Poll of "Most Important Issue"

[Bread and Circus]

Poll question: Poll of "Most Important Issue"

What is the most important issue to DU'ers (aside from
process issues like "Beating Bush" and character issues
like "integrity") regarding the Presidential nomination
and election series.

I'd like to run this poll all day today and tomorrow have
a runoff of the top 5 choices with an honorable mention of
"other" if enough folks write-in an about the same "other" topic.

Thanks for participating.

P.S. Please write the details of your "other" choice, such as
race issues, so I can tally and ad in the top "other" choice for
the runoff...thanks.

I edited to add War/Peace and moved job to 4

[Bread and Circus]

1. Please post your "other" response so I can tally those for the runoff

[quaker bill]

2. I would suggest adding

a war / peace option

[Bread and Circus]

3. Yeah, that's a great point...I only had space for 10

[AP]

4. Unemployment, wealth dispartiy and taxes are all one issue, to me.

That issue is the shift in wealth from poor to rich.

Bush is transferring wealth from working/middle class to wealth by giving employers cheap labor (unemployment drives down wage rates, increases desperation, creates a buyer's labor market, means people ask for less in terms of benefits). Once the executives and the insiders get this wealth, they keep it, thanks to a tax code which penalizes income from labor, and rewards people immensely who get wealth from unearned income (eg, dividends and capital gains). Thus the problem of a buyer's market for labor is compounded by a bad tax code. The result of this is a huge disparity between the rich and the poor.

This is the biggest issue today, and only one candidate really has put these issues in the foreground of his campaign.

[Bread and Circus]

5. Yeah, I kind of combined that...jobs/wealth disparity...

definitely parts of the same monster.

I still think taxes are separate enough to get their own
category (at least for now).

[AP]

6. Taxes are THE BIGGEST TOOL the Republicans use to transfer wealth.

They devalue labour in the labour market (and for most Americans, your labour is all you have to sell), while they elevate the power of capital.

Then when you pay your taxes, they punish the people who make their money from their labour, while rewarding people who make their money from inheritance are from capital investments (ie, dividends and long term capital gain on sale of assets and investment instruments).

It's SHOCKING that nobody picked taxes so far.

[sallyseven]

7. Education added to all of the above

The republicans do not want education for everyone,. They would lose control of the country if people started to think. This has always been the case.

[AP]

9. Republicans tried to prevent public education in 50s. Then the Russians...

... put a man in space and Republicans realized that we wouldn't get all the physicists and mathmaticians we'd need to keep GM and AT&T from getting a bomb dropped on them if we only gave people like the Bush family the best educations America offered at that time.

So they decided to fund education. But, education is also a transfer of wealth issue. Get an education and you give people who don't have capital, but only have their labor and opportunity to get greater rewards for their labor.

Republicans hate that.

[AP]

8. "disparity" in wealth -- misleading phrasing. It's a TRANSFER of wealth.

Calling it a "disparity" makes it sound like it's incidental, or an inadvertant consequence.

What Bush is doing is intentional. It's an active, purposeful, focussed TRANSFER of wealth. He's devaluing and burdening those who only have their labor to give and rewarding and elevating those who have huge amounts of capital. And one is done in order to achieve the other.

[Ready4Change]

10. Uncontrolled deficit spending

But developing alternative energy and the disparity between haves/have nots are right up there with me.

[AP]

14. again, a wealth TRANSFER issue.

We're borrowing money to give to the rich in the form of tax breaks and no-bid Halliburton contracts.

[Bread and Circus]

19. I see what you are saying AP, it is a "funneling" from the masses

to the rich...very astute - I'll try to edit issues for tomorrow's
poll

[Nobody]

11. I went for health care

But the disparity between haves and have nots/jobs was tempting. Specifically, I'd like to see a plan for setting up a universal health care plan. There are increasing numbers of Americans with low-paying, multiple part time, temporary, or a combination of all three types of jobs. We're exporting full time jobs that give you benefits and replacing them with either nothing or with jobs that don't come with beneits.

[Democrats unite]

12. Here is my answer...

Voting Rights / Fairness / Political Corruption, without that the others are all a mute point.

[donco6]

13. OTHER

Improved Foreign Relations - the "War, Peace" category was too vague.

[Bread and Circus]

20. I agree - I will try to be more specific next time

[IndianaGreen]

15. We are not safer with a Democratic President under PATRIOT Act.

This poll is flawed in the way the categories are lumped together! Despite the strange way in which the issues are lumped together, which made me debate whether I should have voted for "OTHER", I will emphasizw that the war in Iraq is the most critical issue that we are facing.

The war is closely tied to 9/11 which in turned is tied to PATRIOT Act and all of the other infringements to our civil liberties from the Bush regime. The entire police state apparatus that Bush and Ashcroft have built since 9/11 will have to be dismantled first if we want any semblance of freedom in this country.

We can't deal with the other issues while US troops are occupying Iraq, or otherwise engaged as agents of American imperialism and hegemony. We certainly can't deal with the other issues while the Constitution is suspended.

Replacing a Republican President with a Democratic one is an exercise in futility if we don't turn this country 180-degrees in the opposite direction, otherwise we are merely replacing personnel without changing policies.

I don't feel any safer under a Democratic President under the PATRIOT Act than I do under Bush.

I want the war to end just as badly under a Democratic President as I do under Bush.

Down with the ‘War on Terrorism’

The September 11 massacre was a pretext for the USA to launch its ‘war on terrorism’. This bloody campaign has already seen the USA murder more civilians than were killed in the World Trade Centre attacks.

In reality, the ‘war on terrorism’ is the continuation of globalisation by military means.

Just as capitalism demands the right to enter every area in the world and exploit every people in the world, so the USA now demands the right to take military action anywhere in the world, against anyone it declares a ‘terrorist’, including the governments of sovereign nations.

This global military offensive proves beyond doubt that Imperialism is not a thing of the past – it is the essence of global capitalism today.

Go to page 8 in the following link:

http://www.worldrevolution.org.uk/Downloads/Revolition%20Manifesto%202003.pdf



http://www.worldrevolution.org.uk/

[LWolf]

16. Other:

Many of the issues mentioned are important; I don't think there is just "one" most important issue. They are all connected.

If I have to pick just one: education.

Because it doesn't matter what a candidate may say or do about any of the above; if we don't intervene in what's happening with public education, in another generation there won't be enough of us who can think and vote for ourselves left to make a difference in any issue.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=117&topic_id=3

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=117&topic_id=338

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=117&topic_id=716

[Mattforclark]

17. The preservation of life as we know it

This involves a number of long term policies, such as doing something to stop global warming, increasing foreign aid, doing something about the WMD sitting around practically unguarded in the former Soviet Union (A real, not an imaginary threat!!!), and generally fostering greater international cooperation.

I would think this would be a very important issue to everyone who understands the problems. Clark gets it.

[sandnsea]

23. That would be it

I believe Clark does get it, Kerry gets it too.

[ozone_man]

18. The deficit.

The obvious issue, the one that Bush can not wiggle out of, is the deficit. This trumps all others. He could not wage war all over the planet without his deficit spending. You stop that and you end war, pretty simple, huh?

The successful candidate will be able to speak strongly to this issue, since future generations are being mortgaged, and Social Security and Medicare for our own generation is going out the window. Education initiatives will not be funded because the interest on our debt must be paid. We will have limits to any investment in health care, infrastructure, alternative energy, etc,.

So, there should be another category, all of the above (deficit).

[HFishbine]

21. Other: Civil Liberties (n/t)

[Feanorcurufinwe]

22. Alternative energy and the environment are two parts of the same issue

[Bread and Circus]

25. Yes and no....

It's easy to lump them together but in my opinion all
wealth flows from energy so I see it more of an economic
issue. Also, we have whored ourselves out to Saudi Arabia
for energy, so it also affects National Security. I think
it deserves its own category.

Hopefully, I will be able to come up w/ a better list for
tomorrow's poll.

Thanks Fean :hi:

[DFLforever]

24. Civil Liberties (other)

[maddezmom]

26. kick

:)

[CalebHayes]

27. W A R!

Get out of Iraq now!!

[Iverson]

28. These issues can overlap.

The policy of shredding the Geneva Convention and engaging in preventive invasion is directly related to the erosion of civil liberties, since both things have the same pretext. Likewise, bankrupting the country for this war effectively prevents spending on sensible things.

[Bread and Circus]

34. True...many of them do...I will try to parse them better tomorrow.

[cryofan]

29. Citizen ownership is the underlying issue we need to address

If we look at citizens as the owners of the country, then everything comes out looking differently. Instead of our taxes going for military operations ensuring safe operation of overseas corporations, our taxes go for full tax funded healthcare, tax funded universities, welfare for all when needed (or when a person has earned a break after paying taxes for a couple of decades). Right now the USA is run to generate ever increasing revenues, taxes, and corporate profits. But if we look at it as the country being owned by the citizens, investor profit becomes secondary.

[arewethereyet]

30. other

its still the economy. Numbers being better are nice but without jobs here those numbers will crumple. Income disparity has nothing to do with this.

You have a habit of combining unrelated matters.

[tedoll78]

31. The United States Supreme Court. Please consider this.

That's my big issue.
That's why I'd be willing to pull the lever for even Lieberman in the general election.

I want homosexuals & heterosexuals to be treated equally under the law.
I want not just a wall between church and state - but an electrified force field.
I want to protect a woman's right to choose.
I want civil liberties to be protected - especially in times of strife.
I want environmental protection laws upheld and enforced.
I want every vote to count.

Ginsburg has a history of cancer; she's still in surveillance for an exit from remission.
Stephens is in his 80's; his wife is begging him to retire, but he's still holding-on with hope of a decent replacement.
Thomas & Scalia look like they'll be there for a while.
O'Connor & Rehnquist are frequently rumored to be considering retirement.
Souter, Breyer, and Kennedy? We never know. Lightning can strike, and with our luck lately..

The balance there is too close for comfort. If there is one catch-all to convince a left-of-center person to vote for whomever our nominee is, THIS is it. It touches too many issues. Supreme Court nominees can sit there for more than 30 years, paying more and more dividends.. or haunting more and more. This is not something to take lightly. I hope this helps with those unhappy with whomever our nominee ends-up being. There's too much at stake here.

[Bombtrack]

32. I'm surprised so few for taxes

the "disparity of wealth issue" is really a composite of many issues, most directly linked to the tax rate. It fluctuates from worse to better between less and more progressive taxation rates

[cryofan]

33. Yes, raising taxes on the upper income group is very important

That all ties into my theories about citizen ownership.

[ryharrin]

35. Civil liberties/rights

Patriot act for civil liberties, gay rights for civil rights, which I see ass all part of the same issue.