Reply #73: my compliments to both you and sangha ...

[welshTerrier2]

both of you have made scholarly arguments to support your points of view ...

i'll take one last pass at this theme and then move on to other business ... many activist democrats were angry and energized before the election; if anything, they are even angrier and more energized now ... i believe it's critical to sustain this energy ... too many democrats have virtually no contact with the party at all ... that's just not OK ... it is my view that we need to increase the frequency of contact and visibility of the party to its membership ... this is a long slow process and needs to start NOW ... i also think democrats need their daily dose of red meat ... we need a much more combative media presence and it needs to start now ... we complain that the right-wing owns the media but when democrats do appear, they are almost always of the "milk dud" wing of the party ... we needed to take a much sharper line ... i guess the perspective I have of the process is that there are certain things that must be done now (like food, clothing, shelter) to keep the party alive ... you can't spend all your time designing a better pair of boxing gloves while you're getting your head beaten in ...

there was a famous Abbott and Costello routine where Costello was going around door-to-door way out in the country selling vacuum cleaners ... his pitch was to get a housewife to let him into her house, then dump dirt all over her living room rug and then plug in the vacuum and clean it all up ... one woman frantically tried to discourage him ... he kept piling on more and more dirt over her objections ... finally, he had emptied the whole bag of dirt on her expensive rug ... he then asked her where her nearest outlet was so he could plug in the vacuum ... she responded "that's what i've been trying to tell you ... we don't have any electricity in our house" ... the point of the story, and i hope you'll excuse the pun, is that planning should never take place in a vacuum ...

anyway, enough on that ... whatever differences we have on this issue are not as important as making a real start ... perhaps while we are defining our core values, others can start their own forum to discuss combat strategies ... and if both groups produce good results, a subsequent merger of the groups could potentially deliver the complete, integrated package ...

so, I have no substantial problem with your stated goals ... you have defined a long-term, ongoing process to define the core beliefs of the Democratic Party ... what could be more important than that?

so, let's do it ... what is the process to get a "Think Tank" forum and how do we define its charter ... clearly this process cannot take place, at least not initially, in either of the GD forums ...

what's the next step ??