Gloomy and Doomy New Year!

[MineralMan]

It's just the morning of the first day of 2011, and I've read at least a dozen gloom and doom posts for the new year. Predictions of disastrous events, despair over everything political, and more, appear to be the sentiment of the day.

I have another suggestion:

Instead of doom and gloom, let's start the New Year with a resolution to work toward getting as many Democrats elected to office in 2012 as we possibly can. That seems like a better way to start off a new year than predictions of calamity to me.

What do you think?

[RedCloud]

1. Most likely this is our last full year of existence.

So we need to build a spaceship to accommodate the masses if the Mayan temple of doom calendar was correctly interpreted.

If not, then I agree with you.

[MineralMan]

3. Aw, crap...I forgot that the world is ending soon.

Never mind. Let's all get drunk and screw! :rofl:

[crikkett]

5. Well then I'm going to enjoy the hell out of this year

because I'm sure that I'm not getting on any spaceship that humankind builds within the next few months.

[lunatica]

2. Go ahead. More power to you

I'm sure our donations will really help turn the tide against unlimited corporate spending.

[MineralMan]

4. You can join in, you know.

Will you?

[lunatica]

6. I'll join in on your getting drunk and screw idea!

[WillyT]

7. That's Not Just An Idea...

That's a lifestyle!

:hide::evilgrin::hide:

:hi:

:yoiks:

[MineralMan]

8. On a serious note, click the signature line link to my website

for my DFL precinct, of which I'm the chair. See the results we got in 2010, with some hard work on GOTV. That's the answer to the corporate spending. We got the turnout and the votes we needed to elect every Democrat on the ballot in our districts. It's a repeatable process.

[WillyT]

11. Also On A Serious Note...

We really need to hold Teach-Ins again.

Remember... there was a poll AFTER the mid-term elections where a majority of Americans hadn't realized that the Republicans had taken back the House. Also it would be nice to reverse some of the damage the 30 to 40 years of rightwing propaganda has done to the American voter.



<snip>

A teach-in is similar to a general educational forum on any complicated issue, usually an issue involving current political affairs. The main difference between a teach-in and a seminar is the refusal to limit the discussion to a specific frame of time or an academic scope of the topic. Teach-ins are meant to be practical, participatory, and oriented toward action. While they include experts lecturing on the area of their expertise, discussion and questions from the audience are welcome. "Teach ins" were popularized during the U.S. government's involvement in Vietnam. As an example, a teach-in at the University of Michigan in May 1965 began with a discussion of the Vietnam war draft and ended with the logistics of a takeover of the University.

Early 1965 events

The first major teach-in was organized by Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor on March 24–25, 1965. The event was attended by about 3,500 and consisted of debates, lectures, movies, and musical events aimed at protesting the war.<1><2> Michigan faculty members such as Anatol Rapoport and Charles Tilly were also involved.

The largest Vietnam teach-in was held on May 21–23, 1965 at UC Berkeley. The event was organized by the Vietnam Day Committee (VDC), an organizing group founded ex-grad student (sociology) Jerry Rubin, UCB Professor Stephen Smale (Mathematics), and others. The 36 hour event was held on a playing field where Zellerbach Auditorium is now located. From 10-30,000 people turned out.<3> The State Department was invited by the VDC to send a representative, but declined. UC Berkeley professors Eugene Burdick (Political Science) and Robert A. Scalapino (Political Science), who had agreed to speak in defense of President Johnson's handling of the war, withdrew at the last minute. An empty chair was set aside on the stage with a sign reading "Reserved for the State Department" taped to the back.

Participants in the event included: Dr. Benjamin Spock; veteran socialist leader Norman Thomas; novelist Norman Mailer; and independent journalist I. F. Stone. Other speakers included: California Assemblymen Willie Brown, William Stanton and John Burton; Dave Dellinger (political activist); James Aronson (National Guardian magazine); philosopher Alan Watts; comedian Dick Gregory; Paul Krassner (editor, The Realist); M.S. Arnoni (philosopher, writer, political activist); Edward Keating (publisher, Ramparts Magazine); Felix Greene (author and film producer); Isadore Zifferstein (psychologist); Stanley Scheinbaum (Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions); Paul Jacobs (journalist and anti-nuclear activist); Hal Draper (Marxist writer and a socialist activist); Levi Laud (Progressive Labor Movement); Si Casady (California Democratic Council); George Clark (British Committee on Nuclear Disarmament); Robert Pickus (Turn Toward Peace); Bob Parris and Bob Moses (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee); Jack Barnes (National Chair of the Young Socialist Alliance); Mario Savio (Free Speech Movement); Paul Potter (Students for a Democratic Society); and Mike Meyerson (national head of the Du Bois Clubs of America). British philosopher and pacifist Bertrand Russell sent a taped message to the teach-in.

Faculty participants included: Professor Staughton Lynd (Yale); Professor Gerald Berreman (Chair, UCB Anthropology Dept.); and Professor Aaron Wildavsky (Political Science and Public Policy)

Performers included: folk singer Phil Ochs; improv group, The Committee and others.

The proceedings were recorded and broadcast, many of them live, by Berkeley FM station KPFA. Excerpts from the speeches by Lynd, Wildavsky, Scheer, Potter, Krassner, Parris, Spock, Stone and Arnoni were released the following year as an LP by Folkways Records, FD5765.

<snip>

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teach-in

:shrug:

[MineralMan]

12. Couldn't hurt, if you can turn people out to attend.

I participated in a number of teach-ins in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The only thing I can say about them is that they were largely attended by people who already agreed with the movements. I'm not sure what their impact was on the general population. I switched to local and neighborhood Democratic activism in the mid 70s. Since then, my activities have been mainly one-on-one in my local precinct in California and now here in Saint Paul. Since Minnesota uses the caucus system to endorse Democratic candidates, I'm also participating in that system, up to the state Senate district convention level. In 2012, I plan to make a strong push to be a state convention delegate as well.

While street activism is exciting, I'm no longer convinced that it is effective in influencing election results, and that has been my primary focus since 1974. I've seen it work. I'm not sure I saw street activism actually work very well, despite several years of participation. Most often, it was just preaching to the choir.

[tavalon]

13. It was at a teach in that I met William Rivers Pitt who signed his book for me

which had in it a reference to DU and here I am.

That was the most useful teach in I've been to since.

[MineralMan]

15. Did that teach-in or anything that came from it materially

change your views? If not, then the preaching to the choir thing is in effect.

[tavalon]

18. Iwas in flux at the time

I knew there was something horribly wrong with our country between when the 9/11 thing happened and when I went to that teach in. I was looking for answers to what the fuck was happening in this country. the jarring Nationalism I was seeing everywhere was creeping me out. I wasn't real politically active at the time. I voted, in Presidential elections and otherwise didn't pay politics much attention. That ended when I showed up here and was schooled from the ground up about politics, how the three areas of government work and don't together. I learned fifth grade civics,something I found endlessly boring as a school kid.

So, while I was a redefine listener, I wouldn't call myself the choir! in the years I've been here, I've realized socialism really works better for me and I've learned the the DLC may in fact be a council, the are neither Democratic,nor leadershp material and are more like parasites.

[tavalon]

25. "Anything that came from it" applies

I came to DU as a once every four year voter who wouldn't have known a DLCer if it crawled out of a sewer. Now, I'm highly politically active and I know exactly why I would find that DLCer in or near a sewer. I went from undereducated, but liberal voter to a highly educated policy wonk who is also an activist. Yeah, I changed. Did the change come from something WRP said? No, but I bought his book because he was saying things I had been thinking and his book led me here.

[treestar]

27. One answer to corporate spending

Is not to listen to the damn ads!

Notice the hopelessness about the "corporate spending." Just shows contempt for fellow citizens. If a corporation makes a slick ad, people can't think about it they just go along. It's calling people sheep.

[sabrina 1]

29. The ads are not the p;roblem. The ;problem is the money they

give to members of Congress who are then more beholden to them than to the people who vote for them. We can't stop that without reform.

And members of Congress cannot win without large amounts of money so many of them end up taking it.

[treestar]

33. the only reason they are "beholden" to them is they need so much

damn money to run a campaign. They have to get slick ads. Too many voters who don't think, and too much catering to that.

[sabrina 1]

35. Yes, which is why there needs to be campaign finance reform

but we can't get that when those who could make it happen, are being paid not to. So, it's a vicious cycle.

[PSPS]

9. "as many Democrats elected to office in 2012 as we possibly can"

Instead of doom and gloom, let's start the New Year with a resolution to work toward getting as many Democrats elected to office in 2012 as we possibly can. That seems like a better way to start off a new year than predictions of calamity to me.

I'm with you. And there's no better place to start than by finding a real democrat to run for president.

[MineralMan]

10. You go right ahead and chase that tail.

So far, I've heard no viable candidates named for a primary race against the President. If you have a viable name to introduce, I suggest you do it right away. The Republicans are already fighting it out over their nomination.

But, if you're going to name Kucinich or Grayson, you're wasting your breath. It's likely that Kucinich's district will be one of the two in Ohio that disappears, and Grayson lost in his own freaking district last year. So, you're going to need to come up with a real candidate PDQ if you have any hope of even dreaming of a primary challenge.

Mark my words, President Obama will be the 2012 candidate for President. It's time to work on local, state, and national legislative races. If you lay out of those, you're wasting your time.

[tavalon]

14. Agreed

And this is the reason I keep my ignore list so low. A few months ago, you were running down a string of crap that was just annoying, but I had remembered that other things you said were useful and hell, who doesn't run a string of crap every once in a while?

Anyway, I chose to keep you off of my team of five and it worked just like it usually does. This is the right tactic, I think. I don't think a primary challenger to our abysmal President does anything but guarantee an even more awful Republican President for 2012. The only way a primary challenge would work is if an amazing, uniting force came together around one and that hasn't happened since 2008. Needless to say, those of us who were snookered in 2008 are not likely to be easily led. We will keep the devil we know and work local. Work local. That can't be stressed enough.

[MineralMan]

16. Thanks. I've been an advocate of local activism for almost

40 years now, and I've seen it work, and work well. We have that very thing to thank for Al Franken being in the Senate. That, alone, is enough evidence for me to continue with it and to get even more active. We almost lost that Senate seat.

As for ignore lists, mine is empty. I want to read what everyone says. I can't do that if I'm ignoring anyone.

[tavalon]

26. I almost agree with your last sentence

And I really, really, really have to get sick of them and be sure I'll never get anything useful from them before I finally do it. Last year, on New Years Day, I took all of them off and through the year, all five of them have made it back on. There were three others who got tombstoned. I get frustrated and even highly annoyed with many here, but I want to hear the opposing opinions so I tolerate the annoyance until it isn't tolerable anymore.

[NNN0LHI]

17. Didn't you see the thread I started the day with? The 2 Korea's are smooching each other

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x100591

It got one Rec.

Gloom and doom sells, man. Good news, not so much.

You should know that by now.

Don

[MineralMan]

20. I did read that thread, thanks, and recced it, too.

I don't care what sells and what doesn't sell. I don't care about rec counts, either. I post what I want to post and let it stand or die on its own. Seems to work pretty well. The Korean news is good. I hope they come to some sort of agreement and get their reunification thing done. The South is doing OK, and reunification would be very good for the North. Good luck to them. It might also let us get the heck out of the country after 60 years there. That'd be amazingly good!

I'll just keep posting good news and ideas on how to make more good news. I leave the glooming and dooming to others.

[Name removed]

19. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[MineralMan]

21. We clearly disagree. When we have Democrats in the majority,

we make progress. Slow progress, some times, but progress. When Republicans are in power, we lose ground. We're not going to get a leftist government in this country. Period. We're going to have to work with what's out there, as always. So, electing Democrats is virtually the only option we have.

You mention school boards and local governments. That's a good thing to mention. We let them be taken over by the conservatives because we weren't paying attention to them. You have made my point perfectly.

You do whatever you want. I'll do what I want. Have fun.

[starroute]

32. We've lost ground overall -- not just under Republicans

I've been watching the process for far too, and we're further behind now than we were in 1968.

I'm not talking about hoping for a leftist government. I'm talking about working outside the electoral system the way the conservatives do. Right now, for example, they're managing to convince everybody that greedy unions and government employees are to blame for everything from deficits to faulty snow removal. And nobody is speaking up loudly enough to counter it.

I don't think you and I disagree about objectives -- but I strongly believe that working through the political parties in an increasingly conservative nation is a doomed strategy.

[Speck Tater]

22. Cool! And let's also re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The planet is in population overshoot. The economy is crashing down in flames. Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate. Between extreme drought and extreme flooding the weather patterns of the whole planet are becoming increasingly unstable. As viable farmland gets harder to find food will soon be in short supply. Oil can't be pumped as fast as it is burned so the price of fuel will skyrocket, and rolling blackouts and other electrical power disruptions will become increasingly common.

So what should we resolve to do? Work to elect one group of corporate-owned ineffectual do-nothings as opposed to the other group of corporate-owned ineffectual do-nothings? Yeah, that will really help.

What we REALLY need to do to save the human race goes so far beyond what ANY politician is capable of doing that the whole concept of a political solution is simply laughable.

[MineralMan]

23. You've convinced me. There's no reason to go on.

I'm going to simply stop and let it all happen as you say. I encourage you to do the same. It's hopeless. We're all fucking doomed. There's nothing we can do. You've convinced me completely. :sarcasm:


Feh!

[Aviation Pro]

24. Recommend. That's what I think....

....

[theophilus]

28. Electing Dems would be nice but we better figure out a way to make

our elected officials, Dems and Reps, do what we want them to do! We must make them do what is best for the U.S. and the planet.

[MrMickeysMom]

30. I might go one better...

Just get people who actually care to run for local office. I feel more optimistic about those odds.

[Desertrose]

31. The broken record....

...hate it when the needle sticks and we hear the same stupid phrase over & over.


Electing Dems is no longer any guarantee of things changing.

[taught_me_patience]

34. The economy is going to rock and roll

Interest rates will remain low
GDP Grow will be 3-5%
Unemployment will fall slowly
Housing will bottom
S&P will gain approx 10%

The president will ride the wave of economic recovery and easily win reelection in 2012.