Democrats message should boil down to two words: ECONOMIC JUSTICE

[Armstead]

That should be the core of the Democratic Party message to counterattack the GOP.

It is not a narrow term. It covers a wide range of otehr issues, including the environment, the nature of democracy and power and our ability to honestly hash out the social issues.

Nor is it a vague term. It means everyone profits from the sweat of their brow, and the government exists to ensure that there is justice in how the benefits of productivity are distributed.

It means that those who are either unable to work, or need assistance to get their momentum going, have a safety net to protect them eitehr temporarily or as long as necessary.

It means honest businesses that are trying to do their best to their workers and their customers while making a reasonable profit are protected from monopolistic sharks and abusive corporate power.

It means economic diversity, so that the nation does not become so dependent on a small sliver of elites and corporate states that we lose the ability to debate issues on their own merits, or come to policies that protect the interests of the majority.

It means enough accountability and/or public sector action to ensure that such basics as healthcare, heat and transportation are available to everyone at a price they can reasonably afford.

[FloridaPat]

1. I like it! Great slogan.

[rodeodance]

2. so do I.

[Jane Austin]

3. The concept is great,

but the words are pale.

I'd like to hear the same thing in words with more punch.

[OneBlueSky]

4. The Fair Deal: Economic Justice for ALL . . . n/t

.

[LSparkle]

9. Now THERE you go -- "Fair Deal" is our "Contract With America"

including economic justice, among other things. We need to spell this out NOW in order to capitalize in '06 (like the Thugs did in '94).

[Armstead]

13. To me "Economic Justice" has punch

Especially since we've moved so far from that concept.

I also think it is a concept that can resonate with a lot of people. They're experiencing economic injustice daily, and they know the difference in their guts.

[damntexdem]

5. No, they shouldn't:

they should attack on a broad front; because the GOP attack on our country and on the rest of the world has been on a broad front. Economic justice should be out front, but so should international justice, environmental justice, and civil liberties.

[democrank]

6. Armstead...this is a good one.

Concise and substantive. Just what we need. It`s the difference between yakking about new jobs...ANY new jobs or demanding new jobs in safe working conditions and with a livable wage. It`s the difference between demanding welfare-to-work rather than fighting to improve those conditions that keep poor people poor. It`s fighting for health care for workers in a chicken processing plant where the CEO gets a 2.3 million dollar bonus. Thanks.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. It's beautifully pointed, and about the one over-riding issue, that

absolutely demands to be addressed first and foremost. Just as Christ taught that, upon love, hangs the whole of the Law and the prophets. Nothing can be important, if you do not have a living wage - to begin with, in order to afford food and shelter, but more generally to provide a reasonable disposable income - which of course, in turn, will keep the wheels of industry, and with appropriate decentralisng legislation, restore Mom and Pop shops to the high streets, in place of the Walmarts. I should think Messrs Harley Davidson will never know better days!

And immediately after full employment and the living wage, or even concurrently with it, a national health-care system, free at the point of entry.

For this to be achieved, of course, much higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations will be required, and the restoration of a sensible ratio between the compensation of the CEO and the median income of his workers (or lowest-paid, as the case may be - which I believe McAthur imposed on the Japanese industrialists, with staggeringly copious benefits for the country and its people); also to build up such things as the country's transport infrastructure, plus the provision of affordable and much higher standards of education for the non-rich. Free tertiary education and reasonable subsistence grants for the students.

Thanks to 25 years of formerly crypto-fascist, but now neo-fascist, rule in the UK, much the same will need to be re-introduced in the UK.

There will be many benefits of course, as we saw in post-war Britain. And surely, "family values" demands that a man should be sufficiently remunerated for his toil, for his wife, if she so chooses, to stay at home, keep house and raise children.

Sadly, for the plutcrats in their moated estates, they won't be able to batten on prisoners - violence on the street and the shrinking of the population of prisons drastically shrinking.

Nothing much new in the above, but it's fun for me to read it again from time to time!

Your bunkers are ready, senores... and !Viva la Revolucion!

[mestup]

7. It's always been about the economy!

[Union Thug]

8. True

As I've said elsewhere...

I'm of the opinion that all our satellite issues are meaningless until we have achieved the primary goal of the Left - economic justice. If people do not have a decent income and medical care, everything else is meaningless and irrelevant. If we could all stop acting like a herd of preoccupied cats and come together on this one thing, it would ultimately hasten the progress of the others.

[enid602]

10. justice

I would prefer political, economic and social justice. But that's probably a bit much. Economic justice by itself is probably easier for the public to swallow after seeing the pix from NO.

[Armstead]

12. I see them all as related

Economic justice means that all issues get debated on their merits, not which ones have the backing of special interests with deep pockets.

It would also mean that the legal system is no longer merely a commodity to be bought and sold. It means a fair trial and legal expertise is not limited to those who can afford the best.

[bluedawg12]

11. Ecomic opportunity from economic justice

the economy will be the issue to get the indies, and swing voters off their g-ass cans.

[indigo32]

15. I like it

it's what it's all about IMO.

BUT our folks can't shrink when the other side shrieks, and they will. We have to mean this.

[welshTerrier2]

16. foreign policy

economic justice is a great message but it can't be "THE" message ...

we ignore foreign policy at our own peril ...

[Armstead]

17. Not saying we shouldn;t talk about otehr issues

But we need a key unifying overriding centerpiece that will tie things together, regardless of what differences may exist on specific issues.

[bluedawg12]

18. How is the democratic foreign policy different from repugs?

How is this different from the PNAC?

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=86&subid=194&contentid=1926

DLC | Key Document | August 1, 2000
The Hyde Park Declaration: A Statement of Principles and a Policy Agenda for the 21st Century

A rapidly changing global environment in which American values and interests are predominant, but in which we face a new series of international challenges based not on a monolithic threat from another superpower, but on regional instability, economic rivalries, ethnic conflicts, rogue states, and terrorism.

[1932]

21. wT2, would you do me a big favor:

read Richard Parker's biography of John Kenneth Galbraith.

I think you'll like it.

Around the middle of the book (during the JFK administration), Galbraith realizes how important foreign policy is to making sure that the US has a fair domestic economic policy.

The two are more tightly connected than people realize (and, incidentally, Parker gives one explanation for that: the CEA wasn't provided with details of the costs of American foreign policy for years (and perhaps still don't) so they could incorporated arguments and analysis about it into their policy proposals) -- and that's just one of many ways military spending and imperialism is (probably deliberately) curtained off from the debate about progressive domestic policy).

[Armstead]

22. There is a big intersection of Economic Justice and foreign policy

The role and actions of the US in the world in terms of economic and foreign policy is at the heart of many issues like the debate over "free trade" and globalization, and the real motivations for out military adventures around the world.

It relates to Economic Justice in terms of what sort of trade policies we pursue, and whether buzzeords like "spreadin democracy" are just a different way of saying imperialism.

[1932]

23. And at that intersection are Keynes, FDR, Galbraith, JFK,

Chester Bowles, George Ball, Averell Harriman...

[applegrove]

19. Sounds good to me.

[Douglas Carpenter]

20. totally agree

Economic Justice is a message that resonates throughout the whole of society. Foreign Policy is important. But, I doubt that it will be the leading campaign issue.

I do hope that the neocon element of the Democratic Party will be marginalized once and for all. They could undermine all the great efforts of rebuilding progressivism in America with their nutty blind ideologue way of thinking.