Well yeah but where exactly would you expect to see it well covered? Where does anything the Dems do now a days get well covered? They’ve had all kinds of hearings on stuff from the Downing St. memos and illegal wiretapping that most people aren’t even aware they’ve had. This is why so many people think that they ‘don’t have a plan’. Sure they do but you can’t count on the mainstream media to deliver it to you - you have to go find it yourself.
(By the way the 6 point plan is to bring transparency to government, real security by focusing against terror at home rather than abroad, independence from foreign energy in a decade, economic prosperity by creating American jobs and greater educational excellence, affordable healthcare for everyone, and retirement security. Details here.)
I’m hoping eventually, should we see a Democratic president with a majority in congress, that they might bring back the fairness doctorine which Clinton triangulated away. Just as Ma Bell was once broken up, it’s about time to do so with this neoconservative friendly quasi-monopoly.
But Pelosi’s plan does make a good start at taking a stand and defining the party platform.
Ah, yes. Back to massively restrictive tariffs. Historically, they’re real effective at fostering economic growth for poor people. :rolleyes:
I can think of no better way of making the US the most hated nation in the world. It would immediately turn China from a “rival” to an enemy, and India from an ally to, at best, a neutral.
Not “massively restrictive”, but I think tariffs are a way to encourage human rights. Countries that exploit slave labor shouldn’t be able to export the fruits of slave labor duty-free around the world, that just forces everybody else into a downward wage spiral.
The first item is ethics reform. Three paragraphs, two references to the nasty Republicans, zero specifics. Then a series of news stories. The first ten (as far as I looked) are all about how nasty the Republicans are. Not a single press release, on the Democrats’ own web page, about what they’ll do to improve ethics.
That’s exactly the sort of pathetic nonsense that so angers me. You can’t blame the media for lack of coverage: the Democrats can’t manage to get it together on their own turf.
Yes, Pelosi’s declaration got scant media attention. That’s not due to a conservative media: that’s due to her lack of showmanship. As I said earlier, they ought to be spotlight proposals several times a week, with props: when talking about the minimum wage, they should have a press conference with some folks earning minimum wage who can tell their stories, who can tell about how the increase will dramatically affect their lives. When talking about the 9/11 Commission, there should be some folks whose families died on 9/11 there at the Press Conference to explain how important this is.
Hate the game, not the player, sure–but if you spend all your time hating the game, you’re gonna lose it. The Democrats need to win, which means they need to play.
Awww, I feel so sorry for them. Here’s a country with one of the larger GDP’s in the world but those durn Democrats want to impose those nasty tariffs so that they can’t game American workers. If China doesn’t want to be an economic rival, let them peddle their goods elsewhere - excuse me if playing on a more even playing field makes them an ‘enemy’. They have enormous resources that they could be investing in their people. Instead their gov’t would rather allow them also to be gamed by the Chinese who are allowed to be entrepreneurs there.
Here’s the thing, furt, you’re only looking at the front end of the tariff. Rather than so-called ‘free trade’, another policy many forward thinking Democrats intend to pursue is fair trade. If the Chinese don’t like the tariffs, which create a more level playing field for Americans and protect our jobs here, then they can begin to pay their workers a fairer wage and allow them to organize. And they can also pay for some similar working standards that Americans enjoy and maintain environmental standards that Americans companies must pony up on their expense sheets. It’s really to their benefit (see my earlier mention about satisfied, fairly compensated workers being more productive) and a carrot/stick motivator towards forcing other industrialized nations to get on board to reduce global warming and pollution in general. This will bring the cost of their goods up to a level closer to ours whereby tariffs can then be removed. Yet in addition it creates good business practices that will make them more efficient and profitable in the long run making them more competitive in the global marketplace. Win/win.
That is where many Democrats are heading in response to a global market that continues to give many other industrialized nations an ever-increasing low-ball cost advantage over the US.
We’re not talking about tariffs applied to poor countries that have little in their nations coffers all the way around. Most countries produce cheaper goods than here in America and yes we’ll buy them. But some countries like Japan often come up with lower prices but do so in a mostly fair, competitive fashion. But when countries like China and Mexico, which boast some of the most robust GDP’s in the world, pay third-world wages in situations where they can afford to do better, then we need to call them on it.
Sure the Democrats could do better communicating. Boy could they ever. It’s work in progress I hope, but you’ll get no arguement from me there.
But when the count is made in terms of air-time exposure in by places like Media Matters for America Dems simply do not get close to a fair hearing. I understand that a Republican dominated government is going to be somewhat more coverage simply because they are running things and that in itself is newsworthy. But when someone is dealing from the bottom of the deck you can bet I am going have a problem with the game itself. It’s hard to play when you’re being dealt out of the game part of the time.
I think the Dems have a responsibility to at least ensure the game is on the level and we need to hold them accountable to that and not allow themto be bought off.