Hear, Hear the Democratic Creed
In December, 2021, the Democratic party of a rural northern Ohio county gathered for a holiday party and meeting. During the event, several persons spoke. The last person, the chairwoman announced, would speak about the the book "Democrats 101" by J. M. Purvis. What follows is pretty close to the words the speaker said.
In 1776, American patriots gathered in taverns to hear the reading of "Common Sense" by Thomas Paine. "Common Sense" was, and still is, the most widely circulated publication in American history. It laid down all the fact and reasoning for overthrowing the British monarchy and gaining independence and self rule.
Like the patriots in 1776, we are gathered here tonight at a time of peril. Where their fight was to overthrow monarchy, ours is to save democracy. And the way we do that is by getting more people to identify as Democrats, and more to vote Democratic. And to do that we must state our identity. What is a Democrat? What do we all agree with?
Jim Purvis, the author of "Democrats 101," brought a group of people from all corners of the Democratic big tent together to answer those questions. They realized that agreement was to be found on values and beliefs, not on policy. The group hammered out the "Democratic Creed," which forms the core of the book. And I think they did a concise and thorough job of it.
So now, I'm going to read the Democratic Creed. You can follow along on the handout, or if you have a book, you can follow along on page 127. I hope we can officially adopt this creed at our next meeting, so think about it.
The Democratic Creed
- We believe all people are created equal, that this is America’s fundamental ideal.
- We believe that America is a democratic republic, by and for the people: ruled by the Constitution and its interpretations, protected by the Bill of Rights, and inspired by the Declaration of Independence.
- We believe these founding documents demand Freedom, Justice, and Opportunity for all Americans, in full and equal measure .. regardless of who you are, what you believe, or where you live.
- We believe that the Duty of government is to strive endlessly to make the ideals of Freedom, Justice, and Opportunity a reality for all.
- We believe that the Purpose of government is to protect our nation, defend our democracy, and to endlessly promote the welfare of each and every one of us.
- We believe that fighting for these ideals is our purpose as a political party.
We hold these things to be self-evident:
- Freedom means ...
- The right of every citizen to shape their own life, and their beliefs -- so long as it does not infringe on the rights or safety of others.
- The free flow of information and movement.
- The right to privacy.
- Free and fair elections, at every level, in every place in America:
- Elections that are fully transparent.
- Elections that are free of the role of wealth and the wealthy.
- Elections that guarantee unlimited and easy access to voting for every American citizen.
- Justice means ...
- A society where every citizen is safe in their person and their home, and their day-to-day lives.
- A society where every citizen is treated with dignity, regardless of race, creed, or personal difference of any kind.
- A society where every citizen is treated equally before the law, and by the law.
- A society where racism is wrong, where discrimination is wrong, where the government intervenes when racism or discrimination threatens a person’s basic rights.
- Opportunity means ...
- Every American deserves an equal chance to pursue their dreams, to be judged on their ability and their effort alone.
- Every American, child and adult alike, deserves the education that gives them that chance.
- Every American adult deserves the chance to earn a living wage, and to work with dignity -- a job where pay, working conditions, and treatment are suitable reward for the effort and skill put in.
- Every American deserves to live without fear of hunger or homelessness or lack of medical care. These things are not only rights, they are America’s moral duty to provide.
- Every American deserves to live in a healthy environment that includes clean air, clean water, and safe food.
- Every American deserves the chance to move forward: no one left out by change, and no one left behind … no matter who they are or where they live.
We further believe that American democracy depends on ...
- A free and independent press, dedicated to truth and objectivity.
- An educated citizenry with free and easy access to information
- A nation that accepts and embraces diversity.
- Full financial transparency in election campaigns, in political office, and in government transactions.
- An American economy based on Free Enterprise, and protected by the government from the baser instincts of large corporations and the financially powerful.
- The continued existence of a strong military, free of political involvement and financial corruption, and dedicated to protecting us against all enemies foreign and domestic.
- Educators and law enforcement officers being treated as among the most important parts of society, highly paid and stringently selected, and meeting exacting national standards of professionalism, ethics and psychological motivation.
- American citizens who care. Without this, nothing is possible.
This is what we believe.
~~~
The crowd applauded vigorously, and, just as you might have heard in the American taverns in 1776, a shout of "Hear, hear!" rang out.
One man asked, "How can we get people to believe our message over what they hear on Fox News?"
The speaker replied, "By using it everywhere and by repetition."
There was a box of "Democrats 101" books on a table, and every household went home with one.
At their next meeting, the county party officially adopted the Democratic Creed. Since then, four more Ohio county Democratic parties have officially adopted the creed. Today the Democratic Creed and the Democrats 101 movement propelled by the book is spreading throughout the nation.
More info on Democrats 101
- Link to the web site: dems101.org
- Link to the book store: Plainwords Press
- Link to the pledge: Democrats 101 Pledge
I support this Creed and the Democratic values it expresses. I want to join our community of like-minded people and make these values our party’s identity. By uniting together around these shared core values, we will create the just society this country deserves.
###
Huron County Ohio creed resolution
"Common Sense" Wikipedia entry
"Common Sense" by Thomas Paine
* * *
By Quinn Hungeski, TheParagraph.com, Copyright (CC BY-ND) 2022
Comments
Sounds good...
but far removed from actual policies pursued by the Democrat faction of the uni-party.
Would that that was not the case.
Think JFK (for example) would embrace or recoil in horror at the Democratic Party of today?
"We need a nation of minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life, and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
- John F. Kennedy
They need a reality check...
if they believe that absolute mythology.
I can counter every one of their presumptions from we are a democracy (we are a corporate oligarchy) to we have a free press (by imprisoning and torturing the greatest journalist of our time).
So this creed to my mind is total myth and like a religion, not based in reality.
Thanks for letting us know their fictional game plan.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
My impression was
that the point is to get people committed to acting to *make* this a reality - at least to move the needle in that direction.
Yes, the current reality on virtually all of those points is at variance (and not in a good way) with the ideals expressed - but I didn't see any 'presumption' to the contrary. But getting people to take a hard look at why that real-ideal gap exists and how it came to be is itself of value.
Most people won't be bothered, but if a determined minority are motivated to act, that is significant.
It's getting clearer all the time that there are some horrific consequences of failing to make the attempt.
“I said "Somebody should do something about that." Then I realized I am somebody.”
― Lily Tomlin
You lost me early in the second paragraph
with
We have never been a democracy, from the day the Constitution was a first draft it was a representative democracy. Big difference.
Additionally, in the intervening years our ‘representatives’ and their judicial appointees have further diluted our already diluted ‘democracy’ by including corporations as ‘people’ and allowing the intrusion of vast amounts of corporate dollars to
influencebuy the service of ‘representatives’ for the benefit of corporations instead of people. This is now common and ‘accepted’ practice for both Republican and Democratic ‘representatives’.Lip service to ‘democracy’ is apparently only applicable, in practice, here in the good old USofA. As far as the rest of the world is concerned, our foreign policy is disingenuous in the extreme. We call it ‘spreading democracy’. What it actually is is empire building and asset stripping, wrapped in a flag. We remove democratically elected leaders of countries with someone more
friendlyaccommodating in the looting of their own country. Lather-rinse-repeat, this has been the repeating modus operandi for all of the 74 years I have walked on this planet. Republican or Democrat, both.Democracy (not in quotes) is a fine idea, and I embrace almost every fine aspiration contained in the Declaration you shared. The problem is we don’t have a democracy in reality, but only in words. If we are seriously hoping to move from where we are today to the embodiment of the democracy depicted above, we had better start by recognizing where we actually are before setting out to ‘save democracy’ or fix it.
“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
Good morning ovals. I fear that you err here:
unless you salvage that assertion by saying something akin to "of course, only a small elite was intended to be and was in fact represented. The representatives would and did, perforce, represent only those with the franchise. No Indians. No Women. No enslaved persons. And, in most places, nobody lacking property.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Perhaps I should have added this quote.
Link
It’s a bit harsh, but not far from the truth about democracy, at least as it has been practiced here in the US. The quote was made in the context of the US efforts to shape and impose its own narratives of China and its history, therefore not particularly germane w/r/t the Democratic Party spin manifesto I was responding to.
“What the herd hates most is the one who thinks differently; it is not so much the opinion itself, but the audacity of wanting to think for themselves, something that they do not know how to do.”
-Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
democracy
To my mind we have a democracy -- with all the faults you point out. But to fix it, we must save it from annihilation by the radical right.
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows." - Robert Frost
Could you be more specific
about what you mean by annihilation by the radical right? Who is doing what to annihilate what, in particular?
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
The radical right ...
... kleptocrats, theocrats, coup plotters and operatives, Trump backers, election deniers, and other bad-faith actors threaten to take more political offices, and further restrict voting, take control of vote counting, ban books, impose religous rules, open the door to even more billionaire and corporate money corruption, throw out the civil service and go with the spoils system, clampdown on press freedom, on judicial independence, use the levers of power to punish political opponents, etc.
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows." - Robert Frost
Thanks for elaborating
on the threat posed by those right-wing crazies. One can't be too careful.
Just to be clear, though:
'kleptocrats' = the Pelosis? Bidens? Obamas? Clintons? BLM grifters? Soros?
'theocrats' = Greta Thunberg? Algore?
'coup plotters and operatives' = Chris Wray? Crowd Strike? Rob Rosenstein? Col. Vindman? State Dept. Color Revolution professionals? Lawfare? Alphabet Agencies in collusion with social media to suppress dissent?
'Trump backers' = 70-plus million Americans? (not to mention millions of non-Americans)?
'election deniers' = people objecting to the serial embarrassing chaos of election conduct in places like Maricopa Co.? Those insisting on voter rolls including only real, living, qualified voters with verified residence where they are registered? Those insisting on auditable paper trails for vote counting, secure chains of custody for ballots? Those demanding access to all phases of the process by independent observers? Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden?
or perhaps you mean refer to those challenging certification of Electoral College slates, like DemReps Jim McGovern, Jamie Raskin, Pramila Jayapal, Raul Grijalva, Sheila Jackson Lee, Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters did in 2017?
'bad-faith actors' = Jussie Smollett? Alec Baldwin?
'take more political office' = Win elections?
'further restrict voting' = to live human voters with a legal right to vote (once, where they legally reside)?
'control vote counting' = by having it conducted in as transparent and auditable manner as possible?
'ban books' = Zelensky?
'impose religious rules' = enforced obeisance to Anthropogenic Climate Change? Critical Race Theory?
'even more billionaire and money corruption' = Seems to have been proceeding nicely before, during and after Trump. Do you refer to the hundreds of millions by which Democrats outspent Republicans in 2022? In places like Michigan, Arizona, Wisconsin, Washington? Perhaps the hundreds of millions Mark Zuckerberg spent in 2020? Maybe the millions spent by George Soros to buy district attorney and judical races? Maybe Big Pharma ownership of the FDA and CDC? Are right-wing radicals threatening to out-grift the Bidens and Clintons?
'throw out the civil service system' = dismantle the FBI? IRS? BATF? TSA?
'replace it with a spoils system' = One better than the current one where generals go to to think tanks and defense contractors, CDC directors go to Big Pharma, FBI and CIA spooks go to jobs in social media?
'clampdown on press freedom' = like using the government to covertly censor and deplatform independent and even mainstream media (like, say, the New York Post) to suppress important news (like, say, the Hunter Biden laptop) to benefit a particular candidate and influence the outcome of a critical election, potentially threatening national security in the process (like, umm, Joe Biden in the 2020 election)??
'threaten judicial independence' = by threatening impeachment of judges for ruling that they do not have jurisdiction over something? (to the uniniated that would appear to be whatever the opposite of a power grab is)
'use the levers of power to punish political opponents' = Like employing the IRS to target those with differing ideology? Like prosecuting peaceful protesters? Like imprisoning accused in sub-Gitmo conditions for years pre-trial? Like forcing people who stand trial in a politically charged case to do so in a place where 90-plus percent of the potential jury pool are of an opposing ideology (and by a large but smaller margin of different race and gender)?
Or simply killing them?
Right?
It should be clear
-- that kewl rhetorical postures do not a position make:
It's clear that one can babble anything these days and be taken as "having a position," since all sorts of people are coming into this diary and reading the "Democrats 101" platform as staking out some sort of idealistic position on things, whereas in fact Purvis and the Democrats 101 people do not appear to be advocating anything significantly different from what we all have now.
The reductio ad absurdum of Democrats 101 thinking was the 2019-2020 Presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg. Remember that this guy actually got a few votes, an honor not conveyed upon Kamala Harris, who became Vice President. Buttigieg, it turned out, was an expert in stringing nice-sounding words together, imbuing them with the vocal gestures of President Obama, and saying absolutely nothing. There used to be a "Pete Buttigieg speech engine," a computer program that could create Pete Buttigieg speeches. I wonder what happened to it -- it was impressive.
What has happened to language is that the rules for actually saying something have become more daunting, because of the great proliferation of incoherent messaging circulating on the Internet and elsewhere. Advertising (and here I would recommend the volumes titled "Social Communication In Advertising") has of course led the way. Most advertising is incoherent. It's quite possible at this point that the public does not know if the messages they are receiving are coherent or not, since the important things about these messages are the hot-button words they use.
As for the hungeski list and the Blue Republic response, it's a matter of "dismissive" nothing new vs. "skeptical" nothing new. But let's be clear about one side-note:
There's this idea called "physics," you see. It suggests that the world is made up of atomic building blocks, and that the movement of those building blocks is in fact what we see in the world. Physics is generally regarded as true because its rules are the basis for technologies we use every day. A two-volume book called "The Way Things Work" lays out how physics works as such. The big caveat, here, is that "The Way Things Work" was written in a different era, when people cared a lot more than they do now about coherence.
One controversial notion spread by climate scientists, and a climate scientist is in fact a type of physicist, is that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide conditions increased average global temperatures. This notion can be demonstrated in a laboratory, or one can simply look at the data we have on the planet Venus, where the atmosphere is nearly all carbon dioxide and is 92 times thicker than it is here, conditioning a temperature of between 800 and 900 degrees Fahrenheit despite a day that is 243 times longer than it is on Earth. The notion about carbon dioxide has been considered to include the insertion of carbon dioxide into the Earth's atmosphere by industry, which has increased Earth's atmospheric carbon dioxide endowment by about half. The increase correlates with hotter average temperatures.
You can call this "religion" all you want, but if physics is religion, why stop with questioning its climate-science tenets? Maybe there's a religious conspiracy out there to persuade us all that dropped objects fall down, when in fact they fall up? Gravity is a myth, you see. If you say "no," then I will assume that you are part of the conspiracy. Maybe you're one of those conformists who's trying to force us to believe that the Earth is round when everyone knows it's flat.
It's like what Donald Trump convincingly showed after the 2020 election results were in. If you pompously insist that one thing is true and the other is false, and if you do it often enough, someone will believe you. And it does not matter if Trump's version of reality holds water or not, because in today's information environment all positions have been confounded into incoherence.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Excellent rejoinder
to what I would call an MSNBC view of the Innocent Dems vs. Guilty and Evil Republicans phrased so presumptuously. I halfway expected such a reply when I posed the question. Nevertheless, I persist in commending the effort to bind the Democratic Party to the set of principles related in the OP, which do not depend upon the hyperpartisan epistemology on display here.
As a union representative, we would somewhat cynically refer to lists of high-minded ideals like the 101 agenda as "aspirational" rather something we expect to attain. Those principles certainly call for ending all the excesses of Trump and his supporters and sponsors. They would also put an end to the way the Democratic Party operates. For that reason, I hope this effort spreads through the local dem parties around the country which could lead to an objective resolution to the dispute over factuality raised by hungeski's thread.
If the Dem hierarchy eventually embraces and abides by these aspirations, I will joyously eat a heaping helping of crow.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Sounds like a constructive attitude
More so than assuming anybody with a red cap is the enemy and refusing to attempt any positive engagement. Or dismissing the possibility of influencing anything at all and absolving oneself of any obligation to try and move things in a positive direction.
And, as they say, 'perseverance furthers'.
As an organizer, my guiding principle
'
was Count from zero up.
Never assume that you "should" have any minimum. Right now, in terms of my personal preferences for both public policy and the political means of affecting it, I got bupkis. I see no value in opposing good ideas just because they aren't good enough -- or because the personalities pushing them aren't in perfect harmony with me. To make anything good happen, one needs allies, not enemies. I got enough enemies already.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Good morning, not to pile on, but the crux of the matter
lies here:
If one's alleged beliefs and values are contrary to all or nearly of ones acts and policies, the laws and regulations one enacts or enables, the judges one approves, the operational rules of the senate and house that one enacts or approves, the budgets one passes and the like, how can even allege to assert that one, in fact, holds said principles and beliefs?
Repeating this creed while failing to act on it will simply generate charges of hypocrisy or misrepresentation.
be well and have a good one.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Well, certainly agree on this bit
And the charges would be justified.
But the point of the exercise (apparently) is to get people to commit to *acting* according the the enunciated principles.
Even if it means calling out the hypocrites of one's 'own' party (current Republican House rebellion against Kevin McCarthy an excellent example). I see Democrats gloating over the intra-GOP civil war, but where is the Dem-side rebellion? AOC was *the* lone D vote against the Omnibus monstrosity - very much to her credit but not exactly ground swell...
And even (gasp) attempting to find common ground with others on foundational issues (elections? empire? informed consent?) irrespective of the R, D, I, G or whatever behind their name.
"A man’s rights rest in three boxes. The ballot box, jury box and the cartridge box. Let no man be kept from the ballot box because of his color. Let no woman be kept from the ballot box because of her sex.”
Fredrick Douglass speech - November 15, 1867
"The ballot or the bullet" - Malcolm X
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I want the democratic party to father my children
Let's travel down memory lane via Jimmy Dore and Tom Perez. Rehash of old losing strategy: leading with values.
@MrWebster This Democrats 101
This Democrats 101 movement is from the grassroots. Any politician getting in front of this parade will have to walk the walk.
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows." - Robert Frost
Trouble is, they've gotten very good at faking it n/t
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Yup
If you can fake sincerity, ya got it made.
My initial reaction was in line with all the other rtesponses
above.
But I do not see a practical suggestion for an alternative.
My own snarky instinct was to suggest adding Apple Pie to the list of homilies. I also flashed on the obvious thought that "saving democracy" begs the question, "What democracy?" Finally, I was thinking about the reference to the Boogie Man of Fox News and the implication that other "news" outlets are truthful rather than mendacious.
But I am cheered by this grass roots activism. Smug condescension awaits these folks from the higher levels of their party. I don't see anything beneficial to come from being the first to burst their bubble.
I'd love to see this down-top initiative turn into a real problem for the owners of the Dem half of the Uni-Party. These Apple Pie precepts pose a fundamental challenge to our government, and the sooner everybody realizes that the better.
Who knows? Maybe this kind of Emperor has no clothes paradigm could catch on.
Pushing for thses ideas is not dumb. Naive, maybe. But nothing else but pessimism is going on now.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
I have no hope at this point
The recent idea that South Carolina replace Iowa as the first primary is a clear case of rigging the system so that no lefty can ever get the lead in delegates. The argument that South Carolina is more racially diverse than Iowa, while true, is supposed to shame us into not looking at how conservative the Democrats are there. California is also more racially diverse than Iowa but CA is much more liberal so would never be considered as the first primary state. Looking at the numbers nationwide and then by state, Florida, New York and New Jersey are the closest to representative of those registered as Democrats. They're harder to control (or rig, which is pretty much the same thing) as South Carolina.
In short, the Democratic values, according to the party insiders, is to give the appearance of equality while clamping down on the peoples' right to choose the candidates and the direction of the party.
I feel the vision behind these words.
It sounds like a place where all is well with the world. I honestly have never lived in a Democracy.
If everyone shared that vision of society and that vision of the role of government as a FIRST priority — and if they practiced it until it became normalized and instinctive, we would be living in a much better country — one that conferred basic Human Rights upon its people. The US would be a country where all people had a home and could sleep indoors, where no children were plagued by constant hunger, where all citizens can be well educated, and most could prosper and remain healthy.
But Americans have very different FIRST priorities when it comes to what they expect from a government. Many of these conflicting priorities are based on paranoia and propaganda that is programmed into them by select US media Elections just seem to make everything worse. In the post-industrial era, Democracies are disappointing and people are neglected. Democracies are in decline around the world.
If Plato, the man who invented Democracy, was here today, he would say, "I told you so. Democracies always degrade into dictatorships."
One problem are elections, themselves. Seeking a majority to impose its will upon the minority is obviously the wrong approach. It puts half the population in a state of constant bi-polar dread. That's why Democratic elections are becoming increasingly violent and corrupt — both in the US and around the world. The democratic ideal should be to seek consensus. Consensus is a different process, altogether. It's more work and more participatory, and it takes a lot longer, but the process builds trust and understanding for the long term. Also, switching to a meritocracy for candidates would vastly improve the quality of government. Potential leaders would be picked from among the most talented, experienced, educated, and admired experts in their particular field, who have also returned to University for an advanced degree in government operations, ethics, diplomacy, legal theory, and management. . Don't Americans deserve extraordinary quality in their government?
But my comments are pointless now. We all should know that the government is owned, and it has been owned since the Industrial Revolution. This is the government that will give Americans more of the same representation. The Party bosses will run candidates who meet the needs of the Establishment elite, who ultimately fund US elections. The American People will use their votes in a Democratic process.... but with more Democratic spirit in some parts of Ohio. Hopefully, our journey to meet our national destiny will also be accompanied by comforting Democratic feelings.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
Ah, Plato.
And so all the philosophers said just this thing, between the time when Athenian democracy died in 322 BCE and the 18th-century Enlightenment. Eusebius of Caesarea, for instance, assumed that the ideal political order was one with one God in Heaven and one emperor on Earth. The great flaw in the thinking of all these philosophers is that dictatorships always degrade into dictatorships as well. All such governments depend upon the abilities, waxing and waning with time, of those at the top to stay at the top rather than being dragged down by contenders. As such, the dictators' "staying at the top" activities tend to be the primary focus of such governments.
The reductio ad absurdum of dictatorial rule was put into practice in the Roman Empire in the east -- the "Byzantine Empire" as named by later historians. The Byzantines' principle of government was that if you were the Emperor, you stayed that way until someone killed you, and then they became the Emperor until someone killed them. The system lasted a long time, a fact celebrated by present-day "conservative" historians. It was eventually brought down by the bad political decisions of those at the top.
Indeed consensus-based societies do democracy through consensus, and are distrustful of democracy elsewhere. Such societies are always small enough to permit of consensus meetings.
The good news is that even when one wants quick decisions of large numbers of people there are a variety of options. "Democracy" does not have to mean a society in which the "free speech" that matters is the transfer of wealth between rich people to determine the outcomes of elections in which the winners are granted unlimited opportunities to conspire against the rest of us.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
@Pluto's Republic
But those in the halls of power are already all of those things -- just ask them and they'll confirm that they are the most deserving persons to hold their positions. There are many legal, poly sci, international relations etc degrees already held by those people, and the mostly all seem to agree on the same things.
As someone with a business degree, I think that we've got too many people who want to "treat government like a business" and impose austerity so as to "balance the books". There are too many MBAs/McKinsey alumni (Pete Buttegieg for one) in government who feel that all it takes to run anything is to have the right credentials proclaiming one to be a "master of the universe".
If you can figure out how people can be awarded degrees in "being a sensible person/good citizen (of the world)/not a psychopathic jerk" that is a meritocracy I might be interested in seeing.
I'm always amused by
the idea that our liberation is based on:
I am not quite sure where this particular passage is coming from. Is this the ritual celebration of "small business" by politicians who know that their money comes from big business? It should be quite clear that the layout of a capitalist economy depends upon where the investment opportunities are, not upon whether or not the businesses are cute and cuddly or big and monolithic.
Otherwise "Democrats 101" appears as an assertion of "rights" and a set of "demands" which, if satisfied, will give us the exact same world we have today, right now.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
monopolies
To me this means fair competition and freedom from monopolies.
"We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows." - Robert Frost
We have freedom from monopolies now.
We've had it since the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
As for "fair competition," the competitive advantage of big businesses is that they are able to operate on much smaller margins than small ones. Is there something supposedly unfair about that?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
In theory, yes.
But it's like the old Yogi Berra quote: "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.".
I haven't seen any new TV networks or newspapers start up and succeed, here recently- and in terms of social media, the only large-scale survivors are now government-controlled entities (the ultimate monopoly).
What we have may not be monopolies in name. But they are starting to walk and quack just like 'em.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
This is because -- as I said --
Say, you and I -- do you think we could start an airline company? Southwest Airlines sucks. The public deserves an alternative. We'd have a cute and cuddly small business, which certainly could run nationwide air travel better than Southwest has done. I'll use all of the pennies in my piggy bank. That should be enough, right?
Of course it isn't, and it isn't because the capitalist economy of this moment in time is determined by businesses which have to be too big for "average investors" to create. Investment opportunities include car companies, airline companies, utilities, farms, and so on -- businesses which must be huge if their day-to-day operations are to keep them out of insolvency.
The romanticism of small business is a reactionary ideology. It fights the commonsense observation that all of the "too big to fail" businesses would be better run if they were directly controlled BY THE PUBLIC. Take Southwest Airlines for instance. It screwed up, thousands of people were hurt, and Pete "I'm owned by big business" Buttigieg looked the other way. Do you hear any calls for the NATIONALIZATION of Southwest Airlines and its proper control vested in a manager whose control of her or his job depended upon staying on good terms with the ticket-buying public?
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
The US has horribly neglected antitrust laws.
The inflation Americans are currently experiencing comes directly from the US monopoly economy.
____________________
The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
As I suggested above --
certain businesses are in fact part of oligopolies because of the logistics of day-to-day business operation. Oligopolies are, to be sure, not monopolies, and thus not covered by the 1890 Act. Nonetheless what you say is true, and the conversation about nationalizing big business should start up again.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
fair competition and freedom from monopolies
is self contradictory. Pure, unfettered laissez faire capitalism gets you to where we are and nothing else is "Fair competition".
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Yup.
The Democrats have long since removed themselves from consideration as a path towards any possible solution to our political headaches. They are far too invested in the status remaining quo.
The sooner Joe and Mary Sixpack realize that, the better. However, the current breads-and-circuses seem to be having the desired effect of keeping their attentions focused elsewhere.
I lack wisdom and/or inspiration as to how to fix that, without our wars actually coming to our shores. I'm beginning to think that it is going to take a couple Cyrillic-labeled cruise missiles knocking the Ferris wheel off the Santa Monica Pier to get people's attention...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_PeQCPq8QA width:400 height:300]
(grim smiley face)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
The realization of "Democrats 101," here --
appears to be that good energy can be pumped into the democratic process if we start with a dream of how things ought to be. That's a great realization! It's better than having a manifesto which starts with the words "vote Blue no matter who." The problem as I see it is that the dream they have cooked up, as evidenced by the text above, would benefit from some -- rather any -- application of the human imagination. We can go over this point by point if people want.
"there's something so especially sadistic about waving the flag of a country that you're actively destroying" -- Aaron Mate
Absolutely agree.
The unfortunate point, though, is that the Democratic Party as an entity is demonstrably not going to be participating in these epiphanies, and will in fact actively seek to undermine, block, or co-opt implementation of them at every point. For a viable structure, we will have to look elsewhere.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
That "creed" has about as
That "creed" has about as much relevance as the party platform. One of the things that helped me to switch my voter registration from "D" to "no party preference" was several cycles of reading the Dem platform and thinking "that all sounds very nice but I see no indication that they are attempting to do any of it".
Ahh.
"that all sounds very nice but I see every indication that they are attempting to avoid every tenet of it like the fucking plague".
There. FTFY... (;-)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.