{news} Richard Duffee in Fairfield Sun, etc.

[David Bedell]

This was published in the Hersam-Acorn papers, which include the Greenwich
Post and the Fairfield Sun.  The company has a chain of small-town weeklies,
and I expect the article will appear in most of those covering the 4th
District (about 14 of the 20 papers).

http://www.acorn-online.com/joomla15/index.php?option=com_content&id=8469:green-partys-duffee-joins-4th-district-race

Green Party's Duffee joins 4th District race

Written by Joshua Fisher
Thursday, September 11, 2008

Richard Duffee, who has spent much of the past two years pushing for the
President and Vice President to be impeached, will appear on the Fourth
Congressional District ballot as the Green Party candidate.

In his campaign announcement, topping the list of Duffee's platform is his
demand that the U.S. fully comply with international law - including
allowing the International Criminal Court to prosecute President Bush, Vice
President Cheney and other members of the administration for war crimes.

While many think there is not enough time to start impeachment proceedings,
Duffee said in a Tuesday interview, he disagrees. "If we don't impeach them,
we are giving up on our nation," he said, pointing out that after the new
Congress is in session, there are 16 days with President Bush remaining in
office.

Duffee, who is a teacher, lawyer and poet, was the Green Party candidate for
Congress in 2006. But he dropped out of the race in late October to endorse
Democrat Diane Farrell who lost to incumbent Republican Chris Shays, a
Darien native. This time, Shays is also being challenged by Democrat Jim
Himes of Greenwich.

That will not likely happen this time. Remy Chevalier, Duffee's campaign
manager, said that if the Green Party gets enough support in this election,
the party would appear on future ballots without needing the nearly 3,000
signatures it needed this year.

While Chevalier said he likes Shays (particularly his record on the
environment) and is working with the congressman's staff to create more
green collar jobs in Fairfield County, he says Shays is wrong on a lot of
issues. And he doesn't know Himes well. "The two party system is turning
purple," Chevalier said Tuesday, saying that alternative views need to be
heard.

"I think we will be able to participate in the debate this year, we have
crossed the hurdles with the League of Women Voters," Chevalier said.
"Richard is an extraordinary professional speaker. It would step things up
and it would make a more interesting campaign. I don't think the Democrats
or Republicans want an exciting campaign."

When contacted about Duffee's candidacy, Michael Sachse, spokesman for Jim
Himes, said: "Chris Shays' support of George Bush's policies makes replacing
him crucial. We hope Mr. Duffee and his supporters eventually join us in
that effort. We can't afford to be divided with so much as stake."

Duffee said he doesn't believe he would be spoiling Himes' chances. "I do
not think that the standard perception that most Green votes will come from
Democrats is as true as it was before," he said. "Principled conservative
voters are just as upset with Bush and Cheney."

He later said: "It does not make sense to describe politics in the
left-right sense. There is no reason other than the structure of the seating
that politics can be described in a one-dimensional sense."
Other issues

Duffee said that if Himes supported impeachment, he would support Himes. But
impeachment is not Duffee's only issue.

He want to lower carbon emissions by at least 80 percent by 2030 - without
using nuclear power. He wants to create projects similar to Franklin D.
Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps of the 1930s but with a mission to
retrofit buildings with insulation and LED lighting, to create solar, wind,
geothermal, hydrogen, and hydro power, and mass transportation as good as
Europe's. Pointing out that decentralization reduces energy prices, he
advocates giving home and building owners loans to develop on-site power
generation, which can be repaid by subsequent contributions of electricity
to the grid.

Because he believes health care is a human right, Duffee advocates universal
single-payer health coverage. He also said that  legal rights should not
depend on income and wants to revitalize the Legal Services Corporation.

"I went to law school to become a legal services lawyer but in 1995 Clinton
reduced the Legal Services Corporation to a telephone referral service,"
Duffee says in biography downloaded from his campaign Web site. "I went to
India. At least there I could get work teaching "law and poverty," a course
that isn't taught here anymore because our government now believes
essentially that only property owners, not human beings, should have
 rights." He returned in 2004.

Duffee said that corporations have usurped individual and human rights. He
wants to eliminate the rights corporations have gained "by the legal fiction
that they are persons." Duffee advocates law distinguishing between a
corporation's earnings attributable to productivity and earnings
attributable to transfer, and that the latter be subject to maximum taxes.
"For example," he said, "profits from a pharmaceutical like Xanax, 100
one-milligram tabs of which sell for $136.79, a 569,958% markup over the
cost of its active ingredients, 2.4¢, should be taxed at well over 99
percent to force the prices down and stop the ruthless exploitation of
illness."

Rather than merely maximizing profit to investors, which is an
anti-democratic project, he said, the maximize benefit should belong to
human beings.

He believes our disastrous present course of empire stems from dependency on
other countries for resources and labor, so we should recreate our
industrial base using non-polluting green technology.

Duffee also wants to eliminate all US weapons of mass destruction, shut down
the 725 U.S. military bases outside U.S. borders, redesign the military to
be wholly defensive, and work with international organizations to steadily
reduce any remaining need for the military. "Why are we squandering $3
trillion on war when we could be vastly improving our lives instead?" he
said.

editor@ darientimes.com