As for paying for this:

The crux of this issue is THAT WE ARE PAYING FOR THE GREAT COST
OF POVERTY RIGHT NOW in the great currency of despair and
potential lost. We must recognize that investing in our people is our
best economic plan for a stable and sustainable economic future.
The cost of the status quo is both needless and staggering.
Compare the cost of imprisoning a young man for ten years vs.
providing that same young man as an angry teenager with
counseling… Compare the cost of providing childcare to a child of
a single mother so that she can take classes to empower herself to
contribute in our new economy vs. the cost of allowing her and her
child to scrape by in poverty without the opportunity provided by
that education… It is only when people are fed and clothed and
educated, that we will move beyond our old models of the status
quo and really see what we as a people, as leaders in our world,
can accomplish in this new century. As long as millions of our
people are out there, on their own, living from day to day with little
hope for tomorrow, they will be unable to make the contributions
that are within them already. Investing in our most disadvantaged
people will ultimately lead to a better future for all Americans; by
promoting and supporting the well-being of our people, we will
diminish the need for welfare and the associated monetary costs.

•We must shift subsidy priorities from large to small –

-From corporations that are seeing record profits to
community based action programs that can work if they get
a little financial help,
-From multinational agribusinesses to food stamp and

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school nutrition programs that provide local healthy foods

-From agribusiness to farm cooperatives and local suppliers of
healthy food.
•Additional assistance funding can be provided through claiming a
peace dividend as we leave Iraq.

As a nation we need to recall that these are basic human needs

and they help define individual security. We are all more secure
when our neighbors are secure in meeting their basic needs.

In regards to poverty worldwide: Briefly, we need to export our

ideals instead of exporting our military wares. We need to invest in
the seeds of peace abroad: clean water, healthy local crops, local
self-reliance for basic needs. The more that we follow fair trade
practices, the better off the people off the world will be.

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