would a war on poverty (named differently) be bad for the party?

[ulysses]

If so, why?

[dembotoz]

1. if a war on poverty is bad for the party

it would be time to switch parties

[ulysses]

2. damned single-issue voters...

;-)

[bobbolink]

8. Actually, I've had that said to me.

I won't name the candidate, but needless to say, I left working on that campaign.

Really, there is just as much ignorance on "our" side sometimes... :(

Thanks for this thread! Great question!

[RC]

3. Don't you think we have enough wars?

None of them have proven to be anywhere near winnable.

[uppityperson]

4. Have a different name. What would you propose this thing involve?

Enough with "war" talk, it is over used and getting overdone, how about The End of Poverty or some such.

[ulysses]

6. fair enough.

I was thinking about not resurrecting the ghost of LBJ, but you have a point about the language. I'd just like to see the party do *some* damned thing about the issue, under whatever name.

[uppityperson]

13. Would figuring out the reasons for poverty be part of it, or would it be

working to fix the outcomes? Serious question. Symptoms or cause? How far back for the cause? What for symptoms? Would it involve redistribution of wealth? How about societal values (worshipping the almighty dollar, consume consume consume, don't forget the new fall fashions! though why do you need to change your style all the time anyway?)?

Jobs, education, child care, transportation, health care, housing, food, etc.

Edited to say I just realized I didn't answer your OP, but jumped into thinking about ending poverty. To answer, I do not see how this could be a bad thing, unless it ended up being just another way to dupe people (aka no child left behind, etc). Make it real and it would not be a bad thing.

[ulysses]

14. yes.

I mean that seriously. It'll take all of that, or most anyway.

Symptoms or cause? How far back for the cause? What for symptoms? Would it involve redistribution of wealth?

Both symptoms and cause - symptoms will eventually become their own cause. How far back - how about today? I'm not talking about assigning blame, but getting something accomplished. And define what you mean by "redistribution of wealth". If you mean progressive taxation, then yes.

Jobs, education, child care, transportation, health care, housing, food, etc.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, etc. I'm talking a national investment.

[misanthrope]

5. It would be successfully characterized as "Un-American"**nm

**

[ulysses]

7. what couldn't be characterized in the same way?

Oppose the occupation if Iraq? Recycle your cans? Drive a Prius? Refuse to pray in school? Support reproductive rights?

Feh. Anything can be characterized as "un-American". Poor reason not to do the right thing.

[bobbolink]

9. This is such an important issue, and I'm sad it doesn't get the responses.

That's what I'd like to know... *why* doesn't this very good question elicit much thought and response?

It is reminding me of the speech by Elie Wiesel, and the Peril Of Indifference.

:cry:

[ulysses]

10. I think we get overwhelmed sometimes,

and it doesn't have to be that way. I think we can cut through a lot of the crap, we just need to figure out how.

[bobbolink]

11. "overwhelmed" is what I keep hearing.

Butttt..... that begs the question... why aren't people "overwhelmed" with the war to the point of giving up and not even discussing it?

Nope.. I think there's something else at play here....

I really think we aren't the people we used to be....

:cry:

I'm open to any and all ideas you may have....

And thanx again for posting this!

[otherlander]

12. To hell with the Party, then.

The Party is an abstract concept. Poverty is real.

[bobbolink]

17. "The Party is an abstract concept. Poverty is real."

Beautiful!

:applause:

[Hekate]

15. War on this, war on that. Does it have to be called a "war"?

How about if we think of a different way to frame the issue?

Hekate

[Zomby Woof]

16. No

My current support of John Edwards is based mainly on him addressing poverty. He is one of the few major candidates since RFK to make it a central theme of his platform. Class is still a maddeningly taboo subject in America, thanks to more than a century of mindless Horatio Alger bootstrap mythologizing and endless consumerism teaching us that if you leverage yourself to the eyeballs, you too can Achieve The American Dream.

The message is more important than the messenger, and predictably the message is getting drowned out in noise. Noise largely being the collective hum of Americans holding their hands up to their ears and saying "LALALA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" when the subject of class division arises.

Confronting poverty and the disparity of wealth in this country would not only be good for the party, it would be good for the nation and the world.

[bobbolink]

18. Thank you so much.

We poor folks feel very isolated and alone.

Your words mean a lot to me.

Again, thank you. :toast:

[JVS]

19. Waged in what way?

If this is a Edwards thread, please explain what he plans to do to help the situation and how that is better than what his opponents plan to do.

[blondeatlast]

20. No (but the terminology has to go), and it just might unify the country in a way

that few things have lately.

It could be amazing, IMHO. The federal government, the educational systems, and simple volunteer efforst such as planting gardens in poverty stricken areas.

I would dearly love to see thi.

[Edweird]

21. You mean like some kind of DEAL? A deal that isn't the same old deal? Like a NEW deal?

[ulysses]

25. maybe a CONTRACT

:shrug:

[Edweird]

26. Maybe something like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

[ulysses]

27. well, updated of course.

But yeah, the New Deal is kinda what I had in mind.

[gravity]

22. A war on poverty is just empty words

The plan behind it, is what's really important.

[blondeatlast]

23. Since there is supposrt for the issue but disdain for the terminology, let's

brainstorm, DU.

It needs to be catchy and easy to say--that's the way things get sold in politics.

If something comes to you, post it here.

[ulysses]

24. I'm not good at stuff like this.

Anyone else?

[bobbolink]

28. I don't do titles or bumperstickers.

I think the stuff inside is the important part... the window-dressing can come later.

Unfortunately, what we have to discover is the "hook" that gets muddleclass people to care.

I've been having discussions with lots of different people, and it's interesting.....everyone remembers their parents and grandparents helping others, including strangers. But, that's gone now.

All help is "farmed out" to what Jim Wallis terms "The Poverty Industry". So, it makes it easy for people to think that everything is taken care of, and that if you have "fallen between the cracks" it's your own fault and you're not willing to help yourself.

We poor folk have become increasingly invisible. When the New Deal was established, not only was there a president who was willing, and a First Lady who was on a mission, but *everyone* could see there were lots of poor people and they were suffering.

I don't know how to get people to care again. HEll, I don't even know how to get LIBERALS to care again.

Suffering and death just don't seem to matter, unless it's connected to the wwwaaaaarrrrrr.

:cry:

[Hidden Stillness]

29. Skip the Slogans, and Give the Explanation of the Program

I think the Democratic Party--the real one, not this current "D"LC, Inc. impostor--should just get back to its roots, (and a relationship with the actual American population), by treating the economy, corporate regulations, poverty, prices and wages, corporate taxes, etc., etc., as a thing controlled by the Government of a society, for the benefit of its citizens--not as a payoff for individual corporate contributors, come what may. If people are concerned about getting Americans to pay attention to what goes on in Government, then do something that relates to them, and helps something about their actual lives. People who are price-gouged, on a fixed-income or minimum wage, who can't pay off their credit card bills, medical bills, student loans, etc., increasingly in debt, with no increased income, do not want to hear fucking SLOGANS that never relate to them.

I hate "framing" and slogans, jargon, "spin," and all the rest, and I think it has all contributed to the decline of critical thinking, and civic interest. If I thought all legislators were commercial sales-pitch sluts, I would be repulsed from it, too. Further, "framing" does not even give the best reasons or logic for supporting a position or program. It actually kills the deeper constructive thinking that leads you to an articulation or defense of your opinion, and replaces it with something that cuts right to the attempted mind-control, cutting off all thought that led to it, cutting off all debate, stupid about what the arguments are for a thing. I always think of it as if I were trying to make a case to an earlier, more literary, less visual, generation, and I actually have to explain things.

A couple of people on this thread have already referred to the New Deal, which was, and remains, the greatest complete approach of programs, departments,and legislation, dealing with this crisis, and I also agree that we should just do that again. There isn't even any need to pretend to be doing anything new. With the increasing poverty, now reaching levels of the middle class who were all right before the current Bush/Cheney Administration, there are more people than ever who understand this problem, more millions waiting for a solution--and so nothing even needs to be "explained"; they know very well what their suffering is! All you need to do is explain what you will do, so that you show that YOU understand it--there is no question anymore that the lowly "sheeple" have understood this crisis for years now, they do not need convincing!

Rather than taking the "consultant" route, pretending to be smarter than all the "sheeple" you now presume to lead around by the nose--while ignorantly telling them nothing about your program and how it will solve things--we should take the approach of Franklin Roosevelt, whose very first Fireside Chat to the American people, on March 12, 1933 just after taking office (March, back then), explaining the new laws protecting people's savings in banks, so they would no longer be lost if the bank failed, but now Federally insured, "I want to tell you what has been done in the last few days, why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be." Those were the first words Roosevelt ever told the Nation on radio, as President. They knew what they were doing, had many plans and even more willingness to try and fail, and try again, and the economy started improving immediately, and continued until Republicans started killing key elements of the New Deal, such as the National Recovery Administration. All you have to do is skip the uninformative slogans, and tell what you are going to do, to prove you understand it and are really going to do it, like the Roosevelt and Johnson Administrations did, and precious few else ever have.