this article is very well written ... one might take the perspective that the Democratic Party sits on the brink of a golden opportunity ... the pendulum of power will swing our way ... we should be laying the foundation NOW for what we will do with it ... and we should be conveying our vision to the American people NOW, not when we ultimately return to power ...
we did a lot of soul searching after last year's election ... there was all kinds of talk about developing a values-based message ... we made plans about "rapid response teams" to quickly control the information flow ... we talked about getting every Democrat on message; a message that needed to be repeated over and over and over ...
perhaps somewhere this process has begun; a year's gone by and it seems like many of these ideas still have a long way to go ... we've fought so hard for power; let's make damned sure we're ready for it when it arrives ...
source:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1102-26.htm<skip>
The war in Iraq is symptomatic of deeper flaws and self-delusion as well. Reliable witnesses report that the reasons given for the war were conjured, which is to say that they were a lie. We know as well that the level of understanding about the Middle East was astonishingly low and preparation for the post-war reconstruction of Iraq utterly incompetent. This debacle was decidedly not primarily a failure of the CIA, but rather a matter of deliberate deception by the administration for which the appropriate words are "high crimes" and the appropriate course of action is impeachment.
The list of malfeasances and bad judgment could go on, but the point is clear: the present leadership of the Republican Party has chosen to lead by deception, ignore economic reality, refute science when its findings are inconvenient, foster class divisions, snub the poor, vitiate laws and regulations that protect the environment and public health by stealth, destroy venerable alliances, flaunt international law, undermine the foundations of democracy at home, and destroy the capacity of government, painstakingly created over many decades by Republicans and Democrats alike, to solve serious public problems. The Party of Lincoln has become a gang of thieves given to cutting taxes for the wealthy and willing to "do whatever it takes" to stay in power as Karl Rove once put it. The results include a cascading national debt, a federal government unwilling and increasingly unable to act on the most important issues of the 21^st century, and growing isolation from the world community. Not the least, the combined effect of the radical conservative blunder in Iraq is that the United States is more vulnerable to terrorism than before 2001 and is highly dependent on the willingness of the Chinese and others to prop up an increasingly vulnerable economy.
When their reign collapses and the full extent of the wreckage assessed, there will be no time for gloating. There will be, at best, a small window of opportunity to set the country on course again and restore a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, not one for the wealthy few. Equality before the law, transparency, accountability, competence, and foresight are the standards for good governance.
The first order of business will be to restore a truer democracy and greater participation in public life now more characteristic of European countries than our own. That will require, in one way or another, reducing the power of money in U.S. politics and rebuilding a fair tax system. We will need to quickly regain public control over the public airwaves beginning with the restoration of the fairness doctrine, tossed out by the Reagan administration in 1987. We will need to take immediate steps to implement energy efficiency and solar power, long known to be technically feasible, economically advantageous, and the antidote for adverse climate change. We must get America on track again, rebuilding a national rail system that will reduce our dependence on imported oil while reversing urban sprawl. We will need policies to rebuild blighted urban areas and restore widespread prosperity to rural areas-flip sides of the same coin. We will need to rebuild federal, state, and private capacity to protect our common air, water, lands, and natural heritage. And we will need a foreign policy once again grounded in international law and a decent respect for the opinions of humankind.
Most important, however, we will need to be summoned back to greatness and away from fear, division, culture wars, and greed. We need a renewed sense of an inclusive America and what it means to be an American. At our best we are a democratic people governed by law. We are a pragmatic people, adept at solving problems. And if wisely led, we can be a compassionate people capable of acting on behalf of the less fortunate and for posterity. It was once said that America is the last best hope of humankind, and perhaps one day we will live up to that standard.
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