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[Name removed]

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[starroute]

2. You've got your finger on something, but there's no simple answer

The biggest problem, as I see it, is that the conservatives have managed to define their positions as the mainstream, truly American attitudes, while liberal positions are defined as fringe and special interest.

Unions? Just a special interest group. Whatever remnants there are of the liberal media? An out-of-touch elite. Anybody who suggests there needs to be real change in our society? Probably too incompetent to succeed with things as they are and jealous of those who do.

As long as this is the accepted paradigm, there's nothing we can do or say in opposition that won't be dismissed as special pleading, sour grapes, or possibly treason.

All the protest movements of recent decades have accepted the outsider position. In the Vietnam era, when America was still relatively more willing to look sympathetically on outsiders and rebels, they at least got television coverage. But now that the system has fossilized further, they don't even get that much.

One tack the left has been taking seems to amount to an attempt to convince people they're being excluded by the system even if they don't realize it. But this hasn't worked very well -- as people keep commenting here, working-class conservatives seem incapable of acknowledging how much they're being screwed over.

I think we have to get more ambitious and stop accepting how THEY define US. I think we have to insist on posing the question, "What is America really about?" We have to offer our own answers to that question, in terms of universal opportunity, tolerance for others even if they aren't just like us, open government in a free society, etc. And we have to use all the icons of America's past -- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, all those moldy oldies -- to support those answers.

Basically, we have to recapture the American heartland. We have to do it in a way that demonstrates that America was founded on Enlightment values and not on blind patriotism or a know-nothing style of Christianity. And we have to tie those founding values of America to the current agenda of the left and show that they are being trashed at every turn by the current agenda of the right.

It won't be easy, but I swear that it's the only way we will ever get out of permanent second-class status.

[ellent]

3. It's difficult to grasp

working-class conservatives seem incapable of acknowledging how much they're being screwed over.

This is true, and not just of working-class conservatives. But I think it's important understand why. I'm sure it differs from person to person, so I'll just tell you about me.

Until recently I was just going about the business of my life. Then the war started, and all the anti-war people I heard on TV said stupid things. But since there was so much opposition, I began to search on the Internet for intelligent reasons. It didn't take too long to find more information than I was looking for, not only about the war, but also about the overall state of the country.

It was emotionally devastating to me. I hadn't been paying attention, and it was more than I could bear to find out that I'd been living in a fantasy of Founding Fathers, and Constitution, and democracy, and (sigh -- laugh at me if you want) the US has the best government in the world.

To go from that fantasy to the realization that we do not even have a legitimate government, that the US govt has been the cause of many of the evils it now purports to fight, that we are being hoodwinked by our government in SO many different ways, that cruelty and injustice are all in a day's work, and that it isn't about equality and fairness AT ALL but rather NOTHING BUT power and wealth -- well, it's not a quick and painless trip.

If it weren't for the wealth of information I found on the Internet and my niece who kept saying, "this doesn't really surprise me," I'm not sure I could have made the trip at all -- just because I wouldn't have been able to believe it.

What I'm saying is that it was **NEW** to me. Not quantitatively new -- "worse than I thought." But qualitatively new -- "different than I thought." To be aligned with the truth, I had to adopt a completely new way of thinking about my country, my government, and me.

I wasn't trying to hold onto the fantasy for ego reasons, but to maintain some thread of cognitive connection between my past beliefs and the reality I was learning. Just to have a place to think from so I wouldn't become a paralyzed puddle of mush on the floor.

What I want to emphasize here is that "acknowledging how much they've been screwed over" is not an easy trip to make, even for me, a person who was willing to know the truth. Not just willing -- eager, yet the truth has been unbelievably painful, too much to take at times.

Periodically, I notice that my understanding of the truth has dropped down to another level, and I'm stunned with disbelief. I simply don't know how to think about it. The way the Medicare vote was handled was my latest drop. Three hours during which legislators were pressured to change their votes by the House leadership and the President ("but that's the Executive Branch," my fantasy-ridden mind cried)!

"We don't even have a legitimate government!" I screamed to a friend. Quietly, he said, "yup." I knew that, but now I know it deeper.

It's a difficult trip. I'm not advocating patience, or acceptance, or even a different approach toward those who "seem incapable of acknowledging how much they're being screwed over." That would not be wise. But I am advocating a bit of understanding.

It's a terribly difficult trip to go from there to here. I know, because I used to be there. And there are times I wish I could go back, just for a moment, just for a rest.

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[oasis]

5. I agree with Pete on your post and welcome to DU.

:hi:

[sandnsea]

7. Welcome

Very well put. Thanks for sharing. I really understand that desire for a rest.

[Jacobin]

9. Welcome to DU

and I know exactly what you are talking about. You have an excellent point that many tend to miss because we "did" the trip you described earlier and somehow forget that others have not taken the time and expended the energy, both mental and emotional, to go from accepting what seems real on the surface, to what is actually reality.

I am one who believes that many will make the same trip on a different level, a more gut-level realization that does not reconcile past long held beliefs with the horror of what is happening....more of a visceral eureka that "things have to change". Much less painful and perhaps more likely to occur with larger numbers of voters.

There. Now you know that I too cling to a fantasy of how things can change for the better. :-)

[CWebster]

13. Thanks, your post was a good human reminder

Since I was raised in a left-leaning household bolstered by coming of age in the 60's, it is easy to forget that others have a different orientation or world view that is easily threatened when it's foundations are rocked. My Mother once told me that the moment she realized the scale of the government's lies was when she saw a film about the nuclear bomb testing in Nevada. She said her perspective totally shifted and she never looked back.

[ellent]

25. Thank you for your generous welcome.

[hippiegranny]

26. wow.

ellent, what an amazing post. i love it when someone new comes along to put a fresh face on all of this. life, as we knew it, has already ended. sometimes i think the folks who don't (or won't) know it yet are the ones who are better off. still, i am committed to looking reality in the black souled monkey/cheney/rummy/asscracky/et al eye and going a few rounds. glad to have you in our corner.

petenyc, as always, great post. love your stuff. while i am in despair about this mess we're in, i take heart that many many americans really are paying attention. the fauxized press, however, would have you believe that the sheeple are all baa-ing blindly behind king dumbya. since the press is corrupt, how can we believe this?

keep the faith. spread the word. don't give up.

[Lefergus70]

6. One strategy: Polishing sound bites

Last August I went from my home in Europe to a family reunion with relatives in New Hampshire and could observe that it will be very, very difficult for the Democrats to win them over in 2004. And they are all long-standing, blue-collar Democrats!

When I made some negative comments about the situation in Iraq, I was dismissed with the view that I’d been “brainwashed” by old-European media. So I downloaded a batch of critical stories from some of America’s most prestigious newspapers and left them on a table in my niece’s house for all to read. No one would touch them; print journalism is too much work.

Conclusion: Democrats who want to reach millions of spun-to-obedience Americans, will have to develop a repertoire of incisive TV sound bites. I'll offer a few:

- The Republicans are trying to kill Medicare in favor of vouchers; they want to make elderly health care a business, not a public service. Americans must fight that.

- Do you think businesses should write our laws and regulations so they don’t have to spend more money on anti-pollution devices, food quality control or safety in the work place? Well, the Republicans are letting them do it.

- Get angry at the word games the president is using to hoodwink you. He talks of fighting terrorism and creates a thousand Bin Ladens by invading a country that was no threat to us. And whenever he says peace he means war.”

- They impeached Clinton for lying about his sex life. So why aren’t you upset that the president has misled the country about the reasons for going to war?”

- Do you mind if this government checks your local library to see what books you’re reading? Well, the FBI can do it under this so-called Patriot Act, and they can lock you up if they don’t like your reading tastes.

Short, punchy bites can make my relatives at least take notice. Not for long, of course, so the messages have to be repeated over and over by Democratic candidates, who mustn’t talk too much. (Anyone remember when CNN followed the Bush-Gore TV debates in the homes

LeRoy

[arcos]

10. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

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[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. My fantasy commercial

Scene:

A maximum security prison. A bunch of obvious lowlifes are sitting around with guys in suits.

Crook 1: Stealing shouldn't be illegal. What's a guy supposed to do when he really wants someone else's money?

Suit 1: Good point! (Writes something down)

Crook 2: Yeah, and those laws against murder. What's with that? Sometimes other people just get in the way.

Suit 1: I know exactly what you mean. (Writes down some more)

Suit 2: Thank you for your input, gentlemen. We'll get right to work on abolishing the laws against theft and murder.

(They all stand up and shake hands.)

Narrator: Far-fetched? Not really. Major corporations have held secret meetings with Republican lawmakers, asking them to get rid of laws that protect you from pollution and unsafe working conditions. It's almost criminal.

[dawgman]

8. Could we fashion a new approach that took the abovestated reality into...

Well unfortunately this line combined wiht this line: "Scratch the surface of most rightwingers, and you'll find a liberal-hater who would do anything to rid America of every last progressive (violently if possible)," leads directly to civil war, revolution.

[rucky]

12. Two New Members On This Thread - With Great Posts...

something must be taking form.

Maybe we won't turn our vocal minority into a majority overnight, but I have confidence that when it comes down to one person in a voting booth, we will see what the American people are made of.

I don't predict a landslide, but the truth is in the backs of everyone's minds. Maybe we all can't articulate it, or maybe we don't all want to... but that's what voting is for, and people will start to listen & reflect as it gets closer to election time.

i guess you can call it a "faith-based" strategy.

In the meantime, let's keep doing what we're doing... and let's keep thinking we're not doing enough.

Welcome to DU!

[Scott Lee]

14. First we have to overcome a fossilized establishment among our own

After watching several weeks of the back and forth here at DU, especially over Howard Dean, what I'm struck with the most is a fierce old school/new school rivalry among Democrats that effectively makes them impotent as an opposing force to the Bush Fascism.

On one hand you have the remnants of the Bobby Kennedy 60's liberals, who hold some great core beliefs but feel we're still living in 1968 for some reason. They also are convinced that placing all your faith and support in the entrenched, calcified "leadership" of the Democrats is the thing to do no matter how many elections the Democrats lose. Why if I didn't know better, I'd call them conservatives!

On the other hand, you have a timely, anger-infused movement within the Dem party and the left at large, motivated by the increasing danger of this administration and the political mindset it inspires. These folks are more anxious to jettison old ideas that don't work anymore, maybe take a few new positions on things that would infuriate an old School Democrat (gun ownership is one example), and see a solution by overthrowing this musty 60's visioned leadership for something that works.

The connundrum is that, in the struggle, the real enemy - the Bush Horror and the morally bankrupt fascistas that make up his pyramid base - march on seemingly unimpeded.

What's the prognosis? Unfortunately I don't see the Left as coalescing into a serious opposition for quite awhile. Even after nomination, I don't think the core will come together. I have a horrid feeling that interparty, inter-philosophical infighting will defuse what could have taken Bush down. I could be wrong, and I hope I am.... but that's the writing on the wall from this end of the gallery.

[RichM]

15. Short answer: our collective efforts are not remotely enough.

All of these efforts rest on supporting the Democratic Party. The bedrock assumption is that our problems would be solved by getting Democrats elected. Yet a realistic examination of the Democrats does not justify this faith. Their historical role has not really been all that good. The New Deal coalition had many admirable aspects, but arose in an extraordinary historical context, & can be seen as merely making significant concessions to save American capitalism's bacon. And APART from the New Deal coalition & its aftermath (which lasted, say, until Nixon took office), the Democrats have scarcely been a progressive force at all.

Rather, their historical role has been mainly to posture as the "people's party," without really being any such thing. They have merely been the good cop -- one half of a good-cop/bad-cop act. Their existence is very helpful to the bad cop, because whenever the pain from the bad cop's wickedness reaches dangerous levels, the people begin to suffer, & they say, "Oh, what we now must do is elect a Democrat." This confines all efforts to working safely within the 2-party system. Yet this is already a defeat before it starts, because most Democrats are not really the "people's party;" they are simply the friendlier of two big business parties, and will NEVER do anything that cuts across this fundamental role.

IOW, the Dem Party exists NOT to represent the people, but to safely channel away discontent with the system to activities that will be harmless to the underlying evil -- the financial oligarchy that controls our country. This is why Democrats never rise to strike a truly dangerous blow against Republican perfidy. The best they will do is act a bit feisty, at times. But the level of their criticism is always superficial. They are willing to ignore almost all the REAL crimes - the stolen election, the corruption of the media, the giveaways to corporate cronies, the rule of the military-industrial complex, the undeniable history of US military force used to protect monstrously cruel rightwing forces abroad (all the while claiming at home to be fighting for "freedom and democracy"). They merely protest about superficial aspects of the crimes: say, the lack of an "exit strategy" in Iraq; or the "poor planning for winning the peace." They will never explore the deeper crimes because they themselves are wholly complicit in them. They won't decry US imperialism and hypocrisy because they are part of it (though a part that prefers to plunder the Third World more in partnership with other imperialist powers, as opposed to unilaterally).

Any political activity that tethers itself to the Democratic Party is binding itself to an entity that is intrinsically a subordinate treacherous force. The Dem Party does not exist to "crush and conquer" Republicans. It exists mainly to provide Republicans with a highly useful cover. If the Dems did not exist, the ruling oligarchy could no longer claim that America has a 2-party system. And the system would lose its invaluable safety-valve feature -- a safe channel for "opposition" activities that is absolutely guaranteed to lead nowhere. By posturing as a false "people's party," the Dems stabilize the system. Yet it is a system in which the Republicans have natural primacy, being, as they are, the direct agents of the oligarchy.

Democrats do not behave like a real opposition party because they are not a real opposition party. Their roots are in protecting American capitalism & the prevailing social order. A party with these roots cannot lead a serious movement to challenge the power & privilege of the very social interests it defends.

[Beam Me Up]

17. Very well said and RIGHT ON! n/t

:kick:

[Petrodollar Warfare]

21. Good post, which brings me to the issue of campaign finance reform..

...as the democratic process has become so diluted due to the structure of our campaign finance system. For the past 20 years or so, Democratic politicians, even those with good intentions, have become corrupted via the very structure that preserves their power.

If the Democratic Party wants to really be the "people's party" - then the entire US campaign finance structure must be scapped and a new system installed. Secondly, the 6 media conglomerates who control the flow of information in the US would have to be disbanded under anti-trust laws. Anyhow, Dean's current campaign of small personal contributions is a challenge to the system itself, but if he wins the Dem nomination, I predict he too will do the bidding the oligarchy in an effort to satisfy the financial requirements of a US contemporary political campaign. To me, this is the fundemental flaw with our political system, and one of the few things the founding fathers did not sufficiently address. Some sort of public funding mechanims of political camopaigns and radical reform of the US media are two potential remedies needed to save the American Experiment.

(The two others pivotal issues are energy reform and global monetary reform, both of which are beyond the scope of this thread)

[Terwilliger]

18. attempts at answers

This leads to a few questions:

1. Is the general thrust of our collective efforts enough to change the course set by the rightwing radicals with the blind compliance of the mainstream media? The book-writing (Ivins, Franken, Conason, etc.), the online activism (DU, MWO, TBTM, Bartcop, Smirking Chimp, etc.), the protesting, the letter-writing, the positions and words of our presidential candidates and political representatives...is it adequate?

We'd be doing much better with an opposition party in the country.

2. Could we fashion a new approach that took the above-stated reality into full consideration?

Ducking out of a firm stand on a given issue should stop. I mean, just like this medicare farce...several prominent Dems defect and give Bush and his Repukes a major victory, effectively endorsing what the opposition wants. There will be no fashioning of a new strategy until Democrats decide what's more important to them...the creeping fascism that most here on DU would swear is impending, or making sure that they're re-elected by employing further rightist attitudes. As much as people here hate Bush and think his reign is a reign of terror, there are myriad Democrats who would NOT share that opinion (at least publicly)

3. Could we invent a smarter, more creative, more insidiously functional strategy? One that uses our opponents' radicalism against them?

The right-leaning radicalism scares people less than the left-leaning moderatism...I wouldn't know how to fight levelly on that field. I still think there's very little that will scare the apathetic American populace out of their comfortable lives. They'll endorse the status quo for as long as they can.

[Beam Me Up]

19. Link to PeteNYC's BITES #1 Thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=757390

[darkstar]

20. As I wrote in another thread

I think a large part of the new reality--viv a vis voters, specifically--is the degree to which the battle ground has become emotional and our need, therefore, to generate strong emotional themes and narratives that can attach to policy.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=758432


The other is to do our best to promote DU chatter leading to generative, "open-source" creation of new ideas, approaches, themes, policy tweaks, etc., just as you've done here, PeteNYC.


Glad to see this thread resurface. Had wanted to post along these lines yesterday, but didn't want to appear to hijack w/ the low numbers, etc. Good to see a bit of convergence of thought on this subject, too. And telling that 2 first timers are in this 20-post thread with such weighty pieces. Sincere, hearty welcomes to y'all and thanks for the great bits of writing and insights you provided.

:toast:

[opihimoimoi]

22. kiss KISS

Keep it simple stupid

We can do it

focus on the big pic

find a system thats a no brainer./

Strike the excitement chords

find and explain worthy believeable, and fun goals. that are benevilent.

Keep together, use our ammo wisely. Keep the spears pointed "in"

[opihimoimoi]

23. dupe

[opihimoimoi]

24. sorry, dupe