No Plan, No Positive Vision--That's a chiseled in granite right wing talking point used to attack the Democrats.
There's some truth to that. The democrats don't talk a lot about big, visionary plans like the Republicans. That's because the Democrats have become the new conservatives. They have a plan and a vision. It was drafted by the founders of the US and finalized as the constitution.
Progressive Democrats should proudly claim their rightful place as the new conservative party in the USA.
Right wing extremists, fascists and flat out traitors to the USA are aggressively assaulting the constitution in fealty to transnational corporations, extreme religious orders and cults, where sexual predation is rampant (Catholics and Southern Baptists in particular.)
They can brag about new plans and visions;
--plans to eliminate protections to the environment, so they attack democrats for complaining about their assaults.
-plans to export jobs to cheap labor countries, using trade agreements like WTO, NAFTA and CAFTA. They bask Democrats for not having ideas. We have ideas. Keep our jobs here in the US. Don't sign agreements that destroy our industries and cost us tens of thousands of jobs.
-plans to eliminate individuals' rights to seek legal redress. The Republicans call it tort reform. It's really destruction of the system of balance that allows individuals to recover from damage that already too powerful corporations inflict. The Republicans are acting as agents and toadies to the corporations here. But they attack Democrats for advocating for the people.
-Plans to weaken or diminish worker protections-- From fighting living or minimum wage legislation to eliminating worker rights protections, the right wing republican extremists are working for big corporations, against the interests of the average worker. But they attack the Democrats for complaining, for standing up to these assaults.
-Plans to eradicate the separation of church and state that the founders clearly defined. They want to bring prayer into schools, vouchers to destroy public schools. They give money to churches that discriminate based on religious beliefs in their hiring. The Democrats complain. They want the constitution obeyed. None of this crap about judges legislating from the bench. That's a total lie, right wing spin.
The fact is, the Republican party and right wingers are no longer conservatives. The Progressive Democrats have become the party of conservatism-- preserving the classic values that our nation was founded upon. The Democrats are not proposing sweeping legislation aimed at social change. That has been the prime goal and behavior of the right wing extremists now in control of the whitehouse and the congress.
Do the Progressive Democrats have positive visions and plans? Absolutely yes. They have superb proposals for extricating the US from it's energy addiction, great plans for defusing the already hemmorhaging health care system that has begun destroying industries and mortally wounding our competitiveness abroad. Just look at the automobile industry for starters to see how badly the current health care industry is parasitically killing off good jobs and one of our greatest industrial resources.
But the Progressive Democratic plans are the opposite of the destructive plans of the Republicans, so the right wing extremists dismiss them.
Our plans aim to reverse the assaults on our nation, to heal the huge gashes and wounds the right wing extremists have viciously inflicted upon our laws, our regulations, our constitution and our culture.
No wonder they say we have no plans. It is time for the leaders of the Democratic party to fight back tough. When some rightwing nutjob uses this canned, kneejerk talking poing, which rightwingers are not used to getting responses to, Harry Reid, Hilary Clinton, Diane Feinstein and all the other limp spined Democrats who have been failing to stand up for the constitution, should snap back--
"Plans? Let's talk about your plans-- that took us into a war that shouldn't have been fought, that are de-regulating laws that protect workers, our environment, and we the people. Plans? We have plenty of plans that you don't like. You don't call them plans because they are directly opposing your BAD PLANS. And then, let's talk about your plans for the Occupation of Iraq. Great job there."
Rob Kall is executive editor and publisher of OpEdNews.com, President of Futurehealth, Inc, inventor . He is also published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com. He is a frequent Speaker on Politics, Impeachment, The art, science and power of story, heroes and the hero's journey, Positive Psychology, Stress, Biofeedback and a wide range of subjects. He is a campaign consultant specializing in tapping the power of stories for issue positioning, stump speeches and debates. He recently retired as organizer of several conferences, including StoryCon, the Summit Meeting on the Art, Science and Application of Story and The Winter Brain Meeting on neurofeedback, biofeedback, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology. See more of his articles here and, older ones, here.
To learn more about me and OpEdNews.com, check out this article.
and there are Rob's quotes, here.
To Watch me on youtube, having a lively conversation with John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here Now, wouldn't you like to see me on the political news shows, representing progressives. If so, tell your favorite shows to bring me on and refer them to this youtube video
My radio show, The Rob Kall Show, runs 9-10 PM EST Wednesday evenings, on AM 1360, WNJC and is archived on www.whiterosesociety.org Or listen to it streaming, live at either www.wnjc1360.com or here.
A few declarations.
-While I'm registered as a Democrat, I consider myself to be a dynamic critic of the Democratic party, just as, well, not quite as much, but almost as much as I am a critic of republicans.
-My articles express my personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
I will write more separately about this but so far I would like to make one observation: we all here are good people, we understand what is happening and we desperately do not want it but we are not the ones which are to lead the effort. In fact if there was a computer which could take all our lamentations including the one in this article and summarise it in one statement, that statement would be ' Give me leadership or give me death!'. We are desperate for leadership especially due to the fact that those who claim to be the leaders on the 'good side' exercise a perpetual betrayal, a cavalcald of cowardice and
extreme, profound ignorance and malice. Thus we have no head. Understanding, passion is not enough without cool head and cold desire to win, no matter what, no matter how(!), no matter in which company. And that needs one person to lead. It does not seem to be democratic, but that is true. In all historical cases in the battles between the groups the one which wanted to win more always won. Do we want to win? If we do, that has to be the only criteria for all actions. Thus a leader is to be sought. Maybe a Progressive Congress has to be called not under ' Take back America' but under 'United Front against Bush' and one person has to be proclaimed a popular candidate for Presidency. Maybe the VP candidate has to be a member of black community and campaign tab has to be picked up by AFL-CIO at first with the promise of the huge concessions later after the victory. But without ' Life or Death' openly proclaimed, the GOP machine will win again because they want to. And we are all good people. But we are amateurs. We need professionals and in order to get them we need to acknowledge the truth-we suck at it.
by
Mark Sashine (47 articles, 19 quicklinks, 235 diaries, 3362 comments)
on Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 8:04:48 AM
"I said...God damn...God damn! the pusher man" -- Steppenwolf -- from the Easy Rider soundtrack
Everybody keeps talking about taking the fight to the "red-neck" Democrats. After all, they lick the feet of the same lobbyists the GOPers do. Maybe even more so. After all, it's the RNC, not the DNC -- that's trying to run every "leftist loonie" off K Street.
But...you know that the nation is running out of time. And you know that other people know that you know this. But you'll look pretty dense when you tell people you know that you're gonna do the same thing you always do -- vote for the Endangered Species Party in November. That's very commendable of you; just don't wait around until someone throws a net over you. Although...it would serve you right.
Truth is, this argument makes about as much sense as if we keep going to the same doctor with a cancerous lump the size of a basketball on our liver and he keeps suggesting that we go to Mexico and try some apricot pits and coffee enemas.
Because there's nothing like a little denial. Still, we soon get over that. So we go out and get a "second opinion" -- but it's always to some doctor who has to be listed in the HMO's Physician Directory. Which is something like changing deck chairs on the Titanic. If we need a revolutionary new treatment or experimental surgery -- we either pay for it ourselves or wait until we're dead before the HMO finally gives the go ahead. If then.
So when are we gonna ditch this junker of a Democratic Party the way East Germans literally left the cars they were driving -- Skoda Trebants -- at the Austrian border when they made it to freedom? The similarities here are actually frightening. Except for one thing: the East Germans got rid of the car and the party; we haven't done either.
I cannot urge enough the need to form a true party of the left in this country. 'Course, that party might want to let Americans vote directly for their national leader. Go up to somebody today and ask them "do you know there's a country where people live that's never voted dircetly for a national leader -- in their history?" They'll think you must mean some country on Mars. But it's the only raison d'etre the Democratic Party still even exists.
I just hope the country doesn't think that if we ever finally junk the Electoral College that the Rapture is occurring. But it could feel exactly like that.
There are so many good ideas from the left -- including the progressives -- who've virtually given up hope that this country will ever be fully employed. That America isn't on a long, steady decline into abject poverty. That we are a nation that desperately needs to invest in infrastructue, bad neighborhoods, and the quality of our people's minds -- if we're even going to survive.
And...that we literally have to scrap unmitigated capitalism and its "fellow traveler," the so-called "free market." They're both totally full of shit -- and were just more shit for it to use.
Can't we find a few economists that can run a true "cost analysis" of the way we're driving ourselves into the ground. The social cost of inequality. The true cost of a markedly underutilized resource -- one of the best educated work forces in the world. And what it would cost to provide job benefits that actually "enhance" the bottom line of a mixed capitalist/socialist society. Where goals are a coalition of labor and management plus genuine incentive and personal and community self-fulfillment. I don't want to live to work for AT & T. I want to live to destroy it -- like we did once before.
How long can people compete with Asian labor markets like China's -- which illegally dumps goods in America -- because government subsidies and inadequate worker protection aren't calculated as part of the real cost of the product. This is where I finally lost it for the Democrats: when they can stand up at political rallies and labor movement meetings and pretend they'd would do anything at all to change the obsolete system we've got running now.
Don't take their lying shit anymore. Throw shit at them -- well near them -- I don't want anybody hurt. But they'll get the idea. So should you.
by
lindbergh (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 20 comments)
on Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 1:44:35 PM
I've commissioned two Zogby polls through OpEdNews and in PA, they've both shown that almost 50% of those people who identify themselves as union families are republican. This world is topsy turvy. Why would workers vote republican? Cultural wedging!!
by
Rob Kall (762 articles, 3850 quicklinks, 321 diaries, 1642 comments)
on Sunday, July 2, 2006 at 3:39:59 PM
