Say we elect a Dem prez and congress - How long will it take to

[mandyky]

clean up the mess shrub leaves in his wake?

Clear Skies and Helthy Forests are a sham.
Should we try to fund NCLB or scrap it and start over?
We have to rescind the gag order on family planning in our efforts to combat AIDS and poverty.
Can all of Boy george's executive orders be undone with another executive order?

[katinmn]

1. it may take a generation.

think about the physical and psychological damage overseas.

Every day that goes by we go backwards.

[oscar111]

2. Like Hoover's great depression, it may take time

but then again, if congress is solidly for us, stronger corrective laws will shorten the healing.

Of course , the 1OO OOO homeless now dying each year cannot be brought back. dying from heat, cold, rat bites, hunger {"shortfall in food stamps" is the polite term for planned hunger in our showcase nation, which we expect the world to want to copy for themselves. But.. why would they want to copy hunger? Or mass homelessness?

We are currently a total flop. Like Reaganomics, which is the cause. Reaganomics has only sparked mass homelessness and mass hunger.

Wages are now lower than when reaganomics began ---... adjusted for inflation.

Time to toss reaganomics and return to Truman's top tax rate of 90%..

which would double IRS revenues,

and fully fund every dem program to pre=Reagan levels, and then some. And then LOTS, to be more exact.

You must toss reaganomics and stop having dem program advocates fighting each other over a shrinking pie. A pie slated to vanish by GOP disciples of Milton Friedman, the "shame of chicago".

Slated to vanish. Memorize that.

Friedman: " Government has only three functions: army, courts and treasury".

That is, get rid of welfare totally, rid of college aid totally, rid of ss totally, rid of housng vouchers and food stamps TOTALLY, rid of most cops and firefighters, rid of libraries, rid of medcare TOTALLY, rid of hospitals for the poor TOTALLY, rid of unemploy compensation. A lean gov is the GOP goal.. in other words, Mexico. Mexicanization.

Dem programs are nothing but a drain on the wallets of the GOP leaders. As they see it. Human life has no value to them.}

[BlueJazz]

3. I have serious doubts that it will ever get cleaned up.

If we did elect a Democratic Congress and President, the only way to even start to straighten out this mess would be to raise taxes on the rich. Since the rich and powerful control most of the media the President and congress would be constantly skewered from day one.
The old "Liberal Tax and Spend" crap would be hollered from the rooftops on a daily basis.
In 4 years the Dumb-Ass populace would buy in to the Republican lies and elect the same bunch of crooked bastards again...and the beat goes on....

[oscar111]

5. AAR can counter the GOP media, and we can move forward with popular suppor

support.

it's not that gloomy.

Imagine them "buying into" our evidence.

all we need is to spend on AAR or clones of it, instead of just on campaign ads for four months.

they say moveon.org and truemajority can equal GOP fundraising. OK, spend that on radio stations or subsidizing our AAR on other people's stations.

[BlueJazz]

9. I hope you're right..oscar111,....I believe if Congress could ....

rein in the right-wing control of the media than (as you say) the truth and facts could counter the Republican lies. I suppose I just have little faith in the American electorate to filter out the right-wing crap...(as they failed to do recently).

[oscar111]

11. HATE RADIO wins with Volume and Time

Jazz, they failed to filter out the lies because Hate Radio had so much more

volume .. hours/week

and

time .. three years vs. our being limited to a six month campaign.

GOP ads of 18 hours/wk of Rush alone, over an extra three year timespan, is an enormous advantage.

The public was overwhelmed with propoganda. We only need to get closer to even, to win.

As it was, we almost won. Perhaps only AAR on every radio, daily , is needed.

[NewJeffCT]

13. AAR & Move On need to grow a LOT more

Air America is small change compared to Clear Channel & Infinity. AAR's flagship station out of NYC is what, 5000 or 10000 watts? Meanwhile, Hannity, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Ingraham, etc are on 50,000 watt stations in NYC that you can hear all over the East Coast... trust me, I remember getting in NYC stations in Tampa, FL before. I'm in a solidly blue area near Hartford, CT and can barely hear AAR out of NY and can rarely get in their 1000 watt station out of New Haven. Meanwhile, despite Limbaugh being on a 50,000 watt station in NYC and listenable in Hartford, he is also on a 50,000 watt station in Hartford.

Same with Move On. They did a great job, but in the last month of the campaign, the RepubliCON 527s vastly outspent the Democratic ones. They also need to be more focused in their ads. As soon as John Kerry wrapped up the nomination, we got deluged with the meme that Kerry was an unprincipled flip-flopper who was weak on defense - over and over and over and over. While Move On (and others) had some fantastic ads, they were all over the place in their focus and less effective in the long run.

[oscar111]

16. AAR has a feedback loop/synergy effect:

as it converts and energies more folks, they donate to moveon . They also support getting AAR on stronger station towers.

AAR thus "lifts itself by its bootstraps".

It is our true growing edge.

Focus on it. Get a Yahoo Groups site.. free.. to organize folks to get AAR in your town.

[bigtree]

4. Bush undid most of Clinton's executive orders days after he assumed office

mostly the environmental ones. Clinton did wait until the end of his term to enact many of them so that Congress didn't get up enough steam to overturn them with new regulation. He was banking on a Democratic Congress methinks.

[No Exit]

6. Don't worry.

Did you happen to catch the hand-wringing, garment-rending, screaming of the "conservatives", back when Clinton was in office and Paul Begala said (rather cheekily, I thought), "Stroke of the pen, law of the land... kinda cool"?

Well, how much of the good (yes, GOOD--I didn't know it at the time, but that's what it was) of the Clinton adminstration do you think remains?

If you think most of what Clinton accomplished has been undone, then that tells us that what Bush does can be undone at the same speed.

Except for one thing---the people whose death Bush has caused can't be brought back to life.

[oscar111]

8. Nominate this thread for Greatest Page//button at bott of orig post

thanks

[KharmaTrain]

7. Volunteer At A Local Democratic Party Office

Don't even post an agenda until the Repugnicans are removed from power in the House. Since '94 this has been the most damaging to Democrats...worse than not controlling the Senate or the White House. It was our safegauard against Raygun in the 80's and now is under the thumb of DeLay.

In '94, the GOOP turned a similar deficit of seats into a majority, and there's no reason Democrats can't do it. The only people who will stop us are ourselves. The time is now to start building up the state and local parties so we can win the close congressional elections in 2006 and pick up the 20 house seats needed to send a cold chill into this regime, the wingnuts and give hope to the rest of the country.

Yes, this means local elections that won't push your agenda or special interest over local ones. But another loss of seats on 2006 means a veto-proof house and senate and then if you thought things are bad now...just bend over as Supreme Court nominees get rammed up through.

[oscar111]

10. Keys to victory: Paper ballots {no machines in sight} and AAR onEVERYradio

aar on every radio by

July 4 of next year,

to influence the Congress elections.

[KharmaTrain]

18. Horse Before The Cart...

1.) Get Democrats elected as Secretaries of State and support them with Democratic majorities in the state houses and the Diebold becomes a non-factor and paper balots can become law.

2.) Support local advertisers of any Progressive (not just AAR...Pacifica, APR and many others) who are currently on the air so they can get on more stations and reach a greater audience.

3.) Organize your own local radio programs...or find advertisers or sponsors to either work at a local college station or find other means...and there are.

The solutions start from the bottom up...also keeps those at the top of the party from getting too comfortable.

It all starts local...and it's starting now.

[mandyky]

19. Your point 2 and 3 are VERY important

As much as most Dem, progressives and liberals, like AAR, we need more Guy Jameses and the like!! We should start petitioning Clear Channel now to get at least 2 liberal/moderate voices on air per day.
6 hours is a start. We have to insist that at least one of the shows plays during the day or evening. Have our voice on 11PM to 7 AM doesn't help much... LOL

[KharmaTrain]

20. If I Had A Dime For Everytime I Post This...

And still lots of words and electrons, few seem interested in actually getting involved and waiting for others to do it for them.

Maybe I should try this...make my life a lot easier...

[mandyky]

22. Did you send this in as a suggestion to the DNC?

I sent in suggestions on the media -

Here is what I sent

Chairman Dean & DNC staff,

I think we have moved in the correct direction by electing Gov. Dean as Chairman. During the DNC winter meeting (I watched on CSpan) it was mentioned that the DNC has a "state of the arts" TV and radio studio. One of our main weaknesses right now has to do with media coverage and bias by news channels and shows. I have heard Warren Buffet and George Soros are buying stock in CNN and other media outlets. Do they plan on making changes more friendly to Democrats?

The DNC and local and state Democratic party organizations need to apply pressure to media. We also need to furnish a weekly rebuttal to the president's radio address, and work on getting more outlets to carry it each week. I am sure AAR would carry our rebuttals and there are independent Democratic and progressive radio shows through out the country, that might carry as well. Cable news channels may take more effort.

Here in Richmond, KY via Adelphia Cable, we have a government channel. Maybe other small cities have such channels. Perhaps we could get local democratic meetings covered. This channel is dead air for a large part of a 24 hour period.

I listen to an independent radio show Sat. nights out of South Florida. Guy James jokingly refers to broadcasting from behind enemy lines (very republican area). He is a listener supported show. He does call ins and not only broadcasts locally but streams online. We need to find and support other such shows, and also help AAR get on more radio stations.

Our online media needs some work too. At mydd.con I read of a project to make sure all state democratic parties have a blog and learn to use them to our best advantage. Once each state party has a blog that should trickle down to county and local party organizations. But having a blog is not an end all be all, the folks need to learn to use them for maximum effect. I am a poster at democraticunderground.org and they have state forums for people to post info about local issues and races. We need to share information with our state parties about these resources.

As Chairman Dean is aware, we have a virtually untapped army of grassroots ready to move on projects online and off. We need a clearinghouse type website that has a list of blogs, publications, radio shows, and forums friedly to Democrats. Use us! Please have our online coordinator at the DNC make a post for the blog. I am willing to bet they'd get a bunch of online activists signed up in a few days.

Anyway, as you can see my concerns are mostly with media issues. Please pass on any finding to our Congress people (reps and senators) that we need to re-enact the Fairness Doctrine where possible. I think the reason liberal has become such a dirty word is that people like Rush Limbaugh have had so much exposure. We need to counter those voices, and soon.

Maybe they need to hear the same thing a hundred times or so before they actually consider it, so I'd say got to DNC website and send it in...

[KharmaTrain]

23. And What Kind Of Reply Did You Get?

Two years ago, we tried contacting the DNC about helping win a Congressional seat. We waited and waited and waited...and it wasn't until all our hard work had it wasn't until the last days of the campaign that we finally heard since we were one of the few Congressional districts where it looked like the Democrat would replace a Repugnican (which happened).

Waiting for others or bitching and not doing are a major problem with a lot of Democrats these days. My checkbook is enjoying the vacation.

Cheers

[mandyky]

24. Didn't get a response, didn't expect one

They are probably still reading and sorting suggestions. I understand your frustration, but I think things will be different now with Dean as head of DNC. I check the blog every day, thay have posted some suggestions received there. I'll give Dean a month to settle in and then I'll be expecting results. I wish we knew more about the other folks at DNC, who we should contact for what, etc..

[MadHound]

12. Depends on who we put in office

If simply put more corporate whores like the Clintons into office, then it will never get cleared up. If we put in true liberals and progressives into office, it would only take a couple of terms. Sad to say though, given the direction the Democratic party is taking, we will probably wind up with the corporate whores.

[Ironpost]

14. I think that when we pull our heads out

the rest of the world will be so thankful that we will be able to normalize our relations again. if we pull our heads out that is.

[ktowntennesseedem]

15. An executive order can be issued minutes after oath of office,

but it will take many years to overcome the fallout. If and when we do get back in power, I hope we can be patient enough to let the necessary changes happen. If the new Democrat leadership tries to undo everything too quickly it could backfire; even change for the better can be unsettling and frightening. And if we expect change overnight, we will be sorely disappointed. It will take time, patience and diligence, and it will have to be done methodically and proactively.

Of course, first things first -- we still have to gain the congress and the White House!

[kentuck]

17. long time...

We're too focused on the presidency.

[mandyky]

21. I think Dean is focused on local races though

Giving money to state parties will help a lot too.