US House Candidate Tamara Zwinak Outlines Her Policy Positions and Priorities

Tamara Zwinak, Green candidate for U.S. House of Representatives outlines her position on a multitude of issues prioritized by her campaign. 

Pandemic Response

I believe the political climate in Washington has set the stage for the pandemic crisis.  The coronavirus pandemic has killed over 180,000 Americans of which nearly 50% are seniors and Black and Brown people.  Of those who have recovered, thousands still suffer from lingering symptoms that may leave them permanently disabled.  Over 35 million people are unemployed, millions more are discouraged workers and only half of the unemployed receive unemployment insurance.  My immediate plan for managing the pandemic includes Social Distancing, Mask Mandates, Rapid Testing with Immediate Results, a Safe and Effective vaccine available to all; production of PPE, medications and vaccines in the US; and testing of waste water.

Sustainability

My economic policy is grounded in the concepts of sustainable development, as it was during my first campaign. The pandemic is the result of bad environmental policy including the impact on Black communities. Destruction of the rain forests and natural habitats, directly contributed to the pandemic. It is time to connect the dots and demand sustainable planning. My plan includes creating the U.S. Department of Sustainability to accomplish this goal within my first term in Congress. We need to be united if we are going to succeed at transitioning to sustainable communities that will reverse climate change and create enduring communities, without crashing the economy. My plan is aggressive and realistic. Too many towns have perished as soon as big business moves out, leaving a ghost town behind. We must build better communities, using local resources. We need to balance our economy so that if one business leaves, the community survives. We do this by supporting a thriving small business community where large business is embedded but not wedded to our economy. The pandemic has shown us a new way to connect without warming the planet, however, we can't keep building server parks to process and store the massive flow data. The use of disposable plastics is chocking our marine life and micro plastics are in the water we drink and food we eat. We must to transition to more sustainable packaging.

Healthcare

I have always supported universal healthcare coverage in order to ensure accessible and affordable healthcare for all. The Affordable Care Act is not affordable; premiums, co-pays and deductibles are too high. The IRS and the Department of Labor have no place in the business of healthcare or collecting a penalty. Young people cannot generate enough tax revenue to fund the ACA subsidies while paying for their own insurance and living expenses. The ACA is not economically sustainable and during the pandemic, the situation has worsened with many people losing coverage. MedicareUSA is the plan I propose that will be available to everyone with a small monthly premium and co-pays to cover outpatient and inpatient care. Employers can opt into the plan or continue to provide their own coverage for employees. The average Medicare premium for a senior is $220 a month. With MedicareUSA seniors will transition into the plan with millions of Americans, lowering the cost of their premiums. Local communities need federal grants to ensure that public hospitals and clinics remain open in rural areas with competitive salaries to keep and attract doctors and nurses.

Privacy

Americans have no comprehensive legal right to data privacy.  With the Lisbon Treaty uniting countries across Europe and providing the opportunity to create a visionary future, the right to privacy has been expanded to include the right to control personal information disseminated on the internet.  Google was forced to remove outdated information unfavorable to Mario Costeja Gonzalez, an attorney from Spain, after an EU court ruled in his favor ushering in the legal concept known as "the right to be forgotten."

There is no right to privacy explicitly enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, although it is inferred in the Fourth Amendment. A few states have passed explicit laws protecting privacy ensuring that we all know privacy is a right, on paper at least.  Practically speaking few people are able to enforce this right. Most of us endure daily invasions of privacy with resignation.

Our nation abdicated the advancement of human rights when billionaire technocrats dazzled us with megapixals, instant messaging, and ubiquitous instantaneous internet connectivity.  This data deluge leaves little time for deep reflection or critical examination of the content and the consequences of social media and search algorithms.

Now the U.S. finds the nation lagging behind the EU in advancement of human rights, having chosen instead a dogged moralistically driven punitive approach to human wrongdoing and frailty.  Even the mere suggestion that one has acted improperly is enough to ruin lives when posted on the internet. Looking the other way, indifference, moral superiority and gleeful voyeurism's have torn away at our nations moral fabric as privacy violations pervade cyberspace.

With respect to Russian snoops, the evidence of Russian involvement is "extraordinarily strong" and "irrefutable."  The Russian state is behind U.S. hacking.  The Russian agenda seems to be purely political, with the intention to control who is elected to office and military secrets.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been at the cyber hacking center since his assignment to Dresden in East Germany back in the 90s.  Stealing military and technology secrets from the West is child's play for Putin.

"In Dresden it appears that he was involved in espionage designed to steal as many of the West's technological secrets as possible; in fact by the time the USSR collapsed, approximately 50% of all Soviet weapons systems were based on stolen Western designs," writes Karen Dawisha in Putin's Kleptocracy. "Putin's normal duties focused on obtaining high-tech secrets."

The cyber situation between Russia and the West is a "low-intensity conflict" rather than cyber-war. A cyber war would look very different - here we would see massive failures of key infrastructure systems in the countries that are being targeted in a way we have not seen yet.  

The Surveillance State

Snooping scandals are the bread and butter of news feeds these days.  From the White House to your house, the "Internet of Things," makes it easy to spy on you at home and in the car.  While driving your kids to school in your Wi-Fi enabled SUV streaming morning cartoons for the kids who munch on McDonald's french toast sticks, your conversation with FedEx regarding your visa stamped passport to Iran may be recorded, uploaded to the cloud and swept by a bot for key words or phrases. Don't bother turning it off, it turns back on when you are not watching. It is the always-open-eye (AOE).

TicTok is only the tip of the iceberg of Big Data collection.  The applications largest user base is in the age range between 13-24-year-olds in the United States. No business in China can operate without the approval of the Han dominated Chinese Communist Party.  TicTok is a Chinese company.  This app along with cell phone apps operated by Chinese companies, collect more than just your individual personal data.  What makes these products and the Big Data industry dangerous is they surveil every move you make using your camera, television set, tweet timelines, contacts, phone calls, photos, organizational affiliation, and even how often you charge your phone battery to gather information on communities you interact with on a daily basis.  The always-open-eye (AOE) on the internet of things never sleeps, even when you do. Imagine, your cell phone is on and you have a home surveillance system.  China will know who you voted for when you cast an absentee ballot before the board of elections even receives the ballot.

The information gathered is aggregated to identify not just commercial trends, or political orientation, but to connect you with an algorithm that can be used to rate your financial status and security risk.  It is then used to manipulate the user and launch a counterespionage campaign against Americans and to target individual for oppression and confinement.  Remember all this is in the hands of politicians, not the people.  You have no right to change the data or to even know how extensive the surveillance of you, your friends and your family has been.  There is no expiration date on the data.

Everyone marvels at how quickly China became the second largest economy in the world.  This was done by stealing U.S. corporate secrets and relabeling them as Chinese made.  Secrets that protected American products and inventions that took billions to bring to the market.  The Chinese stole this data for pennies on the dollar.

Next, the Chinese have been selling their surveillance products to U.S. law enforcement.  The entire endeavor is for social control.  Working with our law enforcement agencies, China is molding a U.S. surveillance state that they control.  They determine what is right and wrong; what behavior is acceptable and what should be suppressed.  The values of freedom and privacy are irrelevant in a surveillance state.  Every time you walk down the street or anyplace in public your every move is tracked and recorded.  

There is an upside to surveillance, but when accountability measures are not in place it is abused.  When the public has no right to know or no right to privacy, every aspect or your life becomes subject to surveillance when you can't delete files and shut off your devices. In the United States when this technology is used by law enforcement, it becomes a Fourth Amendment issue.  

Universal Basic Income

We had full-employment before the pandemic, but incomes were too low and taxes too high. We need prosperity for all to be our goal. Our economy has enabled greed to grow to the point where extremes of wealth have become grossly perverse.  Instead of the focus on taxing billionaires, I plan to restructure entitlement programs with UBI.

The pandemic has made it very clear: Congress wants to carve the American people up into workers and non-workers.  There are millions of people who are unemployed, underemployed, disabled and retired.  My plan includes every American, not just workers.  That fact is only 50% of the unemployed received the $600 a week benefit, about 16 million Americans.  The rest of America was left stranded economically during the pandemic with a one-time $1,200 stimulus check.  We can't abandon three quarters of American to poverty, while a handful of men become multi-billionaires.

Once opposed to Universal Basic Income, I am now a supporter.  The economic policies I will pursue to help Americans who are worried about their economic prospects in the coming years include protecting Social Security and Medicare for retirees and the disabled. During the pandemic it has become undeniable that Americans need a secure income not tied to employment; 35 million people became unemployed and 50% of those received UI. When I am elected, I will pass Universal Basic Income resulting in the elimination of the bloated patchwork of government programs that serve the poor, but do nothing to lift them out of poverty. Universal Basic Income can easily be funded by restructuring SSI and SSDI; and entitlement programs, saving trillions of dollars over the long-term. No one will loose income or benefits under my plan as we transition to UBI. We restructured government after September 11 and we can do it during the pandemic.

It is also time to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Women's Rights

I have fought for women's rights since I was a teenager and we are in a situation now where we are fighting for sex protections like never before.  When I turned 18-years-old, I cast my first vote for Shirley Chisholm for President.  I have seen the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and Title IX become law and the ERA ratified.  This is why I support sex-based protections for females.  Women have fought too long and hard too go back to second class.

I am pro-choice and I have been since I was a teenager. A woman's life is sacred and she has the right to control her own body and make decisions about when to have children. That said, no woman should feel compelled to have an abortion if she can't afford a child. We must also support any woman who wants to bring a pregnancy to full-term. In addition, we need to pass family leave so working parents can stay home with an infant child and not lose a job or income.

Social Justice

I am a social justice warrior and proud of it. As the Republicans push for more drastic crack downs using military force to silence protestors, they have nominated candidates who no longer represent the American people.  This party is now on par with a domestic terrorist group, with QAnon candidates and the NRA arming Republican extremists.  Now is the time for the progressive movement to carry the torch of liberty and freedom for all, as the Republican party implodes.  America is one nation, not niche groups aligned by political party.  It is time for the Greens to lead.

I have a plan to bring peace back to the nation's streets.  When I am elected, I will convene peace talks between law enforcement, Black Lives Matter, Antifa, Black Block, the Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer and other stakeholders.  We must talk and we must listen.  If Ireland was able to do it after decades of fighting, we can bring peace to the American communities on fire.

This conflict is not about taking away guns.  That is a false narrative.  The majority agrees, you don't need an AR-15 to kill a deer.  We must make it illegal to bring a gun to a permitted protest.  Militias should not be allowed to roam the streets displaying weapons to intimidate the public. This must stop, now.

After the lock-down ended people took to the streets to peacefully protest police brutality.  Rioters and looters took advantage of the protests, destroying property and setting buildings on fire.  Instead of bringing people together, the President incites fear and more shootings.  Militias claim they have taken to the streets to 'protect business'.  We are now at a crisis as shootings and intimidation by armed militias are given a green light by Trump (and Madison Cawthorn) who tweets daily 'LAW and ORDER.'  This fight goes back to the founding fathers and what we believe in as a nation. President John Adams said it best, the rule of law applies to everyone. The President isn't a king and the White House isn't a palace, nor the home of the Republican party, so get off our lawn.

Madison Cawthorn is the Republican militia response to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  When he sees a Black person, he doesn't see an equal, he sees a freed slave.  I support reparations for Black Americans who are American descendants of the African slave trade. It doesn't stop there, however, we need institutional change.  America never really completed Reconstruction after the Civil War and many of the problems we are seeing are the direct result of the Confederacy failing to move on.

Criminal Justice Reform

I have fought for over 30 years to decriminalize minor offenses and drug use, in addition to advocating for prison reform, the end to SHU confinement, and mass incarceration.

My entire adult life has been dedicated to the Civil Rights movement, including advocacy for criminal justice reform long before it became popular and I will keep fighting.  While employed with the California Department of Corrections I helped inmates transition out of prison after the Supreme Court issued an order to release prisoners due to overcrowding.  I also served as an EEOC Counselor while working with CDCR.

Criminal justice reform and social justice go hand in hand.  Reagan's War on Drugs started the wave of arrests that lead to the Prison Industrial Complex with hundreds of thousands of mostly Black men sent to prison for minor crimes, never able to break free of the clutches of the profit making justice system.

We must end incarceration for failure to pay a court ordered fine.  Many of these fines are for infractions that are not even crimes.  When an individual is unable to pay the fine, it increases to the point where it is impossible to dig out of the hole.  Instead, individuals should have the choice to volunteer to pay off the fine.  I will pass a law that makes it illegal to double fines.

I support law enforcement, but excessive force is never justified.  Most officers are honest, hard working people, like the rest of us.  There are a few bad actors and they must go, but  we need institutional change.  The Black Lives Matter movement is necessary to bring real change to law enforcement.

Beat officers should not carry weapons.  Officers should not pursue fleeing suspects.  Every police force must hire social workers for crisis intervention and mental health calls.  Police are not social workers and they are not trained to de-escalate conflict.  We must stop militarizing the police, men and women who are members of our community not an occupying force.  Local police must be accountable to a Civilian Review Board that is accountable to local elected officials. Rogue officers must be discharged after a fair hearing.

Drug Policy & Opioid Crisis

The opioid crisis was manufactured, just as the crack epidemic was engineered. The problem is drugs have destroyed American cities, sent millions to jail, and millions to an early grave. Big Pharma deliberately sold a lethal drug to the American people, whose lives were sacrificed to make a profit.   

As a social worker, I have been fighting the opioid epidemic for decades.  I was the first person to draft an opioid emergency plan. We need to do more to stop companies like Purdue Pharma from flooding our pharmacies with lethal pharmaceutical drugs. Companies that push these drugs on the market must be held accountable for the death and injury their products caused.  Corporate criminals must go to prison. And their profits must be seized by the U.S. Treasury.

In the 80s, mostly Black men were sentenced to prison for selling a $15 rock of cocaine, while the Big Pharma Sackler family got off paying a $675 per deceased person fine for the hundreds of thousands of people who overdosed on Purdue opioids. This is racism pure and simple.

I support the legalization of all drugs under strict government control.  Using drugs should not be a crime. The availability of safe and legal drugs will end mass arrest and mass incarceration.  Millions of lives have been ruined and derailed because of a minor drug charge.

Homelessness

"Homelessness has reached crisis proportions because of homeless deniers who say the victim is to blame. America has always been a place where people have a home, from the land grants of King George, the Homestead Act, reparations, public housing and Section 8 makes housing affordable for the destitute and disabled. America never supported a real estate industry that makes a home a commodity, allowing landlords to become overlords. 'I just want a roof over my head,' said Josie from Los Angeles. Josie is like so many Americans who've lost, and can't find housing. She has been on the Section 8 waiting list for over a decade. Thousands more are homeless, housing is unaffordable, and the streets are now where a half a million Americans sleep each night, a quarter of them children. And what have the Democrats and Republicans done in Congress to solve these problems? Blame the displaced, blame the victims, buy up housing stock and raise rents.

Everyone should be fighting homelessness together. The fact that we are not, tells us something about how far we have detoured off the American road to prosperity--that has nothing to do with immigration and more to do with ignoring the increasing disparity between rich and poor.

Our Veterans who've served our nation with honor are living on the streets, hungry and hurting. The VA Health Administration is overrun with applicants who may die or commit suicide before they receive help. My experience in the field of health care benefit management makes me the perfect candidate to ensure that restructuring of the VA Health Administration is done correctly. Cutting corners to cut cost and fill the pockets of contractors is not the way we are going to manage any changes, if services move outside the VA system. Veterans deserve the best care wherever they receive services and I will make sure that happens. This is non-negotiable.

Immigration

As a social worker I have been working to help immigrants for decades. Growing up in Los Angeles, California she is familiar with the struggles of immigrants and the failed policies of the government, unlike her opponent Madison Cawthorn who went down to the border for a three day trip.  I supported Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals measures, before it became politically correct, back in the late 1990s.  "As a social worker in San Pedro, California I met families torn apart when one member was born in this country while a sibling was born in Mexico. The first benefiting from all we have to offer in the great country, while the latter faced daily fears of deportation. The first able to attend college, while the latter hid in the shadows. The pain caused by this inequitable situation is unbearable for these families and especially the siblings born across the border as they watch their brothers and sisters excel and they remain stagnant because of a situation they did not create."  I have an all encompassing plan for immigration reform that gives illegal immigrants a path to citizenship.

Americans With Disabilities

It was a privilege to announced my Green Party candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives-District 11 at Disability Partners 29th anniversary celebration of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I dealt with many issues growing up; relocating from Illinois to Los Angeles as a child; the suicide of my brother; my father's unemployment; poverty; and a violent assault, although it slowed me down, it never stopped me from achieving my goals. I benefited from a Vocational Rehabilitation program that paid for my college tuition, books and travel expenses.  I want others to have this benefit as well.  I encourage all disabled people and those living with unseen disabilities to pursue their dreams.  Imagine how many Greta Thunberg's we have in America that have never achieved their full potential because of hidden disabilities. We have made great progress with accessibility for those with physical disabilities, but we have a very long way to go to end the stigma against hidden disabilities. People with physical disabilities for the most part, are readily apparent and that is an advantage. The world has literally reconfigured the landscape for those with physical disabilities, and that is a good thing. However, those with unseen disabilities have to fight much harder for acceptance and opportunities. A disability is not an excuse nor is it a sympathy card. We must ensure that reasonable accommodations and funding make it possible for disabled people to attend college and build fulfilling careers.

Foreign Policy

China

In the 90s, when greed was good, I worked for a Union counseling displaced workers who were losing their jobs in the garment industry as shop after shop closed and manufacturing jobs left for China.  I know what it means for a worker to loose a job and know he will never get another one. What it means to be middle-aged and faced with poverty when you're abandoned by an economy that provides no way for you to retrain for a new job; where jobs are never going to return; and where going back to school may not be an option.

For nearly a decade the Chinese have flooded America's streets with fentanyl smuggled in through Mexico.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died.  The Chinese must be held accountable.

No one is tougher on the Chinese Communist Party than I am.  For decades they have used commercial espionage to steal corporate secrets.  Now the CCP has deployed TicTok to hack the Big Data of our youth.  China has committed human rights violations against the Uighurs using cell phone facial recognition and tracking for social control.  We must not allow China to abuse this power of technology in the U.S. and we must partner with the U.N. to stop these human rights violations.

China has continuously violated the rights of protestors and most recently passed the Security Law to suppress, arrest and control demonstrators in Hong Kong know as the umbrella movement.

Russia

Russian influence and interference in our domestic policy and elections is problematic.  But, Congress has not taken steps to stop it.  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said the Trump administration has "for a while engaged in a  (Russian/Ukraine) cover up." Speaker Pelosi was aware of the situation, all the while delaying impeachment as our democracy and national reputation deteriorated.  

Now in 2020, we are facing the same situation, with Russians planted inside the Black Lives Matter movement, causing chaos in our democracy, hacking voter files and selling election data on TOR.  

In the 2016 presidential election cycle, Russia operatives created hundreds of fake accounts on Facebook  and  Twitter and  then  posted  thousands  of  advertisements  and  messages  that sought to promote racial divisions, according to William Aceves.  "This was a coordinated propaganda  effort," said Aceves.  "Some  posts  denounced  the  Black  Lives  Matter movement and others condemned White nationalist groups. Some called for violence.  The  purpose  of  this  strategy  was  to  manipulate  public  opinion  on  racial  issues  and  disrupt  the  political  process."

Russia has repeatedly violated human rights by poisoning, arresting and imprisoning opponents or those who speak out about corruption.  Recently, Putin opponent Alexi Navalny was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent while in transit to Siberia. Previously ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006 with radioactive polonium-210; and in 2016 former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned with a military-grade nerve toxin Novichok in London.  Three members of a feminist punk rock group Maria Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, were arrested, charged and convicted of hooliganism for performing in a church. 

Israel

Let's never forget.  Six million Jews perished in the Holocaust.  Israel is home to the Jewish people.  Israel has a right to exist, like every other recognized nation.  I believe the problems in the Middle-East must be solved by the nation states involved in the conflict.  America must remain neutral.  Imperialism died a long-time ago, and I don't want to bring it back.  Moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem was a mistake.  The Israeli Defense Force is located in Tel Aviv, a much safer place for Americans.  Politics and diplomacy must drive our policy in Israel, not sectarian religion.  Israel must be held accountable for human rights violations, just like every other nation state, when these are committed.