"The Common Good and The Commonwealth"

ljm

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Sunday February 05, 2006 · 9:47 AM PST

2006/02/05 · 09:47

It's time for us to become a unified Democratic party with one very central message. Last summer at a grassroots meetup in Little Rock, Arkansas of the National Clark Community, George Lakoff told us that our frame for our party is "the common good." He also talked about the early states being called a commonwealth in that everyone was working together and using their resources to work for the common good of their state. Then, that expanded to include the common good of the entire nation through a system of taxation that was to benefit everyone. The words made absolute sense to me. Everything that matters to us as a party and a nation fits into the "common good."

Healthcare, education, jobs, pensions, infrastructure, transportation, national security are all supposed to be part of the fabric of our lives to have a strong nation. It's also what we need to be able to live the lives of our choosing in a way that works for "the common good." Do we pay taxes to support these things? Sure we do. That's the commonwealth part of the deal, that George Bush has been ripping apart in his effort to "starve the beast."

This thread is intended to get the ball rolling for ideas to unify us as a party and take back one or both houses this year. We must do this. How can we focus all our energies for the "common good?" How do we work to make our country whole again? Please try to think of serious ways to do this. I know snark is fun, but we are now in 2006 and besides the obvious, donating money to Democratic candidates (commonwealth) there's more we need to do. Wes Clark has asked that we stop the name calling. For the "common good," we have to stop the name calling and look at unifying to make our country whole. How do we do this?

This content was created by a Daily Kos Community member.

Make YOUR voice heard!

Comments are closed on this story.