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In America, you can't love your country & hate your gov't -- we ARE the gov't!
In America, you can't love your country & hate your gov't -- we ARE the gov't. Our Open Letter to Congressional Leaders:
Robert Frost once wrote that a liberal is someone who won't take his own side in a debate. However humorous, that's now a bad joke in an era when there's a) a TV cable network that is a conveyor belt of falsehoods, b) a reactionary Tea Party tail wagging the GOP dog, c) billionaires flooding elections post-Citizens United and d) a national party paying homage more to Ayn Rand than Abe Lincoln -- with malice towards all and charity for none.
Space does not permit a complete chronicle of GOP rhetoric and policies that are more extreme than mainstream: e.g., climate change is a hoax, voter fraud is a menace justifying voter suppression, regulations only impose costs never benefits, Solyndra is like Watergate and the American President hates America. Given such continuing regressive nonsense, where are the Democrats? The surprising answer -- often defensive, defeatist, and reactive.
While President Obama is now pushing back daily and vigorously, too often the (fat) cat's got Democrats' tongue. Many of us have raised millions to run campaigns and understand the cross-currents in seeking votes and dollars. But though slandered as a group, Democrats rarely respond as a group. Instead of Russell Crowe saying to his fellow gladiators - "whatever comes out of those gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together" -- it's everybody-for-himself. Because money shouts, must get to calling time to hit up big donors.
So individual Democrats are left to fend that, well, we're not anti-defense, anti-business, anti-family or pro-big government. But since wars are won not by Dunkirks but by Normandys - and since 2012 is shaping up as a clash of core beliefs -- we urge Democratic Party leaders to show leadership in at least three ways:
- Frames: Let's reframe issues so that platitudes and metaphors don't pass for analysis. Recall when southern racists of both parties would argue that they were only defending property rights and state rights? Today, it's CEOs and their apologists arguing that they are just champions of the first amendment when arguing that unlimited money is speech and corporations
are people.
Space does not permit a complete chronicle of GOP rhetoric and policies that are more extreme than mainstream: e.g., climate change is a hoax, voter fraud is a menace justifying voter suppression, regulations only impose costs never benefits, Solyndra is like Watergate and the American President hates America. Given such continuing regressive nonsense, where are the Democrats? The surprising answer -- often defensive, defeatist, and reactive.
While President Obama is now pushing back daily and vigorously, too often the (fat) cat's got Democrats' tongue. Many of us have raised millions to run campaigns and understand the cross-currents in seeking votes and dollars. But though slandered as a group, Democrats rarely respond as a group. Instead of Russell Crowe saying to his fellow gladiators - "whatever comes out of those gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together" -- it's everybody-for-himself. Because money shouts, must get to calling time to hit up big donors.
So individual Democrats are left to fend that, well, we're not anti-defense, anti-business, anti-family or pro-big government. But since wars are won not by Dunkirks but by Normandys - and since 2012 is shaping up as a clash of core beliefs -- we urge Democratic Party leaders to show leadership in at least three ways:
- Frames: Let's reframe issues so that platitudes and metaphors don't pass for analysis. Recall when southern racists of both parties would argue that they were only defending property rights and state rights? Today, it's CEOs and their apologists arguing that they are just champions of the first amendment when arguing that unlimited money is speech and corporations
are people.
MORE...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-green/dnc-democrats-open-letter_b_1852899.html
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
So yeah.
