What are your "most important" issue(s)?

[Creideiki]

For the curious.

[DailyGrind51]

1. Universal Healthcare

[Mike 03]

2. Health Care. NT

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. health care, economy, environment

[femmocrat]

4. Health care and education. n/t

[liberalmuse]

5. Healthcare, education, environment. n/t

[walkaway]

6. Health care for every American n /t

[90-percent]

7. a few

The escalating wars

health care

the economy

tops for me is prosecuting the treasonous war criminals. America is just going to get over ridden with more Doctor Strangelove Administrations in the future if we continue to tolerate wars for the fun of it and going to war with half the forces made up of CORPORATE MERCENARIES!

global warming

population growth

-90% Jimmy

[katandmoon]

8. Reproductive rights, GLBT rights, healthcare, environment, holding BushCo responsible for its crimes

[bluestateguy]

9. 1) economy, 2) health care

and the 2 are both very related.

[tomreedtoon]

44. I'm with you. All else is flower arranging...

...on the decks of the Titanic, unless we have a viable economy and healthy people to work in it.

For example, the right to gay marriage, the really popular issue here on DU, won't matter if gays can't get jobs and get deathly ill. Education doesn't matter, because what's the point of learning anything if you aren't alive to use that learning? (Yeah, yeah, enlightenment and all that crap. Go sit in the full lotus position on a cold street with no food and tell me how enlightened you feel.)

The biggest problem is that people on DU would rather arrange flowers than fight for the country that's been stolen from them.

[Bluenorthwest]

74. Ummm GLBT rights are not just about marriage

And in many states, GLBT people can be fired or not hired for being who they are, we can be refused housing, and the works, perfectly legally.
So. What good does having a good job do a person who can be fired when the new supervisor is a bigot?
What good is a job that can be taken for no reason, with no protection under the law?
Equal rights does not mean what you think it means.

[ColbertWatcher]

10. Education. Because with education everything else follows. k+r, n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

11. Health care, education, environment, trade, economy

I could go on and on, and I kept it to domestic issues since we should all want "world peace" and have that as a top priority at all times

[Mythsaje]

12. Health care. Corporate personhood. Demand side economics. n/t

[Faygo Kid]

13. Health care, jobs, environment, education. And justice.

Many others, but those are at the top.

[LadyHawkAZ]

14. Human rights

Human rights to me being defined as: the right to food, shelter, education, health care (including reproductive rights), work for fair wages in safe conditions, and equality under the law.

[leftstreet]

37. ^^What you said^^

:applause:

Welcome to DU!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

15. Common human decency.

[OhioChick]

16. Jobs/Health Care n/t

[MarjorieG]

17. Voting rights and efforts against electronic voting, because important, though few want to engage,

understand the different interests.

[dana_b]

18. the environment.

the economy, healthcare, ending the wars, equal rights for all, etc. are all tied for #2.

[marybourg]

19. Getting the right wing out of government. nt.

[Burma Jones]

20. Rational Decisions, Universal Health Care, Valuing Work Over Wealth

Those are my "Big" issues. It doesn't mean I don't care about the others.............

[rug]

21. War.

[Wwagsthedog]

24. War and war!

Toss in the whole military industrial complex while we're at it.

[stevedeshazer]

22. Restoring the Constitution

[magellan]

41. Ditto n/t

[Speck Tater]

23. The imminent collapse of civilization as we know it. nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. Health care and an end to militarism

The issues are related.

Our overblown military-industrial complex is one reason why we "can't afford" health care. Republicans and conservative Democrats always tell us we "don't have any money" for health care or other human needs, but they act as if the military comes free.

[proud patriot]

26. Health care , Jobs , Environment

:think:

[avaistheone1]

27. Health care, civil rights, economy, peace, environment

[Posteritatis]

28. Responsibility to protect, education, the environment (nt)

[lifesbeautifulmagic]

29. jobs, jobs, jobs,

healthcare, reproductive rights, labor issues.

[Withywindle]

30. Equality/civil rights, the environment, healthcare, employment.

[jannyk]

31. Universal Healthcare nt

[MrSlayer]

32. Labor issues.

Specifically Union issues.

[Mushroom]

33. Sledgehammering American Theocracy

Pulverize the MFer, scatter its dust at sea, and get that damned burden of a cross off women's and gays' backs. We can tackle the healthcare crisis at the same time.

:patriot:

[Odin2005]

34. Economy, Environment, Fossil Fuel Dependency, Healthcare, College Tuition Costs.

Economy
More economic stimulus; raise the top income tax bracket, the Capital Gains Tax, and the Corporate Income Tax to 55%. Regulate the financial sector and make it "boring" again because in finance "innovation" means BS schemes. Threaten to devalue the US$ if China doesn't quit manipulating it's currency. Enact "Fair Trade" policies that punish countries that do not follow good standards of wages, environmental regulations, and safety with tariffs.


Environment and Fossil Fuel Dependency
Invest in Nuclear and Renewable Energy. Slowly phase out coal and natural gas power plants. Invest in electric cars and a national high-speed rail system. Invest in recycling technology. Invest in climate manipulation technology just in case. Create a Green Industrial Revolution.


Healthcare
Slowly work towards a Single-Payer Healthcare system. Invest in Biotechnology and Stem-Cell Research.


Education
Free 2-year college tuition for all Americans. Free 4-year college tuition for all who graduates from High School with a B average. Invest in teacher pay and education. Drop obsession with standardized testing and emphasize a broad balanced education. Encourage learning foreign languages and science literacy. Crack down on bullying.

[Subdivisions]

35. Healthcare. Then resource depletion including energy, soil, and water. n/t

[BlooInBloo]

36. They're all important. If, at the end of the day, Obama has achieved a goodly number of them...

I'll call it a day.

His plate overfloweth.

[WildEyedLiberal]

38. 1)Universal health care 2) Universal health care 3) Universal health care

If there is ANY issue over which I'd be a one issue voter, it's health care. I will vote for ANYONE who will implement single-payer European/Canadian style socialized medical care in this country.

[Quantess]

39. Economy, health care, getting out of Iraq & Afghanistan, the environment

[Iggo]

40. Civil Rights.

[Toasterlad]

42. Civil Rights. Don't Ask Me to Get Worked Up About Anything Else While I'm Second Class

Don't have healthcare? Many GLBT people don't have healthcare AND they're second class citizens.

Sick of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Many GLBT are sick of the wars AND they're second class citizens.

Worried about losing your job in the shitty economy? Many gay people can be fired just because they're second class citizens.

It is appalling that the United States, which loves to present itself as the land of the free and the home of the brave, is neither the freest nor the bravest country in the world. In fact, the US isn't even in the top ten. If the most that can be said about our treatment of GLBT people in this country is that it is not legal to kill them as it is in some third world countries, then we rank among the most oppressed and craven countries on Earth. We have neither the moral nor the intellectual standing to claim leadership in this world until we treat ALL of our citizens equally and with respect.

Unlike many of the other problems facing our nation, granting equality is a simple fix. It only requires our leaders to stand up for what is right. There is no need for debate, or compromise, or hesitation. This is a completely black and white issue. Your citizens are either all free, or they are not.

It is 2009. We have waited long enough.

[Badgerman]

53. Better refocus l'il Bubba, This country falters, and gays are gonna be a LOT worse off than now! n

[Toasterlad]

54. Gays Will Always Be Worse Off Than Everyone Else Until We Are Equal.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

59. +1

[Creideiki]

63. +2

[bluedawg12]

85. Equal rights helps everyone. Think of the benefit for the military

in having the appropriate levels of personnel. I am not sure how anyone could think that human equality doesn't benefit all of society.

[LostinVA]

67. What the heck is wrong with focusing on equal civil rights?

Without those, it doesn't matter what happenes to thsi country, because its national soul will be dead.

[Badgerman]

68. Might want to spread your energy to save your soapbox...

I'm NOT saying that civil rights is not worth fighting for, even maybe top priority...BUT NOT the sole priority. THe LGBT group had better understand and organize along the lines that they need also to PRESERVE the rights they have which allow them the platform to argue for the rights they deserve! History is loaded with examples where that platform(rug) has been pulled out from under the activists...a COMMON thing in most countries, and our country has its examples as well.

[LostinVA]

70. So, your answer is a snide insult about me and then a dismissive statement

Gotcha!

[Badgerman]

82. ????????????

[bluedawg12]

84. "Pulling out the rug from activists." That's OUR common right to free speech.

If the rug is pulled out from one of us, sooner or later it will be pulled out from everyone of us.

[LostinVA]

66. +1

[lamp_shade]

43. JOBS.

[Cresent City Kid]

45. Survival

Ensuring food and shelter for every human being in a way that is sustainable enough to feed and shelter future generations is a logistical problem that is challenging, even if everyone was on board trying to solve it. Selfishness and tribalism prevent us from even starting this process. Survival and health are the most basic human rights that are far from even distribution.

[bluedawg12]

46. Single payer health care ( me and 119 million Americans) and civil rights

and jobs, among others. I expect the administration to work on many, many issues.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/060509.html

As the health insurance industry and its defenders in Congress lay out their case against permitting a public option in a reform bill, perhaps their most curious argument is that some 119 million Americans are ready to dump their private plans and jump to something more like Medicare – and that’s why the choice can’t be permitted.

In other words, the industry and its backers are acknowledging that more than one-third of the American people are so dissatisfied with their private health insurance that they trust the U.S. government to give them a fairer shake on health care. The industry says its allies in Congress must prevent that.

The peculiar argument that 119 million Americans must be denied the public option that they prefer has been made most notably by Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which is one of two panels that has jurisdiction over the health insurance bill.

“As many as 119 million Americans would shift from private coverage to the government plan,” Grassley wrote in a column for Politico.com. That migration, Grassley said, would “put America on the path toward a completely government-run health care system. … Eventually, the government plan would overtake the entire market.”

Grassley’s logic is that so many Americans would prefer a government-run plan that the private health insurance industry would collapse or become a shadow of its current self. That, in turn, would lead even more Americans entering the government plan, making private insurance even less viable.

Rarely has an argument more dramatically highlighted the philosophical question of whether in a democracy, the government should represent the people’s interests or an industry’s.

But Grassley said he is simply upholding “the promise that if you like the coverage you have, you can keep it. … That’s why I’m concerned about a government-run plan that forces people out of private insurance.”

The counter-argument, of course, might be that if the health insurance industry hadn’t dissatisfied so many customers – indeed forcing many sick people into bankruptcy because of excessive fees, denial of coverage and gaps in permitted medical treatments – there wouldn’t be so many Americans eager for a public option.

So, now to protect the health insurance industry, Congress must stop 119 million Americans from leaping into the arms of a government plan.
<snip>

[Creideiki]

47. But, Dawg,

we're consistently told that the Congress and the Administration only have the brains of fruit flies: they can only concentrate on one issue at a time.

I wish I could expend energy to advocate for single-payer health care. Sorry, though. Since the Congress and the Administration and so many here keep saying that the government can only work on one issue at a time, I have to make sure first that I and people like me are equal citizens in the country.

[bluedawg12]

51. It turns out that it's all part of the same problem.

While food and shelter are the basics - and in this environment that does come down to jobs and health care, the same forces that keep the American workers (90% of us)down and constantly on the brink of financial ruin are the same entitled people that use civil rights as a wedge to divide us and to maintain their power.

When we unite as progressives, when we reject the politics of division as workers, it will be seen that we are the true power and the real majority in this country. We need to grab that power and use it to help and support each other.

How we go about it, day to day, is, as you say, a matter of personal time, resources, personal priority and energy. Frankly, that's what I thought I was working for, donating for, voting for. I expect the machinery of power to reside in the corridors of power and at some point our leaders need to multi-task and work for us.

Gay rights for example, is not a single issue, it encompasses all of the economic hardships everyone faces plus, it involves job discrimination, the right to work free of discrimination and harassment, insurance issues, not being socio-economically marginalized, access to education and access to benefits that protect all families.

We all have much more power if we stand united then if we stand apart. The wedge metaphor is apt, it has worked and that's why the rightwing keeps returning to that well. It's time to just say no and unite around our common concerns, gay rights, workers rights, jobs, strong unions, single payer health care, the environment, there is a hell of a lot to work for together, we just need the will.



edit: typo

[Deja Q]

48. Jobs and health care. Incentives. Nothing begins to spell out 'human rights' otherwise.

IMHO.

[Creideiki]

62. Sorry, can't help you with that

I'm going to have to spend all my energy getting people like me to be treated equally. People like you are going to have to be on your own.

[JTG of the PRB]

49. Civil Rights, Education, the Economy, Health Care, the Environment

But it all has to start with Civil Rights for EVERY American - black or white, gay or straight, male or female. NO EXCEPTIONS.

[Stinky The Clown]

50. The Media - if they were honest, the country would be 90% behind the Democratic core values

The truth has only one side. It needs not volume or false debate.

Instead, we get incredible right wing volume and no issue presented based on facts; only with the false equivalency of "debate".

[Odin2005]

52. *KICK*

[JimWis]

55. Single payer health care.

[RedCappedBandit]

56. For profit prisons

[chimpymustgo]

57. Campaign finance, election integrity, healthcare. Fix the first 2, and everything else follows.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

58. Single-payer health care, and ending wars

So, both of my issues seem to be losers.

[dysfunctional press]

60. healthcare, healthcare, healthcare, and to a lesser degree- healthcare.

EVERYTHING hinges on it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

61. Health care, law-abiding government, jobs, civil rights, economy, education.

[LeftishBrit]

64. Preserving national health care; education; anti-racism; anti-war; anti-economic right/Thatcherism

[LostinVA]

65. GLBT rights, woman's rights, the environment, Healthcare, curbing the Robber Barons

The later would immediately improve our economy dramatically.

[chaska]

69. There is ONLY ONE ISSSUE: Corporate control of government....

It affects all others.

[kjackson227]

71. Healthcare, economy, education

[cslinger59]

72. Following the Constitution.........ALL OF IT.

Basically equal rights, protections for all Americans(No matter race, creed, orientation etc.)

I am a staunch Bill of Rights kind of guy (ALL OF IT, not the Chinese menu approach that so many seem to be in favor of on both sides)

I am very pro 2nd amendment since I see it as a barometer of other freedoms.

My personal take is if either or both sides would embrace, in whole, the above a lot of our other issues could be dealt with much more efficiently since there would be more time, money, resources and political capital to focus on real problems.

[Creideiki]

78. You must have real problems with how the 2nd amendment is enforced

Since we're not allowed to have nuclear weapons.

[backtoblue]

73. Children.

Feed them, cloth them, shelter them, and god forbid - teach them. Teach them compassion and tolerance. Teach them how to love and show them how to lead.

They are the future, so without preserving their well-being we are dooming our own future.

[Dappleganger]

75. Jobs, Healthcare

[Greyhound]

76. Economy and single payer health care equally since they inexorably related.

Single payer HC would go a long way to slowing the descent of the economy.

Pumping money into small businesses while allowing the large companies to fold if they cannot compete, would, I believe, further a recovery.

Reworking our currency system, converting from debt would truly unleash our potential.

[MazeRat7]

77. Anything that would put my family at risk (ie Employment, Healthcare, Environment, etc) n/t

[sheila f]

79. One of them, after reading on DU, is to stress that men have the right

to be informed that a woman is pregnant and to participate in the decision. Except for rape and incest, obviously.

(Unless a woman tripped and fell on a stiff, lilac phallus...)

[reflection]

83. I thought it was violet. n/t

[HughBeaumont]

80. Human rights for all, and getting fucking rid of Laissez-Fail economics.

Human rights for all, as chartered by the U.N. in 1948.

Work redefined and above all, kept INSHORE until these "leaders" learn to hone the definition of "transition".

We don't shore up these two purported "qualities" of the American way of life, we're nothing but a disgrace of a nation that allows entire swaths of people to be . . . "Left Behind".

[Peace_Sells]

81. healthcare

My number one is proably healthcare but the wars come in a close second. I'm also real concearned with jobs and gay rights.