Democrats #1 issue SHOULD BE ...

[lanparty]

The Democrats #1 issue should be the end of NAFTA and WTO. There is already a popular movement for this. It would pick up where Ross Perot left off. It would also tap into a LOT of those rural anti New World Order folks who see the United States as surrendering it's sovereignty to foreigners!!!

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Wish Clinton had thought of that.

-----------------------------------------------------------
Support Cobb, Nader, and Badnarik as they pursue recounts!
http://www.geocities.com/greenpartyvoter/electionreform.htm

[eataTREE]

2. I agree wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately, many of the prominent Democrats in Congress were in Congress when NAFTA passed and voted for it. We have less than perfect credibility on this issue. Perhaps someone who has been elected since NAFTA (hello, Mr. Obama?) can make it an issue.

[lanparty]

12. I don't think so ...

They only thing you have to do is say that things have NOT worked out and you were wrong. It's clear that it was a mistake and the Republicans refuse to see the error and our leading our nation to financial ruin through outsourcing and offshoring and forcing Americans to compete on a wage basis with people who make .50 cents an hour!!!

[lovedems]

3. There are so many issues we can't just focus on one.

We can do alot! There are alot of us!

[autorank]

4. Excellent! First rate.

Corporate America controls the media and we get manufactured news.
Corporate America now controls the voting machines and we get manufactured elections.

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/

[wyldwolf]

5. Not that I totally disagree, but I see one problem...

..I'd be willing to be the average voter doesn't know much or anything about this issue.

Would it be an uphill battle to both educate the citizens AND beat back any opposition propaganda?

[FizzFuzz]

6. No, Dem's no 1 issue should be THE DEMOCRATIC NETWORK

BROADCASTING COMPANY.

That way you can have your own program dedicated to this issue. Other programming dedicated to how values are being twisted by the RW. Other programs on election fraud and BBV.

What we need is our own Media Network.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=2632024&mesg_id=2632024

[catbert836]

7. Why didn't I think of that?

You're right, that is the best issue. No way repukes could beat us on that.

[Lizz612]

8. I disagree

I don't know what the #1 issue should be but globalization cannot be stopped. I don't think it could ever be stopped, the world has always been shrinking as transportation improved and globalization is the logical conclusion. The focus surrounding globalization should be on making it something that people can live with. If you try to stop this sort of progress it will just run you over. Rather just try to steer it in such a way so that the maximum number of people benefit from it.

[lanparty]

13. Bullshit!!!!

Globalization is an artificial construction that is ENFORCED upon us. The natural state is self-reliance and the local distribution of goods and services.

WTO and NAFTA were a VERY hard sell on the US population. Even the blue collar "right to work" crowd didn't like it.

No I think it would be VERY simple to dismantle.

[Lizz612]

19. They may not like it

but how many of them shop at Wal-Mart? Globalization has made things cheap. Too cheap in many instances, but cheap none the less. How many things around you were totally made in the US? Don't delude yourself, the US is not the industrial powerhouse it used to be. To make it that power again would be difficult. Factories would need to be built, raw materials would have to be found, and people would have to be convinced to give up their dreams of having a service job and work in a factory. How many people do you know that are willing to assemble VCRs for a living?

Now don't get me wrong, I hate the path that globalization has taken. Too many people are getting the short end of the stick, while the CEOs profit. The jobs are lost here in the US and the people in India and China that get the job get paid next to nothing and their environment gets polluted. But I don't think that it can be stopped. I think that this is a logical extension of the colonial economic system and the improvements in bulk transportation.

Capitalism sucks, but when tempered with socialist systems to protect the masses from being exploited, it works well and is fair to those who do work hard. Thats what needs to happen to globalization. It needs to be tempered with a concern for workers rights and an environmental policy that saves the planet for all of us.

Standing in front of a train wont stop it, but pulling the right switches will get it where it can be useful.

[JohnKleeb]

20. I gotta agree with you on this one Beth

I don't like globalization either but I think it would hard to stop it. If we had tried to stop it when it was beginning to be a problem, I agree it would be possible. I too don't like it but you are right, so many things in our households are foreign made. We can though I think make some steps to stop it, and maybe bring some industries back home. Agree with what you're saying on this.

[lanparty]

21. Just wait till next year ...

... when SO many jobs are exported that even the shit at Wal-Mart is too expensive!!!!

[Lizz612]

24. Wal-Mart will never be too expensive

Wal-Mart will always push prices down. You know how they say they're always working to drive prices down? The really do. They force shippers to reduce their prices, they pay their employees less, exploit them more. The only place cheaper than Wal-Mart is GoodWill but there are somethings you can't get there and so the next thing up is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart will always make sure thats where they are.

But you didn't really address my main point. How do you plan on removing the US from these treaties? We do not have the power to simply extract ourselves from the world market. We can not isolate ourselves, we don't have the resources, both in terms of raw materials and motivated work force.

The best thing we can do, both as Americans and as liberals who care about the wellbeing of all people is to try to steer this thing so that the maximum number of people benefit from this.

[LTRS]

9. But how are they going to do that?

First of all, many Dems support NAFTA. Secondly, we aren't going to get ANY legislation passed for the next 2 yrs, just like we haven't the last 4. We do not have the votes in congress to make it happen.

It all centers on reframing the values debate at every opportunity. We need to pound that for the next 2 yrs NON STOP. That is how we take our government back.

[Bluebear]

10. After all, what percentage does this really affect?

:)

[Robert Oak]

11. too many dems sold out

Plus the issues are really complex, the studies on the results repressed
and then people famously make the mistake that global trade
means these agreements...

it does not at all.

One can write bilaterial trade agreements that promote tariff reduction and other issues to promote trade.

but NAFTA for example, actually gave huge power to the hands of a few elite in Mexico and hurt Mexican workers...one of the reasons now in mass, they are crossing the border. It also hurt American workers
badly.

but examining the results is complex and the propaganda "free trade is good" is touted even in the halls of harvard.

Most of these trade agreements are not 'free trade' at all and in fact,
give a disadvantage to America and US based corporations.

As a consensus, the only ones that really win are multinational corporatioins, investment bankers and international monetary exchange people.

The dems need to come out and say "we made a mistake" "we know much more know" and "we must fix this to be fair trade for all Americans"
and stop shaking in their boots for fear their multinational corporate
donors will cruxify them.

[lanparty]

14. Don't give a shit about "complex results" ...

The people believe it's shit. And the effect on our nation bear it out.

We were told to train for the "jobs of the future". Than they sent those jobs overseas. The argument is clear. All we're doing is sending the jobs to where people have the LEAST rights.

All those "harvard economists" just make people's eyes glaze over. This is a war of rhetoric, not facts and statistics. The fact that the statistics ultimately bear my point out is just gravy!!!

Beyond this their is a principle of being "self-sufficient". There is a principle that the US should stand on our own two feet. There is the principle that we SHOULDN'T trade with communists who treat their peoples as little more thatn slaves or serfs.

There is the principle national security. We are offshoring our manufacturing to the footsteps of China. And if you haven't noticed, they aren't exactly a Democracy.

Some say this is the right way to help China evolve into Democracy. I say the Chinese leadership is playing us like a fiddle. Once our manufacturing base (and our way of life) is located on the footsteps of China, we'll have no ability to affect our own destiny!!!

I do NOT think this is a coincidence. This is EXACTLY what the corporate globalists want. They want the erosion of nation-state powers in favor of a global feudalist system where capital votes in lieu of people!!!

CHINA is the ideal place to leverage because it is a totalitarian system that has figured out that centrally planned economies just don't work. So they're renting out their population as global serfs and collecting hte capital for their war-chest!!!

This rhetoric WORKS. The fact thats its TRUE is just gravy!!!!


We should concentrate our trade among like minded countries with similar standards of worker rights and environmental protections. Trade with other nations would be based on a system of graduated tariffs and quotas that would favor each nation according to it's merit.

In THIS way we can encourage the despots of the world to help their people!!!

[Robert Oak]

15. noslaves.com - on your side

they have turned off signatures, which normally has my group listed.

Complex doesn't make it right...they did screw the middle class and Clinton did sign it...but it started in the 70's and really hit stride in the 80's.

On our site are a series of articles etc. talking about policy adjustment that not only is better for workers and has a premise
that America is for everyone, but also proves that if done right..
America can be the number 1 world economy.

http://www.noslaves.com
http://forum.noslaves.com

[Lizz612]

25. See there you go!

I think this is really what you are getting at and I agree. We have a fucked up economic relationship with China, and it is going to bite us in the ass in the long run.

[rndmprsn]

16. hmmm...i like it

if we could frame it as a VALUES issue...this might be our wedge issue that can divide their base.

they value the WTO/NAFTA and outsourcing...we value american business and good jobs here

frame it in terms of what we value...fairness, hardwork and opportunity.

we've got to some up with our own wedge issues!

[leftofthedial]

17. paper ballots, end to electronic "voting"

then we can talk issues

[Nordic]

18. WTF? Listen, until we tackle BBV and the RW media, we're FUCKED

and it doesn't matter what we stand for, or who we nominate, or ANY OF THAT.

GET A CLUE EVERYBODY.

[Zookeeper]

22. That's right...

If we don't stop voter suppression, voting machine hacking and corporate media consolidation, we're lost. The Rethugs might throw us a few crumbs here and there just to make it look like our elections aren't rigged, but we will never really win or change anything.

[Eric J in MN]

23. I agree. Those are unpopular treaties people care about (nt)

nt