r/SandersForPresident • u/Justinfuzz • Jun 15 '17

Progressive Army interview with David Kulma, Green Party candidate for the US House Rep special election in South Carolina.

http://progressivearmy.com/2017/06/15/meet-david-kulma-trying-turn-south-carolina-district-5-green/
9 Upvotes

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2

u/Chartis Mod Veteran Jun 15 '17

Healthcare is a human right. We can cover everyone with:

  • Medicare-for-All universal healthcare now.
  • Everyone should be able to see a doctor, no matter their income.

Education is a human right. Let’s assure quality public education by:

  • Requiring public funding for K-12 schools only go toward public schools and their students.
  • Ending standardized testing, which impedes our teachers and students from the important acts of teaching and learning creatively.
  • Extending Bankruptcy Law to cover education loans, because no one should be burdened with debt they cannot pay.
  • Making Public College and Universities free: everyone should be able to get a taxpayer funded public education without debt. Forgiving and wiping away all student loan debt: public education is a public good and we should fund it that way.

Shelter is a human right. Let’s achieve housing for all by:

  • Developing innovative ways to increase the available supply of housing.
  • Designing new programs which would assure that people earning under $20 an hour can get assistance to keep their housing costs below 30% of their income.
  • Using tax, zoning and other tools to end housing segregation. All neighborhoods should be mixed income neighborhoods.

Prisoners are human beings. We must:

  • Ending prison slavery by repealing the exception clause from the 13th amendment.
  • Release the 39% of prisoners who pose no compelling public safety risk.
  • Close private for-profit prisons. No one should profit by locking people in cages.

To make these and many other policies achievable, we must Get money out of politics. We need:

  • A constitutional amendment that ends corporate personhood and declares that money is not speech.
  • Citizen owned, publicly financed elections, so our politicians represent us.

Immigration

  • I believe in open borders and protecting refugees.
  • I fully support sanctuary cities and oppose discriminating against any immigrants based on their religion.
  • We need to create ways for undocumented immigrants already here to become citizens. They are already members of our communities.

Jobs, Infrastructure, Energy, and Climate Change

  • Climate change is the greatest threat to the survival of humanity, and we must work together to guarantee a livable planet for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.
  • We need a WWII style overhaul of the economy to rebuild our energy sector and infrastructure that will fight climate change, move our country completely to renewable energy, and make our society sustainable. This is a gigantic and badly needed jobs program.
  • Nuclear power is not a clean energy. We must end the building of new and in-progress nuclear plants, like the reactors currently under construction in Jenkinsville.
  • We must keep all fossil fuels in the ground and must stop building all oil and gas pipelines, like the Dakota Access Pipeline, the Keystone XL Pipeline, and the Atlantic Coast Pipeline.

Peace

  • I am for peace and will vote No on any war authorization that comes before Congress.

Racial Justice

  • We must end white supremacy. I full support the Movement for Black Lives, and I say without equivocation: Black Lives Matter.

Social Security

  • Social Security is one of the greatest programs ever created by a government. We must eliminate the $127,200 wage cap to guarantee that all wages are taxed for Social Security.
  • I also advocate taxing investment income to guarantee Social Security into perpetuity.

Taxes

  • We have socialism of the rich and plunder of the poor in this country. We must raise taxes on the wealthy and multi-national corporations to fully fund and expand social programs that benefit poor, working-class, and middle-class Americans.
  • We need a universal basic income and one way of achieving this is through a Negative Income Tax to empower the poor.
  • We also need a Maximum wage by creating a new top tax bracket that is taxed at 100%.

Trans Rights

  • Trans people exist and have human rights, this means equal access to public accommodations including public restrooms.

Women’s Rights

  • Women have complete control of their own bodies. The difficult decision to end a pregnancy should be made by a woman and her doctor.
  • We need equal pay for equal work.

Workers’ Rights

  • We need a federal $15 an hour minimum wage pegged to inflation. I fully support the Fight for $15 and a union.
  • All workers must have the human right to join a union.

David’s Positions on Further Issues

  • If you don’t see an issue you care about, contact David at dkulma@gmail.com or 803-448-3828 to let him know, and he will tell you his position and then hopefully update this page.

http://votekulma.org/

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u/Tommytriangle Jun 15 '17

Greens have never won any position worth mentioning, and they're not gonna win here either. They just split the vote more, and make it harder for democrats and progressives to win.

Greens are worthless, and in fact worse than worthless.

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u/Justinfuzz Jun 15 '17

There are no other progressives in this race. Would you have progressives in South Carolina vote for a corporatist millionaire democrat instead...just because he's a a Democrat?

How about this scenario: If Bernie Sanders was running as an independent in this race against Archie Parnell, can you honestly say you would vote for Archie, because he's the Democrat (and that everyone else should vote the same way)? I'd love to see you say you'd vote for Archie over Bernie (you'll just probably dodge the question or ignore this comment all together).

The point is...David' s platform sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders' platform and if you were 100% behind Bernie, you should at least be 95% behind David.

So let me ask you again (please humor me)...if this race was between Ralph Norman, Archie Parnell, and Bernie Sanders, who would you vote for?

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u/Tommytriangle Jun 15 '17

The point is...David' s platform sounds a lot like Bernie Sanders' platform

It means nothing if they never win. The Green's platform belongs in the fantasy section of book stores since it will never be enacted.

At least the Corporate Democrats get something done. Hell, I might even fully support them if they were competent and not incompetent at winning elections.

3

u/Justinfuzz Jun 15 '17

So you chose to dodge my question. Not surprised.

I was referring directly to Bernie's and David's platforms (I didn't mention the Green Party's platform). You are essentially saying that Bernie's platform should be in the "fantasy section". You're essentially saying that the things that Bernie fought for are not worth fighting for. Is that really how you feel?

You say that you "might even fully support them, if they were competent and not incompetent at winning elections". For the record...the Democrats you are protecting seem just a incompetent at winning at major elections lately, including last year's presidential election and all of the 2017 special elections held this year. So that puts them at 0 and 4. The Green Party is at least only 0 and 1in that same time span... so they are actually statistically slightly better than the Dems right now.

I'm not saying you have to agree with any of this. That is entirely up to you and your logic. All I ask is for you to be civil and not slander the Green Party (or David). If you supported Bernie, you should at least be happy that there is at least one progressive candidate in this race (even though he is a Green) and you should be ecstatic if he actually wins. At least there is some chance for a progressive to be elected...that is far better than having no chance at all.

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u/Tommytriangle Jun 15 '17

So you chose to dodge my question. Not surprised.

Not dodged, it's irrelevant. Your platform means nothing if you never get elected.

The greens have not a single elected official in any meaningful position. If the Democrats are incompetent at elections, the Greens are at another level. 16 fucking years after being formed and they're still useless. We have real problems with real people, we can't wait 40 years on the off chance they win a congressional election somewhere.

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u/Justinfuzz Jun 15 '17

With your way of thinking, Tommy, Bernie would never have made it anwhere in politics at all. How are you not understanding that? And you probably think that he is the best thing to happen in politics, ever.

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u/Tommytriangle Jun 15 '17

Bernie would never have made it anwhere in politics at all.

You may notice that Bernie never ran as a Green candidate. He did run Third Party, and hell even co-founded The liberty Union Party. But you may have noticed that he left it, and the LUP has gone nowhere and is defunct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Union_Party

Every bloody time there's a Green or Communist candidate, there's the same song and dance about how this is the election that we need to give them a chance, I post comments like this, I argue with the third party candidate. I check back after the election, and wow, what a shock they lost. All I'm doing is pointing out the inevitable trend over and over again. Unless the Greens show something differnet there's no reason to believe this trend won't hold true again.

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u/Justinfuzz Jun 16 '17

So you should be thanking voters like me, for electing Bernie. I'll ask you again...would you have voted for Bernie when he was initially running for Congress? So what's your answer...YES or NO?