YDS 10 point program: a work in progress

TEN POINT PROGRAM

AS DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS…

1. We want a more democratically organized and governed society; one not dictated by the corporate owner-class from above, but rather by the people from below;

2. We demand an end of monopoly capitalism at home and U.S.-style imperialism abroad, and therefore oppose preemptive wars of aggression, military occupation, and economic strangulation and exploitation of natural resource-rich Third World nations;

THIS MEANS THAT…

3. We want the great economy of the United States to benefit all those with citizenship, not the rich and wealthy alone. We advocate a tax system that does not favor the rich and their sources of wealth but instead those who constitute the majority in the United States; i.e. those who work for a living and use the public resources tax dollars provide;

4. We work to eradicate hierarchies of power responsible for the stratification of U.S. society by race, class, and gender, and we support public and community programs that will assist those who are currently oppressed and therefore denied their rights to full social equality;

5. We demand universal quality education for all, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socio-economic background. We want an education system that enhances knowledge and provides skills that improve life chances -- not one that ignores the multicultural and diverse heritages that have made this country what it is today;

6. We want an immediate end to the U.S. prison industrial complex and the mass incarceration of over 2 million human beings (most of them Black and Latino) each year; we demand an immediate abolition of for-profit corporate prison "industries" that profit from the forced labor of incarcerated individuals;

7. We want a universal healthcare system in the United States, one that provides both preventive and medical care free for all citizens, and places the needs of people above the medical and drug industry's insatiable desire for unlimited profits;

8. We demand the so-called "minimum wage" be replaced by a "living wage," eliminating an unjust system that requires workers to accept disproportionately low wages in exchange for their labor;

9. We want large corporations and businesses governed not by CEOs but by the workers themselves, those whose very lives depend on the success of the enterprise;

10. We absolutely respect the importance of the wellbeing of our planet as inhabitants and therefore demand that government policies strive for the preservation, as opposed to the exploitation of the natural resources central to the survival of all people everywhere