DU Thought Experiment: You have been away for a year and need to know what the prorities here are

[Mike 03]

now.

It is obvious this place has changed, and that old friends need to make adjustments.

It is obvious I am totally out of all time and space and sense with the old DU.

What are the new issues, and what are we doing wrong?

What are the priorities?

The only thing I care about is about getting our agenda through.

How can we help?

[truedelphi]

1. I would say that for me, and possibly for everyone else

Here, even those I deeply disagree with, I use DU in order to find out the truth.

Both the small truth, and the bigger truths.

Some of us now see that the entire Political Kabuki Theater is carefully controlled, such that unless we get a decent Third Party, we will only continue to watch democracy slip away. (It is an established political fact that no nation in history without a strong middle class has ever, ever had a democracy. Destroy the middle incomed class, and we are a banana republic or a fascist state, depending on what words you pull from your vocabulary to describe what is becoming of us.)

Others here on DU are still loyal to the Party, and I imagine that had I not been out in the trenches and found out how easily people in power can look at a person in the face, and LIE to your face, just for the sake of keeping their jobs, then maybe I wouldn't be so comfortable in believing that this Empire has been run only by those without clothes.

But so very many of the election officials that I dealt with between 2004 and 2006 lied to me, that I feel I have a strong BS detector. It took me a good four or five months the first time I met one of these officials and had him "befriend" me and then it turned out they were lying, before I could stop the denial I was so full of. And many of these officials were very likable and had nice families and loved their wives. But that changed not one thing about how felt they needed to lie.

The one group of people here at DU who are not interested in truth are the paid trolls. Those who jump on every single enlightening post about HCR,for instance.

[Vincardog]

2. How can we help? If you have money in a Big Bank move it to a CU or Local Bank. encourage your State

Representatives to do the same thing

Pick up the phone or a pen and let your congress critter know you want to remove DADT from the law NOW.

Pick up the phone or a pen and let your congress critter know you want to pass the FIX for the Senate monstrosity HCR before the house passes the Senate monstrosity.

Pick up the phone or a pen and let your congress critter know you want to pass a Constitutional amendment that makes it unmistakable that Corporations are not people and have NO 'Human Rights' and no place in our elections.


Pick up the phone or a pen and let your congress critter know you want to pass an end to BBV.

Pick up the phone or a pen and let your congress critter know you want to slam the door on lobbyist and have PUBLICLY financed elections.




Come back tomorrow for your next assignments.

[peacebird]

3. good topic - will be interested in peoples responses.

my take - I think a return to the civil free exchange of ideas, the open discussions of all points of view, would be a welcome change. A return to the roots of DU. Civility - what a concept. Let's leave the snarky shoutdowns to the freepers.

we also need to allow people to vent about frustrations with the Obama administration and congress without reaming them for doing so. There seems to be a contingent here now that villify anyone who expresses doubt, much less anger, at the Dems in congress or Obama.

The whole concept seems to be that we must march in lockstep support or else we are traitors. Are we not allowed to express disappointment here in our own forum?

What we cannot do is allow ourselves to become discouraged by the glacially slow pace of progress, we must remain engaged and active. Calling our representatives, writing letters to the editor, making sure we are NOT the "silent majority". We cannot afford to let the tea-partiers be the only voices heard!

I look forward to hearing others ideas on this. Thanks for posting the topic Mike 03!
:hug:

[MrModerate]

4. I'm all for civility and I'd like to point out that those who are frustrated . . .

With Obama's choices or simple follow-through are (about) as likely to go abusive as those who emphasize loyalty and half-a-loaf politics. Not trying to establish a false parity but to agree with you that a cooling of the rhetoric would be a Good Thing (and that it starts with all sides).

For me, I think most of the heat comes from issues where progressives/Dems are genuinely divided -- whether Obama's shortfalls are merely political or deeply existential; guns, period; whether corporations are inherently evil institutions; and whether there's any hope of improving existing political institutions or is something else entirely needed.

I'd like to see us reject the Hannity/Savage/O'Reilly model of demonization and bumptious babble in favor of reasoned, respectful discussion -- but folks being folks and the Internet being the Internet, I think we can only expect so much.

[rucky]

5. Election reform.

Media reform.

It's the root of everything else.

[FreakinDJ]

7. I think media reform tops the list

This would not be the first time media was used to control the masses

[H2O Man]

6. Interesting.

Recommended.

I think that there is no frustration and OPs/threads that focus on anger and complaining, and less confidence and OPs/threads that focus on the power of ideas and potential solutions to problems.

[Fumesucker]

8. DU is deeply divided..

There are more than two sides but to simplify things quite a bit it boils down to Obots versus Purists..

The stereotypical Obot supports anything and everything Obama does and considers themselves to be a pragmatist.

The stereotypical Purist attacks Obama as being insufficiently liberal/progressive and considers themselves to be an idealist.

Both sides have their blind spots.