A brilliant article in the NY Times by Fouad Ajami explains how a tiny minority of dictators became all powerful in Arab lands over the last 40 years.
The Republican strategy over the last decade has been similar to the one described in the article: Control the media, demolish Democratic support base, divide the public, never admit working with the opposition. Demonize everyone that's not in your party. Lionize everything that appears "patriotic".
The Democratic party also had a "strategy" : Try to collaborate. Try to find the good within the Republicans. It failed.
We have to win. The multitudes will join us if we offer justice. So we need to offer justice, not compromise. See below for a few suggestions. I believe that if we win in 2012, and especially if we get a majority on the supreme court, the Republican Party will not undermine our Democracy as much.
(It could be that the next time we will have a chance to uprise, like we did in 2008, it will be similar to Libya: against live ammunition and in 40 years. OK, that last one was hyperbole, and yes, I am putting my tongue deep in my cheek, but maybe show that if they drive us to it WE WILL make them pay. With Money. See below.)
Its time for a new approach that will project confidence in our way, not JUST willingness to compromise.
Here are a few suggestions:
1. We need to solve the debt crisis. Don't just plan to not extend the Bush Tax-cuts: Let's pressure our reps to offer a HUGE INCREASE on taxes on the richest. Heck, lets Double them. 70%. Clinton did it and people supported him although at the time the frustration with government was not as high. Ike did it (90%) and he was a Republican. You know what gave us the debt. ...and you know that soon enough the rating of our bonds will plummet and the Chinese will put us on an austerity plan like the one the EU put the Irish on (a result of which is that 1000 Irish emigrate away every day.)
2. Don't just put Bernie Maddolf in prison, start litigation against ALL INVESTMENT BANKERS AND ALL DERIVATIVE RESEARCHERS IN ALL BANKS THAT GOT BAILOUT MONEY (All of them knew what they were doing. I am a physicist. My friends in graduate school went to work for Solomon Brothers and Citybank and they knew that their "solution space" for non-linear equations of the stock market allowed only certain portions of the market to boom while the rest had to collapse). Heck, some of those banks were saved by us and came back to bite us spewing poison. We need to also start a spat of civil lawsuits against hedge fund managers.
3. Don't just defend the health-care bill, suggest to INCREASE benefits for the poor and ELIMINATE Medicare for the top 1%. Claim that this will reduce the amount required by young people that will HAVE TO buy into the system
4. Have senate block ANY PORK, EVEN REASONABLE, to states represented by a Republican (especially mine, Kansas)
5. Have someone strongly anti-crazies replace Joe "the plumber" Biden in the 2012 campaign. Russ Feingold would be a great choice
6. In Republican states, they are trying to have us not vote by making it tougher (bring photo ID, and much more, in some states). Let all Democratic states change voting hours to
8-11:30PM (nap time for old foggies that always vote GOP).