U.S. GREEN PARTY HOPES TO GET THE LAST LAUGH

Members Serious About Offbeat Policies

DENVER, Colo. -- President Jello Biafra would let kids vote and make it
legal for their parents to do dope.

"Lower the voting age to 5," says the 41-year-old founder of the Dead
Kennedys punk band. "See youth apathy magically turn around when they know
they have a real stake in their future and get to vote for their school
boards - and why not their teachers?"

One of three candidates for the Green Party's presidential nomination, to
be decided at a convention this weekend, Biafra would legalize all drugs,
including heroin, cocaine and crack, make Corporate America do time when it
does harm and implement a provocative scheme for a "flatter" but not flat
tax.

"Let's be generous," Biafra says. "No taxes up to $100,000. After that,
it's payback time."

What's not to like about a political party that produces such presidential
wannabes?

Neither Biafra, a self-described anarchist, nor Stephen Gaskin, a
66-year-old Korean War veteran and founder of The Farm commune in
Tennessee, is likely to beat consumer activist Ralph Nader for the Green
Party bid today.

But their most offbeat views aren't too far off the party's official
platform as it launches its first, all-out offensive against America's two
mainstream parties.

The Green Party's platform calls for the decriminalization of marijuana,
and for redirecting much of America's estimated $320-billion (U.S.) defence
budget into such programs as universal health care, universal day care, and
a "living wage" instead of a minimum wage.

Nader, 66, also denounces the North American Free Trade Agreement and says
he would pull the U.S. out of major trade groups, arguing they favour
corporations over citizens.

The author and Harvard-trained lawyer has vowed to make the Green Party a
serious third choice in the Nov. 7 election.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans "can afford to pursue programs
which offend their corporate paymasters," said Nader, who vows to get his
name on the ballot in at least 45 of 50 states. "As a result, millions of
Americans are turned off by the political process . . . (and) drop out
because they think they're powerless and their vvote doesn't mean
anything."

"This is very exciting - it could transform American politics," said Joan
Russow, 61, leader of Canada's Green Party and one of 1,500 delegates at
this weekend's U.S. convention.