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Gary Swing for Congress

Unity Party, CD-3, Colorado

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My Campaign Message

At least twenty different nations have had a political party called the Unity Party.


In 1980, former Republican Congressman John Anderson won 6.6 percent of the vote as an independent candidate for President on the ticket of the National Unity Party. He was a co-founder of the organization Citizens for Proportional Representation, which was later renamed Fair Vote. I was a national advisory board member for FairVote in the late 1990s.


The Unity Party’s slogan is: "Not left, not right, but forward." This echoes the words of Petra Kelly, a co-founder of Germany's Green Party, who said that "Greens are neither left nor right -- we are in front." 


I was a Green Party candidate for state representative in 1996, and for Congress five times from 2010 through 2018. I was inspired by the values that the Green Party claimed to represent: including nonviolence, ecology, social justice, respect for diversity, personal and global responsibility, grassroots democracy, and decentralization. I learned from experience that the Green Party doesn't live up to these values.

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In 2020, I was a Unity Party candidate for Congress and in 2022, I was a Unity Party candidate for Secretary of State.

I think the slogan "Unity in Diversity" would be a good ethic for the Unity Party. It has been used by a variety of religious and political groups as an expression of harmony and celebration of multiculturalism based on an understanding that our differences enrich human interactions. As Mohandas Gandhi once said: "Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilisation.:

Indonesia adopted a national motto that translates as "Unity in Diversity."


The preamble of South Africa's constitution of 1996 incorporates the term "Unity in Diversity" as a central tenet of post-apartheid South Africa.


The European Union adopted the phrase "United in Diversity'' as its official motto in 2000.


President Nelson Mandela, the leader of post-apartheid South Africa said: "Bridge the chasm, use tolerance and compassion, be inclusive, not exclusive, build dignity and pride, encourage freedom of expression, to create a civil society for unity and peace." Mandela also said: "It is necessary to heal the wounds of the past if you are going to build your country and to have unity."

We live in a nation that was built on a foundation of slavery, genocide, and racism. Seventy-three percent of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence were slave holders. The US Constitution was voted on by 38 wealthy white men. The majority of them were slave holders. Under the original terms of the Constitution, ninety-four percent of the population was denied the right to representation. Eighteen percent of the population was enslaved.

We have made progress by ending slavery and segregation, and by expanding voting rights, but we still live under the framework of a government that was designed to exclude 94 percent of the population from representation.

Thomas Jefferson believed that future generations could not be bound by the systems designed by their ancestors. He argued that every generation should write its own constitution, once every nineteen years. I agree that a new constitutional convention should be held at least once every twenty years. 

Our system of government should be redesigned to secure fair representation for a politically diverse population.


I propose to abolish the inherently misrepresentative US Senate, eliminate the Electoral College, strictly limit the power of the President, and decentralize authority in the hands of a Congress that is elected by hybrid proportional representation (as proposed by the election reform group Best Democracy). 

As the second US President, John Adams, said about Congress: "It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them."


I support the right to self determination for all peoples. 


The United States should stop engaging in foreign military intervention. Since the end of World War Two, US military imperialism has been responsible for the deaths of an estimated twenty to thirty million people in 37 countries. The role of the US military should be limited to non-offensive defense of US territory. The United States shouldn't have 900 foreign military bases in 153 countries. Foreign military aid should be eliminated.

Rather than pursuing endless warfare, we should set a goal to eliminate world hunger and make sure that everyone has access to safe drinking water.

Let's make sure that our own people have access to universal health care including family planning programs, birth control and the right to safe, legal abortion services.

Homo sapiens are just one of an estimated 8.7 million species of life on Earth. Yet, in modern times, human beings have substantially transformed this planet to create an artificial and toxic environment. Human beings are part of an interdependent web of life. We need to move away from an anthropocentric point of view and preserve habitat for other species to coexist with us.


Life on Earth exists within narrow ecological parameters that are disrupted by the impact of human overpopulation and overconsumption. Ten thousand years ago, human beings accounted for less than one percent of the biomass of mammal life on Earth. Today, people account for about 32 percent of the Earth’s biomass of animal species. Livestock accounts for about 64% of mammal biomass. Cattle alone represent about 35% of all mammal biomass. Wildlife species (primarily deer) account for only about four percent of mammal biomass.

Plastics now have greater mass than all animal life on Earth.

Things constructed by people, including buildings, roads, and vehicles have more mass than all plant and animal life on Earth.

Since 1970, the Earth’s human population has grown from 3.6 billion people to more than 8 billion people, while the population of wildlife vertebrate species has decreased by about 69 percent. William Rees, the originator of ecological footprint analysis, estimates that the maximum sustainable human population would be no more than one to two billion people - if residents of wealthy nations reduce their individual ecofootprints to no more than 25% of their current size. 


I support conversion to a steady state economy based on principles of environmental sustainability. Carbon taxes should include environmental impacts in true cost pricing of new products. I support international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I support conversion to renewable energy sources. Livestock grazing and fossil fuel development should be banned on public lands. Laws concerning cruelty to animals should be extended to farmed animals. 


I offer to stand as a Unity Party candidate for Colorado’s Third Congressional District in 2024, if Unity Party members vote to approve my nomination at their state nomination assembly.

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In contrast to the multi-million dollar campaigns of the two establishment parties, I intend to have a zero dollar candidacy, I will be an advocate for environmental sustainability, preservation of biological diversity, a nonviolent, humanitarian foreign policy, proportional representation for legislative elections, universal health care, and social welfare that secures a livable income for all.

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Gary Swing

(720) 357-4260

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