Re: At LEAST WE AINT REPUBLICANS
farmerman wrote: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.
Is it of ANY importance
that those ideas be in accordance
with the DULY AUTHORIZED powers of government
from the US Constitution,
or is naked liberal USURPATION of power enuf to satisfy u ?
David
Quote:The fact that one single WMD of various types can obliterate an entire city.
You mean the poison gas weapons Saddam had? You've got to be joking. Those weapons deterioate over time and they didn't kill millions in the Iraq-Iran war.
Looks like you've been duped by conservative scare tactics.
I don't think you should eat any bread. If your foolish enough to believe conservative BS I'm sure you'll believe this.
Quote:!!! BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!
Research on bread indicates that:
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread.
5. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month!
6. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis.
7. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
8. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
9. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
10. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
11. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
12. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, it has been proposed that the following bread restrictions be made:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
SOURCE
Quote:Is it of ANY importance
that those ideas be in accordance
with the DULY AUTHORIZED powers of government
from the US Constitution,
or is naked liberal USURPATION of power enuf to satisfy u ?
Considering how bad, corrupt and incompetent conditions are under Republicans I would prefer a liberal usurpation. They can't make it any worse.
george said
Quote:Your long silence here didn't do much for your disposition and good humor. Too bad.
Hope the business is going well.
BTW I must go to a conference in Vancouver in a couple of weeks. Never been there. Any suggestions for venu, sights, restaurants, etc?
No longer retired, I find I am too busy to abide fools.
Business going better than I expected, actually. Our product and our store would be quite at home on Madison Avenue but I was rather concerned that the low foot-traffic at our location (upper east side near the river) would really hurt us. As it turns out, the neighborhood is populated with a lot of affluent ladies of middle to advanced years (our clientele) and our store is absolutely unique in that location. We've done no promotion at all but word of mouth alone is getting us to the point (after 6 weeks) where we are starting to worry whether we can keep up. We've recently taken on the first latino employee in what promises to be a robust sweatshop operation. Further, we've just been asked to bring our work into Bergdorf Goodman.
We are really having fun. Jane and I design everything and make it ourselves (aside from the helper mentioned earlier). It turns out we are really quite good at it though Jane's work is clearly superior to mine - more visually imaginative and flamboyantly unpredictable. It was a talent she previously had no idea she might possess.
But along with the fun of the creative work, there's the adventure of small shop retailing in Manhattan. What a hoot! As I was renovating the shop, something like a dozen local folks shoved their heads in the door and welcomed us to the neighborhood. How odd that Manhattan is, in so many ways, more like an old world village than even my little home town. And the people who pop in are delightfully diverse and interesting. I can now speak with some authority on how cruel Ballanchine was to his dancers.
Just on a final note, it turns out that the charming little shop we leased is one of perhaps six or eight wood-framed clapboard buildings remaining in Manhattan.
Brandon9000 wrote:xingu wrote:Maybe Brandon can give us some ideas
No, but I do have a question. How is it possible that liberals don't have their own platform at this late date?
Liberals aren't a party. Conservatives don't have their own platform either.
Glad I could clear that up.
DrewDad wrote:Brandon9000 wrote: The fact that one single WMD of various types can obliterate an entire city.
You mean the ones that Saddam didn't have, and couldn't have delivered to a US target, anyway?
Brandon has become a parody of himself.
DrewDad wrote:Brandon9000 wrote: The fact that one single WMD of various types can obliterate an entire city.
You mean the ones that Saddam didn't have, and couldn't have delivered to a US target, anyway?
Why do you say that he couldn't have delivered a WMD to a US target, when all he would have had to do was disassemble a few, sneak the components into the target country, and reassemble them there? As I said, one single one of these weapons could probably obliterate a city.
xingu wrote:Quote:The fact that one single WMD of various types can obliterate an entire city.
You mean the poison gas weapons Saddam had? You've got to be joking. Those weapons deterioate over time and they didn't kill millions in the Iraq-Iran war.
Looks like you've been duped by conservative scare tactics.
I don't think you should eat any bread. If your foolish enough to believe conservative BS I'm sure you'll believe this.
Quote:!!! BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!
Research on bread indicates that:
....The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools.
SOURCE
No, I don't mean his chemical weapons. The war was started because Saddam Hussein had been known to have had development programs for both nuclear and biological weapons, and to have concealed them and lied about them. Iraq was invaded because we couldn't tell whether he had dismantled them as he had promised, or else merely gotten better at hiding them.
blatham wrote:george said
Quote:Your long silence here didn't do much for your disposition and good humor. Too bad.
Hope the business is going well.
BTW I must go to a conference in Vancouver in a couple of weeks. Never been there. Any suggestions for venu, sights, restaurants, etc?
No longer retired, I find I am too busy to abide fools.
Business going better than I expected, actually. Our product and our store would be quite at home on Madison Avenue but I was rather concerned that the low foot-traffic at our location (upper east side near the river) would really hurt us. As it turns out, the neighborhood is populated with a lot of affluent ladies of middle to advanced years (our clientele) and our store is absolutely unique in that location. We've done no promotion at all but word of mouth alone is getting us to the point (after 6 weeks) where we are starting to worry whether we can keep up. We've recently taken on the first latino employee in what promises to be a robust sweatshop operation. Further, we've just been asked to bring our work into Bergdorf Goodman.
We are really having fun. Jane and I design everything and make it ourselves (aside from the helper mentioned earlier). It turns out we are really quite good at it though Jane's work is clearly superior to mine - more visually imaginative and flamboyantly unpredictable. It was a talent she previously had no idea she might possess.
But along with the fun of the creative work, there's the adventure of small shop retailing in Manhattan. What a hoot! As I was renovating the shop, something like a dozen local folks shoved their heads in the door and welcomed us to the neighborhood. How odd that Manhattan is, in so many ways, more like an old world village than even my little home town. And the people who pop in are delightfully diverse and interesting. I can now speak with some authority on how cruel Ballanchine was to his dancers.
Just on a final note, it turns out that the charming little shop we leased is one of perhaps six or eight wood-framed clapboard buildings remaining in Manhattan.
Where is it? Maybe I'll stop in one of these days. That is, if you haven't put into place the "no filthy Italians" policy yet, of course.
kicky
Surely, "filthy Italians" is redundant.
We are on 78th just off of York. Look for a black awning.
ps to george
Re restaurants etc...definitely get to the Banana Leaf on Denman Street and, one block from there and Delilah's at Comox and Denman. Also the Boathouse (two blocks away on water) and the Fishhouse in Stanley Park. All those restaurants are top notch and in the area where I lived previously. If you haven't booked a hotel yet, I'd recommend the Sylvia or the Coast Plaza, both in that same neighborhood which puts you right on or near the ocean at English Bay and near Stanley Park.
As to sights, you must get on the seawall which takes you some seven or more miles around Stanley Park and the city. Also, take the tram up Grouse Mountain (restaurant up there too)...that's one agenda item you really can't miss as it goes up some 3000 feet and gives a wonderful view of the city and the Fraser River Valley. Best bet is to go up in the afternoon to get a daylight view, then stay through to nighttime.
Re-tracking the thread.
'At least we aren't Republicans' is of course a good motto, and one that many of us can get behind, but not enough to win in the fall, because it doesn't convince the middle 'swing' voters which are neccessary to win elections here in America.
Part of the problem is that traditionally the Dems represent a huge tent - there's a real feeling that you can't just sum up all the different things they stand for in a few easy slogans the same way the Republicans can. But I'm going to try.
---
What do the Democrats believe in? Understanding that we are a part of something bigger than ourselves, and understanding the consequences of our actions.
I believe this motto pretty much sums up the majority of Dem beliefs.
We are each an individual. Each individual is part of many other groups - families, communities, businesses, clubs, churches, cities, states, nations, humanity. Noone is an island unto themselves; we are all inter-twined in so many ways that it is difficult to even contemplate how many lives we touch and contribute to over the course of our life.
Being a Democrat means understanding that we are part of these groups. It means understanding that others are affected by our actions, on a personal level, on an environmental level, on an international level.
And that's it. Each and every Democratic position can be related back to this simple theory. We don't believe that it is every man for himself, on an economic level, on an international level, on an environmental level. We have to work together, the same way that groups work together to achieve goals. We cannot ignore the problems of other members of our groups, without weakening the group as a whole. We have to care for one another, and try to use understanding before we use force.
Our actions have consequences, often un-intended ones. We must do our best to forsee what the consequences are before we take action, lest we fall into peril. This doesn't mean being overly cautious, or being afraid to take action; merely taking the time to think about the consequences will suffice. It seems that this is done so rarely these days, and yet it is an important step in making any decision.
I believe there is a major distinction here between Dems and Republicans, in that many Republicans either don't take the time or simply don't care about the consequences of their actions, as long as it does not affect them directly. They don't care that companies pollute, they don't care that people are dying in Iraq, they don't care that some people make insanely high profits for doing the same work as others who make insanely low wages. Maybe they care, but not enough to take action. I don't know why this is; perhaps they lack the ability to understand the connections between them and other people, or simply think that ignoring problems long enough will solve them. I disagree. I'm sure you reading this can think of many real-life examples just in the last few years of this.
I've been writing a longer piece on this subject - I have about 30-40 pages done - but narrowing it down into an easy motto is important, so I'm trying to work on it. Feedback is appreciated.
Cycloptichorn
Brandon9000 wrote: ]
No, I don't mean his chemical weapons. The war was started because Saddam Hussein had been known to have had development programs for both nuclear and biological weapons, and to have concealed them and lied about them. Iraq was invaded because we couldn't tell whether he had dismantled them as he had promised, or else merely gotten better at hiding them.
Baloney.
The war was started because of WMD's that were supposedly there. This "development program" bit was emphasized only when we invaded and found out the WMD's were not actually present.
The US invaded Iraq on March 20, 2003. Note the difference in tone and content in these quotes from Administration spokesmen before and after that date.
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Vice President Dick Cheney, Aug. 26, 2002
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
President Bush, Sept. 12, 2002
"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world."
White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, Dec. 2, 2002
"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
Ari Fleischer, Jan. 9, 2003
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent."
President Bush, Jan. 28, 2003
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Feb. 5, 2003
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."
President Bush, Feb. 8, 2003
"So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? I think our judgment has to be clearly not."
Colin Powell, March 8, 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."
President Bush, March 17, 2003
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes."
Ari Fleischer, March 21, 2003
"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them."
Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22, 2003
"I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction."
Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman, March 23, 2003
"One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites."
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clark, March 22, 2003
"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003
"Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty."
Scholar Robert Kagan, April 9, 2003
"I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found."
Ari Fleischer, April 10, 2003
"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."
President Bush, April 24, 2003
"There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country."
Donald Rumsfeld, April 25, 2003
"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so."
President Bush, May 3, 2003
"I am confident that we will find evidence that makes it clear he had weapons of mass destruction."
Colin Powell, May 4, 2003
"I never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country."
Donald Rumsfeld, May 4, 2003
"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program."
President Bush, May 6, 2003
"I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, [or] whether they're still hidden."
Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commander, 101st Airborne, May 13, 2003
"Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found."
Gen. Michael Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, May 21, 2003
"Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction."
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, May 26, 2003
"They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer."
Donald Rumsfeld, May 27, 2003
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction [as justification for invading Iraq] because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, May 28, 2003
Brandon wrote: Iraq was invaded because we couldn't tell whether he had dismantled them as he had promised, or else merely gotten better at hiding them.
WOW!! What a terrific reason to invade a country, get thousands of Americans killed, destabilize the Middle East where a lot of the worlds oil comes from and slaughter well over 50,000 men, women and children.
All this done because we "couldn't tell".
Brilliant Brandon.
Brandon9000 wrote:DrewDad wrote:Brandon9000 wrote: The fact that one single WMD of various types can obliterate an entire city.
You mean the ones that Saddam didn't have, and couldn't have delivered to a US target, anyway?
Why do you say that he couldn't have delivered a WMD to a US target, when all he would have had to do was disassemble a few, sneak the components into the target country, and reassemble them there? As I said, one single one of these weapons could probably obliterate a city.
Shucks! Good thing those communists didn't think of that...
Oh, wait! That's why we have
radiation detectors in our ports.
And those pesky biological and chemical agents... We all know how easy they are to transport...
Wait! I seem to recall that they're more dangerous to the producers than potential victims....
Hmm....
Help me out again with how easy it is to deliver WMD. I seem to have missed that memo.
Keltiwizard,
Thanks for posting that compilation. My only criticism of it, is that it is so very brief. In the 4-6 months period leading up to resumption of Gulf War combat, there were numerous reports of Iraqi WMD. At the cease fire it was known with certainty that chemical and nerve agents still existed. Saddam promised to destroy them, but this is the same man who is a declared fan of Hitler and Stalin. Saddam might have simply opened his facilities and records unconditionally, as the Allies expected would be done. Instead, Saddam did everything in his power to obstruct the terms of the Cease Fire. In another thread here, captured Iraqi documents seem to confirm that Saddam wanted the West to believe that he still possessed WMD. He succeeded, and resumption of the Gulf War resulted.
Relying on U.S. Intelligence Congressional leadership believed that Iraq possessed the illegal weapons. It isn't hard to find A2K members who insist that the U.S. Intelligence community lied, or were totally incompetent. I haven't seen the least shred of evidence for either proposition. U.S. Intelligence was only one of many who were mistaken about what Saddam had in his arsenal. Not even the UN inspectors were totally convinced that Saddam wasn't concealing illegal arms, though they never found anything much.
If the President and his administration had knowingly lied about Saddam's arsenal, then why keep the search and issue alive long after Saddam's fall? It seems to me, that is pretty convincing evidence that the President, his close advisors and the professional military and intelligence leadership still expected to find very large stores of chemical and biological weapons. That we never found significant evidence of WMD, only underscores the relative easy with which a dictator can deceive the world. Some still believe that Saddam had such forbidden weapons, but that they were transferred to Syria in the 4-6 months leading up to resumption of hostilities. Perhaps some small numbers of illegal weapons and technology did survive, but I'm inclined to doubt it.
Why didn't the U.S. Intelligence community have better information?
1. The U.S. had been cutting back on HUMINT since the end of the Cold War. There is a deep-seated suspicion and dislike for the fundamental techniques of gathering HUMINT. Intelligence agencies have to suborn, blackmail, and coerce loyal citizens of the targeted nation into betrayal. Intelligence assets are generally not entirely trustworthy, and may be Counter-Intelligence plants. Some sell imaginary information, or otherwise inflate the value of their data for other reasons. Human agents live under the constant fear of discovery, torture and death. Recruiting agents whose position inside the targeted nation will render top-quality data is difficult, and rare. No one knows how many thousand "Joes" have died in the service.
Congress and a string of Presidents, opted to rely instead mostly upon technical surveillance. HUMINT operations were cut to the heart, and networks that took years to develop were abandoned to their fate. Operations Case Officers, seeing which way the wind blew transferred to other branches, or left the service entirely. SATINT and SIGINT had to take up the strain. "Watch the pea, and then win the money by picking which walnut shell it's hiding under".
Theoretically with SATINT we can watch the movement of things and people anywhere on earth, at anytime. Actually, its harder in real life than in the movies. The Earth is a big place to human beings, so where does one look to see significant physical change? Large sweeps covering hundreds, even thousands of miles in width cover whole continents in a matter of hours. The resolution is good, but lacking detail. An analyst can discern the wakes of ships, open-pit mining operations, larger transportation networks (airports, rails, and roads), vegetation changes, and etc. From space everything appears on the surface as innocent and peaceful, until attention is drawn to some specific item. To improve detail, involves the use of geo-syncranous platforms. Often the satellite has to be moved and repositioned, and that is difficult and expensive. Once on station, the pictures are extremely good with a lot of detail. The downside is that the area ssurveiledis limited and small ... sort of like looking at a room through a straw stuck in a wall. From data gathered from ssatellitesand aiairbornessets, the analyst has to put together a puzzle without certain knowledge of what the total picture represented might be. They do an incredible job, and generally the public only knows of their failures.
SIGINT focuses on what people say. One of the wonders of the modern world is electronic communications. Everyone is part of an electronic communications system. We watch television, listen to radio programs, and read in newspapers information transmitted around the globe by satellite. Thats mostly open data that Analysts monitor continually. Potentially even more useful data is communicated when one person enters into a conversation with others. Telephone calls and computer communications are routed through satellites from point to point. Everywhere on earth people are constantly expressing themselves in electronic formats, and a big part of that traffic can be intercepted and analyzed.
The problem is again the size of the take. How does one find the significant communication out of the trillions that pour in without cease? Supercomputers search for key words and phrases that crop up in messages, but almost all of those "catches" are not significant and the Analyst has to figure out which is valuable and which is totally innocent. The situation is improved when the net can focus its attention on sources that have a higher probability of rendering useful information. Sometimes that's relatively straightforward. One might try listening to Saddam and his cohorts talking among themselves over radios and telephones. Such people know that their conversations are likely going to be intercepted, so they avoid saying anything openly. Encrypted messages can usually be broken, but that takes time and may still be of dubious value. Given millions of encrypted messages, only a few may deal directly with valuable information. Most are just normal bureacratic workload, though even that data can supply a small part of the larger puzzle.
With the advent of cellphone technology it has become much easier for the target to conceal their communications. Cellphones may be clones not easily traced, and may only be used once. This is the electronic version of the old one-time pad. Global communications are immense and dynamic. Before a useful telephone can be identified its no longer in use. This means that only general locations can be watched carefully and the entire spectrum has to be monitored. The general public's notions about wiretaps are as obsolete as the term itself.
2. Almost all information available seemed to support the common belief that Saddam continued to lie and evade his obligations under the Cease Fire Conditions. The world intelligence community that we have access to agreed that Iraq had an illegal arsenal, and had not changed its policies against using chemical weapons against civilian targets. Saddam might have forstalled resumption of hostilities, but chose not to ... and that in itself seemed to confirm his possession of WMD.
The great error, was that almost everyone both inside and outside the government tended to regard intelligence estimates as certain rather than probabilities. Very seldom is any intelligence "certain", information is almost always some degree of probability. In the case of Saddam's Iraq, the assessement was that Iraq had and intended the use of chemical, biological, and perhaps nuclear weapons was very, very high . We tend to think that nuclear weapons are bombs, but that isn't always the case. Radiological materials dispersed by conventional means are also nuclear weapons, and Saddam very well might have had that capability.
Finally, the case for intervention in Iraq was not entirely founded upon their possession of forbidden weapons. Iraq had resisted full compliance with Cease Fire Conditions for over a decade, and dealing with Saddam was a distraction that could no longer be tolerated. Saddam was openly encouraging terrorism, and there was evidence of Al Quida presence inside Iraq.
I see no difference between GWB = George Walking Baboon and a Banana Republic dictator. Give him a banana.
candidone1 wrote:blatham wrote: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.
This was precisely why it was good that Bush won in '04.
There is indeed a rather substantial mess to clean up.....
Perhaps that's why the Dems are struggling so much now. It's like cleaning up after a hurricane.
Where do you begin?
farmerman
Let me ressurect this discussion to make some suggestions.
First, I don't agree with your initial premise (dems have no policy prescriptions). A more accurate description of real states of affairs is that your rhetorical question reflects a propogated myth - propogated through the purposeful Republican talking-point mechanism (constant repetition from multiple sources). Simply count the number of times in any given day where you will hear or read "the dems have no plans" from Republican reps. Count how many times you'll bump into it here from the folks who turn to nothing much but rightwing media sources.
But also, you've repeated it yourself. Not too surprising as the notion is also forwarded pretty regularly on the mainstream media. It has become a successfully propogated idea regardless of any connection to reality.
To get really clear on this matter, consider also how this portrayal/notion/unreflective meme re the Dems sets up the binary opposite portrayal of Republicans - they alone HAVE plans. But there is a whole package of inferences, explicit and implicit, attached to both ends of this binary opposition. You could note some of them as follows:
certain vs confused
possess knowledge vs lack knowledge
bold vs meek
courageous vs cowardly
tough vs wimpy
steadfast vs vacillating
manly vs feminine
can protect you vs can't protect you
or even
steered by God vs directionless
etc
Note how often these exact phrases or immediate synonyms are constantly forwarded in Republican rhetoric.
But of course, it is really complete bullshit. It has the same sort of truth status as the propogated meme Repubs are tighter with money (while government grew and debt spiralled under Reagan and now again).
