16) Raise the minimum wage rate one dollar each year for the next three years and legislate cost of living index thereafter.
17) Fund a public education overseas TV channel in foreign languages giving an objective account of democracy at work.
18) Develop a peace project for the western hemisphere stressing the need to replace dictatorships and oppression with democratic objectives.
19) Assist in more funding for UN peace-keeping and in developing an international enforcement contingency against terrorism.
20) Lead the UN in a more comprehensive strategy to end the hooliganism in offending nations of Africa.
21) End illegal immigration from Mexico and assist the country in developing indigenous employment.
22) Palestine independence should be coupled with an agreement to UN peacekeeping presence for a period of five years. Until Israel terminates expansionism unconditionally, US aid will be withheld.
Elaborate 16:
Why do we accept others to work at a rate of pay that we wouldn’t want our own children to work at? Have we not yet cleanly stepped into a new millennium, but still governed by the ghosts of the 19th Century? Of course, labor always falls back on the economic theory of supply and demand. As long as there are healthy bodies willing and able to work for low pay subsistence levels will endure, especially with the decline of unions. Notwithstanding this economic fact, there is the prevailing psychology that worthless people do exist and should not be rewarded as though they are worthwhile. Welfare has much to do with this slant, since most people believe that most enrollees are undeserving of governmental “charities.” Contrary to popular perception, welfare in general is not unlike unemployment insurance that is a transitional phase until employment is found. What aggravates the problem of welfare is that those who do make the transition find themselves making less, when medical attention is factored in, out in the cold world of low scale wages. Logic would dictate, thus, that an ostensibly “living wage” should be the incentive to make the “worthless” worthy. After all, is not garbage collection, landscape maintenance, changing bedding in motels, emptying bedpans in hospitals, stocking shelves at Kmart, worthwhile?
Elaborate 17:
Similar to Radio Free Europe, more funds from US and UN to further develop an impressively artistic TV broadcasting channel to further Western values and democratic principles with steady participation by notables from politics and culture. The fact that TV spectaculars such as the Super Bowl, Academy Awards, and presidential debates draw billions of viewers and steal headlines in foreign papers clearly shows there is a healthful need for Western ideas.
Elaborate 18:
A preemptive initiative to improve relations with Central and South America is imperative to make up the neglect in aggressive diplomacy rather than CIA meddling in support of questionable leaders. The US must make it clear that truly democratic progress is essential and expected in this part of the globe, not only lopsided trade agreements.
Elaborate 19:
Restore and strengthen the alliance against terrorism by funding cooperative nations that aggressively search out terrorist groups. Interpol, too, needs to be funded by the UN in order to expand and develop greater expertise in tracking down terrorism.
Elaborate 20:
The UN needs to be more conscious of blatant savagery in some countries in Africa that have absolutely no value of life even inside their own borders; the UN must, even under threat of invasion, crush the inhuman rebellious wars that have resulted in loathsome terrorism, particularly in the western section of the continent that far outweigh the good humanitarian organizations have done there.
Elaborate 21:
The overwhelming influx of illegal immigration from Mexico is directly related to the failed policies of NAFTA which does not target developing infrastructure and decent living. In lieu of construction contracts going to US firms similar to that of Iraq, in order to hire Mexican workers to build up their country in areas of the environment, agriculture and city restoration, US corporations head south to build factories for the purpose of production predicated on lower wages that do not even compete with the sub-minimal wages of “dirty and dangerous” jobs for immigrants in the US. The policy should be changed to reflect Iraqi reconstruction and contingent upon Mexico itself to increase the patrol of its own border.
Elaborate 22:
The Palestine-Israel conflict has done more for the rise of Islam and terrorism than any other factor of anti-Americanism. For too long the US has been an unqualified ally of Israel, and allowing them to be a nuclear power without concern, as though all democratic nations have an inalienable right to mass destruction potential. Nevertheless, its persistent strong alliance of the past had led to a modified change in the Palestinian psyche that apparently no longer wishes to push Israel to the sea. This change therefore should be challenged by Palestine agreeing to accept UN peacekeeping forces within its borders and for Israel to accept the same in preventing further expansion.
Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: March 2, 2004.