The 2007 Democratic Survey

Below the fold, the survrey, and my real, and likely badly thought responses as of this morning, written in one hour, without editing. ---Cliquez &c.---2007 Democratic Strategy Survey

Which of the following issues are the most important to you? Please rank from 1-10 with 1 being the most important to you.
1 Improving public education
3 Protecting the environment
10 Iraq war
8 Economic/tax policy
2 Reproductive freedom
7 Social Security reform
4 Ethics in government
5 Health care affordability
6 National energy policy
9 Stem cell research

--- Honestly, these could be in another order, but that’s my answer today. What is easy. It’s the HOW, the policy, the details, that I want to hear about. It’s the HOW that matters, becaue that's where everything gets interrelated and messy.

Do you support an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq?
No

--- What are you learning from this war? Again, JHC. I didn’t want this war in Iraq. I wanted to get the Taliban out of Afghanistan by removing them, and not just relocating them next door to Pakistan. Sheez. I wanted to confront Al Qeada as directly as possible. I did not want to go into Iraq because the only way to win a war of this kind is brutally and totally. We did not have the will or intention to do so. We were using this war as a PR campaign, so we had to look like the good guys, the nice guys. Want to loot? Have at it. Want to get busy vivisecting your country? Please, be my guest. What we should have done was shut the place down and create a real bubble in time for these people to reconfigure themselves – given that we were going no matter what. In order to do that, you need curfews everywhere and severe consequences for breaking them. You need an airtight border so that foreign insurgents simply cannot get in (an impossibility). You need really stable security in which to work on reconstruction and infrastructure. In other words, to win this kind of war, you have to be mean, and hard, and ruthless – for a little while – and get things set and then get the hell out. We have not done any of these things. And we have not done them at great expense. That’s why we should not have gone. The kind of America we would have to admit to being is the America we want to admit that we are. So, we fucked it up. --- Meanwhile, we should change the kind of America we actually are. We are “nice” imperialists, and nice imperialists don’t exist. What we have done by "fighting them over there" is force another sovereign people to die for our war, for our problem, on our behalf. Moral? No. We would have served them better, given that not going wasn't a thought in this Admin., by being meaner from the get go.

If you don’t support an immediate withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, what do you believe the timeframe should be?
Sometime in 2007
X -- By the end of 2007
There should be no time frame for withdrawing US troops.
Don’t know.

--- But these are all bad choices. See above. We’re just going to have to eat the karma on this one, and that karma is going to make the karma that came out of Afghanistan and turned into 9-11 look like the good old days. I just have a feeling.

Do you support increased defense spending to fight the war on terrorism?
Yes, we need a strong military to stop terrorist threats around the globe.
No, the money should be spent on domestic need like education and health care.

--- It’s more complex than this false choice. So, I didn’t answer. I wrote that first sentence on the survey, followed by the phrase, “and you know it.” The US is in dept to a number of other nations (China and Japan and others) up to our collective eyeballs over this war so far. My generation and the ones behind me will be paying the bill and our quality of life will be affected. My generation and ones behind me are the ones who are and will be maimed and killed in this war. So, we should have something to say about it. Here’s the deal, and it doesn’t sound very peace-loving. Terrorists are committed to their projects, to the point to death. They are the sort of people you can reason with. So, quite simply, they have to be found and either incarcerated or killed. This will be expensive in many ways. Cutting off their funding? Bite me. They will find other funding. They will go deeper into the black markets for their funding. Shut up about funding, because the black markets have deep pockets. The unfortunate thing is that they have chosen to commit their lives, intelligence, and ingenuity to killing others in the name of god who wears, not his true face, but their own face in their view. They like it. It’s their purpose and identity. They simply have to be confronted directly. I don’t like it, I’m not happy to say it, but that’s the case. Lots of jail and death and physical risk to our troops is involved here. Gen X is going to have buck up and get deadly serious about this. The late baby boomer generation (or one little freaky part of it) started this, and it will be ours to finish. ---- We also need to get our domestic house in order. Big time. We need to realize, first, as a nation, that our individual well being is related to the well being of our neighbors, the people on the other side of town, and people we can’t see from our town, or border, or shore. This is complicated because at any one time there’s only so much money (at any one time, not forever). Again, our domestic issues are a matter of our commitment to our own and our fellows well-being. Education? Better education = less crime. Less crime = less money spent on law enforcement and incarceration. Better education = better over-all health. Taking and passing tests is not better education. Three strike laws? Eh. For simple possession? That’s dealing with the wrong aspect of the drug problem. Counseling. More of that. Jobs? Health? Choice? The trouble is that all of our domestic issues are interrelated and we keep trying to solve them piecemeal. The trouble is that we don’t understand our nation as a community. A shift of values indeed.

Do you support raising the minimum wage from its current level of $5.15 per hour?
Yes – duh.

When decisions about the future of Social Security are being made, what do you think is most important?
Keeping Social Security as a program with a guaranteed monthly benefit?
Allowing younger workers to decide for themselves how their Social Security contributions are invested.
X -- Both guaranteed benefits and investments are important.

--- Ok, look. The second answer assumes that younger workers know any goddamn thing about investing, about managing money long term. Which, they don’t. Few people of any age do. Furthermore, the stock market is basically gambling. Investments that will affect our well-being when we are old and vulnerable need to be conservatively invested and managed by people who know what they’re doing. So, serious economic education for the people, and some flexibility is best, I think, as long as those on the guaranteed monthly benefit don’t get shafted.

In your view, what’s the best way to ensure health care coverage for all Americans?
Tax credits to help employers provide health care coverage for their employees.
Medical savings accounts that let families set aside money for health care costs.
X -- A government-run system where everyone is guaranteed health care coverage.

--- Look, insurance is very similar to a tax. You pay money, it goes in a big pot, and you get some back (sometimes) when you need it. It’s a collective effort to pay for what the individual could not possibly afford. All such collective needs should be non-profit. The problem in health care and in insurance generally is the profit motive. It wrecks the whole purpose of the enterprise – from the insured’s point of view. Not every industry and service is best run as a private and for profit enterprise. Those that pertain to our collective health and well being should be non-profit concerns.

What is the single best approach to reducing our dependence on foreign oil?
Providing incentives to encourage energy conservation.
Increasing domestic energy production from sources like coal and nuclear power.
Investing in renewable sources of energy like solar power, wind power, and ethanol.
X -- Requiring automakers to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles.

--- This is just the short-term fix. We need to do all of these things, and quickly. Now, incentives for conservation is taxes. Ok, I’ll pay some tax to have a world I can live well in. Get the money back from Halliburton (that spell-check knows how to spell Halliburton is very interesting). Domestic energy production, yes! Use what we have and use it well. Renewable sources? Yes. Solar? Yes! Get those solar cells on the rooftops of every non-historical and non-religious building in US. You don’t need a sun farm. You have millions of acres of surface exposed to the sky. Use it. Do not gripe about the grid and the front-end cost of the infrastructure itself, it will pay off, and in the not distant future. It’s solar cells and wiring. This is not hard. Fuel efficient cars and trucks? Hell yes. And while we’re at it, let’s give a tax credit to all drivers who have their existing cars retrofitted to be more fuel efficient. All of this is completely doable. Simply requires the commitment and determination.

Do you support new tax cuts targeted at working families.
X -- Yes, with our economy struggling, working families need a tax break.
No, additional tax cuts at this time would only worsen the federal deficit.

--- Several problems here: 1) The economy is not struggling. Nearly every standard economic indicator says the economy is humming along just fine. 2) It is being reconfigured, and in that reconfiguration, actual workers are struggling. The benefits accruing from this new economy are not, and cannot, be experienced by many workers. Why? Quite simply, the vast majority of Americans are not, either socially or innately, able to work in the managing class, creative class, and high-tech industries. 3) The reconfiguration is resulting in two kinds of workers, the managerial/creative and the service worker. Service jobs don’t pay and the managerial workers are finding that their salaries are not covering their expenses. --- And then there’s the problem of a consumer economy which requires that people buy and buy, and go into debt. The ultimate problem with the economy (and now the national budget) is that it is a house of cards built on debt. 4) So, even the strength of the current economic configuration is an illusion. A tax break for working families would help them in the short term. In the long term, we need to readdress our entire economic strategy. There is no invisible hand.

Should the Democratic Congress put a high priority on stopping American manufacturing jobs from being “outsourced” to overseas workers?
X – Yes, manufacturing jobs are essential to our economy.
No, American consumers benefit from cheaper goods made overseas.

--- Economy? Yes, but try our national security, the concentration of manufacturing to the military-industrial complex requires wars to increase said manufacturing. That's a security problem. Beyond that are the cost/benefit issues for other nations and climate change. This off-shoring means that many people are benefiting, in their countries, but that those countries are experiencing a messy, polluting, physically abusive industrial age right when all that human pain and environmental pollution are the last damn thing we need environmentally or politically. It's the bottom line thinking here that's screwing us, and them, and will get us screwed again by them or by Mother Nature. We couldn't have exported the improvements to manufacturing and emissions we have made since the Industrial Age because, you see, my dear, that would have taken the profit motive out of it.

Do you believe Medicare should be allowed to re-import less expensive drugs from Canada to make prescription medicines more affordable for senior citizens?
X – Yes, this will help millions of seniors who struggle to pay for their prescriptions.
No, it is too risky, as the safety of these drugs can’t be guaranteed.

--- That we re-import these drugs is absurd. Sell them here for the lower prices offered in, say, Canada. Stop advertising new drugs. Air time is almost as expensive as R&D. Stop over-medicating people. Emphasize preventative care, healthy living choices, and respect for the body you’re cruising around in. Realize that a long life that turns miserable at the end is not as good as a shorter life of good quality. Realize that death is part of the gig here, that in itself it’s not the worst thing that happens to YOU. Your death is very hard for your beloveds, but that is one of the lessons life means for us to learn, and that your personal death really won’t hurt you. Realize, look around, there are many events and conditions in life that are worse than death because people have to live through them. Live well, and you don’t need to be scared of it. Your life is not a possession, it is a learning experience. Learn it. For all that, a life still living Must be as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. The elderly have paid their dues already. We live in their legacy, stand on their shoulders, and should make damn well sure that they are not suffering from avoidable circumstances.

Thinking about the issue of education, which of the following is your number one priority? Please select only one answer.
Funding for early education programs like Head Start.
X—Funding for elementary and middle school education to reduce class sizes.
Funding for tuition aid programs to make college more affordable.

--- First, the question asks for my number one priority. That it then reminds me to choose only one answer says all you need to know about public education. It also says that the Dems are looking for one route. This is bad. This is narrow. This is dumb. All of these changes need to be made. And we need to rethink our ideas about college and everyone going to college. This will be heresy for a professor to say, but I’m saying it. Not everyone, for reasons of life experience or innate analytical intelligence, is cut out for college. Sorry. We are all equal Before the Law (in principle), but we are not all equally smart, talented, motivated, or responsible in the same ways. This ties to questions of the configuration of the economy in what I hope are obvious ways.

What is your opinion about a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion?
X – I support a woman’s right to choose.
I support a woman’s right to choose, but believe that we need some restrictions, such as parental notification laws and mandatory waiting periods before having an abortion.
I oppose a woman’s right to choose.

--- Oh, sister. Look, choice is key. Sovereignty over one’s own body is key to freedom on every level. More than the path of abortion reform, we need really in-depth sexual and relationship education, for several years, from middle school and into high school. Our popular culture does not promote knowledge in these areas, and most families are dysfunctional enough that most kids don’t know what loving and healthy relationships look like. We should not be reading self-help books at 30 and 40, we should studying them, and anatomy, and STDs, and the myriad forms of birth control, and safer sex, and childbirth, and the economic and personal consequences of pregnancy, the economic and personal consequences of various STDs, and teaching boys to respect girls as people instead of sex toys, and we need to teach girls to respect themselves fully. This cannot be done in three class periods. This requires say a one-semester class, required over several years. Sexuality and the relations that go with it are the most complex, central, and sacred aspect of our humanity. We should teach our kids about it in its complexity. That might get them, to the degree that adolescents can think about consequences (which cog-sci tells us is not all that much anyway), to think about what they’re doing to and with themselves and each other. And parents need to get WAY less squeamish about these discussions. This needs to be a concerted and collective effort.

What is your opinion about environmental laws in America?
X—We need stronger environmental laws to protect our air and water, clean up toxic waste, safeguard endangered wildlife and habitat, and combat global warming.
Our environmental policies are about right; no new laws are needed.
Our environmental laws burden business and hurt our economy.

--- Look, WE are the endangered species. Each critter on the planet contributes to the life of the planet – meaning, ultimately, us. Given the egregiousness of corporate welfare in the US, let’s not worry too much about hurting them or the stock holders. A dip for few years in profits and stock prices is not a big deal when compared with the costs to health care of pollution and the trouble coming our way from global warming which we can now only ameliorate and not avoid. We are part of a global ecosystem that works long-term. To keep living in it, we need to be thinking long-term. Your stocks, my stocks, their value will not matter if things get really bad. WE need to change how we live. That is not easy, but that is what must happen. The laws are nice, but we have to change, ourselves, our lifestyles, or they will be changed for us.

Additional comments:
Oh, that’ll do for today, don’t you think? Enough speaking from atop my mushroom. Sorry we've gone through the looking glass, Alice, but we'll just have to deal with it.