I like these questions, Z. From the recent election, it appears that a Democrat is a NotRepublican and a Republican is a NotDemocrat. From the various partisan posts on this thread, I can make no further distinction.

Both major parties recognize that the most effective way to gain and hold power is to appeal to the most people (duh) and mislead the people into believing their opponent is 'out of the mainstream'. They gain power exactly as Bill Clinton taught them--by taking a poll and jumping in front of the largest mass of people, claiming that as leadership and accusing the opposition of misleading the people. It is no wonder that voters feel betrayed or let-down one or two years post-election.

It is also no wonder that just less than half the voters never give the winner of an election a chance--they are so alienated by the process that they believe they've been lied to or mislead, etc. Neither side recognizes itself in its opponent. Instead, they say angry things very loudly about each other as though loud anger is truth.


To your last question, I think the answer depends on what the party seeks. If all they want is power then they should follow the Bill Clinton Model. It will work if they have a candidate with fewer flaws than the Republican's candidate. However, if they want to stand for something, then they have to risk losing a few elections, consume themselves in self-emolation to burn-out the unbelievers, then build on the core that is revealed. That's what the Repos did from 1950's until Reagan. The Repos began losing their way under Gingrich--the Repo-Clinton. They seem to be back to their roots with Bush II.

Bot

Remember "mutually-assured destruction"?.... It worked quite well as a preventative back then, and I'd imagine that Russia and China STILL don't want to have their entire nation incinerated.

Besides that, there's also the fact that the missle defense system in question DOESN'T WORK! Testing has gone horribly, and pouring more and more money on it has not helped.

Mike

Mike and doing nothing is not going to help get a working system either........and we need that for these Islamonuts who really don't care if we turn their entire coutry into a glass parking lot if they can get one shot at us.

Tell her attorny that......................................these people who work with this every day tell her thats exactly whats going to happen...........Now I will admit, I only know what she relays to me.....

We don't need an elaborate multi-billion-dollar missle defense system to fight the "Islamonuts". :rolleyes: Are you serious?....

We need to spend more of that money on our efforts to make the "Islamonuts" dead. ALL of them.

Mike

Point 1: There aren't any Arab countries with missile technology. Now North Korea or Pakistan...... :rolleyes:

Point 2: By your logic we should also be working on a time machine. We could spend trillions and be no further along. But think of the spin-offs. ;)

Ummmm what about IRAN, they are technicly Persian not Arab, they have one now that can reach most of Europe...... ANd you tell me they aren't trying for one to reach us.......Do you want to wait till they can Nuke one of our cities before you condone a defense? Of course the DNC official standing is against any first strike of a threat, they made that clear with Iraq and Afganistan.

Well, I agee with the point about eliminating the Islamonuts from the human gene pool.................

How long before the ACLU takes up the cause of the poor picked on and misunderstood Islamoterrorists?

No one is claiming that it's not an issue, or that it's not a possible threat to us. What you're talking about definitely IS worthy of concern.

But the missile defense system in question is NOT the answer.

Mike

A return to America's founding principles

The answer for Democratic Party is not to move left or right— it is to lift itself up to the high principles on which our nation was founded
By Joe Trippi
MSNBC

Civic virtue, the common good, the idea that with the rights of the citizen there are also duties and responsibilities of the citizen, the creation of the commonwealth, and the opposition to corruption at every turn, are not naïve notions— they are the tenets of a sound and healthy republic— the principles on which our nation was founded.

Paramount to the very idea of a republic is the active participation and involvement of the people in matters of common concern. America’s founders, particularly Thomas Jefferson, believed that in our republic the people were to be the sovereign—and no one else.

The campaign of 2004 demonstrated just how far we have strayed, as a nation, from these founding principles.

Today, the sovereign is made up of those with the money. Campaign contributors and lobbyists have more say over our laws than the people.

Both political parties have been practicing transactional politics at the detriment of engaging the American people in common cause to solve our problems, and neither party has demonstrated the courage to ask Americans to sacrifice for the common good.

“A tax cut for your vote” or “A prescription drug benefit for your vote” is transactional— particularly when you have no real plan to pay for either. In a perfect world, both of the parties would step away from the abyss of this kind of politics— but at least one of them must, and I hope it’s the Democrats.

The answer for Democrat Party is not to move left or right— it is to lift itself up to the high principles on which our nation was founded and reform itself in the cause of restoring the republic for which we stand.

To do so will require rebuilding the party from the ground up, returning much of the power in the party to the grassroots, and building new institutions that empower more Americans to participate and have a say in the decisions that effect them.

Gary Hart, the former Senator from Colorado, in his excellent book “The Restoration of the Republic” wrote that to Thomas Jefferson “The most effective protection of individual rights, civil, legal, and political was widespread democratic participation in the affairs of governance. The greatest danger to rights was citizen detachment and in the political resolution of public concerns by interested forces dominating a remote central government.”

The Republicans have diagnosed the problem of a remote central government in Washington and rallied against it— offering no real alternative other than to dismantle it.

The challenge for Democrats is to empower the grassroots of our republic— the people— to actively engage and be involved in their self-governance, and to return to the principle that the people are the sovereign and not the special interests.

Gary Hart wrote that the founders concern for corruption of the republic “holds that a national government dominated by special interest lobbyists paying huge sums in campaign cash for access to the corridors of power is unacceptable.”

If only one of the parties has the courage to break away from this corrupt system, for the sake of my party, I hope it is the Democrats.

The broken system we now operate in works to the Republican Party’s advantage. As lobbyists and corporate interests gain more power— Washington becomes more remote to our citizens, and a more remote central government becomes more despised by the people.

“For Jefferson, the more remote government became and the more dependent the citizen became on elected representatives, the less republican the government and the greater the danger of corruption, narrow self-interest, and the erosion of democratic rights” according to Hart.

Jefferson was right.

The answer to corruption and narrow self-interest— anathema to a republican ideal of the common good— is not to dismantle the government and let the marketplace solve our problems. The answer is to empower the rightful owners of our government, the people, to take it back.

Trippi's Note: Senator Gary Hart recently spoke at Harvard University, as part of the Kennedy School of Government’s Institute of Politics Study Group program. His words there inspired me to write this column. I heartily recommend his book “The Restoration of the Republic” to anyone interested in the common good of our nation.

Joe Trippi is a Fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and is the author of the recent book “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised – Democracy, the Internet and the Overthrow of Everything.”

Comments? E-mail JTrippi@MSNBC.com

Sounds wonderful.

However, I'm not going to hold my breath while waiting for EITHER of the major parties to start adhering to such principles. They're too far gone.

Deconstructing (I like that word....I'm borrowing it.) the built-in and firmly-entrenched "incumbent protections", restrictions on free political speech, and the numerous hurdles, roadblocks, and outright sabotage that have been intentionally placed in the way of 3rd parties is our only hope of achieving the things Trippi is talking about.

Mike

KirkVining:

Yes, I agree with your post. I often speak in terms of "right and left" and Conservative and Liberal" as those are the terms the news media have given me. I really don't like them, but am not smart enough to come up with other ones!

IMO, the past election turned way too much on the "wedge issues" of abortion and abortion rights and gay relationships. It turned too much on churches that would let one party access its property and members, but not another party (I know, I was there). I really didn't have the choice of a candidate who would say "I wouldn't have touched Iraq with a ten foot pole" because General Wesley Clark and several other primary contenders were shouldered aside by the "estabiishment" within the Democratic party.

And the wedge issues were so stupid and meaningless, in reality. No matter who won, a woman will still be able to get an abortion by first buying one of those $400 round trip flights to Europe advertised in the paper here, then get the procedure done there for $600 less than here! No matter who won, my gay friends will still be gay, and I still will not be. We were born the way we are, duh!

And in the meantime, the country's physical infrastructure is aging and falling apart. Here in Okla, one of our major interstates has pieces falling off bridges (one woman was killed). Yet, we elected a senator who, as a congressman, voted against the funds to fix this major Interstate. Real domestic issues go unattended, such as creation of REAL jobs that are not at Wal-Mart or equivalent, doing something to fix the educational and health care systems, and providing for the needs of our elderly who increasingly in the future will not have fixed benefit corporate retirement plans to rely upon.

Too many "sound bytes" and "wedge issues" and not enough strategic planning. The vote in my state was mostly about the two "wedge issues" mentioned above, which are irrelevant for the reasons mentioned above. And all along the strategic direction of this country went undiscussed, undebated, undecided, and unsolved.

Thanks,
Richard

Sorry you missed the debate. I heard and saw a heck of a lot of argument over a wide range of issues.

If there is a subject that you think is important, who's responsibility is it to make sure that people learn about it and discuss it?

Believe me, I tried. But who will listen to this little guy at the "grass roots" when the whole game is being called by the "big boys" and corporate interests?

Thanks,
Richard

Michael Moore: Made over and moving on
Pummeled by right wing critics and the Democratic Leadership Council, undeterred Moore has lots of unfinished business

On the evening of November 29, a made-over Michael Moore appeared on the Tonight Show. With a haircut, cleanly-shaved and dressed in a smart looking suit, dress shirt and striped tie, Moore had shed his familiar baseball cap, ill-fitting jeans and baggy jacket, and the unshaven, shaggy-haired look that has been his inimitable fashion statement and sartorial calling card for years.

Tonight show host, Jay Leno, stirred by the newly made over Moore, joked that the filmmaker looked like Denny Hastert, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives. When Leno asked Moore if he had turned Republican, Moore responded, "If you can't beat 'em," he said, "you might as well try to look like 'em."

According to a transcript of the program -- recorded by the folks at Brent Bozell's right wing media watchdog group, Media Research Center -- Moore appeared to be in a pretty darn good mood, considering the outcome of the election. And considering that he has been taking a verbal pounding from right wing critics -- as well as the folks over at the Democratic Leadership Council, an organization of so-called moderate Democrats -- for contributing to Kerry's loss. For many, Moore had become the new Ralph Nader.

The Media Research Center's media monitor appeared fairly impressed by Moore's demeanor, commenting that while the best-selling author "took some indirect shots at Bush…[he] couched them in some mildly amusing humor, such as how he'll save on wedding gifts for his gay friends." Also, unlike MSNBC's Keith Olberman, who has been rigorously following the story of uncounted ballots in Ohio and elsewhere, MRC's man was pleased to report that Moore "accepted the reality that 'Bush got more votes.'"

Moore Speaks

The following exchange between Moore and Leno was transcribed by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth:

Jay Leno: "Michael?"
Michael Moore: "It's me, Jay."
Leno: "I thought it was Denny Hastert, the Speaker of the House. Look at, this is a whole new look. You're not, are you a Republican now? What's going on?"
Moore: "I thought, I thought I should try to look a little sharper for my IRS audit."
Leno: "Oh, really, that's right, when you go in."
Moore: "Yeah. Actually, I just came from CBS. I was auditioning for the new anchor position."
Leno: "Oh really? Dan Rather's job."
Moore: "Well, I thought they'd probably want somebody less controversial and, you know, somebody without an agenda."
...
Moore: "If you can't beat them, you might as well may try to look like them... And I started thinking, you know, a week or so after the election, you know, I need to start thinking about things that are really important, you know, like me. You know, and so I just, I actually made a list-"
Leno: "You have a list?"
Moore: "Yes, of the things that I think, you know, why it's gonna be good if Bush gets another four years now."
Leno: "All right. Well, this is certainly a change of heart, isn't it?"
Moore: "Well, I've had a pretty good year, you know, Fahrenheit 9/11, you know, and made a lot of money... [boos from audience] Yeah, but, you know, that Bush tax cut, I'm gonna get the money. How about that?... So I got that, and I started thinking, you know, I'm out there talking about 45 million Americans don't have health insurance. But, hey, you know, I got health insurance. Right? In fact, I got, I'm writers' union, in the directors' union. I got two plans. You probably got the same, right?"
Leno: "Same thing."
Moore: "So, you know, we're gonna do okay. We're gonna do okay. Jay and I are gonna do okay!"
Leno: "Don't get me in this somehow. But, yeah, all right, all right, so what else you got?"
Moore: "And gay marriage. Right? You know, you and I, we have gay friends, right?"
Leno: "Yeah, sure."
Moore: "Now, they can't get married. So you and I, we don't have to go and buy all those salad bowls, you know, all those wedding gifts, you know."
Leno: "Wedding gifts, sure."
Moore: "We don't have to worry about any of that, so there's a lot of things to be thankful for here, and I don't want people to be depressed because Bush has won, you know. There's lots of good news -- for me."
...
Leno: "So what happened? What do you think happened? What do you think?"
Moore: "I think Bush got more votes." [audience cheers]
Leno: "Do you have any theories on why the Democrats lost?"
Moore: "I think that the, I think the people don't want to change Presidents during a time of war. We've never done that. People were afraid, we were attacked, you know, he promised that he would -- you know, the Republicans, I'll give them this, they had a story to tell, and the Democrats oftentimes aren't very good at telling a story. But the Republicans tell really good stories. And his story was very powerful."
...
Moore: "I think he's very good at telling that story, and the story was, 'Out of the ashes of September 11th rose one man, and he stood on the rubble of lower Manhattan with a bullhorn, and he said, "I will protect you." And he did. And we were never attacked again.' [light applause]
"And that's a powerful story to tell. It has nothing to do as to whether or not we will be attacked again or whether we're really safer now as a result of his actions. But when you ask people, 'Now, tell me the Democrats' story. What was the thing they were trying to tell the American people? And you start to flummox all around trying to figure out what exactly, you know, was that. But, look, it was a very close election. It was the closest margin of victory of any sitting president since Woodrow Wilson won in 1916. It's just a couple of percentage points. People who voted for Kerry shouldn't be depressed at this point, to pick themselves up, it was very close. It's like you made it to the three-yard line, there's another game in four years, and we'll come back and do the best we can."

Whining New/Old Democrats

"We've got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party's left ... We can't have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values." -- Al From, CEO, Democratic Leadership Council

"You know, let's let Hollywood and the Cannes Film Festival fawn all over Michael Moore. We ought to make it pretty clear that he sure doesn't speak for us when it comes to standing up for our country. -- Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, the think tank of the DLC

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which claims to be "new" Democrats with feet firmly planted on centrist political territory, has been taking some major league pot shots at Moore. They have been joined in the effort to discredit Moore by a gaggle of right wing pundits, columnists and talking heads. Both groups seem to be invested in the red state/blue state analyses haunting the post-election mediascape.

Founded after the Dukakis debacle of 1988, the DLC has always intended to move the party away from the left and towards the center. These days, with the center being so far to the right, it's fair to say that the DLC would make a perfectly adequate European right wing political organization.

Ralph Nader once branded the DLC "corporatist" and "soulless." And, in a July 2003 piece titled "The Democratic Weaselship Council" Salon's Joan Walsh asked rather incredulously "Has Karl Rove taken over the Democratic Leadership Council?"

Both the DLC and Moore's right wing critics have found common ground: Moore is an affront to America's "values voters," cavorts too intimately with the Hollywood elite, and no amount of Moore makeovers can save the Party.

Since the election, Democratic former Rep. Leon Panetta, who also served as President Clinton's White House chief of staff, has said that the Democratic Party must do away with cultural elitism -- which he called the "Michael Moore syndrome."

"Hollywood has its place in politics," Panetta said, "but a lot of people felt that Michael Moore and 'Fahrenheit 9/11' didn't speak for them. There was a sense that he was making fun of their values and exploiting them."

In a recent New York Post column, Peter Beinart, the editor of The New Republic, suggested that the Democratic Party must engage in a "sustained battle to wrest the party from leaders like Michael Moore and MoveOn."

"The Democratic Party is at a crossroads, writes columnist David Limbaugh in a recent WorldNetDaily column. "It needs to decide whether it wants to continue to marginalize itself as the party of Michael Moore, or be a constructive force in the future of American politics and governance."

As we approach Award season, another skirmish in America's ongoing culture wars is about to ensue: Which of America's culture-shaking 2004 films -- Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ," or Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" -- will win more honors and recognition?

Meanwhile, on Saturday December 4, Moore -- who's first name now appears to be "controversial" -- as in "the controversial Michael Moore" -- appeared before a sold-out screening of "Fahrenheit 9/11" at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, in San Rafael, California and delivered an upbeat message, telling the audience not to "despair" but to "redouble our efforts."

No matter how many trips to the barbershop or the clothing store Moore might make, there's little hope he'll mend fences with his critics. I'm pretty confident that the next film we get from Moore will be a hard-hitting critique of the present regime and its agenda. While you're waiting, check out Moore's latest book, "Will They Ever Trust Us Again? Letters from the War Zone."