Which should be the FIRST priority for the democratic party?

[UdoKier]

Which should be the FIRST priority for the democratic party?


I KNOW we all want to do both of these things. Which should be emphasized in both rhetoric and policy?

[pdurod1]

1. Get Grassroots, mobilize and dump washington dc

I believe that both the economy and society should be run democratically—to meet public needs, not to make profits for a few

[UdoKier]

3. Sounds good to me!

nt

[pdurod1]

9. relocate or transfer power from Washington DC to the States Govenors

escalate local issues, ask your neighbor

[imenja]

2. Represent the American people, no need to "help" anyone

Government needs to serve those who elect them, the people at large. Forget the noblesse oblige. Such language is the function of a political culture that fails to question entitlement of the rich and sees actions by governments to serve the interests of the poor and working Americans as "help" or charity. We don't need "help." We need a government that represents us.

[UdoKier]

4. By "help", I merely mean things like a federal living wage...

more progressive taxation, programs to ameliorate the displacement caused by Globalization, etc - not handouts.

I don't think that's "noblesse oblige" - that's just common decency.

[imenja]

5. disagree

you reflect perfectly the ideology of the Democratic party. The idea of "help" is entirely different from rights and representation. I believe it to be a crucial difference. I have advocated for some time that Democrats need to rethink their ideology and language on such issues. What we need is a true government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." We don't need help.

[imenja]

7. it's not an accident presidential candidates and senators are millionaires

They vary according to whether they want to work to facilitate accumulation of capital in the hands of the rich alone (Republicans) or whether they want to extend small amounts of charity as help to the poor (Democrats). Neither position is acceptable. It is our country, and the government needs to belong to the people rather than corporate interests. When the Democratic party advances those ideas, they will be unbeatable.

[Sugarbleus]

8. Pretty much agree...

Common decency and COMMON SENSE

With a functioning economy that works for EVERYONE, fewer citizens will need charity programs. WHERE ARE THE DECENT JOBS? Where are the decent wages? Where are the fair taxation policies? Where are the home ownership programs for those that don't earn 6-7 figure incomes?

Level the playing field for everyone; re-REGULATE monopolies(break them up) and businesses so American's aren't being gouged every time they turn around. Give people without Ph.D's a chance to make their own living. Save some taxes for funding of schools, healthcare, and helping the aged and disabled etc..

Make the countries economy workable for all Americans...not just the plutocrats.

[readmoreoften]

10. Give people Ph.D.'s a chance to make their own living?

Do you really think it's the PH.D.'s... the DOCTORS OF PHILOSOPHY making money in this nation? Try the MBAs, the MDs, the JDs, and moreover the CHILDREN OF RICH PEOPLE.

The anthropologists, social scientists, english teachers, and archaeologists are middle class... if not the POOR since so few newly minted PhDs can find work. Only 20% of PhDs in the humanities will EVER find a tenure track position according to the Chronicle of Higher Ed.

[Sugarbleus]

12. I used the term as a figure of speech... I get your meaning though.

I am an un-degreed blue collar working class person. I'm not alone. I'd like to see industry/manufacturing come back so those without university educations can support themselves. Work that is STABLE. No more of this "offshoring" outsourcing crapola.

I liked working with my hands in labor related jobs--I was plenty thin too ;). I liked having a job that was going to be there indefinately. Something I could do until I decided to change jobs..not when they decided they wanted to make more money in Taiwan. This kind of work reduces the unemployment rolls in middle america. It provides a stable base of employment so that, feasibly with sensible, long term savings, a family could eventually purchase a modest home etc.

Not every individual is cut out, or wishes to be an IT tech or stock broker, for example.

~~Peace~~

[readmoreoften]

6. It's not a zero sum game.

You can't do one without the other.

How can you help the poor without combatant racism, sexism, and homophobia? Pink collar work, the CIA dealing drugs in the ghetto ( see the www.guerrillanews.com video called "crack the cia"), and the fact that 40% of the 1.3 million street kids in America are GLBT.

It all comes together. It's one front. Us against them.

[UdoKier]

21. As is clearly in the post - we all want to do both.

But at present, there is a clear public perception that the party focuses on the latter at the expense of the former.


And perception is everything.

[Stealther]

11. How about they start with winning elections?

[newyawker99]

15. Hi Stealther!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[gottaB]

13. First we should all read James Baldwin

Here's a passage from "Everybody's Protest Novel," in Notes of a Native Son.

It is the peculiar triumph of society--and its loss--that it is able to convince those people to whom it has given inferior status of the reality of this decree; it has the force and the weapons to translate its dictum into fact, so that the allegedly inferior are actually made so, insofar as societal realities are concerned. This is a more hidden phenomenon now than it was in the days of serfdom, but it is no less implacable. Now, as then, we find ourselves bound, first without, then within, by the nature of our categorization. And escape is not effected through a bitter railing against this trap; it is as though this very striving were the only motion needed to spring the trap upon us. We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it is precisely through our dependence on this reality that we are most endlessly betrayed. Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden. From this void--ourselves--it is the function of society to protect us; but it is only this void, our unknown selves, demanding, forever, a new act of creation, which can save us--"from the evil that is the world." With the same motion, at the same time, it is this toward which we endlessly struggle and from which, endlessly, we struggle to escape.

[Charon]

14. Priorities

Just my take on the issue. The first priority should be to win back a majority in either the House of Representatives or the Senate in 2006. Otherwise, everthing else is pure speculation.

[blm]

16. DEAL WITH THE GOP CONTROL OF THE MEDIA, or at least expose it

so the American people can learn of the rightwing bias they have been force-fed over the last ten years.

[bunkerbuster1]

17. We should always present false choices!

hey, it works for them.

[Kansas Wyatt]

18. Now, bunkerbuster1...

You know that I fixed that ding in your car.

If I hadn't have gotten drunk and totaled your dented car, then you wouldn't be driving around in that brand new car now.

You can't afford the car payment now, huh? Now don't be a skunk at the lawn party, and whine about how great you have it. People would love to have that brand new car that I have "provided" you with. Don't worry about the cost, just put it "off-budget."

Oh, now remember, since I did you an enormous favor, I may ask for a payback someday.

[mandyky]

19. Getting choice one goes a long way to acheiving choice two /nt

[Shopaholic]

20. Taking back the media

because unless we can do that--none of the rest will ever get done. Getting the TRUTH out should be our primary mission as we call these whores on to the carpet and expose them for what they are.