Code Name D's Ten points of fight!

[Code_Name_D]

Code Name D's
Ten points of fight!

I am extremely critical of the Democrats. Their performances to the recent three year long crises have been disgusting, if not treasonous in its own right. Of course, the DLC apologists usually hit us over the head with "what would you have them do?" And it’s a valid criticism.

Here is an answer to that charge. I have come up with ten criteria that would define "fight." And all though we have seen a few Democratic candidates practice one or more. No one has yet risen (discounting the great men of history) to all ten. And unfortunately, a few democratic candidates even routinely practice the opposite. If the opposite of war is slavery, than the opposite of showing a fighting sprit is to be a shill for the opposition.

But part of my intent here is as much as to give the candidates a frame upon which to build their new "non-traditional" campaigns. As the right wing is unarguably in complete control of the media, both print and the air waives, our candidates and orators must use a different philosophy and strategy to reach the people, buy encouraging the people to seek them out. And the only way to do that, is to genuinely appeal to the peoples hopes for new changes, and at long last, a Democrat who still stand up to, and now bow down before, the Neo-cons of America.

But all though I have settled on ten points. The idea needs further refinancing. I have been encouraged to continue working on these ideas, and so I shall, only occasionally stopping to open the floor to my fellow evilDUers for review, input, and observation. Not to mention the occasional fact checking. Today, I am going to look at my points, along with what I have observed and learned over the past few weeks, including the California election, as well as the Clark campaign.


One: To oppose bad law.
Not to try to "soften" bad law with amendments to make its passage more palatable. A good example of this is Bush's recent tax cuts. The Democrats managed to put in a per-child tax cut previsions, making the law more palatable to the public as well as within its own members to vote for it, or risk being painted as being against the child tax credit by the Republicans. But later, when talk arose about repealing the tax cuts, the dems were slammed over the head by wanting to repeal their own softening provisions.

Bad law, such as the tax cuts, must be fully and completely opposed, especially if it is going to pass any way. Only when these laws are enforced in their true form, will it be possible for the record to speak against the supporters, as to make it easier for these laws to be over turned later.

Two: To be a voice and advocate for the record.
And to use that record of you're opponent, against your opponent. The silences from the Democrats on many issues are defining when all they have to do, is speak the record. What IS in the Patriot act? What is the record with the war on Iraq? A Democrat needs to be nothing more than an echo for the past. But the DLC considers such tactics as "negative campaigning" and opposes it. And certainly the Republicans call this "mud throwing." But they are shooting the messenger, and it is a form of censorship, and enables the Republicans to carry out their agenda.

Beware of platitudes and empty rhetoric. It dose little good to claim that "Bush has not been good for America" because it then becomes little more than a name calling contest. Instead, state Bush's record, and let the people decided for themselves whether Bush has been good for America or not.

Do you remember the recent Greg Palast's report about Arnold & Enron? (go here if not http://gregpalast.com/ ) Of course you don't. How could you, the media wouldn't report this in a million years, let along in time to defeat the latest GOP golden child. Well, here is a question? Why didn't Davis, or Bushamante say something? Did they not know (a distinct possibility I fear), or are they still playing nice by nice guy rules? Are they still going by the DLC's play book that prohibits this kind of "dirty politics?"

But problem is, if the media is not going to report this kind of thing, who will? The answer has GOT to be the fighting candidate. Come on, if Davis or Bushamate decided that this wasn't worth mentioning, than frankly they deserve to lose. (No offices for my friends of California.)


Three: To challenge your opponents through debate and argument.
Currently the Republicans have a secret agenda. A secret agenda that is held out in plain view but still never talked about. There is PNAC, Enron, and a whole host of scandals. But the first step to evading responsibilities is to never be asked critical questions. We all know the press won't ask them, but why won't the Democrats ask them?

During the 2000 campaign, Gore limited himself to just three debates under highly controlled conditions that limited the freedom of those debates. This favored Bush. We kept waiting for Gore to tare Bush apart. But you can't do that if you aren't asking any questions!

Here is the thing. The Republicans love to shoot their mouths off. We have seen them shoot themselves in the foot over and over and over again. But you can see more of this if you start pushing the Repugs buttons, working the debate and trick them into taking the mask off. The court of public opinion will do the rest. But only if you engage them in debate.

And channels of debate need not be a TV exchange. A democrat need send no more than a certified letter with a request for a response. But so to there is the telephone, e-mail, and public message boards. If the republican declines to respond, then you send another letter, then make the charge that "republicans are afraid to debate."

This idea had been tested recently. As Governor Davis repeatedly and persistently challenged Arnold to more debates. And sad to say, with poor results. In part, this could be because of Davis' inability to decimate to the general public, that "liberal biased media" thing. This is a formidable hurdle that colors ALL of our observations.

But this is also because I suspect the challenge was not leveled correctly. Rather than just challenging Arnold to a debate, they (the democrats) need to come right out and just ask Arnold the questions, and let him worry about when and how to answer. If you keep asking him for a debate, he will keep saying, no. To my knowledge, Davis and Bushamates approach to goading Arnold into a debate still falls far short of this.

On more than one occasion, I saw Clark supporters come foreword and say "Clark supports an investigation into tratorgate. He is the only one saying this!" Only to have a Dean or Dennis K. supporter point out where their candidate said something to this effect weeks ago. But can we really blame the Clark supporters for this?



Four: To be a servant and advocate to the spirit of the law.
Even if this means that you must violate the letter of the law in upholding its spirit. And you must be prepared to engage in civil disobedience if necessary. The Texas Killer Ds are holding true to this call.


Five: To speak directly to the people.
And shortly before I write this, Kerry spoke in Dallas Texas without even informing the precinct captain that he was going to be there. This particular captain just happened to be one of the hosts of Radio Left, and would have covered the event, and would have given him a favorable interview, had he been informed. But this didn't happen, an Kerry lost an opportunity to get his message out over the internet. Before then, Radio left tried to find a Democratic congressmen or representative to interview on the air, by calling the Democratic headquarters and calling in on some of the same precinct captain's list of contacts. The only thing they got was an answer machine. On a whim, they called the Republican National Committee, whose number was in the phone book, to see if they could talk to a Republican staffer or spokesperson. Within 30 minutes, they had a full blown Republican Representative on the line, talking about the daily talking points. Not just some mer staffer, but a dully elected, seated representative. Is it any wonder the Democrats loose with this kind of access?

In contrast is Howard Dean has made him vary public. He has an online Blog, speaks regularly, and has the Dean meet ups at his disposal. When the media attacks him, he responds decisively within 24 hours. He has already taken up Radio Left's offer to an interview.

But is that enough? Will this brake through the media blockade? No. It won't. And any thought that such a passive system of reaching the people would work was ironically put to rest by the Clark supporters. Like them or hate them, truth, or propaganda, they are STILL a forced to be reckoned with. They are persistently posting portions, if not in their entirety, Clark's speeches, and excerpts from his book. (It's a two edge sword by the way.) And if it's truly a "boilerplate" operation, they have the power to send alerts back up the chain of command to Clark himself, news about recent attacks and media spins.

Now that is not to say Dean needs a boilerplate operation here on the DU. But this begs the question, why hasn't Dean empowered some one to speak for him on the DU, or any other message board for that mater? And this isn't all Dean's fault either, I know the Dean meet ups are all over the place. Why are THEY not taking it upon themselves to post excepts from Dean's speeches?

Not to place the DU higher on the plane of relevance than it deserves, after all, if Dean was to come onto the DU and say "vote for me", he would be preaching to the converted. But if you take places like the DU out of the picture, than what other forms of media do you have left to you? To put it another way, can Dean, or any other Dem candidate, afford to just walk past places like the DU?

The point is to speak directly to the people, where ever you can find them. If the message is powerful enough, the people will come to seek you out. But they only have the power to go so far. That is the genius of the Dean meet ups. This is an example of the people going to him, to hear what he has to say. But the meet ups is also part of Dean's new voice that is under utilized. For example, the Dean meet up folks should attend every protest they can find with a sign that says, "I speak for Dean." Or even organize marches of their own to go directly into "the hood" or the burgs, and bring the message to those who truly need to hear it, the poor.


Six: To be persistent and relentless.
Governor Davis recently made headlines with the words "Republicans can only work to steal elections they can not win." Truer words were never spoken, and it even made headlines in the so called "liberal media." Now THIS is fight. But what has he done sense? Such momentum is worthless is one is now willing or able to back them up. To press his attack, Davis needs to call attention to Diebold and other voting problems prevalent in his state.

Seven: To show leadership to the public.
Currently, liberals and progressive are doing every thing within their power to organize marches against the war, and against other issues seen as priorities of the GOP. But it is becoming apparent that such organizations are not possible without leadership. In time, persons will stand out from the crowd, and have the presence and influence to rise to prominent leadership roles. But we do NOT have that kind of time. We must look to our current leaders, and that means the Democratic party. If Dean truly opposed the war in Iraq, than why did he not play a role in organizing the anti war marches? But imagine what would take place, if Dean was to ACTIVELY coordinate a march on Washington to oppose the War in Iraq. The media could NOT ignore such an assembly, of the masses, and with his voice speaking there, the message of the anti-war protesters would also made headlines. Just as Dean must speak directly to the people, he must also USE the masses to get his message out. He has this right.

Eight: Pay attention to strategic position.
This is where I reserve my harshest criticism for the DLC. For the past 30 years, they have practically assisted the Republicans with the destruction of their OWN position of strength within the government. Having the WILL to fight is futile of you do not also posses the means. But this very means, such as the Fairness Doctrine, and what one can only call an unwillingness to fund or take advantage of liberal programming. Even as radio, TV, news paper, and publications are FULL of sponsored right wing freaks such as Limbaugh and Coulter, the DLC doesn’t even seem to care that their own constituents can only reach their voice mail. We must now work to over come decades of incompetence and shortsightedness.

Nine: To advocate and patron for scholars who are knowledgeable in the areas of the given issues.
It is the nature of politics today, that this is a "field" in and of it self, that makes it extremely unlikely for any person to be thoroughly educated in any field. Though there are exceptions, such as Dean being a licensed physician, the limitations of simply being human will limit any one to only a hand full of fields. But a politician or office holder is going to have to raise and deal with hundreds, if not thousands of separate issues. Most of which will be extremely technical in their nature, as well as being vary complex. Issues such as education, the environment, energy, and health care. Some will also intersect, such as environmental policy and health care.

This makes it impossible for any one person to even be competent on all issues. The solution however, is not to even try, and instead depend those who are recognized scalars within their perspective field to be the technical voice of the candidate or office holder. And in some cases, even "lending their voice" (give up the podium) to these scholars in an effort to educated the public, as well as answer highly sophisticated and technical questions from what ever source they may come from. These scholars should also be the pool from which they draw their presidential cabinet, placing their knowledge and experience directly over the subject at hand to carry out public policy. (As oppose to Bush, who seems to only appoint his friends.)

When I visited Clark's web sight (not to pick on him); I noticed just how little content his sight had. Virtually no issues at all were listed, let along Clark's position on them. So I was about to right up a little something about by beef on this issue, when during my research, I realized that Dean wasn't much better. While Dean did have issues listed on his sight and while he did spell out his positions on these issues; heck, even had links back to his speeches and writings that covered the topic. A far cry from Clark's page, Dean's sight was strictly about Dean's position and/or opinion on education, or on economics, or on the war.

Dag-nabit, if I am going to rail on Clark for platitudes, you better believe I will come down on Dean just as hard. The some of it is that any thing that is "just the candidate's opinion" on the subject is nothing more than platitude. There has to be some major public education going on here at the same time about the issues surrounding education. Dean or Clark needs to have links from their page connecting them to the NEA (National Education Association) or find one of their supporters with some credentials on the subject and give them web space to speak out on the technical subject. If the candidate's don't do this, then their message is limited to that of kissing the wind, or just spitting into it. Only through public education on the issues, will the true fighting candidate have the power to finally start changing the direction of the prevailing winds of public opinion. And THAT is what we want to start seeing.


Ten: Withhold your "respect and admiration" from those who act without honor or integrity.
Those whom you would surrender accolades and honors to, even in the name of civility and diplomacy, speaks volumes of your own character. When you show respect to the saint, it reflects well on you. But when you render honors to the monsters, than you reveal yourself to be a beast as well, and you become a powerful enabler for the beasts ongoing atrocities. You also must be prepared to accept that your opponent may indeed be your enemy.

Who can Fight! Who should Fight!
In the above posts, I tend to use "candidates" or "seated officials" more often than not. But there is no reason that some one who is not running, or who isn't a seated politician, could not, or should not use these guidelines. Especially if they intend to be politically active.

When I considered these points, I looked back to the great figures of history. Men like Martian Luther King Jr. and FDR.

But what of the political activist? What of the Green party members, or the seven other political parties in the US. (Yes, they are out there.) Lets face it, the Democratic party is week, dead week. One little puff from a genuine third party could vary easily push them over.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

1. I can't disagree with anything you've said

and I've been thinking along the same lines for about twenty years. I'm really frustrated with the disorganization and cluelessness and spinelessness of so many Dems. The occasional points of light or examples of fight (voting down that judge nominee) make me wonder why they can't fight back more often.

[Code_Name_D]

2. One way is not supprt thoes who do not fight.

One purpose of this list is to set forward a set of objective criteria to determine fight. That way politicians and advocates have an idea of what to shoot for. But it empowers us to say that "we will not support you, if you can't do any of these things."

And this is already happening. Public donations are down for the Democratic party, as well as for many candidates. Like wise they are finding it hard to scrounge up volunteers to work the phones. Gray Davis is the latest example. Unfortunately, we have yet to see any one else rise to the occasion, and that is something of a mystery to me.