FCCPR Principles

Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution is a membership-based organization.

Our goals are to:

  • Engage in political actions—i.e. demonstrating, canvassing and phone banking;
  • Engage in electoral activity, independent of the two main parties;
  • Identify, support and promote candidates who stand for our shared principles;
  • Educate people on the political issues in which we believe; and
  • Be a joyous movement that all can contribute to and partake in.

Franklin County CPR is dedicated to fighting for the same social, political and economic issues that were central to the Bernie Sanders campaign platform. These include:

  1. Campaign Finance Reform. America suffers from too great a concentration of wealth in the hands of a few. Our corrupt campaign finance system allows corporations and the super-rich to buy lobbyists, advertising, media coverage and, in the end, elections. The richest 1% of Americans control more wealth than the “bottom” 90%. We must work get big money out of politics by overturning Citizens United, and address related issues, such as insuring that everyone pays their fair share of taxes, not just the middle class.
  2. Civil Rights & Social Justice. As a community and a nation, we must proactively address the historical and pressing problems of discrimination. We must oppose laws that allow police officers to use “deadly force” to kill unarmed people, especially black men and other people of color. We also oppose laws that allow discrimination based upon sexual orientation and gender identity. We must come together to address all the divisions between us—from race, ethnicity and religion to gender identity, sexual orientation, ability, socio-economic level or, indeed, age. We will fight to end the institutional structures that support such divisions, and support initiatives to bridge cultural misunderstandings.
  3. Peace. We must work to achieve global peace. Our permanent war economy and militarized foreign policy is fundamentally unethical, intensifies conflicts and takes our tax money away from needed social services. The US spends more on its military than the seven next top-spending countries combined! The military consumes 60% of our federal budget, while education receives a mere 6%. (In fact, no other budget category besides the military receives more than 6% of the total budget.) Today, US defense expenditures are 45% higher than they were in 2001, before 9/11. Media-driven fears of terrorism help feed the military industrial complex that Dwight Eisenhower warned us against, while thousands die each year in violent conflicts overseas. We can and must do better.
  4. People-Focused Priorities. The national budget should not be focused on war. We must shift our national priorities to assuring quality and free public education, fixing a broken criminal justice system that sends more black youth to jail than to schools by closing private prisons, ending “Broken window” arrests and stopping the funding of city budgets based on the number of those jailed. We commit ourselves fully to protecting our environment, putting people to work rebuilding our infrastructure, expanding Social Security to assure a quality retirement, and adopting a single-payer Medicare for all health care system. No American should be forced to live in dire economic insecurity.
  5. Climate Crisis. We must dedicate ourselves fully to addressing the causes and effects of global climate change. This will require a massive shift in energy, consumptive and employment policies. We must work to assure that the industrial processes and products they produce are environmentally responsible, renewable and sustainable. Eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels.
  6. Workers’ Rights. We support democratic unions and other worker organizations that are crucial in the fight against inequality. We will work for the collective respect of workers and remuneration of all necessary work. An immediate $15 minimum wage is essential in this endeavor, as are fair hiring and scheduling policies. The right for workers to organize, free of resistance from employers, must be assured.
  7. People Before Profits. Health care, internet access, energy, food, housing and jobs cannot be left in the hands of corporate America. These vital needs must be run by and for the people, on a non-profit basis whenever possible. We will work to elect candidates for local office who will strive to enact legislation to achieve these goals.

Franklin County CPR intends to work with other groups organizing around similar issues aligned with our principles. One of our main goals will be to identify, promote and even run candidates in our own name in elections for local offices. Such candidates must demonstrate support for our positions, be activists in the community and continue to be activists in their role as elected officials.

We ask you to join with us and continue the political revolution!