Jim Webb

klaatu said:
Strong Education is a factor, no doubt. Like introducing economics to children at a very young age .. teaching them how to balance a check book, micro and macro ..perhaps in the 5th or 6th grade ... instead of feel good bullshit like why Mary has two dads... Or arguing about Nativity scenes.
Take the psyco babble out of grammar and middle school and replace it with strong roots. This would be a good start ...

I believe Webbs rebuttal was right on .. and I see him as a shining star for the Dems.. for me personally he is pointing the Democratic Party in the right direction...taking it back to the days when it represented the majority of the people...not just a fringe few. lets not forget his words about Iraq ...and his family history....powerful stuff ...it hit me smack in the head.

If I continue to see more Jim Webbs arise in the Democratic party ...I may be returning home.
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I agree. Webb is the kind of Democrat that the Party needs to emulate on a national scale. Frankly, what he says about economic fairness and justice, isn't much different that what Barbara Boxer would say. But, sadly image is everything: this Democratic philosophy sells much better coming from the mouth of a southern combat veteran - a dude who loves guns - than from a West coast liberal Democrat.
 
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Damocles said:
No, I claim that a strong education program can change things. I provided solutions, not just rhetoric. Like I said, I offered reality, the answer I got was, "I don't want to be bothered..."

And education is not social engineering.

Let the coin-operated bought and paid for Politicians run the show, they'll provide solutions.... Right. I guess I'm far more cynical about the government than you are. I watched while the Ds held the government for decades, yet the problems still existed...

I do not believe that their "solutions" will actually resolve anything.
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LMAO! And they used to call us lefties pie-in-the-sky dreamers. "A strong education program" forsooth! Run by whom? Who sets the curriculum? Funded with what money? Bringing results in what decade . . . or century?

Education aimed toward modifying behavior on the grand scale is indeed social engineering. In fact, that's the textbook definition.

The problem is now, not 30 years from now. Unless steps are taken soon there may be no pulling back from the precipice: we'll end up like Brazil, with the wealthy living in armed camps and traveling in armored convoys. We see the first signs of it already, in fact. (See, hyperbole cuts both ways.)

Look, it's completely unreasonable to expect that shareholder action alone will correct this problem. I believe it's unreasonable, anyway. Not when political power is more apt to the issue.

The conflict -- while "warfare" is an emotionally laden term, there surely are conflicts of interest here -- must inevitably spill over into the political arena. And as it does, I know which side I'm going to be on.

I think that I mostly agree with E. J. Dionne's column for today.
In his reply to President Bush's State of the Union speech on Tuesday night, Webb defined the two central moral issues that animate most of the Democratic Party's rank and file: the mess in Iraq and the fact that the fruits of a growing economy are not being shared by all Americans.

Then Webb did something rather astonishing: He didn't fudge on his language or try to take the hard edge off his impatience with the status quo.
. . .
Many Democrats tremble that they will be accused by some right-wing Web site or presidential spokesman of waging class warfare. Webb made clear that there is a class war going on, and that the wrong side is winning it.

"When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did," Webb said. "Today, it's nearly 400 times."
OK, that's a standard sort of line from your standard progressive speech. But then came this arresting sentence: "In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day."

Examine that closely. How many politicians out there raising campaign contributions from rich people are willing to use "boss," instead of a more respectful locution?

And by talking about the time it takes someone to earn a buck, Webb makes it impossible for anyone to forget how vast the inequalities in our society have become.

Webb knows who he is fighting for. "We're working," he said, "to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons."
. . .
-- emphasis added
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http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/01/25/EDGT7N75OJ1.DTL
 
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OrnotBitwise said:
Oh, I won't go that far. Not yet. I like his oratory though: I'll say that much for sure.

:)
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Reportedly, he wrote his own speech. After ditching the canned one the Democratic Party tried to give him.

The dude can write well, that's for sure. Of course, he was a skilled author, so I shouldn't be suprised.
 
Let me amplify that a bit. What's the most common kvetch the cons and pundits have had about liberals over the past few years? That liberals "don't offer solutions" and "don't have a clear message." Here's someone who's articulated the basic liberal position quite well and succinctly.

The Dems would do well to follow his rhetorical lead.
 
Cypress said:
Reportedly, he wrote his own speech. After ditching the canned one the Democratic Party tried to give him.

The dude can write well, that's for sure. Of course, he was a skilled author, so I shouldn't be suprised.
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his "A Sense of Honor" is my alltime favorite book
 
OrnotBitwise said:
Let me amplify that a bit. What's the most common kvetch the cons and pundits have had about liberals over the past few years? That liberals "don't offer solutions" and "don't have a clear message." Here's someone who's articulated the basic liberal position quite well and succinctly.

The Dems would do well to follow his rhetorical lead.
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Although I dont see it as the basic liberal position.. at least not from the past two decades.... You might want to change the word liberal to Democrat...

But Wow! you are saying these things about a guy who served on Ronnies cabinet ...

you go Ornot!
 
klaatu said:
Although I dont see it as the basic liberal position.. at least not from the past two decades.... You might want to change the word liberal to Democrat...

But Wow! you are saying these things about a guy who served on Ronnies cabinet ...

you go Ornot!
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The objection to gross inequity in the distribution of wealth and power is the defining characteristic of the leftist and, by extension, the American liberal.

And almost anyone can learn from experience and abandon youthful folly. :p
 
klaatu said:
Although I dont see it as the basic liberal position.. at least not from the past two decades.... You might want to change the word liberal to Democrat...

But Wow! you are saying these things about a guy who served on Ronnies cabinet ...

you go Ornot!
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Although I dont see it as the basic liberal position.. at least not from the past two decades....

Gotta agree with Ornot here. Economic fairness, equality of opportunity, and attempting to take the rough edges off of unfettered lassaize-faire capitalism is the basic liberal position. Its the glue that holds the Democratic coalition together.
 
The dems caught up with the repubs and have sold out to corporate and special interests with money. We private citizens don't show up much on either partys radar lately.
 
the glue that holds the far left whacko's together.
your going to see a lot more centerist run by the dems for 08.
Won't be too much on the class warfare side.
A hand up to the lower and middle, not a bitch slap to the rich.
 
No...the defining characteristic of the modern day liberal is to engage in
A policy or practice of treating or governing people in a fatherly/motherly manner, especially by providing for their needs without giving them responsibilities.
I didnt hear Jim Webb say these things... i did hear him say the bridge between the haves and have nots is too widening. The cure for this is not to play Robin Hood... the cure is to challange the Corps .....remind them of their responsibilities and to let them know should they continue to trek down the path they are going...there will be consequences ... to lead as Teddy Roosevelt did.
 
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