The U-turn away from the cliff...(Thoughts about a visionary platform)

[Jackpine Radical]

***The following text is a revision of something I posted here some weeks ago. I have substantially rewritten it with the intention of submitting it as an "It Seems to Me" piece in a local paper.***
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It is becoming increasingly clear that America is in deep economic trouble. We will not extract ourselves from the great dilemmas we face until we make fundamental changes in our economy, our energy technologies, and our culture. If the next administration is Republican, I hate to think of the consequences. They'll no doubt put all their energy into expending the insane war in the Middle East, building walls and machine-gun towers along the Mexican border, and keeping their followers distracted with endless noise about abortion and homosexuality while the nation falls over a cliff.

Assuming we are wise enough to elect a Democratic President and a solidly Democratic Congress this fall, I would hope to see us make massive commitments of resources in five major areas.

First, I think we need something like an FDR-style public works initiative. We should put people to work rebuilding the infrastructure the Republicans have ignored since 1981--and while we're at it, build a nationwide high-speed rail system. Rail is a far more efficient way to move freight than trucks. We should use trucks only for local distribution--get them off the Interstates, thereby saving not only the vast quantities of fuel they consume, but the necessity of constantly rebuilding our roads.

Second, let us commit to a Green Revolution. Let's get serious about alternative energy and conservation. We must invest some real money in developing new battery technologies, combined with developing solar, wind, tidal, and other methods of power generation. No single one of these technologies will replace coal and oil, but a combination can do so. We also must develop new ways to heat & insulate buildings.

Third, let us hasten the information revolution. It's a lot easier to move electrons around than big, lumpy things. We can and must develop interactive, public super communication systems. Few people seem aware of the fact, but the skeleton of a new optical-fiber “grid” system has already been built in Europe and America. It will have a bandwidth 10,000 times greater than the present Internet—sufficient to download a full-length movie in 2 or 3 seconds. People don't need to physically fly around to meet and consult with each other if they can do virtual meetings with videophone-type technology.

Fourth, as wealth is created, it should be distributed among the people responsible for its creation. To my way of thinking, that means the workers, not the Wall Street parasites. If a technological innovation decreases the net amount of work that has to be done, we shouldn't respond by firing people. We should increase their wages commensurate with their increased productivity and shorten the work week.

Fifth, let us see to it that all our people have adequate health care, enough to eat, decent housing, and universal educational opportunities. This would of course include higher education for all who have the aptitude and desire. We have a Medieval model of a university system; time to take advantage of all the new technologies & distribute it everywhere. Only a people who are free of fundamental worries about their ability to survive can be free to dream, to invent, and to build.

How do we fund this grand scheme? First by realigning our priorities. Call a truce in the War on Drugs. End the war. Quit building prisons and get serious about criminal rehabilitation. And, finally, in the same way the Republicans are now funding the war. If it's OK to borrow money for tremedously destructive purposes that benefit nobody but the war industry, and to bail out the wealthy owners of an imprudent financial industry that created many of the problems we are now facing, then why can't we borrow for creative purposes, for capital improvements in our nation? In short, we must abandon the radical, failed trickle-down economic theories of the last few decades and resume our traditional American perspective that encourages, values and rewards the hard work of the common person.

[ulysses]

1. oh, to be able to give multiple recs.

The question is, what can we do on the ground to help make it a reality?

[Tyler Durden]

8. Your sig line has been my mantra since 1971.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. That, indeed, is the question.

I have no simple answers. I imagine there are no global answers. It has to start, though, with electing people who are capable of vision, people who can look reality in the eye while dreaming of what might be. And maybe local action is more important, and more feasible, especially at this stage, than anything on a national level.

[Two Americas]

30. where it starts

I can never start with "electing people who are capable of vision, people who can look reality in the eye while dreaming of what might be." That is where it ends. It starts with the public, and that starts with our advocacy.

Elections are an effect, not a cause, the last step in the process, not the first.

[ulysses]

31. but what does that advocacy look like?

There have been advocates running around for years with diminishing results. What do we need to be doing differently?

[Two Americas]

33. that is the question, isn't it?

My goal is to have us start asking that question, and discussing it. I don't pretend to have the answers.

There are many changes that I can see we need to make, though. We need to break out of the gilded ghetto of modern liberalism, which is more about the prejudices and preferences of a very narrow demographic than it is about politics, and thoroughly reject the notion that being an activist is a matter of being a better person, more enlightened and superior, and also the pervasive idea that political activism is a niche hobby interest insulated and separate from real life.

The better educated, more enlightened, better informed, and more successful people will always be a minority and is not a realistic basis for building a mass political movement. The question should not be how much better our political skills may be, but whether or not we are putting those into service of the entire class of working class people - the 90% now left out of the political process. What if carpenters expected the whole population to become carpenters before anything could be built? Yet activists expect everyone to become political intellectuals as a prerequisite to social change. Of course of everyone was "like-minded" there would be no political problems. And if everyone was a carpenter, no one would need to hire a carpenter. Everyone else in the working class is doping their jobs, but we the intellectuals are missing in action - bought off and co-opted and shilling for the ruling class in exchange for status and trinkets and safety. We are AWOL. We are the ones who are asleep and need to wake up.We apologize for and defend the wealthy and powerful few - admire them, identify with them - rather than fighting for our fellow working class brothers and sisters.

It is going to take resistance, it is going to take working outside of the system - as all successful social movements have done - it is going to take stepping outside of the prejudices and biases of the demographic that dominates the politics of the left and it is going to take integrating politics with every day life.

The disconnection between the political activists and reality is so stark that it is hard to know where to start. For example, one example among hundreds, we have had millions of people were in the streets fighting for justice and equality, and confronting the rulers, and there was little or no involvement or interest by the liberal activist community. Yet at the same time I read liberal activists posting "what, oh what, will it ever take to wake the sheeple up??"

It is interesting that you phrased your question as "what does that advocacy look like?" The immigrants marching did not look like something that the upscale liberal activists could relate to. I think that was the reason for the disconnection. If that is true, then that tells us we are posing, playing at being some sort of opposition, while staying snug in the comfortable world of our liberal "belief systems" and "personal choices." We prefer appearances to reality, our interior emotional world to objective reality, being "right" to achieving results.

[ulysses]

34. don't put too much into the "look like" aspect of the question.

I understand and agree with what you're saying. The question is about doing.

[Two Americas]

35. no, I didn't

I knew you used it as a figure of speech. I took the liberty of using it to make a point.

[ulysses]

36. fair enough.

:)

[Mnemosyne]

2. Hear, hear!

A most excellent piece, Jack! :applause::applause::applause:

Can you send this to the candidates also? Dreams we would hear them all speaking with such sense.

[horseshoecrab]

3. Excellent points

Very well done, Jackpine Radical. I give you a big A for your very thoughtful and thought provoking piece! There's one typo in paragraph one, where expending should I think be expanding.

Lack of thinking in this country, due to propaganda by some major outlets, has become a real problem. Yesterday I was told by an acquaintance that a dem prez candidate's plan for higher education consisted of paying college students $40 an hour for doing community service work. "How is it volunteer work if they get $40 an hour?" "Talk about 'good jobs at good wages" -- democrats really have a nerve!" (Turns out this came from a source like drudge or f*x noise.)

The plan in question (not sayin' which candidate) would give a tax credit of $4,000, for college, after 100 hours of volunteer community service. Quite a ways different than what was described to me!

This deliberate misinterpretation by some media source shows how badly the critical faculties of many people have been damaged. And this sort of crap goes on every day as you know.

We have to be both clear and ready to fight those who would pick apart what we stand for by changing the meaning, confusing the average voter. Your piece does an excellent job of laying out new priorities and new options in a clear way. I hope that you will submit it to your paper!

kicked and recommended!

horseshoecrab

[Jackpine Radical]

5. Typo noted--thanks.

Also thanks for your comments in general.

[Cerridwen]

4. Off to the Greatest Page with you.

I like the way you think and write.

:hi:

[Lorien]

6. Well done, but just a few notes

In paragraph three you might also note that building a high speed mag-lev passenger rail system with light rail connectors could not only decease our oil consumption, reduce CO2 emissions and ease road congestion, but open up new employment opportunities to those living in smaller towns and cities.

In paragraph six I would eliminate the word "parasite"; name calling always weakens an argument which is intended for a broad audience. Also, I feel that this topic is hard to address without also addressing outsourcing. The "workers' are more often than not overseas. Let's penalize corporations who outsource our jobs, and reward those who create new jobs here in America.

In the last paragraph I would mention that the US is now spending more on it's prison system than it is on public schools, the result of which is obvious. We need to reverse our thinking and make public education a top priority; our national strength depends on it.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Thank you. It's too late to edit my original post, but I'm rewriting the piece

as we go and have incorporated some of your suggestions. As to the cost of imprisonment and some similar points, you might be interested in my last LTTE, which is reproduced in my DU journal.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. Those are exactly the types of things I've been advocating for years!

Too bad none of the media-designated "front runners" are.

[lonestarnot]

11. Beautiful sound reasoning!

:applause: K & R

[Jackpine Radical]

12. Most kind of you.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

13. Good ideas!

Jackpine for Prez!!

[Jackpine Radical]

14. If nominated, I will not run.

If elected, I will not serve.

Any other questions?

[TheCentepedeShoes]

19. Don't go all

LBJ on us.

[Jackpine Radical]

23. Well--William Tecumseh Sherman is who I had in mind.

[Fireweed247]

15. This can be accomplished!

If we all FOCUS and work together to elect a Congress that will support a platform FOR the people!

www.peacecandidates.com

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Amen, Marty.

[scarletwoman]

17. My enthsusiastic k&r.

I was just about to log out for the night when, happily, your post caught my eye. I'm so glad you're keeping these ideas growing and evolving!

:loveya:
sw

[HamdenRice]

18. "why can't we borrow for creative purposes" Because we're tapped out

That was one of the themes of Paul Krugman's columns. The Clinton administration ran surpluses and paid down the federal debt. We were on schedule to virtually eliminate the federal debt, which would have created tremendous scope for borrowing for creative, productive purposes, as well as expanding the welfare state.

If Gore had won, I mean not been deselected by the SCOTUS in 2000, there would have been federal revenue for universal health care, free university education, rebuilding infrastructure, a green revolution and many other things.

Krugman believes that, in accordance with the "drown the beast" ideology of the radical right, Bush purposely bankrupted the federal government in order to prevent the expansion of the welfare state.

Now the only possible way out is a radical slashing of military spending. We are the Soviet Union in 1989. Unlike many progressives who look at the economy, I don't buy the "no way out" meme. There is a way out -- reducing the military budget from its current $400 billion per year to around $30 billion per year.

That is politically impossible with a rabid right Repug party, even in the minority. But don't worry. It won't be a domestic political decision. It will be dictated to us by the International Monetary Fund and our creditors in China, Japan and Europe.

And that's actually a good thing, because we wouldn't be able to get where we need to go on our own, politically.

[Jackpine Radical]

20. I got a call this morning from the editor to confirm that I was the author

& informing me it would be printed.

[ulysses]

21. superior.

Good work, Jackpine.

[Jackpine Radical]

25. Thanks, Uly. I appreciate & very much value your support.

[scarletwoman]

22. Excellent! You do us proud!

Much gratitude to you for persisting and building such an excellent foundation!

:thumbsup: :yourock: :applause:

[Jackpine Radical]

24. Thanks, SW.

The local conservative rags have a pretty good record of pubishing my stuff, actually. 2 weeks ago I had my "America is #!" thing published in the Eau Claire paper. This is my second opinion piece in the Chippewa Herald, the first one being a 600-word essay on the death penalty from my perspective as a Corrections shrink.

[scarletwoman]

26. You're an excellent writer -- trenchant and clear-spoken.

It's a wonderful thing that your gift of rational analysis is being given a wider audience.

I'm so pleased and proud for you. Most of all, I'm extremely grateful that you're putting yourself out there in the world. Thank you so much!

:loveya:
sw

[Jackpine Radical]

27. Flattery will get you...

anywhere.

[scarletwoman]

28. As long as you get a kick out of it...

...so to speak. :D

In all honestly, you truly are an impressive thinker and wordsmith. Your work makes me feel like I've been seriously slacking -- retreating too far into cynicism and despair.

My sincere thanks for making me think about what I ought to be doing instead of just giving up.

:loveya:
sw

[horseshoecrab]

37. What great news!

Congrats Jackpine Radical! Those words of yours definitely belong in print!

:hi:

horseshoecrab

[Arctic Dave]

29. What is that smell? Fresh air?

Thank you for your post. I was beginning to think we were imploding with bitterness. Finally, some thought, vision and clarity of what we would like to see as progressives.

[scarletwoman]

32. Jackpine Radical is one of our DU treasures.

A light in the darkness, for sure.

sw

[ulysses]

38. a wee

:kick: