I'm fighting to get this plank into the Alaska Democratic Party platform...

[Ken Burch]

What would you think of the idea of having something like this in the NATIONAL platform?

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE.

WE SUPPORT ALL NONVIOLENT STRUGGLES FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC JUSTICE AGAINST INSTITUTIONAL RACISM, BIGOTRY, EXPLOITATION, AUSTERITY, AND GREED.

[brooklynite]

1. What does it mean?

I'm not a fan of broad platitudes. For example, what does "exploitation" actually translate to as a problem, and what do you want to do to change it?

[catnhatnh]

3. The platform is where one pronounces

the party's aspirations.

[brooklynite]

4. The platform is what most people never read...

...largely because it's language has little relationship to the real world.

[scscholar]

5. It's still important

It's like a mission statement for a company. You can still fall back on it when you need it as the basis for an argument.

[Ken Burch]

6. If that is the case, there is no reason for the nominee to obsess on controlling what's in it.

Agreed?

[Ken Burch]

7. OK...exploitation is the misuse of people and resouces for the gains of the few

It is the notion that most humans and other living things exist solely for the gains they may provide to a handful of those on the top of the heap.

It encompasses everything from unionbusting to outsourcing to underpaying workers(in most of the world, the term "wage-slave" is still a fair description of the life of the majority)to environmental degradation, to forcing countries to plow under subsistence food crops and replace them with export crops(thus increasing food prices and hunger in many, many countries).

In short, it's the way the world is being run now, and we need to stop letting the world be run that way.

We can come up with something better than that.

We can reshape the economic structure so that the long-term good of the many matters, so that people and other creatures aren't simply disregarded and cast off when no longer needed, so that no one goes hungry or thirsty or sick.

I don't have a personal blueprint for that, but trust in the potential goodness of the people of this world to work out a more decent way.

[jwirr]

2. K&R