At LEAST WE AINT REPUBLICANS

With the above statement, I believe Ive just summarized what I see as the entire Democratic platform.
While it has its appeal, I feel that something more is needed. Something that tells the (voting) AMericn Public that the Democrats have lots to offer:
I would like to see us stuff the Democratic party brain trust with ideas that should be forwarded for the upcoming elections in November.

Maybe Brandon can give us some ideas

farmerperson

I'm not even certain that I want the Dems to regain congress in six months or the White House in 2 and a half years.

Imagine dropping into the narrative, immediately following the last period of the last sentence of dialogue of Lear or Hamlet or Oedipus Rex. Like a Greek tragic chorus, you've watched everything go seriously to **** and what do you - set with the responsibility of mending cosmicly demolished states of affairs - do now? Spendius, at a point such as this, would surely (and appropriately) toss in the following...
"and the only sound that's left
after the ambulances go
is Cinderella sweeping up
on Desolation Row"

As a practical matter towards regaining power (if one concludes that regaining power now is likely to be more advantageous than not regaining it and allowing things to get so horrid that the new conservative movement and the modern republican party becomes equated in the mind of americans with pus, dead babies and scabrous disease) the dems need not do any more than the silly, simplistic and superficial motto-mongering of Gingrich's contract with America. Silence on substantive policies has the advantage (a real advantage) of the Fabian - very hard to target for attack. And that's particularly true when the other side is busy ripping itself to bits.

Blatham,

It sounds as if you're recommending that the Democrats concede the upcoming elections to the Republican Party. Rather than make any positive attempt to correct all the "terrible" policies of the past 8 years, the Democrats will have the satisfaction of gloating as the country is flushed away. This seems to be a continuation of the Democratic approach that has worked so well all during the present administration. No ideas or no solutions, only whining, complaining and "I told you so". Works for me, though I would hate to see the Democratic Party a successful suicide.

You remain so convinced that the Republican Party is the personification of evil, and will forever "become equated in the mind of Americans with pus, dead babies and scabrous disease". Some Democrats were confident that President Bush would be defeated in the last Presidential canvas for similar, though not quite so vividly described, predictions of how terrible things had become with a Conservative government. You guys were wrong then, and I'm pretty sure you're still wrong about how odious this Administration is with the American electorate. Either put up your best candidate and a platform to correct what you believe to be so wrong, or don't whine about losing later. I suspect that the Democrats will do neither.

Your advice to let the opposition self-destruct "when the other side is busy ripping itself to bits" applies equally well to the GOP. Let the Democrats remain fixed in its hatred of this President and unresponsive to the issues, and the Republican Party can win elections for a long, long time. The danger to the Republican Party is that it will become so used to dealing with nut cases that it will eventually become complacent and arrogant. That would be very bad for the country, so I sincerely hope that the Democratic Party will wake-up and revive itself.

Iraq war could cost $2.6 trillion
January 10, 2006

The cost of the Iraq war could top $US2 trillion ($A2.66 trillion), far above the US administration's pre-war projections, according to a new study.

The study takes into account long-term costs such as lifetime health care for thousands of wounded US soldiers.

Columbia University economist Joseph E Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes included the disability payments for the 16,000 wounded US soldiers, about 20 per cent of whom suffer serious brain or spinal injuries.

They said US taxpayers will be burdened with costs that linger long after US troops withdraw.

"Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how large they are," the study said, referring to total war costs.

"We can state, with some degree of confidence, that they exceed a trillion dollars."

Before the invasion, then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels predicted Iraq would be "an affordable endeavor".

He rejected an estimate by then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey of total Iraq war costs at $100 billion to $200 billion as "very, very high".

Unforeseen costs include recruiting to replenish a military drained by multiple tours of duty, slower long-term US economic growth and health-care bills for treating long-term mental illness suffered by war veterans.

Citing army statistics, the study said about 30 per cent of US troops had developed mental-health problems within three to four months of returning from Iraq as of July 2005.

Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 and has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

He and Bilmes based their projections partly on past wars and included the economic cost of higher oil prices, a bigger US budget deficit and greater global insecurity caused by the Iraq war.

They said a portion of the rise in oil prices - about 20 per cent of the $US25 a barrel gain in oil prices since the war began - could be attributed directly to the conflict and that this had already cost the United States about $US25 billion ($A33 billion).

"Americans are, in a sense, poorer by that amount," they said, describing that estimate as conservative.

The projection of a total cost of $US2 trillion ($A2.66 trillion) assumes US troops stay in Iraq until 2010 but with steadily declining numbers each year.

They projected the number of troops there in 2006 at about 136,000. Currently, the US has 153,000 troops in Iraq.

- Reuters

asherman

I first bumped into your political analyses here... http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1048&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=390 ... where you went on about terrorist nukes and Hussein's WOMD and his funding of international terrorism. I don't think you've gotten a single important thing right from that point on through today. Now, if you demonstrated even the slightest propensity towards honest appraisal of how much you've gotten wrong, why you got it so wrong, and how incompetent and dishonest this administration you support has proved to be, then I'd find some value in bothering to speak with you and I might minimally credit, as a point of manners if nothing else, your analyses of matters political. As it stands, a rational betting man would take whatever you say and lay money on the opposite.

Quote:

Iraq war could cost $2.6 trillion
January 10, 2006

The cost of the Iraq war could top $US2 trillion ($A2.66 trillion), far above the US administration's pre-war projections, according to a new study.

The study takes into account long-term costs such as lifetime health care for thousands of wounded US soldiers.

Columbia University economist Joseph E Stiglitz and Harvard lecturer Linda Bilmes included the disability payments for the 16,000 wounded US soldiers, about 20 per cent of whom suffer serious brain or spinal injuries.

They said US taxpayers will be burdened with costs that linger long after US troops withdraw.

"Even taking a conservative approach, we have been surprised at how large they are," the study said, referring to total war costs.

"We can state, with some degree of confidence, that they exceed a trillion dollars."

Before the invasion, then-White House budget director Mitch Daniels predicted Iraq would be "an affordable endeavor".

He rejected an estimate by then-White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey of total Iraq war costs at $100 billion to $200 billion as "very, very high".

Unforeseen costs include recruiting to replenish a military drained by multiple tours of duty, slower long-term US economic growth and health-care bills for treating long-term mental illness suffered by war veterans.

Citing army statistics, the study said about 30 per cent of US troops had developed mental-health problems within three to four months of returning from Iraq as of July 2005.

Stiglitz won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2001 and has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's Iraq policy.

He and Bilmes based their projections partly on past wars and included the economic cost of higher oil prices, a bigger US budget deficit and greater global insecurity caused by the Iraq war.

They said a portion of the rise in oil prices - about 20 per cent of the $US25 a barrel gain in oil prices since the war began - could be attributed directly to the conflict and that this had already cost the United States about $US25 billion ($A33 billion).

"Americans are, in a sense, poorer by that amount," they said, describing that estimate as conservative.

The projection of a total cost of $US2 trillion ($A2.66 trillion) assumes US troops stay in Iraq until 2010 but with steadily declining numbers each year.

They projected the number of troops there in 2006 at about 136,000. Currently, the US has 153,000 troops in Iraq.

- Reuters

Would someone please remind us why are we in Iraq. What threat to America was so serious that we had to incur this horrible cost?

Bush's war.

The fact that one single WMD of various types can obliterate an entire city.