Dkos: It's time to start playing Offense Dems

[Vyan]

By the time of, or at least soon after the State of the Union, Democrats -- not just the party, but we the rank and file - need to realize it's time to stop playing Defense and start playing Offense.

Simply complaining endlessly about the failings and foibles of the Bush Administration isn't enough (Although it's fun and theraputic). We also, vitally, need to point out how and why our path and philosophy is better. Some of this is obvious - Curruption and Lies:Bad, Honesty:Good - but on some issues we still need some work (Taxation, Governments Role in our lives, Being comfortable in our own faith, Support nearly for unlimited Abortion).


It's well past the point where we made everyone understand who we really and where we stand rather than let Bully O'Reilly's repeatedly define us as the Far-Left Secular-Progressives who with to put porn in your homss 24/7, take God out of your lives, and homosexualize your teenagers.

We'll never get Bush's true poll numbers down to just those who actually believe in the policies he implements - as opposed to the policies he exposes - to finally show up as the 12-15% of hard-core bat-crazed wing-nuts that they are.

We have to realize that what we have staring us in the face - is a completely golden oppurtunity to completely repudiate the policies and practicies of the neo-conservative movement and set them back for decades, if not completely run them out of politics.

I know that seems like a tall order, but bear with me. The truth is the neo-cons who currently control the Republican party are hell-bent on self-destruction. They're like deeply addicted power-junkies who don't know when or how to restrain themselves. Just look at Jack Abramoff's behavior - openly scorning his own clients with epithets and insults in email, after email. Everyday we hear about another scandal, another hotbed of curruption and incompetence.

* The Bush Administration failed to head the numerous warnings, and crunch the intelligence to prevent 9-11.
* Osama Bin Laden got away at Tora Bora.
* Koran Desecration, Humiliation, Stress positions and Waterboarding at Guantanemo Bay. One prisoner, al-Libi, claims under duress that Iraq still has Nuclear aims - he's Wrong.
* We go to War with Iraq, but all the WMD and Nuclear intelligence, our justification for going to war, is all Wrong.
* We didn't have enough troops to secure the nation allowing a deadly Iraqi insurgency to grow and spread, we still don't properly equip them with proper armor or helmets - if they try to equip themselves they get threatened, and we've cut their benefits while locking them into perpetual service with "Stop-loss" policies. All the Pentagon's expectations and plans are just plain Wrong.
* Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff "Scooter" Libby Indicted, Rove implicated in Plame Affair.
* Abu Graib gets Gitmo-ized, and photos of prisoners in humiliating poses and stress positions begin to appear. Repubs claim it was just "frat styled hazing" on the night shift - they're Wrong.
* Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay Indicted for Money Laundering.
* $8.8 Billion just plain disappears in Iraq under the Coalition Provisional Authority.
* 2000 U.S. Soldiers dead since "Mission Accomplished", 50,000 wounded. Another estimated 100,000 Iraqi casualties, President Bush only admits to 30,000.
* Secret Detention Centers and the Extraordinary Rendition program.
* Terry Schiavo gets her own personal Congressional Legislation and a Grandstanding Red-Eye flight by the President to sign it. Republican Heart surgeon and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist gives her a video diagnosis, "She seems responsive to light". She dies anyway as per her wishes, and the autopsy shows that she was blind.
* The levees break in New Orleans - Bush remains on vacation and in avoidance of Cindy Sheehan.
* Republican Congressman "Duke" Cunningham pleads guilty to bribery.
* Republican Lobbyists Mike Scanlon and Jack Abramoff plead guilty to bribery of Congressmen. Tom Delay and Bob Ney implicated. Repubs and Corporate Media try to implicate Dems also, but they're Wrong.
* The NSA has been spying on American's without a warrant for over four years and causing the FBI to be flooded with makeshift busy-work instead of focusing on legitimate threats. Bush Admin claims they could've stopped 9-11 if they'd already been doing this, except that they were and they are still Wrong.


And just in the last couple days you also have.

* Halliburton allowed our troops to drink contaminated water in Iraq, meanwhile $Millions of rebuilding funds were lost and squandered,
* The White House was specifically informed that the levees could fail before Katrina hit, and did nothing.

Just look around, these guys are crashing and burning all on their own steam. Democrats have had almost nothing to do with any of it. Yes, a few voted for the Iraq War - but that was based on intelligence that the Bush Administation gave them, and it was Wrong. The blame belongs where on the people who provided the information, not those who were duped by it.

Yet, there are those who simply refuse to believe all the above. They live in a world of pseudo-reality, swamped by denial and self-deception. They know and suspect the truth, but can't bring themselves to admit it -like a junkie who can't put down the Fundie/Wingnut crack-pipe. They get bogged down in semantics - "How can you say Bush lied", and we get bogged down with them - arguing irrelevancies.

Truth is, it doesn't matter whether Bush lied or not - he was Wrong, and that's the point. We can't afford a President who makes this many bone-head mistakes and is wrong this often, deliberate or not. If he lied, well then he simply knew he was wrong, so he's a bastard - but if he didn't, he was just plain ignorant now wasn't he? Just which is really worse? I vote being a bastard is better than being a deluded dumb-ass, but maybe that's just me.

Bush personally shouldn't be the target anyway IMO, he's a lame duck President. The target needs to be the Bush Administration as a non-functioning organization, Cheney, Rove and all of Bush's political appointees like Brownie need to be the target - and of course their lackeys in Congress.

What people need to know, is just what Dems will do about all this?

More details, links and suggestions at...
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/25/104326/245

[JuniperLea]

1. BushCo must be held accountable

for all of the above.

[fooj]

2. Yep. It's time to fight like hell for our country.

These rat bastards aren't going anywhere.

Peace.