Peace and Freedom Party

San Joaquin Valley Chapter

Platform of the Peace and Freedom Party

The Peace and Freedom Party, founded in 1967, is committed to socialism, democracy, ecology, feminism and racial equality. We represent the working class, those without capital in a capitalist society. We organize toward a world where cooperation replaces competition, a world where all people are well fed, clothed and housed; where all women and men have equal status; where all individuals may freely endeavor to fulfill their own talents and desires; a world of freedom and peace where every community retains its cultural integrity and lives with all others in harmony. We offer this summary of our immediate and long-range goals:

Socialism

We support social ownership and democratic management of industry and natural resources. Under capitalism, the proceeds of labor go to the profits of the wealthy few. With socialism, production is planned to meet human needs.

To us, socialism is workers' democracy, including the principle that all officials are elected, recallable at any time, and none receives more than a worker's wage. Socialism can only be brought about when we, the working class, unite and act as a body in our own interests. Our goals cannot be achieved by electoral means alone. We participate in mass organization and direct action in neighborhoods, workplaces, unions and the armed forces everywhere.

While organizing for the future, we work in the present, challenging the system with the following immediate and transitional goals:

Labor and Full Employment

We demand a socially useful job at union pay levels or a guaranteed dignified income for everyone.
We support the establishment of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) to alleviate poverty and homelessness.
We call for a 30-hour work week for 40 hours' pay and abolition of forced overtime.
We demand a legally mandated annual paid vacation of at least 4 weeks.
We demand expansion and enforcement of job health and safety laws. We call for the restoration of all labor rights previously won by women and their extension to men as well.
We demand paid parental leaves and time off work for childcare.
No prison labor for private profit. Living wage and full union rights for any prison labor.
Defend workers' rights to organize, form union caucuses, strike, and boycott.
No replacement of striking workers.
Federally-funded public works programs to rebuild the nation's infrastructure and restore the environment.
International solidarity of workers against international capitalist schemes such as NAFTA and WTO in defense of jobs, wages, working conditions and environmental laws.
International trade agreements must guarantee the protection of workers and democratic rights in all participating countries.
A rank and file socialist-oriented labor movement to mobilize working-class people to assume ownership and control of the economy.

Peace and International Justice

The drive for greater profits by multi-national corporations which direct U.S. foreign policy is a major cause of war. We stand for peace between nations and the right of all peoples to self-determination. We support an ongoing socialist transformation everywhere. We therefore call for:

The U.S. to renounce nuclear first strike, and take the initiative toward global disarmament by eliminating all of its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
No U.S. intervention anywhere. End all support and aid to repressive regimes and all military and police training aid everywhere. End efforts to destabilize foreign governments. End U.S.-directed economic warfare against other countries. Abolish the CIA, NSA, AID and other agencies for interference inother countries' internal affairs. Withdraw all U.S. troops and weapons from all other countries.
Stop all U.S. arms exports and trade.
Dissolve all military pacts.
Convert from military to peaceful production; reallocate the resulting "peace dividend" for social benefit.
Abolish the Selective Service System.
No weapons in space.

Equal Rights and Liberties

The capitalists use every difference in society, including sex, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, age, and physical abilities to divide workers in order to depress wages, maintain a surplus labor pool, and prevent working-class unity. We demand equal treatment of all people by employers, businesses and government. We stand for a world free from all forms of oppression.

Women

We demand full equality for women in all aspects of life. Sexism is a major instrument for teaching relations of domination and inequality and for keeping one-half of the workforce underpaid or unpaid. We work to end oppressive sex roles in society. We must ensure equal rights and responsibilities in child raising. Unions must do more to organize women and promote women's leadership. We demand:

Adoption of an equal rights amendment.
Equal pay for equal work, and for work of comparable worth.
Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion with affirmative action where necessary.
Provision of free, high-quality, community-controlled child care.
Convenient provision of safe, free birth control information and materials to men and women of any age.
Free abortion on demand.
No forced abortions or sterilizations.
Safe prenatal care.
End violence against women.

Ending Racism and National Oppression

Accompanying the continuing economic crisis, we see a rise in racial discrimination, increased terrorism against racially and nationally oppressed people, and retrenchment in civil rights. Minority families are disproportionately victimized by cutbacks in health care, education, child care, welfare, food stamps and jobs. We demand:

End all forms of racial discrimination.
Enforce non-discrimination in hiring and promotion withaffirmative action where necessary.
Prosecute and punish police and prison officials who brutalize and murder.

Language Rights

Restore to the State Constitution co-equal status for Spanish as an official language of California in recognition of its cultural, historical, economic and demographic importance to the people of this state.

Abolish all English-only laws and policies, including those of private employers.

Undocumented Workers

Immigrant workers are hounded by government authorities, worked and housed in substandard conditions by unscrupulous bosses, and blamed by Republican and Democratic demagogues for society's problems.

We call for open borders.
We demand an end to deportations of immigrants.
We demand full political, social and economic rights for resident non-citizens.

Native Americans

We support self-determination of indigenous peoples and sovereignty for Native nations. We demand:

Honor treaty obligations with Native American nations and recognize California tribes.
Stop the theft of natural resources located on reservation lands.
Honor Native American water, hunting and fishing rights.
Free the prisoners of the FBI/BIA war against Native Americans, end all harassment.
Stop destruction of sacred burial sites.

Sexual Orientation

Equal treatment and benefits under the law for all families. Guarantee equal child custody, adoption, visitation privileges, and foster parenthood rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.
Equal treatment for all people in the military regardless of sexual orientation.
The right to gay marriage and partners' benefits.
Accurate sex education courses in public schools. Truthful information about sexuality in society and history.

People With Disabilities

People with disabilities are entitled to equal rights to education, housing, health care, recreation, and transportation. Attendant care and other services or adaptations must be provided to enable fuller participation in all aspects of society.

Retired Workers

Retired workers must be guaranteed a decent living at union wage levels. We demand:

Immediate improvements in economic benefits and social services.
Free, quality, multi-lingual and multi-cultural medical and home health care.
Accessible transportation.
An end to all forced retirement.
Stop the segregation and isolation of senior citizens.

Defense of the Environment

The same corporate forces and economic system that exploit and brutalize the world's working class people are destroying the world's biosphere. These social policies and ecollogical destruction often overlap. Socialism is necessary to end the ecological destruction caused by capitalism. Our goal is a society that is in harmony with nature as it is in harmony with its own people.

We therefore favor:

Planning for urban and regional environment based on principles of sound ecosystems management.
Create public open spaces in all communities.
Tighter regulation of pesticides, herbicides, industrial wastes and genetically modified foods to protect human food, air and water, employees in the workplace, and species habitat. No release of genetically engineered or transgenic organisms into the wild. No patenting of life forms.
A multi-source energy system, development of solar technology and other renewable, non-polluting energy sources. Eliminate nuclear power plants. End fossil fuel dependence.
Public ownership of public utilities.
Protect species habitat such as old-growth forests to preserve biodiversity.
Massive development of free public transportation.
International trade agreements must guarantee the protection of the environment in all participating countries.
End environmental racism, including the immediate cessation of nuclear testing and toxic waste dumping on reservation lands, the disproportionate creation of landfills in poor communities of color and eliminate the mass development of maquiladora plants.

Transportation

Massive development of public transportation systems that are reliable, frequent, free or at nominal fares and environmentally sound.
Expand safe routes for foot and bicycle traffic.

Agriculture

We want an agricultural system that ensures enough food and other farm products to meet human needs, guarantees a high standard of living to farmers and farm workers, protects humans and the ecosystem from environmental degredation and encourages organic farming. To that end, we call for:

An end to subsidies and tax breaks for corporations.
Food distribution by farm and consumer cooperatives.
Extension of all labor rights to farm workers, including wage and hour regulations.
An end to cruel methods of animal husbandry.
No use of recominant bovine growth hormone (RBGH) in meat or dairy cattle.
No genetically engineered organisms in food production.
A ban on "terminator" seeds.
No export of chemicals banned in the U.S. or import of agricultural products treated with them.

Science and Technology

We need scientific and technological research to benefit ordinary people, not the capitalists.

Education

Education is critical to individual survival and civilized human values, but U.S. capitalism is dismantling public education. Inadequate and unequal funding of schools perpetuates racism, crime and inequality. We demand:

Integrated, democratically-run schools with up-to-date plant and equipment and smaller classes.
Teach the history of workers' struggles and labor's creation of society's wealth and progress.
Multi-lingual and multi-cultural education at all levels.
A federal law requiring and funding equal average per-pupil expenditures by every public school district, with extra funds for students with special needs such as disability or economic deprivation.
Tuition-free higher education available to all.
Restore cutbacks in public education and public library services.
No school voucher schemes.

Arts and Culture

Provide uncensored government funding for ordinary people to create and enjoy art.

Housing and Rent Control

We recognize the right of everybody to quality, secure housing. We demand:

Production and rehabilitation of non-profit, community-controlled housing through public financing with immediate emphasis on housing the homeless.
Rent and eviction control laws and collective bargaining for tenants.
Resident-controlled community renovation programs to create, not destroy, low- and moderate-income housing.
Enforce local affordable housing quotas.

Freedom, Justice and Crime

We call for the defense and extension of the liberties guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech, press, assembly and association, and the right to keep and bear arms for individual and collective defense. The ultimate guarantee of those rights is the organized strength of the working class.

Capitalism and poverty breed crime and repression. Working class people are the primary victims both of street crime and of police reaction to it. The bosses use laws against victimless activities, "legal" and illegal expansion of police powers, military and paramilitary occupation of poor and minority communities, and diversion of resources to police and jails, to keep workers intimidated and dependent. We demand:

Stop state-sponsored spying on and violence against progressive organizations.
Democratically-controlled police review boards with powers of subpoena and discipline.
Abolish the death penalty.
Repeal the Three Strikes law.
Stop trials and imprisonment of juveniles as adults.
Treatment of prisoners as human beings; rehabilitation, not vengeance.
Decriminalize victimless activities including drug use and consensual sex. Legalize marijuana. End the "war on drugs," which is primarily directed against poor and working-class people.
Stop unwarranted searches and seizures of persons and property. Restore constitutional rights.
Prosecute crimes of the wealthy and powerful against workers and the environment.
Freedom for all political prisoners.

Voting and Elections

Proportional representation to promote legislative representation of the wide variety of political viewpoints.
Enact instant runoff voting (IRV) to eliminate runoff elections and provide for genuine majority support for those elected.
Election should be by direct vote of the people. Eliminate the Electoral College.
Enforce and extend voting rights for people of color, non-English speakers, and homeless people.
Resident non-citizens should have the right to vote, particularly in local and school elections.
Free and equal access to radio and television for all candidates.

Health Care

We believe that access to quality medical and dental care is a basic human right. We stand for a democratically-controlled, publicly-funded health care system. We support health practices that emphasize education, prevention and nutrition. We demand:

Free, high-quality health care for everyone.
Eliminate for-profit health care.
Free immunization programs.
No private patents on drugs developed through publicly-funded research.
Price controls on drugs and medical technology.
Safe pre-natal care, including women's choice of birth alternatives.
More medical facilities to provide services and education in low-income neighborhoods and rural areas.
More substance abuse treatment and needle-exchange programs.
More research into diseases and disorders caused by man-made substances.
More community health care facilities.
Support non-standard proven methods.
Special attention to preventing epidemics of communicable diseases, such as AIDS.

Taxes

Public services and infrastructure have deteriorated as government has increasingly shifted the tax burden from corporations to workers. Our long-range goal is a socialist society without conventional taxes, with public services to be funded from the proceeds of social production. We demand:

Repeal Proposition 13. Tax property for profit, not property for personal use. Remove property taxes on modest owner-occupied homes.
Repeal the sales tax.
Include aggregate of real property and stocks, bonds, etc. in a steeply-graduated property tax.
Restore the renters' tax credit.
Double registration fees on luxury vehicles.
Tax unearned income at a higher rate than earned income.
Eliminate or reverse income tax on low- and moderate-income families.
Re-enact California's unitary tax on multi-national corporations.
Tax the business activities of churches on the same basis as other organizations.
Take the cap off social security taxes, make the rates progressive so burden falls on the wealthy.

Mass Media

Ownership of television and radio stations, print media, and other forms of communication has been increasingly concentrated into the irresponsible hands of fewer corporations, and any checks and balances previously available to the people have been eliminated.

We call for public control of the public airwaves.
We demand restoration of a strengthened Fairness Doctrine and the Equal Time Provision.
We oppose the legislated extinction of the VHF spectrum, which should be used for public monitoring of legislative bodies and for other civic purposes.
We defend the Internet from censors and commercial interests.
We call for enforcement of antitrust laws on media conglomerates.
We support new media for grassroots communication to enhance freedom of self-expression and information distribution.

Religion

We demand strict separation of religious and government institutions and activities.

(The Platform of the Peace and Freedom Party was adopted March 23, 2003, reaffirmed August 1, 2004, and revised May 21, 2006.)