The Democrats' Da Vinci Code by David J. Sirota (worth printing and saving

[itzamirakul]

This is an excellent article that gives concrete ideas and suggestions for getting the party back on the grassroots track and away from the corporate elites who have taken over.

Read the article at www.alternet.org/story/20702/

<snip> ...the Democrats' very own Da Vinci Code - a road map to political divinity. It is the path Karl Rove fears. He knows his GOP is vulnerable to Democrats who finally follow leaders who have translated a populist economic agenda into powerful cultural and values messages. It also threatens groups like the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), which has pushed the Democratic Party to give up on its working-class roots and embrace big business's agenda. These New Democrats, backed by huge corporate contributions, say that the party must reduce corporate regulation and embrace a free-trade policy that is wiping out local economies throughout the heartland. They have the nerve to call this agenda "centrist" even though poll after poll shows it is far out of the mainstream. Yet these centrists get slaughtered at the ballot box, and their counterparts - the progressive economic populists - are racking up wins and relegating the DLC argument to the scrap heap.<snip>

[PROGRESSIVE1]

1. kick

[prairierose]

2. You're so right....

this is a great article. I read it this morning & I meant to post it here but got sidetracked a few zillion times! I hope that many people read this article and re-read it. I'm glad that you brought it over here. Thanks

:toast:

[itzamirakul]

3. Everyone who reads it says it is

great. I sure hope this article gets kicked tonight so that folks will see it tomorrow. I never know just what time of day is best for posting to get the maximum read.

[aquart]

4. DLC belongs on the scrap heap.

[AirAmFan]

5. Sirota's remarkable lens puts non-voters in an entirely new light

Half the voting age population STILL did not turn out to the polls, even after the naked theft of the White House in 2000 and the illegitimate incumbency that kept President Stupid in power this time. Who are the nonvoters?

They're the people the DLC and their CORPORATE JOHNS fear the most They're former Democrats and former union members who were sold out by the DLC and other corporate Democratic bagmen long ago. The best jobs they ever had are only a memory now, disappeared overseas thanks to DLC betrayals in the form of NAFTA and GATT.

Nonvoters include bright young people who laugh at the right-wing pap spewed by Fox News but don't hear Democrats taking strong stands against far-right foolishness.

They're people who well might be coaxed to the polls for the first time, or for the first time in many years, by appeals to "class warfare issues": vote suppression, job security, unfair trade, declining public education, inadequate career training, rampant white-collar felonies, unchecked corporate pollution, and shifting of the heaviest tax burden from the very rich to the middle class and poor whose biggest tax is FICA.

They're people who, if approached properly, would join the hundred thousand or so from whom John Kerry raised $71 million in individual contributions of $200 or less. In other words, they are corporate lobbyists' and do-nothing Democratic incumbents' worst nightmare, THE PEOPLE, who'd kick the corporate whores out of office and out of the Democratic Party.

If these people were coaxed to the polls, cowardly hunkered-down Dem pols who RUN from the real issues, including vote suppression that erects structural barriers against DEMOCRATS in general elections, would have to go get real jobs. They wouldn't make it through primary elections that suddenly would become widespread for the first time since the Seventies.

[itzamirakul]

6. AirAmFan, posts like yours should be

sent directly to DLC and their counterpart, the NDN. They need to come out of their fantasy-land and know how real Democrats feel.

Both of those groups could care less about the rank and file. Their only interest is in the big corporate dollars which I will always believe they are lining their own pockets with.

[Sugarbleus]

7. Agreed. I'm waiting for the this awarness to break forth among

the general population. Let's tear that DLC/NDN MoFo down!

[AirAmFan]

9. Thanks for your high praise--your posts are not so bad either

[Julien Sorel]

41. Interesting.

They're the people the DLC and their CORPORATE JOHNS fear the most They're former Democrats and former union members who were sold out by the DLC and other corporate Democratic bagmen long ago. The best jobs they ever had are only a memory now, disappeared overseas thanks to DLC betrayals in the form of NAFTA and GATT.

...

If these people were coaxed to the polls, cowardly hunkered-down Dem pols who RUN from the real issues, including vote suppression that erects structural barriers against DEMOCRATS in general elections, would have to go get real jobs. They wouldn't make it through primary elections that suddenly would become widespread for the first time since the Seventies.


Voting turnout was constant at about 60 - 65% until 1972, the first election after the voting age was dropped to 18. Voting participation immediately dipped to 55% that year (it must have been that cowardly centrist McGovern's fault), and didn't climb above 55% except in 1992 (the year of Clinton and Perot, those wild-eyed radicals), until this year, when it went to 60%.


I bet if more people did fact checking here, the post count would drop by half.

[AirAmFan]

8. My 5-word interpretation of Sirota: 'Start playing to your base',

instead of running away from the Democratic base at the bidding of corporate "suppporters" who are stifling and strangling us while while simultaneously nurturing and strengthening the far right.

The Republicans have won by serving as an umbrella organization for numerous single-issue organizations that coalesce around various right-wingers selected by big business. Each organization makes a lot of noise about its issue: anti-taxing-the-wealthy, anti-choice, pro-imperialism, anti-brown-skinned-immigrant, anti-gun-control, anti-gay, anti-Black, anti-feminist, anti-evolution, yada yada yada. When election time rolls around, the candidate repeats all their slogans and collects all their votes. Then the very wealthy who are paying most of the bills for this show get ANOTHER income tax cut, and FICA rates are raised in another "Social Security reform" scam to shift taxation onto the bottom of the income distribution.

But the same corporate forces that have paid to amplify right-wing "social issues" have paid Dem pols to SILENCE voices at the other end of the spectrum, on basic democracy, justice, civil rights, education, job training, anti-poverty, and other "class warfare" issues. Dems like Chris Dodd (CT) and Steny Hoyer (MD) don't even speak up when the 'Help America Vote Act' is used to erect structural barriers to the election of Democrats, through lack of national standards for fair voting, selection of unauditable voting devices in Republican-run states, insufficent funding for voting machines, no bilingual voter education. They know they can survive a loss in a general election--they've become accustomed to being the minority party in the Senate. But participation by the unpredictable left-leaning lower middle class well might end their careers at the next primary.

[itzamirakul]

10. What you say is so true...

Those Dems in power places in the DNC are going to line their pockets whether or not we are in the White House. Why should they care?
I was really upset when that Al From guy, who I understand was the brains behind the DLC, began to criticize Michael Moore and say that we must "distance ourselves from him," when Moore was only doing the job that THEY should have been doing. I don't know where they come off thinking that they merely have to snap their fingers and the base will come running. We have got to have a real power play to either get rid of these guys or push them totally into the background of the party. Otherwise, I QUIT!

[AirAmFan]

19. Have you seen this column, comparing the DLC's 200 corporate sponsors

with the millions who've paid into Michael Moore's box offices?

From http://www.nypress.com/17/48/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

"NO MORE MOORE: The DLC joins the witch-hunt.

By Matt Taibbi

'We've got to repudiate, you know, the most strident and insulting anti-American voices out there sometimes on our party's left... We can't have our party identified by Michael Moore and Hollywood as our cultural values.'

„Al From, CEO, Democratic Leadership Council

...

'he sure doesn't speak for us when it comes to standing up for our country.'

„Will Marshall, President of the Progressive Policy Institute, the think-tank of the DLC

...

According to the last data I could find, Moore recently made a movie that was seen by tens of millions of people around the world and has grossed nearly $120 million in the U.S. alone. Furthermore, it was, according to exit polls, a much better demographic success than the actual Democratic party. A Harris poll conducted in July found that 89 percent of Democrats agreed with Fahrenheit 9/11, along with 70 percent of independents. That means Moore outperformed John Kerry among independents by about 19 points.... Moore's revenues come from millions of ordinary people paying 10 bucks a pop to see his film. In contrast, only about 200 people a year visit the DLC at the box office„only they pay thousands of dollars per ticket, and they all have names you'd recognize: Eli Lilly, Coca-Cola, Union Carbide, Occidental Petroleum, BP and so on...."

[AirAmFan]

11. Kick

[catbert836]

12. That's what I've been saying since the election. n/t

[itzamirakul]

13. Kick

Please help keep this article kicked so the maximum number of posters can be made aware of it. Thanks

[amandabeech]

15. That's what I've been saying since the late '70s.

In grad school, I was put-down, in a laughing way, by a scion of one of big-time Democratic families for being an economic populist.

Really "populist" has been used as an epithet for some time in many circles of the party for a long time.

I did opposition research on Bill Clinton for one of his primary opponents back in '92. It was abundantly clear that in Arkansas, Clinton talked the populist economic talk, but did not walk the populist economic walk. However, I could not get any of the higher-ups interested in what I had to say. I haven't been active since then.

[Killarney]

14. That makes a lot of sense. Populism may be the answer.

We're always going to have the tax problem because raising taxes is not good populism policy. And we're always going to have the abortion problem with the religious. But if we start hammering Republicans as corporate whores, it could work. Use specific examples of how Republicans have cost YOU money by siding with corporations. We are the Party of the People. The GOP should be the POC--the party of the corporation.

[amandabeech]

16. Raising taxes on the rich and on mega-corporations is good policy

for economic populists. The trick is to get ordinary people to understand that you don't want to raise their taxes. You have to feel their pain, mean it, and do something about it.

[Rockerdem]

23. The average joe . . .

. . . feels more threatened & POed by free trade and unlimited immigration than tax policy, IMHO. I'm more nuanced (sorry) myself on both issues. But I deal with blue-collar types a lot and know what irks them. They know that they are competing with cheap labor here and abroad, and it's killing their bottom line. How an upstart wing of the Democratic Party led by Howard Dean can deal with those issues and be true to its core beliefs will determine whether "going populist" will reap enough reward to win elections. That's the way I see it.

[rniel]

17. Rallying Cry

This is what we need. Fuck the DLC, GOP and All Corporations for that matter.

[scarletwoman]

18. This is truly a must-read piece!

The economic populist message is so OBVIOUS. Those who refuse to see it and use it are the whores for corporate money who have been controlling the national Dem party for far too long. OUT with them!

sw

[kentuck]

20. I believe this is the code our Party has been looking for...

Several of us have mentioned this on DU before.

[madfloridian]

21. Here is the DLC blog response to Sirota, and a further bit on Dean.

http://www.newdonkey.com/

AND a good hit on Borosage for good measure.

SNIP.."Code Red
Yesterday I got via the email transom an article, slated for publication in The American Prospect, entitled "The Democrats' Da Vinci Code." The author, one David Sirota, sent along his piece with a missive saying, in part, that "various 'red state' and 'red region' Democrats are already showing the party how to win in conservative areas. The key is to fundamentally reject the corporate/DLC argument--and follow those who continue to win with a progressive populist message." (emphasis in original).

That let me know right away that Sirota is one of those guys whose knowledge of the DLC is unencumbered by any actual information on what we believe, write, say and do, other than what he's picked up on the Democratic Underground site, or in the Collected Works of Bob Borosage...."
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Also at the link, The Dean Shadow Box. Wow, triple punch for the New Donkey today....Sirota, Borosage, and Dean.

And to top it off, he implies we are wrong to bash Bush, or hate him. Oh, well.

[AirAmFan]

25. Thanks for the DLC blog link

I must admit I've never been to the DLC blog before. The column of LINKS on that page is fascinating too. It includes the DLC's daily talking points, at http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=131 , and the homepage for the DLC's research arm, the one with the completely false and misleading name, at http://www.ppionline.org/ .

Now, if only I could find a full list of the DLC's 200 corporate paymasters, I'd feel I understood this "Democratic base suppression" organization completely. Their answer to any complaint from the Democratic base seems to be the same as Archie Bunker's standard answer to his wife Edith: "Just STIFLE!"

[sadiesworld]

22. I would love to see some of these folks discussed as possible

2008 candidates. I'm tired of seeing the same names (many of whom talked a populist game but never really "walked the walk" when it mattered) bandied about all the time.

[sadiesworld]

24. .

[kodi]

26. close, but no ringer

until the economic issues, including trade policy, health insurance, and education can be articulated as national security issues the dems will be unable to use them to trump national security defined entirely in militaristic terms.

its quite easy to be patriotic when you see a soldier next to an american flag, and unless the dems can get people to feel that same way when they see a teacher or factory worker next to an american flag, the GOP will mine the the more visceral nature of patriotism that ignores economic strength and civic values.

one can see easily see that the struggle for control of the democratic party is one between foes who are defining the battle national security in completely different ways.

that chowdderhead al from spoke recently about how michael moore is not representative of democrats and is the opposite of old timey, muscular democrats like truman and jfk.

that is true, and more true is that we do not live in the bi-polar world of the cold war anymore, and linear thinking is a less effective way of understanding and dealing with the complexities of 2004. we can no longer use the symmetrical strategies of weapons stockpiling and brute force that won the cold war against military adversaries. the threats to the welfare of the US are now more subtle and sophisticated, and can not be defeated purely by throw weight.

currently, democrats are incapable of linking a highly educated citizenry, a true national health policy for all, and a full employment national economic policy as the strongest arms of our national security.

and i just love this: essentially we need a national socialist workers party........ in the true, not historical sense.

dems need to make the case that closing factories and destroying communities by unfair trade practices is no different that if they were bombed by our enemies. the results are the same and we need to marshall our workers and government as partners in economic warfare with other trading nations.

in the current asymmetrical world, the time for symmetrical national defense strategies is finished. a nation's place in the world is no longer dictated by who has the biggest guns. in the future it will be how much they can produce, its economic strength, and the welfare of its people.

the DLC attacks on moore are exhibits of that same old symmetrical thinking that defines national strength and defense policies only in military terms. they do not understand moore or the modern world where true national strength will have to come from economic strength, and that security begins at home.

[Malva Zebrina]

27. that was a good post and I agree with almost all of it

and why do they not understand Moore? Why has Moore become the enemy when the real enemy is George Bush, and his BFFE?

I suspect the attacks on Moore have more to do with the fear that the DLC is losing it's power and that the people found someone to articulate their frustration with the lack of honesty withint the party. And it's loss of power is coming from the people--it's own people. And they do not like that at all.

I suspect there are a lot people who voted Democratic party in the last election who are extremely angry that a criminal, a lier and a dimwit, could have won.

We should have clobbered him by a huge margin, but no one had the nerve to challenge him,, not even our candidates. They were contrived, at times looked as false as Bush, and did little to challenge the idiot and his disasterous policies in an effective manner. Part of the reason was the IWR vote, which backed them into a corner and prohibited them from effectively criticizing the slaughter done in our name in Iraq.

And that WAS a biggy and it could have been hammered at, so many were the lies and so much has been lost re human life.

If anything, given the extraordinary success of this documentary by Moore, it is more a threat to these so called Democrats, than the fascism of George Bush.

[AirAmFan]

29. I disagree. Kitchen-table, "class warfare" issues ALWAYS trump fear-

mongering propaganda. Have you ever seen a movie called "The Atomic Cafe"? Even at the height of Cold War hysteria, just after the Russians were first into space with Sputnik, when schoolchildren were trained to "duck and cover" under their desks whenever air-raid sirens blared, kitchen-table issues trumped xenophobic propaganda. The civil rights and anti-poverty movements created an entire alternative culture that put everyday problems at home ahead of the violent fantasies Republicans were using in vain attempts to maintain political control.

Throughout American history, there always has been a War Party, telling voters their first priority should be preparing to defeat the "Enemy". But, until the DLC succeeded in bribing Democrats to squelch appeals to everyday voter problems, there always was another argument. Becoming a victim of a bin-Laden or Zarqawi terrorist attack in 2004, or getting blown up by an ICBM in 1960, or being "scalped" by an "Indian war-party" in 1840, always has been less likely than being struck by lightning while buying a winning lottery ticket! And, until now, there always has been a party that put the everyday concerns of ordinary working people ahead of violent and fantastic political propaganda.

Michael Moore was a huge threat to Republicans and to the DLC this campaign season precisely because only Michael Moore was LAUGHING at "homeland security" hysteria. A few years from now, people will watch "Fahrenheit 911" and "The Atomic Cafe" as a double-feature, and notice how both films chronicle precisely the same attempt to manipulate different generations of Americans with precisely the same kind of absurdist fearmongering propaganda.

[kodi]

30. tell that to john kerry

and i have seen the atomic cafe and it is not germane to the issue of michael moore, who actually was talking about national defense when he went against the war. he made it plain that there are ways to secure the nation other than thru military might.

the al froms and dlc types have attacked moore for being unpatriotic because he believes that the security of the american people is not found simply an effort of building guns and ships. the former type side with the GOP in believing in the symmetric thinking of military strength versus a foe as the exclusive factor of national defense and by doing so hand to the GOP the slate for framing the question of how best to secure the national welfare.

they cede the playing field.

but it is deeper than just this. a robust national economic policy with health care benefits would diminish corporate profits, restrict the flow of capital, and reduce american trade policy to an arm of the nation's national defense policy; quite simply 21st century mercantilism.

obviously corporations do not want any such thing, and fund politicians who will undermine nationally beneficial economic policies for the gain of large donors.

it is a simple thing to cry out that big corporations run things, entirely another to understand how and why such corporate control is blatantly anti-american at heart when it forces the government to actions least beneficial to the people as a whole.

symmetrical thinking leads one to thump his chest and boast of how much stronger the american army is than the chinese or japanese, but the japanese chinese are our bank and what the lack in military might they more than make up for in being able to hurt us financially much worse than a dozen nukes on our biggest cities. this type of asymmetric warfare is one that the Americans are not yet playing and they had better start or all the guns won't help us when the japanese and chinese start calling in our loans.

it is this factor, one even mentioned by bill clinton during his convention speech made "how do we get the japanse and chinese to play fair in trade issues if they are our banks?"

if we can't succeed in this with china on economic issues, just wait until they invade taiwan.

[AirAmFan]

32. Huh?

[paulk]

28. Maybe Mr. Sirota has the right idea

but he sure doesn't seem to understand the two Colorado races he cites for proof of his thesis.

John Salazar didn't win because he's a "progressive economic populist" - he won because he opposed a water deal from the 2002 election that was backed by his opponent. A water deal that was very unpopular on the western slope. It was very much local politics, which is the way we Democrats need to go in order to win elections, but Mr. Sirota casts a pretty wide net when he drags the DLC into the equation.

The other Colorado race is completely mischaractorized - Ken Salazar won his Senate race exactly because he IS a centrist/moderate - (he's also a DLC member).

[itzamirakul]

34. A lot of "misguided" politicians belong to the DLC...

"MISGUIDED" I hate that word. In this case, I think greedy and self-serving might be better in many instances.

A lot of politicians who THOUGHT that corporate money was the ONLY way to go in winning elections, thus gaining or maintaining power, joined the DLC because of that reason. Until Dean showed them that there was another way to win without selling one's soul.

I think Mr. Sirota is showing the need to get to people on a personal, local basis and talk about what is important to THEM, just as Rove evidently had his people do. It doesn't matter what the issue is, as long as it gets to the voter's heart about his own well-being and that of his loved ones. If the DLC had spent some time in doing that, in going face-to-face with people and explaining in detail how Bush's policies are absolutely killing them and their childrens' futures, we would have had a lot more red-state voters pushing the blue button. But, the DLC climbed aboard the grassroots bus too late.

The DLC is out of step with all of that. They do nothing but send out vague emails asking for money. I even wrote to that Mary Beth Cahill in the middle of the campaign and asked her if a "Meet-Up Party" was the best she could do? I mean, why was she stealing MoveOn's ideas instead of doing some hard-hitting talk on the airwaves? They did NONE of that. Everything out of the mouth of McAuliffe was oatmeal mush.Why didn't the DNC/DLC put a quick end to the Swift Boat lies instead of sitting on the fat asses and letting that story dominate the news for weeks before they came out with a weak statement. Heck, MoveOn took a more forceful stand than DLC did and now they think the base will stay with them? Not if a lot of us can help it. They are dead in the water and floating belly-up IMO.

Frankly, I think that Kerry was put up as a place-holder in this election to lose purposely so that Hillary could run in 2008. And she ain't got a snowball's chance in hell of winning. What did the DLC have to lose? As long as they could keep us stupid and sending in money unquestioningly, they could continue to raise money from the SAME corporations that funded the Republicans and line their own pockets quite well. You can bet your bottom dollar that not a one of them will suffer in the years to come. They will continue to earn big bucks as consultants and lobbyists as the average American goes slowly and agonizingly down the tube.

Why is it that now, after weeks of not hearing a word from them, they are suddenly stepping into the voter fraud investigation? Why weren't they LEADING it? Why are they claiming to have done so much in grassroots activism? The only way they got us was because WE had organized from the start, WITHOUT THEM, and then we all decided to support our candidate even if we were not totally happy with him. THE DLC DID NOTHING. We built the table, cooked the food, set the table and now here comes the DLC and wants to consume the biggest part of the meal. Well, you can tell them for me...I won't support ANYONE who even reeks of association with the DLC. Pass that on to their sister organization, Rosenberg's NDN also.

As another poster said quite well "FCUK THEM VERY MUCH!"

[paulk]

35. the DLC makes as good a scapegoat as any, I suppose

:shrug:

[itzamirakul]

42. They sure do, considering...

they did absolutely NOTHING to make this a WINNING campaign or election. And they will get no further support from a lot of us. But then, if that does not matter to them, let them go court the "white men" that Al From wants to bring into the party from the racist right. That shows me his mentality right there. He is totaly ignoring the strong base that the party ALREADY has and saying that we should move even FARTHER RIGHT!. What kind of stupid thinking is that? When we move farther right, the Rightwingers move even farther right and who remains on the left to support human equality and values?

It appears that From has sent some of his minions to this board to support his failing leadership.

[Bake]

31. Ain't it the damn truth!

I think he hit the nail on the frickin' head.

Bake

[Disturbed]

33. Howard Dean!

Two thumbs up!


Nuff said!

[Julien Sorel]

36. It's just so damn *easy and obvious.*

Why can't those centrist fools, the ones who manipulatively control the party, see it as clearly as these fellows:

Bernie Sanders, the lone Representative, from a state that Kerry won by 20 points.

Gene Taylor, who routinely votes to restrict abortion rights and has a 0% rating from NARAL; who voted to ban flag burning; who voted for the IWR, for the PATRIOT Act; has an A rating from the NRA; voted for Clinton's impeachment; voted for banning gay adoptions; supports the amendment banning gay marriages --- whoooooo boy. Congressman Taylor is one hell of an example of a populist Democrat!


Someone above touched on the the Salazar brothers and their "populism."


Brian Schweitzer is a DLC member, who ran with a Republican running mate.

Stephanie Herseth, the scion of a prominent South Dakota political family (grandfather was governor, father a 20 year legislator), who is a DLC member, has an A rating from the NRA (they endorsed her over her Republican opponent, in fact, while spending a bundle to beat Daschle); supports the gay marriage amendment; and is a Blue Dog Dem.



Yeah, that economic populism. It trumps social issues every time.



What I don't understand is how grabage like this can be published with a straight face. What editor waived this thing through? Besides the easily penetrated support for his argument, his writing itself is about on a par with a sportswriter trying to beat a deadline. Really, really awful stuff here.

[IronLionZion]

37. Who are those guys that won?

in this paragraph:

"Where, for instance, does a Democrat get off using a progressive message to become governor of Montana? How does an economic populist Democrat keep winning a congressional seat in what is arguably America's most Republican district? Why do culturally conservative rural Wisconsin voters keep sending a Vietnam-era anti-war Democrat back to Congress? What does a self-described socialist do to win support from conservative working-class voters in northern New England?"

I know the Montana governor is Brian Schweitzer and I think the New England socialist is Bernie Sanders. What's America's most Republican district?

[BlueInRed]

38. this is a superb article

I read it a few days ago and I'm glad it's getting around. It is right on the money. :)

[Lexingtonian]

39. Like Einstein said...

Every serious problem has an answer that is simple, intuitive, looks right, and is Wrong.

It's relatively easy for Democrats in places that are far outside the hard conflict zones to do this. They're taking advantage of Republican politicians being driven into their Party's national ideological conformity. Good for them, of course, for seizing the opportunity and no doubts it's good if it helps their constituents.

But...it doesn't work as a national thing. Period. The Culture War (or whatever you want to call it) is real and it isn't ending until one side wins, and it IS the only real subject of national elections. Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Shame on Sirota for throwing out this red herring- and everyone who is in such a hurry to fall for it.

[orpupilofnature57]

40. Fuck supporting SAM Nunn double agent types, LIBERAL, remember?