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[Name removed]

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[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. The weak link

imho, is the ill-informed public. They will listen if they lose their jobs or if they or their friends are called up for service again and again. They will be less likely to brand people 'traitors' if those same people show true patriotism by really supporting the troops via money donations to family and supporting Guardsmen at work. I think it is very very important for all of us to walk our talk at this time, and to point out the hypocrisies of the Bush Administration.

[starroute]

4. And information is our greatest weapon

I keep thinking of the stories I read as a kid about the people who organized the labor movement a hundred years ago. They were poor, ill-educated, often immigrants just learning English. But they were hungry for knowledge and devoured whatever was available to them.

Their greatest resources -- the education system and free public libraries -- have now either been dumbed down or are under attack. But luckily there are other sources to replace them.

One of the ways the 60's went wrong was in moving away from information and towards spectacle as a way of influencing public opinion. Aside from the Vietnam teach-ins (which I don't believe ever got out of the universities to reach the public at large), it was all on the level of images and slogans and mass demonstrations aimed at television.

It's common wisdom that the best way to start a business is to give people something they want but can't find, or need but can't afford. If we offer genuine information and empowering analysis on current issues to people who have been scared and kept in the dark, we will find there is a huge market for it.

The real challenge I see is how to take everything we here at DU know and move it beyond the bounds of the Internet. (Maybe we should do something really radical, like starting a newspaper and selling it on street corners!)

[dusty64]

12. The public might

get angry if they were allowed to get the truth. The media makes sure that doesn't happen, so now what. Competition on their own level is the only solution, hopefully the billionaires who want our regime out will fund some media takeovers and break the corporate stranglehold over information in this country.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Start reading the works of Rosa Luxemburg, and rediscover Marx

One thing is certain. The world war is a turning point. It is foolish and mad to imagine that we need only survive the war, like a rabbit waiting out the storm under a bush, in order to fall happily back into the old routine once it is over. The world war has altered the conditions of our struggle and, most of all, it has changed us. Not that the basic law of capitalist development, the life-and-death war between capital and labor, will experience any amelioration. But now, in the midst of the war, the masks are falling and the old familiar visages smirk at us. The tempo of development has received a mighty jolt from the eruption of the volcano of imperialism. The violence of the conflicts in the bosom of society, the enormousness of the tasks that tower up before the socialist proletariat - these make everything that has transpired in the history of the workers' movement seem a pleasant idyll.

The Junius Pamphlet (1916)
by Rosa Luxemburg

[ima_sinnic]

3. branding dissension as "treasonous"

--I think the great majority of people know the lie in that. There are the shills like Coulter and O'Reilly who hammer on it but I think the extremists who agree with them are nowhere near a majority.

Again, as above, continuous injections of truth are needed to counteract RW crap. We can't stop expressing the truth (and making up for mass media deficiencies), by whatever medium: writing, speaking, art, music, etc. etc., never let up.

[TankLV]

5. Different times, my friends, different times.

Notice what riles up people these days? - I mean the average sheeple?

- Cable TV rates rising.

- No more free "Napster".

- "Do Not Call" legislation.

- And many more.

All very selfish and un-important things, comparitively.

All monetary-based.

We have a bunch of self-absorbed couch potatoes to deal with.

A very big case of - "Oh, it's OK if they go after "them", they're not "us" - it doesn't affect me personally, so I don't really care."

Very 1930's Germany mindset.

A very lazy bunch of sheep who are even too lazy to vote, but who always have plenty of energy to bitch about everything.

[starroute]

11. The things you cite can be made relevant

The common denominator is corporate power. Get people thinking about that, and you can take them anywhere.

Start by pointing out how the corporations want to control everything they see and hear, charge them through the nose for the privilege, wipe out anything they might enjoy which won't make the corporations a buck, and prevent effective control of any nuisance (like telemarketing or spam) that promotes corporate profits.

Then go from there to issues of clean air and water and other ways in which the quality of life has been increasingly degraded because of corporate control.

Then from there to corporate control over the government, and how the corporations may have undue influence over most of our elected officials but the Bush administration is completely indistinguishable from the corporations. How all its policies -- energy, Medicare, taxes -- are crafted to benefit the corporations at the expense of ordinary people. How the real war on terrorism is being neglected so they can wage a phoney war on Iraq that helps only the oil companies and Halliburton.

If they try to argue with you about the free market, tell them the market isn't free -- that corporate control prevents normal market mechanisms from operating, because they would tend to produce real competition and drive down profits.

If they talk about individual freedom, tell that that freedom for corporations comes only at the expense of freedom for real people, and that it's not possible to have both.

In the current climate, focusing the discussion on the functions of government plays into the hands of conservatives and know-nothings, because nobody likes the government. But if you focus it on corporations -- and especially on corporate power and corruption -- we hold all the cards.

[sistersofmercy]

6. In addition, the sociopathic leaders have hurled so many issues to

be questioned, corrected and contested by Democrats that Democrats find themselves scattering and fighting in different corners of the arena desperately trying to hold the broken pieces of our country, our constitution. Make no mistake the Repubs have Democrats on the defense and the traitor label is part of the game.
The weakest link to be broken in my opinion, is to have Democrats united under one issue, just one, whether it be Plame, Cheney energy papers or any one from the laundry list, expose the vile corruption and from there steam would gather because we need to get them on the defensive.

What a great sig line.

[Racenut20]

7. Need a real party leader for that. Not Mcwhoever his name is

[sistersofmercy]

9. I think there needs to be a coming together of all the candidates,

set their differences aside for the moment and attack one issue, pound it into the psyche of the multitude.

[lostnfound]

15. I AGREE! That's also the only way to force an issue into media spotlight..

otherwise anything really worthwhile gets quickly swamped by irrelevancies.

[sistersofmercy]

17. Exactly and if just one issue could stick then other issues would

evebtually stick. Right now we are just randomly throwing uncooked spaghetti at the walls of those conniving thugs and they are just laughing at the mess of issues. What we need is one big tomato to splatter in their faces.

[leftofthedial]

8. we need to become political guerilla insurgents

and take out one achievable target at a time.

The GOP is the party of amoral, power-hungry liars. We need to expose them one lie and one liar at a time.

[kodi]

13. a true remark.

guerillas know to use their weaknesses as strengths, and exploit the opponents strengths as weaknesses.

grass roots local political activism is the true way to achieving the goals of progressive policies. you build a movement from the ground up, not the head down.

you have to win the hearts and minds of people at the local level and show the masses that liberals are active, vibrant participants in the society and are not simply bitch artists who dont work in the communities and volunteer.

show up at local town meetings, join the rotary club, elks, or chamber of commerce, coach little league, work at a food bank. make your philosophies known in the community.

when this is done and you become recognized as a contributing member of the society by those in your community, the media propaganda about do-nothing liberals is undermined by people seeing the real live face of a liberal/progressive who participates.

yes, i am talking about a 1,000 points of light, which the GOP has taken to heart and lit up the countryside with their people.

this is personal for me. i attend local town meetings, school board meetings, zoning meetings, and speak up, and yet i never, ever see another progressive speak at these meetings.

and i want to know, where the fuck are you people?

[sistersofmercy]

16. This exactly a point I made in a thread last night.

We can not agree on anything beyond the fact that we want W* out of the WH. And WOW talk about a "twist of elitism?" We need to strike hard at ONE major issue, my pick is the Cheney energy papers, and can not even agree how to go about it.

[kodi]

10. you can't state what you want to do until you state where you want to go

mere platitudes to the brotherhood of man are useless, as are reading 19th-early century philosophers when we are faced with a constantly changing world.

all you have listed, and nicely done, is state some of what our opposition is doing.

but, where do you want the nation to go?

once you define that, then you can begin to discuss how to overcome the obstacles to get there, until then, its a useless exercise with an elitism twist thrown in.

reading marx and goldberg? what a fucking clueless and elitist suggestion, as if, really. as if the great unwashed give a damn about marxism and socialism. all they want is a better life and all that is necessary is to show them how we can bring it about.

you expect success of our causes by beating people over the head with 150 year old political treatises and expect them to do more than look at you with their eyes glazed over?

that is a completely insulated and naive understanding of the world.

that's the same thing that missonaries face when they bring jesus to aborigines.

you want people to change?

show them that the way things are can be made better.

BTW i have read marx and goldberg.

[Name removed]

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[camero]

18. How about this?

We are progressives because we want EVERYONE to have a better life. We want to send our children to safe schools where they can learn and the teachers have hope for ALL children.

We want ALL people to have the access to health care that they need.
We want ALL people to have the opportunity to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Not just our rich pals.

We want ALL people to live in peace. When we absolutely must make war, we do it as a last resort and with a very heavy heart. Nothing, and I mean nothing, good comes from war.


We want to live in a society where caring for others is part of the natural way of being, and not the Darwinian way of life that conservatives speak of. They constantly talk of the competition in the animal kingdom but never tell us of the many examples of cooperation and self-sacrifice that is also found in the animal kingdom.

We don't want to live in a country where people die on the streets, or live a brutal existence. We want the best for all of our people and not just the fortunate few.

Sorry, rant over.

[sistersofmercy]

19. Nice rant!

[camero]

20. I just ate...lol

Sugar's back up. Thanks.

[sistersofmercy]

21. I understand that completely!

I'm a she-devil when I'm hungry though, very snippy!

[camero]

23. Too bad I can't copyright that...lol

But even better if I could find out if any of the candidates will use that rant...lol.

[nannygoat]

22. Here are some good ideas for taking them on...

31 Ways to Take on the Neocon Think Tanks: A Progressive Policy and Position Promotion Think Tank Prospectus
http://www.opednews.com/kall1103_Progressive_think_tank_Prospectus.htm

OKAY, HERE’S WHAT WE’VE GOT TO DO
http://www.makethemaccountable.com/misc/WhatToDo.htm

GROUND RULES & TIPS FOR CHALLENGING THE RIGHT
http://www.publiceye.org/ark/tips.htm

10 Preliminary Actions to Defeat Bush in 2004
http://www.stopbushin2004.com./10_actions.htm

Framing the issues: UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff tells how conservatives use language to dominate politics
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml

[camero]

24. this deserves a kick

:)