Reply #120: I respond in bold [View All]

[jiacinto]

conditioned to hate any and all taxes and why they think they're "taxed to death" (thanks for once more repeating right-wing memes) even though they pay the second-lowest taxes in the industrialized world (a fact that the right wing radio screamers never mention): the average middle American pays taxes, and still has lousy public services by international standards.

But the average voter is not going to see it that way. Most voters don't care that they pay the "second lowest taxes in the industrialized world". The problem is, Lydia, people want services without paying for them. They expect Government to provide them everything, including the Kitchen sink, without having to sacrifice or pay for it.

The problem is that people think that their tax money is not going to be spent wisely. They also think that the programs won't benefit them. They have high expectations. How to change that conditioning--conditioning that these voters have felt for almost 40 years--I don't know.

Where does the money go? The largest share of the general fund money, the place where our income taxes go, is signed over to the sacred, holy temple of the Pentagon, the Pentagon which may not be criticized in any way shape or form, lest the questioner be called unpatriotic. The Pentagon can do no wrong. The Pentagon was ordained by God to be just as it is, and it always needs a raise. No one is allowed to tell the truth about the Pentagon, which is a veritable cesspool of corruption and kickbacks, the Pentagon that cannot account for $1.3 trillion (not a misprint) of the money it supposedly received.

Defense, hah! Protecting the country against terrorism, hah! It's the biggest welfare program in the country, a welfare program for the aerospace and weapons industries, a welfare program that exists only because the Republicans continually lie about the nation's real defense needs and most Democrats are cowed into accepting the fairy tale.

The Dems could get by with cutting the Pentagon budget if they made the missing $1.3 trillion a campaign issue by stating the obvious: there are only two ways to lose that much money. One is monumental incompetence, and the other is monumental corruption.

Let me state the issues like the $600 toilet, Star Wars, and Missile Defense--all of which scientists have long shown--are valid ones. But look at the era in which we live. If 9/11 had not happened you would have a point.

But see Americans are nost hostile to the idea of national defense and the Pentagon. They aren't. Most Americans are supportive of the military. And to be anti-military will not sell in this era.

In either case, the Pentagon needs to "find" the money (get it back from certain Swiss bank accounts?) or face an amortized budget cut, let's say a cut of 65 billion per year for twenty years to make it up. Cutting Star Wars and freaky looking new bombers and nuclear weapons testing (after 58 years, we should know that they work) and tanks that are too cumbersome to actually function would just about do it, with no harm to the actual needs of the troops.

And it would NOT make the Dems look "soft on defense." It would make them look tough on corruption and dedicated to saving the taxpayers' money.

Pre 9/11 you would be right. Post 9/11 I think you are wrong.

Carlos, you act as if the public's opinions are frozen for all time. Actually, they are as they are because the Democrats allowed the Republicans to monopolize the media and to set the agenda.

They aren't "frozen". I do agree with you about the media. The left needs to get a media presence, which they lack so much. The CA Recall teaches us that lesson.


Too many Dems over the years, beginning in the Reagan administration, either kept quiet as the Republicans raped the country or stood around cheering them on. (Sam Nunn, a Southerner, was one of the enablers. So, sadly, was Al Gore, who is now regarded as something of a saint on this board. Claude Pepper, another Southerner, was one of the fighters.) Remember that Reagan pushed his agenda through a Congress in which both houses were controlled by Democrats!

The Republicans took control of the agenda because they had a consistent message and kept their party members in line. They were aggressive and persistent, and didn't take no for an answer. They never rolled over and played dead without a fight when the Democrats wanted something.

I do think the Democrats need to be more assertive.

The Dems need to stand for something, not just be the unRepublicans. They need to not only fight back and hold the line when the Repiggies pull their dirty tricks but step forward with initiatives of their own.

So what if the Republicans try a Willie Horton? What's to prevent the Dems from coming back with stories of innocent people executed and interviews of their heartbroken families? So what if the Republicans call the Dems "soft on defense"? What's to prevent the Dems from calling the Republicans "soft on corporate welfare" and to keep repeating "the Pentagon has lost track of $1.3 trillion of your money" every time the Republicans say "soft one defense"?

I'm getting really tired of waiting for a united counter-offensive and a coherent alternative vision from the Democratic Party. And I'm sick of being told that offering alternatives to the Republican dystopian vision is "far left."