@katie The payment talking point is easy to deal with, since 2008. The key is to not get too wonky, because if you do, the legacy media will spin you as being evasive and probably elitist too.

A simple "tax the rich" with some specifics on who you're referring to, would do, or you can point out that we just magicked 16 trillion dollars out of our ass to save the very bankers who wrecked their own businesses and our economy to boot--so it shouldn't be too hard to find enough money to educate our kids.

We're not lacking in ideas. We're somewhat lacking in style and presentation, perhaps, and a bit lacking in focus (IOW, we have too many ideas, the much-maligned list of issues that apparently is political kryptonite in this country). But the real problem is that we have no power, and no idea how to get any, so our ideas are worth jack and shit.

good ideas around which to rebuild.

What are those one or two or three ideas?

I keep looking around the "leftist" blogs and really don't see any good, largely appealing, succinct good ideas around which "the left" can unify and sell to a larger public.

Maybe I'm missing it?

Single Payer Health Care: Ok, keep pushing, it's a good idea, but has been around a long time.

Government funded higher education: Great idea. But then the left better understand how government funded stuff gets paid for, or it will ultimately fail under the barrage of the nonsense question of: "How will the government pay for it?"

So, that means being able to show that the government pays for stuff by creating dollars out of thin air. Always.

And when it creates dollars out of thin air to fund stuff, it funds our ability to pay tax.

Once folks understand that the government funds our ability to pay tax when it spends, then lots of other stupid economic policy shit can get addressed, like our tax policy.

And, crucially, our less than full employment policy.

If folks understood that government follows a less than full employment policy, they'd be pissed. And yes, Trump too will be forced to follow a less than full employment policy because he doesn't control The Fed, which controls interest rate policy, and who increases interest rates when we seem to be approaching full employment. So, if Trump wants full employment he'll need to do 1 of 2 things: Have Congress enact a Jobs Guarantee Policy or force the private sector to expand hiring even as the cost of borrowing money to do so increases.

Which leads me to: The logic of having the government fund stuff comes from understanding that the federal government issues our national currency to fund the private sector our net incomes, out of which we pay tax, pay off our private bank debts, buy foreign produced stuff, and record a net income in our private ledgers.

And once we get our flow of funds right side up: The federal government does not "tax and spend", it spends and taxes, then we can demand nice stuff, including a Jobs Guarantee Program.

An idea that I think lots of folks would support if they understood that there are only 2 choices the government can make: Having a less than full employment program or having a full employment program.

I think most would support the latter over the former - if they understood what was going on.

The left needs to understand what's going on so they can defend their good ideas.

@katie

good ideas around which to rebuild.

What are those one or two or three ideas?

I keep looking around the "leftist" blogs and really don't see any good, largely appealing, succinct good ideas around which "the left" can unify and sell to a larger public.

Maybe I'm missing it?

Single Payer Health Care: Ok, keep pushing, it's a good idea, but has been around a long time.

Government funded higher education: Great idea. But then the left better understand how government funded stuff gets paid for, or it will ultimately fail under the barrage of the nonsense question of: "How will the government pay for it?"

So, that means being able to show that the government pays for stuff by creating dollars out of thin air. Always.

And when it creates dollars out of thin air to fund stuff, it funds our ability to pay tax.

Once folks understand that the government funds our ability to pay tax when it spends, then lots of other stupid economic policy shit can get addressed, like our tax policy.

And, crucially, our less than full employment policy.

If folks understood that government follows a less than full employment policy, they'd be pissed. And yes, Trump too will be forced to follow a less than full employment policy because he doesn't control The Fed, which controls interest rate policy, and who increases interest rates when we seem to be approaching full employment. So, if Trump wants full employment he'll need to do 1 of 2 things: Have Congress enact a Jobs Guarantee Policy or force the private sector to expand hiring even as the cost of borrowing money to do so increases.

Which leads me to: The logic of having the government fund stuff comes from understanding that the federal government issues our national currency to fund the private sector our net incomes, out of which we pay tax, pay off our private bank debts, buy foreign produced stuff, and record a net income in our private ledgers.

And once we get our flow of funds right side up: The federal government does not "tax and spend", it spends and taxes, then we can demand nice stuff, including a Jobs Guarantee Program.

An idea that I think lots of folks would support if they understood that there are only 2 choices the government can make: Having a less than full employment program or having a full employment program.

I think most would support the latter over the former - if they understood what was going on.

The left needs to understand what's going on so they can defend their good ideas.

@katie As Can't said, just keep it simple. We need a working class party with a working class agenda. We need to reject the influence and control that billionaires and corporations offer. It isn't being done now, because nearly every party and political official in DC is a prostitute, and they won't turn on their benefactors.

Bernie's campaign showed us that we can raise money without the oligarchs, and that means that we don't have to take their phone calls.

good ideas around which to rebuild.

What are those one or two or three ideas?

I keep looking around the "leftist" blogs and really don't see any good, largely appealing, succinct good ideas around which "the left" can unify and sell to a larger public.

Maybe I'm missing it?

Single Payer Health Care: Ok, keep pushing, it's a good idea, but has been around a long time.

Government funded higher education: Great idea. But then the left better understand how government funded stuff gets paid for, or it will ultimately fail under the barrage of the nonsense question of: "How will the government pay for it?"

So, that means being able to show that the government pays for stuff by creating dollars out of thin air. Always.

And when it creates dollars out of thin air to fund stuff, it funds our ability to pay tax.

Once folks understand that the government funds our ability to pay tax when it spends, then lots of other stupid economic policy shit can get addressed, like our tax policy.

And, crucially, our less than full employment policy.

If folks understood that government follows a less than full employment policy, they'd be pissed. And yes, Trump too will be forced to follow a less than full employment policy because he doesn't control The Fed, which controls interest rate policy, and who increases interest rates when we seem to be approaching full employment. So, if Trump wants full employment he'll need to do 1 of 2 things: Have Congress enact a Jobs Guarantee Policy or force the private sector to expand hiring even as the cost of borrowing money to do so increases.

Which leads me to: The logic of having the government fund stuff comes from understanding that the federal government issues our national currency to fund the private sector our net incomes, out of which we pay tax, pay off our private bank debts, buy foreign produced stuff, and record a net income in our private ledgers.

And once we get our flow of funds right side up: The federal government does not "tax and spend", it spends and taxes, then we can demand nice stuff, including a Jobs Guarantee Program.

An idea that I think lots of folks would support if they understood that there are only 2 choices the government can make: Having a less than full employment program or having a full employment program.

I think most would support the latter over the former - if they understood what was going on.

The left needs to understand what's going on so they can defend their good ideas.

@katie

good ideas around which to rebuild.

What are those one or two or three ideas?

I keep looking around the "leftist" blogs and really don't see any good, largely appealing, succinct good ideas around which "the left" can unify and sell to a larger public.

Maybe I'm missing it?

Single Payer Health Care: Ok, keep pushing, it's a good idea, but has been around a long time.

Government funded higher education: Great idea. But then the left better understand how government funded stuff gets paid for, or it will ultimately fail under the barrage of the nonsense question of: "How will the government pay for it?"

So, that means being able to show that the government pays for stuff by creating dollars out of thin air. Always.

And when it creates dollars out of thin air to fund stuff, it funds our ability to pay tax.

Once folks understand that the government funds our ability to pay tax when it spends, then lots of other stupid economic policy shit can get addressed, like our tax policy.

And, crucially, our less than full employment policy.

If folks understood that government follows a less than full employment policy, they'd be pissed. And yes, Trump too will be forced to follow a less than full employment policy because he doesn't control The Fed, which controls interest rate policy, and who increases interest rates when we seem to be approaching full employment. So, if Trump wants full employment he'll need to do 1 of 2 things: Have Congress enact a Jobs Guarantee Policy or force the private sector to expand hiring even as the cost of borrowing money to do so increases.

Which leads me to: The logic of having the government fund stuff comes from understanding that the federal government issues our national currency to fund the private sector our net incomes, out of which we pay tax, pay off our private bank debts, buy foreign produced stuff, and record a net income in our private ledgers.

And once we get our flow of funds right side up: The federal government does not "tax and spend", it spends and taxes, then we can demand nice stuff, including a Jobs Guarantee Program.

An idea that I think lots of folks would support if they understood that there are only 2 choices the government can make: Having a less than full employment program or having a full employment program.

I think most would support the latter over the former - if they understood what was going on.

The left needs to understand what's going on so they can defend their good ideas.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal The point is: There aren't many "us" to fight against.

That might have something to do with the lack of good ideas that "us" have.

The only fight they're trying to win is against us.

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal
There's no point in hoping they want anything that would benefit us, much less that they would fight for it. They've been very clear in that, though it's hard for many of us to face that.

The only fight they're trying to win is against us.

@SparkyGump Because the government "taxes and spends" by "stealing other peoples' money because it has no money of it's own" - to quote Maggie Thatcher.

The left needs to stop falling into Maggie's trap.

The left needs to realize that the dollars they use to pay tax comes from government spending.

1) The federal government issues our currency by spending dollars into the private sector. It does so by entering numbers on a computer key board to mark up private bank accounts. It can never run out of key strokes. Dollars are in potential infinite supply.

2) Now the private sector has dollars.

3) Now the private sector can use some of those dollars to pay tax.

Maggie Thatcher was wrong, monetarily sovereign governments DO have their own money, they don't need to tax (steal) money from you.

Currency users never fund the sovereign currency issuer.

As long as the left continues to get its' flow of funds upside down, they will fall prey to the deficit hawks in both their own coalition and to the Republicans.

As Chairman of The Fed back in 1946 said: "Taxes for Revenue are Obsolete":
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2010/04/fed-chairman-ruml-got-it-righ...

Ex Treasury official and current banker, Frank Newman: "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the National Debt":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae7PO-j7TIc&t=14s

Affordable healthcare via single payer paid for by cost savings.
Better paying jobs via higher minimum wage paid for by increased disposable income.
Secure retirement via expanded Social Security paid for by removing the wage cap.

The squishy wishy centrist coproparate conservadems will never go for these ideas because their masters won't allow it so they will have to be removed.

@SparkyGump Bernie had plenty of ideas, and it went over like hotcakes. His ideas all emerged from two related values: fairness and democracy. Fairness, because we've got rigged politics and a rigged economy, and those constitute rigged games, which are not fair (no matter what you think of the games themselves--which, politically speaking, allows for a whole range of people, from reformists to radicals, to agree. Hell, it even allows for some right-wing people to agree. That is smart politics.) Democracy, because when a small percentage of the population essentially buys the government and denies people representation, that is against everything that America has always said it is supposed to be--and basically makes the whole idea of government essentially moot. The Fortune 500 and the bankers might as well get together once a month and issue a memorandum through one legacy media company, instructing the people on what changes are going to be made in their lives this month. Aside from the military, there's literally no reason to have all that infrastructure and bureaucracy in DC now--because the decisions, for the most part, are not being made inside government anyway. With the exception of the military, in which term I include the alphabet soup agencies of spying and secret police.

Affordable healthcare via single payer paid for by cost savings.
Better paying jobs via higher minimum wage paid for by increased disposable income.
Secure retirement via expanded Social Security paid for by removing the wage cap.

The squishy wishy centrist coproparate conservadems will never go for these ideas because their masters won't allow it so they will have to be removed.

@SparkyGump 1. Single payer will be fought tooth and nail with lurid stories of Englishmen waiting in agony for months to have an operation and death panels.

2. Job guarantees will be countered with stories of make work jobs and paying people who don't really want to work.

3. SOCIAL SECURITY IS GOING BROKE! (pepeat ad nausem)

BTW the cap won't do it. A lousy 1% more from worker and employer would. But workers DO want "free stuff".

Affordable healthcare via single payer paid for by cost savings.
Better paying jobs via higher minimum wage paid for by increased disposable income.
Secure retirement via expanded Social Security paid for by removing the wage cap.

The squishy wishy centrist coproparate conservadems will never go for these ideas because their masters won't allow it so they will have to be removed.

@katchen And LaFem, you are correct I think in saying that the elites enjoy Socialism while those of us lower-scale get the meanest capitalism. A huge disconnect for the 99%, maybe now with Trump more will grok that.

Obama gave one final speech, on the tarmac just before getting into a plane to go on vacation. This was, of course, just after Trump's inaugural address stating that the establishment has been glutting itself at the people's expense. Obama tried some pushback, stating "Everything we did, we did for you." At that point, the TV station I was watching cut away to something else.

That will be my last memory of Obama's presidency. His feeble "Everything we did, we did for you."

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal I agree that this is an enormous obstacle. Maybe one that can no longer be overcome, a real possibility in my mind. It could be the coup is complete and not many will choose to come up against modern weaponry. I know it scares the shit out of me, and I'm not easily frightened.

It seems to me that things will get better only once enough realize that the lies told to keep them in line fall apart.

And since most folks just try hard to earn a living while not bankrupting their country, they need to understand that money is created so is not the issue. It's the power structures that are, including the lie that tells them they might bankrupt the country if they ask for a better life.

Or the lie that their children will have to pay back the public debt due to their parents having asked for too much from the government.

I really don't think we should underestimate the power of these two lies.

When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Lefties tend to be smart, intellectual people invested in ideas and discussion. Their response to things is to come up with policies. That's fine, until you no longer have a political system that responds to people's ideas fairly, whose purpose is to frustrate good policy rather than to discover and implement it.

@The Wizard OK, well, I guess we all want to talk about looking for the magic idea that will get the people--uninformed and uneducated and vulnerable to Clinton/Bush/duopoly talking points like deficit hawkery--on our side.

In a related note, I'm really glad to be back in the early 90s. I had this horrible dream that the 21st century had arrived, and it was awful. There were at least two threats to all life on earth that the people in power refused to deal with, and worse, they successfully obstructed everyone else from dealing with them too, insisting that the car we were all in continue at top speed toward the edge of a cliff, in a sort of genocidal greed.

Man, I'm glad that was a dream.

to issues that a new left party can sell to the public. The Republicans have run the deck by creating backlashes against left-leaning solutions, like Single Payer. The absurdity is that the right has no answers, just more of the same. It will probably take a considerable restructuring of our society and economy to fix all of out problems. Chris Hedges does a good job of describing the total quandary. He's very depressing, but realistic:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_KHr6_MrWE]

When Trump screws up, the Democrats will be there panting like rabid dogs ready to take power, and once again make sure that nothing significant happens. We have to get out of this cycle, and perhaps only a catastrophe will do it, and Trump may improve this possibility.

How exactly is he giving power back to the people, unless "the people" means the top .01%? Nice trick, but that's a time worn slight of hand that the Right loves to pull. Still, better than Hillary the Terrible, who would sign the TPP and make war, war and more war, and still give in to the oligarchs.

@solublefish Agree.

In my opinion, we need to say things like: Per The Constitution, the federal government issue our currency, it should do so to fund the general welfare. Banks are there to fund the markets.

Sure, it's two sentences and won't fit on a bumper sticker, but it needs to be repeated fare and wide. Always.

But really, "government funded health care" and college tuition are not 'ideas', they are policies or at best 'issues'. The problem with the Dems over the past decades, as I see it, is that they do not have a vision and a narrative that explains to ordinary Americans how all this stuff fits together in a way that is recognizable and understandable from their own generally isolated and ill-informed perspective (as a farmer, as a line worker, as a service sector employee, as a software engineer).

The Republicans do, and they have been consistent in their message since 1980 (when the Goldwater radicals took decisive control over the Party apparatus) - and so they have captured and defined the discursive framework within which all conversations about particular policies occur. "Government is the problem", "we can't afford it", "people on welfare are just lazy", "social spending is a form of theft from hard-working Americans", "we need a strong military to protect us". These are consistent memes of political discourse in the US, which one hears not only in the media but in any barroom conversation about matters of public interest - and all of them are grounded in the crass libertarian ideology set forth very clearly in works like Goldwater's (really Brent Bozell's) The Conscience of a Conservative.

The Democrats USED to have that kind of ideological clarity. It was born of the Populists and embraced by Progressives in both major parties in the early years of the 20th century. It was a vision articulated around the major theme that the concentration of wealth and private power constituted a threat to democracy, and that it was the obligation of the government to ameliorate that threat wherever the political liberty or economic security of ordinary Americans was placed in jeopardy. It was a vision that made sense to ordinary people; and it was so popular that presidential candidates from both parties had to shape their politics around it (just as they now must shape their politics around neoliberal assumptions). But the Dems abandoned this in the era of the Cold War, when class arguments became outré.

Maybe we need to go back to the future.

@solublefish I should say here that I'm a strong advocate of Ellen Brown's ideas, so as policy goes, I'm all for the direction Katie's going.

I just don't think that policy is our problem. Nor is the style of our messaging.

But really, "government funded health care" and college tuition are not 'ideas', they are policies or at best 'issues'. The problem with the Dems over the past decades, as I see it, is that they do not have a vision and a narrative that explains to ordinary Americans how all this stuff fits together in a way that is recognizable and understandable from their own generally isolated and ill-informed perspective (as a farmer, as a line worker, as a service sector employee, as a software engineer).

The Republicans do, and they have been consistent in their message since 1980 (when the Goldwater radicals took decisive control over the Party apparatus) - and so they have captured and defined the discursive framework within which all conversations about particular policies occur. "Government is the problem", "we can't afford it", "people on welfare are just lazy", "social spending is a form of theft from hard-working Americans", "we need a strong military to protect us". These are consistent memes of political discourse in the US, which one hears not only in the media but in any barroom conversation about matters of public interest - and all of them are grounded in the crass libertarian ideology set forth very clearly in works like Goldwater's (really Brent Bozell's) The Conscience of a Conservative.

The Democrats USED to have that kind of ideological clarity. It was born of the Populists and embraced by Progressives in both major parties in the early years of the 20th century. It was a vision articulated around the major theme that the concentration of wealth and private power constituted a threat to democracy, and that it was the obligation of the government to ameliorate that threat wherever the political liberty or economic security of ordinary Americans was placed in jeopardy. It was a vision that made sense to ordinary people; and it was so popular that presidential candidates from both parties had to shape their politics around it (just as they now must shape their politics around neoliberal assumptions). But the Dems abandoned this in the era of the Cold War, when class arguments became outré.

Maybe we need to go back to the future.