Why not take advantage of the conroversy started by Dean?

[loudnclear]

Given: There is a sizeable ignorant electorate…not stupid but just ignorant of the facts that they need to know, in large part because the oligarch who own the media and Congress in this country have lined up and bonded to keep it that way. Their tools: Talk radio and FOX News.

Question: Why is it that the Democratic candidates don’t use their wits to challenge the status quo and to educated the electorate who is used and abused by the oligarchs of both parties?

Talking points:

The US government (in whose name we send our children to fight and die)
Talk about how the very people who want to label war dissenters as “unpatriotic” themselves spew out the most horrible attacks on America and its government. There is nothing that our government has ever done that is correct in the eyes of talk radio hosts North, Limbaugh, Hannity etc. They speak as much hatred and smearing of our government as any terrorist group around. They support huge tax cuts (aimed primarily for the wealthy) that go toward social services that aid the poor, the unemployed, sick, disabled, children, education, infrastructure etc. They are for tax cuts for the corporations even as they move more and more of their jobs out of the country (now that’s real patriotic). They use the false issue of taxes running these corporations out of the country when in fact many of the jobs lost have been lost to automation and technology and will never come back. Huge profits are more important to businesses than what may be in the best interest of the nation.

They have been very successful in appealing to the most racist aspects of our culture. They have been able to convince poor working or unemployed whites in the south that all their problems are the result of tax dollars going to minorities and affirmative action. This gives them incentive to want to pick up a gun and go to war to rid the world of minorities of all stripes. Never mind that every decision that is made in this country that adversely affects southern poor whites is made by the members of the oligarchies that have little interest in the well-being of poor people of any color except to use them to serve their own greedy and elitist purposes. Think about it: The Civil War was fought to maintain the power structure and wealth of the “landed-gentry.” How many poor whites could even vote during that time. Yet, the same type of people controlling things today, were able to get the poorest white southerner to send their children off to fight and die by scaring them into believing that freeing slaves would be their demise. Same thing is happening today.

Taxes: do most people really know and understand that they will never pay an “estate tax?” Yet, the folks in charge have been able to convince the ignorant (thanks to the like of Rush) that estate taxes will hurt them. They don’t even understand that estate taxes is one way to redistribute wealth to benefit the nation as a whole.

But who among the Dem candidates is even approaching these questions? Not even Al.

It should not go unchallenged that Pat Robertson condoned blowing up the State Department…a statement that would have found most other people in jail ready to be sent to GITMO as a would-be terrorist.

Dean raised a huge, controversial issue that struck a raw nerve with almost everyone. But at least he raised the issue. Now he should pursue the issue to its meaningful conclusion by using the opportunity to educate those confederate-flag-gun-toting white boys about who really is their enemy.

[Hep]

1. As I said in our meetup last night

The one group who could most benefit from good, public schools is the "heritage not hate" crowd.

[BJ]

2. This is why the GOP is truly evil

I couldn't have said it better:"They have been very successful in appealing to the most racist aspects of our culture. They have been able to convince poor working or unemployed whites in the south that all their problems are the result of tax dollars going to minorities and affirmative action."

Not only the South but the Midwest, East and West. Wherever working-class whites are getting the short end of the stick. Remember the "Jim Crow" laws were really a method of keeping poor Southen whites and blacks from uniting against a common foe, the landed white aristocracy and industrialists.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. I believe Dean himself will do that

I am NOT anti-Dean but DID NOT care for the manner in which he expressed himself. Now that the issue has been raised, hopefully it leaves an opening for him to address the CLASS issues he raised with that statement. He, of course, USED the confederate flag because to do otherwise would have had news pundits claim he was creating a class war (which he was without saying it).

Now he can talk about it free of both terms.

[loudnclear]

4. How do we get him to follow through and rest of the candidates to help

inform the public about the real issues and how they have been manipulated.

[blm]

5. Sorry, nsma, the facts show he was discussing the NRA, not class issues

when he made that remark. Race and class had NOTHING to do with his remarks. He spun them sfterwards to say it was an effort to discuss race, when it really was an attempt to explain his NRA support. You all been played.

z
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/22649906.html
Kerry criticizes Dean's gun views
By THOMAS BEAUMONT
Register Staff Writer
11/01/2003
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>
Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, said Dean's opposition to an assault weapons ban in 1992, recorded in a National Rifle Association endorsement questionnaire, contradicts his position as a presidential candidate supporting a federal assault weapons ban.

Kerry supported the 1994 bill that outlawed the sale and ownership of assault weapons, which Dean says he now supports.

"Howard Dean, during the time we were trying to pass it, was appealing to the NRA for their support," Kerry said, while visiting a rural Story County farm.
"We don't need to be a party that says we need to be the candidacy of the NRA. We stand up against that."

Dean has said 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore lost the election because he failed to win Southern states, where disaffected Democrats who favor gun owners' rights were reluctant to support him.

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks," Dean said Friday in a telephone interview from New Hampshire. "We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

Dean said he answered the questionnaire while running for re-election as governor of Vermont. He has said he was never asked to sign a gun control bill during his Vermont tenure.
>>>>>>>

[loudnclear]

6. Same question, why can't the Dems use this opportunity?

makes sense to me.