REFORMATTED: The GOP is the Party of Death & Destruction (PODD) --- Deathwatch DAY 7

[arendt]

Introductory material:

The Democratic Party and its candidates should be organizing themselves around one theme with many inter-related sub-themes:

The Democratic Party is fighting for life:

- for the continuation of biological life (i.e., the environment) on the planet,

- for the continuation of middle class life and democracy in America,

- for the continuation of education and science - knowledge that saves lives

- for the end of "wars of choice" that are killing and maiming tens of thousands of Americans and millions of third world victims.

The PODD is fighting for death and destruction on all these fronts. We must totally discredit their "pro-life" rhetoric and get people to see they worship death.

If you want the long version of the above box, the original essay is here:

The Party of Death - A Primer for Democrats ... http://journals.democraticunderground.com/arendt/145arendt

Each day in "Deathwatch", I group a day's worth of headlines, by sub-frame, to show others how to carry on a coherent long-term argument with people who are bamboozled by the constantly shifting media landscape.

--------------- <end of boilerplate introduction> ----------------------------------

The Frame: The PODD are killing the environment, and thereby, humans

KILLING THE PLANET
Climate target is not radical enough - study (Hansen: 550 ppm "disaster", 2m sea rise this century)
Rainforests Being Rapidly Cut And Cleared For More Rubber Plantations In Southern China
Renewables' Replacement Of Fossil Fuels Lags Well Behind Estimates
Peak Of Austria's Stubai Mountains Vanishes - Glaciologists Suspect Climate Behind Melt, Erosion
Seahorses - Native To Africa & Mediterrenean - Now Living In Thames Estuary
----

The Frame: The PODD are killing the American middle class by ruining the nation's economy and regulatory structures.

DESTROYING THE CONSTITUTION (examples of systemic corruption)
Finally. On TeeeVeee. "Bush Administration Officials Will Be 'Indicted For War Crimes" War on Drugs = Voter Disenfranchisement?
Another Test for Habeas Corpus
Siegelman Future Hinges on Appeal ("60 Minutes" Interviews Freed Governor - 'Rove Needs to Testify')
----

DESTROYING PUBLIC SERVICES AND INFRASTRUCTURE
no items today
----

DESTROYING GOVERNMENT REGULATION (examples of failure and more deregulation)
no items today
----

The Frame: The PODD are killing the American middle class by ruining the nation's economy and regulatory structures.

DESTROYING THE MIDDLE CLASS (examples of job loss and economic stress)
Stagflationary Abyssal Part II - More Evidence and Suggestions for What to Do
"We are seeing .. the collapse of the modern day banking system"
U.S. retailers cut jobs as shoppers stop shopping
Strip Mall Vacancy Rate Highest in 12 years
Medical Tourism: Pathway to Outsourcing Physician Jobs
Dell will focus on emerging markets to boost growth
Congress doing little to help homeowners, unions charge
Iraq War costs every American family $100 a month
$3 Trillion May Be Too Low by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes
For bargain basement America, foreign investment no panacea
Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX) and the mess they have made
----

The Frame: The PODD are killing the American middle class by destroying the nation's educational system and by politicizing science.

DESTROYING SCIENCE AND EDUCATION
no items today
----

The Frame: The PODD are proud of waging wars of aggression, for example, killing on the order of a million Iraqis

KILLING PEOPLE IN WARS
US congressional hearings on Iraq foreshadow aggressive stance against Iran
Petraeus Testimony to Defend False "Proxy War" Line

Today's Laugh:
REAL WORLD
LAT: Officials foresee no ebb in Iraq violence
Gunmen set Baghdad's largest food market on fire - eyewitnesses
Blackwater contract renewal not approved by Iraq: Maliki

MC-INSANE'S WORLD:
McCain insists Iraq buildup is working

Israel, U.S. plan to release details on Syria attack
Sherwood Ross: Bush Military Buildup Recalls Stalin And Hitler
Frank Rich: Tet Happened, and No One Cared
Robot armies - another military revolution?
----

Comments on today's headlines:

What is striking to me is the lack of focus on the Yoo/Addington torture story. This story was hot yesterday, but seems to have vanished today. Does this mean that DU takes its lead from the Corporate Media (who have buried it under a bunch of Clinton trivia)? Or, does it mean that the war (i.e., the whitewash of the Basra disaster) and Petreus' testimony has caused everyone here to move to that topic?

In any case, war and the cratering economy continue to dominate DU. The environmentalists have brought a lot of bad news today, too. The corporate media is in damage control mode on the Seligman/US attorney mess; so it doesn't get too much exposure.

I would appreciate anyone else's take on why the PODD frame is not getting picked up at DU. Is it because everyone at DU slavishly follows the corporate media, who are focused on irrelevant trivia like Obama's bowling?

arendt

[arendt]

1. Kick the Re-formatted version; let the older version sink n/t

[DIKB]

2. Very nicely done.

Loved the information in the previous ones. . . but they lacked something.

The new format makes it more coherent and easier for others to "pick up and read." More of an argument and less of a list.

Kudos and a K&R for a job well done.

[lonestarnot]

3. Ah much better format! I wish I knew how to do that!

:applause:

[arendt]

6. Simple hypertext tag tricks

Its really simple.

When you click on "Reply", you can click on "HTML lookup table" in the "Message options" immediately above your subject line. That gives you a table in a separate window. You can either cut and paste the entries there, or simply type those entries into your post.


The pretty blue boxesin the text are created by surrounding your text with the "Blockquotes" tag pair:

<open square bracket>div class="excerpt"<close square bracket>
Your Text Goes here
<open square bracket>/div<close square bracket>

The other stuff is just the Bold tag pair - based on "b" and"/b"; and the italics tag pair - based on "i" and "/i".

Hope this helps.

arendt

[blondeatlast]

4. Nice work--again. Please keep this up and maybe the audience will build.

I think a lot of our focus is on the primaries and the election, so personality plays to a bigger audience now.

Even in GD, which I think of as the "issues" forum, McCain's latest idiocy is easier to respond to than the rampant death and destruction we've witnessed on all levels since 2000.

I appreciate the effort. Thank you and k&r.

[Tyler Durden]

5. ...as the candidates polish the brass on the TITANIC.

Keep it up. Maybe someone will listen.

I doubt it though.

[lonestarnot]

7. kick!

[electropop]

8. Excellent. Very readable.

Thanks for your hard work.