Abstract

A People's Democratic Platform

The article presents various hypothetical political platforms offered by a variety of people in the United States. The United States Democratic Party platform to be presented at the upcoming convention of 2004 has been tailored to suit the positions of the presidential nominee and to raise as few contentious issues as possible. That may be good strategy as defined by political pollsters and strategists, but to our mind it represents a missed opportunity to put forward and debate some fresh, possibly unconventional ideas. So we have asked a disparate group of people--ranging from retired newsman Walter Cronkite to hip-hop activist Bakari Kitwana--what platform each of them would like to propose. Their answers were by turns provocative, quirky and unexpected. We offer them in the hope that voters will be stirred to come up with their own "planks" and then try to turn them into reality.