Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog

number one on the list: Equal Pay.

Brand Democrat observes the world's challenges implies Equal Pay is the first concern. (Forty hour work weeks come in third--but this shows a lack of creativity. Why not make it thirty?) Brand Democrat observes American politics and believes Equal Pay is the most marketable party plank.

Why (oh why) are we Democrats hopeless? Where (oh where) are the grown-up Democrats?

Look. Its simple:

Global Leadership
Free Culture (ie L. Lessig AND A. Sullivan)
Simple, Transparent Government
Academic Excellence
Science, Technology, and Medicine

Reality based.

...

Equal pay? Fuck!

Maybe I missed the point. The idea is "these are our past achievements, we're just getting warmed up," right?

The points above are still valid, and may be added to. We Democrats, at some point, are going to have to move past reminding people equal voting rights was a Democratic initiative. Eventually, voters ask "what have you done for me lately?" "what are the new innovations?"

The forty-hour work week was useful during industrialisation, but much less useful in an era of intense global competition, but also the blurring distinctions between work and home in the technologically enabled information economy. New challenges, new policy.

The degree to which Brand Democrat identifies with the past and glorifies those achievements makes US look like the American conservtives. Liberals race forward embracing new changes, breaking down new borders and barriers. (If need be, bariffs and terriers too!)

I believe the right has made it seem as if they're the only ones who have ever achieved anything. That particular slogan is to get people understanding that gee, I like those things - you mean the Democrats did them? All other slogans are welcome, as long as they're quick and easy to get.

Legitimate point. But I'd still prefer to get people understanding what Democrats are doing right now. As several surveys showed, most voters cannot match policy proposals (eg stance on Kyoto) to the correct candidate. I'm stubborn.

Anyways, maybe this will stir the next great round of Democratic innovation:

"The technology industry is obsessed with the notion of Silicon Valley, because many believe the best and brightest in close proximity inspire new ideas, and great products. That might be true, but it also inspires copycats, and dot-com style manias. In the past, some of the biggest tech names were started outside of Silicon Valley. Bill Gates and Paul Allen were looking to find a permanent home for Microsoft, they settled on a remote little city called Redmond, Washington. Dell Computer is based in Round Rock, a tiny Texas town you would have hard time finding on the map. “We have shown that our start-up model of being based outside Silicon Valley and in small connected cities works,” says Kozuru’s Flowers. “Instead of outsourcing to India or China, we outsourced to Kansas.” Broadband lets you do that. Pity, our politicians don’t think that way."

From: http://www.gigaom.com/2004/11/outsourced_to_ka.php
Lots of great links in the original--check 'em out.

Compare Oliver's clearheaded prose to my excited, snarky first post: I'm shamed.

Great idea.

Three months too late.