Less than a month to go before we find out just how much the Democratic party’s perennial cluelessness on how to fight back against the political terrorism of the Right has cost them electorally.
And right after that is, of course, the absolute best time to apply Citizen Pressure on the pols. As always, the more united and organized (always a relative term w libs/dems) we can be, the more pressure we can apply. But part of that is picking the issues and tactics that will be most effective to push on.
The wider the issue’s appeal, the more oomph we can get in the form of phone calls and e-mails. The better the framing/hook/tactics we can come up with, the more participation we will attract.
So this is, for tortured souls like me who just can’t quit observing and participating in the Soap Opera of American Politics, the time to be reading the tea leaves and brainstorming.
What issues will get the most traction?
What is the most efficient tactic to exploit those issues for over all change?
Conversely, what approach should we take to revitalize issues that are being ignored, marginalized and are falling through the cracks?
This is the age of short attention span and marketing, how do we grab and hold our “audience” (pols and populace) and either convince, bludgeon, or shame them into action that moves us forward?
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whether the Pols have learned anything from these elections, and are ready to make some changes….
I suspect the Democrats immediate response will be to blame the left and independents and say “see – if you had turned out at the polls you wouldn’t be dealing with these republicans”. And the dems bipartisanship drive? What’s that? That will be conveniently forgotten by the dems as they run away from all responsibility for themselves.
Everything will be the fault of the left and independents, and the only way to extract anything from the dems will be for a movement of millions to make it clear to the dems that they’ll have the house back next midterms only if they first do………………………? What?
Because you know, next midterms they’ll all again run on “we are not called republicans”.
How can a paradigm shift be forced? How can people take control and power back from corporate rule and dictate to the pols what they have to do? I think it’ll only happen if enough take to the streets in overwhelming numbers. Enough numbers to have the pols and the elites quaking in terror and afraid for their lives.
…
An aside — how did they do it in Brazil, where eight years ago a man who grew up dirt poor and illiterate in a country ruled by the rich rose up to become president?
RTAmerica | 01 October 2010
… health care and social security.
Health care — the Dem mantra of “it’s a start! We’ll fix it!” should be put to the test.
As far as social security, here’s a great comment from 2laneIA at DK (also his sig line has the diary itself) showing the trial balloons being lofted in the air by the Dems on cutting SS and you can see even in the thread some commenters already defending the notion.
For other issues that aren’t as broad, torture, enforcement of the laws generally (the report that came out on BP and the Obama Admin. was very damning); and environment.
cuz if so, I’ll flunk it! lol.
Guess it depends on… who you ask; and who is this “we”?
Tocque says to reinvigorate Compassion, wage information war & multiply KNowledge…
Chris Hedges (and others):
etc.
But if you’re tlaking about inside the bubble, the GOS and lib-Dems in general bubbles, then I’d say, well…
Michael Moore is pitching this:
I would say offhand…
* DADT Repeal and other LGBT stuff that are actually “easy fix”s (legislation) because in my opinion the culture is way there already;
* the fight to conserve our Social Security;
* and then, just … all things Green. Climate climate climate.
Im sure Im forgetting a bunch. heh.
I think about it sometimes like… my frame… my kid is 13, now. She will be able to VOTE for POTUS in 2016. Will I be able to convince her that its even worth the bother? I mean, will the political climate be such by then that it will help me make my case? So… kids, young up and coming adults…. they think all this horseshit around gay rights is a total NO BRAINER, and they care about the Environment.
What do you think is gonna change?
Every two years Americans convince themselves that they can change things this way. Then they go back to sleep. Nothing changes. Then they do the same thing again. Rinse. Cycle. Repeat.
And meanwhile the machine goes ahead. The CIA is unchanged. The wars are unchanged.
Yes, some things do get a little better or worse. The last election made US policy towards Israel a slight bit better. Very slight though. And American health care became even worse. Drone attacks got worse. Torture is more institutionalized now. Pretty much everything else the same.
These slight changes have more to do with the fact that each ‘candidate’ has slightly different big ‘supporters’ more than it has to do with anyone who voted for or against them. And their wishes are more or less unpredictable.
(to paraphrase Emma G.)
The “Ways and Meanies”. “The Real Women of K Street”. “The Secret Holds”. “The Earmark Game Show”.
Hell. I could go on forever. Do you think Fox would be interested? Anyone want to pitch it to MSNBC?
Anything that exceeds room temperature intelligence and five minutes between five minute commercial breaks would be doomed. The Great Masses are collective, lazy-thinking, uncurious idiots with the attention span of gnats.
You have to understand your audience first. Then execute accordingly.
…. I know the rest of y’all are not stuck with my vision, and the brain/eye thing I have which makes it difficult for me to track both eyes on a screen, but please, please, please do not make the pages have any less contrast than they do already.
Going to a tan background with grey print really does not help people like me.
It’s an acute reminder of that I’m aging. It’s making the stuff in the reply boxes and composing more challenging.
_____
I don’t know if we have any control over the issues that would get the most traction. Media is stuck on oogling the ditzes that Russo Marsh/Tea Party Express is pushing this cycle. O’ Donnell is the New Palin, tastes great, less filling. Everybody in the blogosphere liberal knows that she’s being literally pushed by a Republican lobbying firm for the Pentagon and a foreign country, for oil interests, and nobody gives a flying ****. Why don’t they just slap soft porn on the gas pumps.
If you want change the Republicans smell blood and are circling like somebody thru chum in the water. Because the best case scenario for the current Party With The Numerical Majority is to maybe keep it but have a smaller one, but there is still no way to get Ben Nelson and Kent Conrad and a few others tossed to the trash heap of history, I don’t know if the Villain Rotation thing is going to have a prayer of changing. I think somebody made a lot of deals before running and then winning the primary and those deals said status quo or you’re not getting it. You saw Daschle’s book and then the pathetic walkback on the news that the public option was long gone before it was officially long gone. Just as suspected. Energy bill ? Hah, what a joke. Taxing the war profiteers ? Another joke.
Without a viable anti war movement, there is no reason for anyone to associate the grotesquely oversized military budget with the problems getting domestic programs funded. Republicans know this. That is why they are funding the war cheerfully because the more the war eats, the less there is left over for domestic programs.
The problem with a viable anti war movement is that certain topics are nearly banned here or discouraged, (not to mention in other places) and there is a risk of being entangled somehow in those accusations of aiding and assisting the terrorists if you even mention certain topics, subjects, or people.
Issues that would get the most traction, it’s the economy, stupid, along with the feeling of not only loss of personal control but that the current occupants of WH and Congress still could not really care less if people lose jobs and house/shelter and medical care and dignity, and that nothing will change. If the current Party With the Numerical Majority ever figured out how to let people back into the civilized world here, instead of telling them this effing bullsh*t about how we can’t do anything but bomb the mideast because we are Americans, they might start believing this “change” agenda was possible.
Change happens on the cusp, if it happens at all.
I’m going on instinct right now. The more of a negative reaction I get from the neocon right wing, the closer I must be getting to having some sort of impact. Imagine if everyone had just a small impact somewhere every day.
Driving down the street tonight in the city, went by an older homeless woman sitting outside a church, wrapped in a blanket. Probably waiting for the night shelter to open. She caught my eye as we slowed for traffic, and smiled and lifted her hand and waved a greeting. What could I do but wave back ?
The Green Party is based on principles: grassroots democracy, nonviolence, social justice, and ecological wisdom. Greens are also committed to ridding corporate money from politics. Do those sound like your values? Why not try supporting a party that actually shares your values?
After the election – hell, don’t wait until after – join your local Green Party (or start one) and start building an independent progressive alternative to both corporatist, militarist establishment parties.
Nice colors and tells a story.
http://www.informationisbeauti…
The only way is to start with real things we can do directly to establish communities and economic institutions that can sustain us rather than drain us. It can be done. I will have more on this later this evening.
in an economic recession.
We shouldn’t even be talking about tax cuts for the middle class in this kind of an economy. We should be talking about raising taxes on the well-to-do and corporations and ending our foreign wars. The United States can no longer pretend to be the world’s policeman with the economy the way it is. We’re draining the treasury trying to prop up the illusion of our country as a world superpower.