Truth 
in politics. 
What a concept!

Barrett to League of Women Voters: 
Fire Congress, End Legalized Bribery! 

The League of Women Voters just sent me their Fall 2008 Voter Guide Questionnaire. They may have gotten more than they bargained for. Below are their questions and my answers. For more about my positions on the issues, see http://www.barrettforcongress.us/issues.htm Constructive feedback appreciated: kbarrett @ merr.com 

1. Biographical/occupational information 

 I am a Ph.D. Arabist-Islamologist and have taught American Civilization, American and English Literature, Religious Studies, Humanities, and many other topics at colleges and universities in Wisconsin, France, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2006, I have been blacklisted and forced out of academia by a McCarthy-style witch-hunt, purely on account of political views I expressed on a radio program. Since the politicians have made it impossible for me to practice my chosen profession, I have decided to run for office on a "fire all incumbents" platform. 

2. As a member of the the US House of Representatives from Wisconsin, what priorities will you have in the next two/six years, and how will you address them? 

I am running as a peace candidate.  I want to end the war NOW, bring ALL our troops home, and close all 700  US military bases in all 130 foreign countries. We can afford to defend our borders, but we can't afford the neocon plan to conquer the world. Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz predicts that the Iraq war will cost us a total of five trillion dollars. The Fed is printing tons of money to pay for the war, which is destroying the value of the dollar and pushing gas prices to all-time highs. If we do not quickly cut back on out-of-control military spending, our economy will collapse completely. My top priority will be to save this country by returning to fiscal sanity. End the empire, restore the Republic! 

While our national economy is being destroyed by military spending, Wisconsin's state economy is getting hit extra-hard. Here in Wisconsin we have almost no military industry. That giant sucking sound you hear is your military tax money being siphoned out of Wisconsin toward high military-spending states, and from there into the black hole in Iraq. Send me to Congress and I will campaign tirelessly for ending the military-industrial complex's pillaging of the Wisconsin taxpayer.  

I also strongly support a new investigation of the crimes of September 11th, 2001.  We owe it to the victims' family members, who are clamoring for a real investigation, as well as to the thousands of Americans and the more than one million Iraqis and Afghanis who have died in the 9/11 wars. 

3. What should be done, if anything, at the federal level to reduce our use of and dependence on fossil fuels? 

While current high gas prices are almost entirely the result of the war in Iraq, and the threatened war on Iran, the near future is likely to bring ever-higher fossil fuel prices as global demand eclipses supply. We need to retool our military-industrial complex into an infrastructure-industrial complex, and put all that brain power and labor power to work developing alternative energy sources, rebuilding our railroads, fixing our decrepit dams and bridges and highways, developing sustainable agriculture, building super-efficient cars and buildings, and otherwise preparing for the post-fossil-fuel world. I will introduce legislation to shut down all but the genuinely defensive parts of our military, and put the trillions of dollars we're spending on empire into retraining soldiers and scientists to prepare us for a sustainable future. 

4. What should the federal government do, if anything, to ensure that every American has health coverage? 

 I favor single-payer health care, following the Canadian model, because it costs half as much and yields better results. The reason we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as every other developed nation, and getting a far worse product, is that the multi-billion dollar insurance companies are bribing Congress to keep the current system, which is lining their pockets and emptying ours.  

5. Please explain why you do or do not support setting spending limits for political campaigns and providing a set amount of public funding for all candidates who agree to take no private contributions. 

My plan for campaign finance reform is simple: Just as possession of more than a given amount of drugs is considered evidence of drug dealing, any office holder who accepts more than $200 from anyone should be automatically prosecuted for taking a bribe. This would not apply to non-incumbents who are not office holders. The result would be to free our system from the grip of incumbents, and from the system of legalized bribery that keeps them in Washington forever. I support the Kick Them All Out Project (firecongress.org) and urge voters to fire every single incumbent in the 2008 election. I also support strict term limits -- one term for Senators, two terms for Representatives. If elected, I promise to serve no more than two terms. 

6. What should the federal government do about immigration? 

I support legislation strictly penalizing employers who knowingly or negligently employ illegal aliens. Such legislation would end the illegal immigration problem overnight. The reason Congress has not yet passed such legislation is that virtually all of our Senators and Representatives are taking huge bribes from the employers of illegal aliens. I repeat: We need to fire Congress and end the system of legalized bribery that keeps them permanently in Washington. As long as we have a government of bribe-takers, we will not be able to solve any of our pressing problems.
 

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