"lack of leadership and vision in the democrats as a whole and in particular "

...the proposals by these Democratic leaders, including the President, are not getting enough attention because of a lack of "vision"?

I'm inclined to believe it's a lack of interest across, including by the media.

"We know it will be quashed by Republicans and the Democratic Party leadership "

The proposals in the OP were offered by the President and Democrats. You can't demand proposals to address these issues, and then when they're offered claim that they'll never pass. I take that back, you can, but then you have to reconcile the reality.

Case in point: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002489532

Now, it's up to Americans to hold their elected representatives accountable.

Yet it has been smothered by the Democratic leadership.

Should we not vote for them?

the Democratic Leadership won't let them.

We are not helpless victims.

As for Medicare for all, where are the thousands -or millions- of people protesting non-stop to make this happen?

It's our laziness and OUR lack of vision that prevents things from getting done.

If the people are united in anything, it will happen. But we are not united.

People saying they 'support' Medicare for all is a lot different from actively making it happen.

Participating in this thread is pointless.

"Participating in this thread is pointless."

...why did you?

Take a look at some of the more in depth history books by erudite authors and you'll see very often that what was released for public consumption in the news at the time was only a surface gloss on what was really going on, day-glo lipstick on an invisible pig..

Why would we think it was any different today?

"Other: What we see is probably about 75% Kabuki and the rest is mostly obscure...Why would we think it was any different today?"

...always involves some "Kabuki," but exposure and movements usually drive change. Republicans spend a lot of time distorting reality. As a result, some people's perception of reality is warped.

The map is not the terrain, it's impossible to perfectly model the world in one's mind, there are only varying degrees of inaccuracy.

I'm reminded of Bismark's quote about sausage and politics and Clausewitz's about war being an extension of politics and Sun Tzu's adage that war is primarily about deception.

"Everyone's perception of reality is warped.."

In the context, I was speaking of "warped," by being fed a daily dose of distortion.

Reality is that the President is a U.S. citicizen. Warped is Orly Taitz. Not everyone's perception is warped in that way.

Us "inside baseball" types are pretty rare, if you get your "news" from the M$M you have a remarkably superficial and biased view that's corporate friendly but constantly described as liberal "The liberal media".

Fox News is just a particularly egregious violator, the leader of the pack if you will.

Fox News, fair and balanced, that they can even say that without being blown completely off the damn planet by the gales of laughter says a lot.

I get chewed out if I even try to tell anyone in real life what's going on, far too many of them really don't want to know, even the weather has turned into a subject that can go all political in a heartbeat.

what you're saying, but I was stating a point in the context of blatant and consistent lies, and the people who believe them.

Most seats at the Federal level are not remotely competitive. For most seats in my area, get all the progressives to the polls for any candidate you pick and the results will be the same. The Dem or Repug will win as the seat was designed. Obama threw them a curveball in 2008 by getting "unlikely" voters to the polls in mass quantities. Even with that we barely unseated a couple of marginal wingers in congress who were replaced by true wingers in 2010.

The change in voter registrations left over from 2008 did cause them to throw Alan Grayson a seat for 2012. He now has a district where he should win by at least 5%, perhaps 10%. They did this to clean out the Dems from the other now much more secure winger Districts. A new equilibrium has been established, 3 wingers + Grayson. Run any candidates you like, mobilize whoever you wish, the results will be 3 wingers + Grayson. If you mobilize really well, the wingers will only win by 5 and Grayson will win by 15.

The larger point being that virtually no legislative career is made from issue advocacy, on either side really. The wingers promise to make all abortions illegal to get the fundy vote, but never actually do it, even when they hold all the cards. There is no point because if they make the fundys mad, they will only win re-election by 5 percent instead of the ususal 10 to 15. Only if the races become truly competitive will these folks begin listening to the voters. Short of that, they will only listen to the contributors.

everyone knows what the agenda is.

if they got any actual attention, "the american people" might start wondering why they weren't getting passed.

or might compare them unfavorably to what actually does get passed.

"if they got any actual attention, "the american people" might start wondering why they weren't getting passed."

...it would be great if they got the attention. I mean, it would be great if Occupy or a similar movement got behind one or all of these proposals. The media will not promote them.


Praise for Harkin Bill to Rebuild the Middle Class
http://harkin.senate.gov/help/rebuildmiddleclass.cfm

folks who own the political classes and sponsor 99% of the legislation & determine the political agenda.

The only real "issue" when you boil it down is how that ruling class fraction divies up the spoils among its members and hangers-on and compradors.

it's all one seamless clusterfuck from start to finish.

And the corporate-owned media is part of that.

On edit: Actually, quite a lot of Dems are also part of that.

even though they don't financially support the levels of government activity that the US has seen over the last 30 years, let alone the types of programs and activities that are needed to support a modern democracy.

Members of the MSM make too much money, and are just generally bad journalists.