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ulysses Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 09:37 PM
Original message
there's a price for standing against the tide.
There's a greater price for not standing against it when it's flowing in the wrong direction.

DLCers - what, exactly, is your prescription for the salvaging of America? of the Democratic Party? The Democratic Leadership Council came into being in 1985 on the idea that the party was headed in the wrong direction, yet there's (to my knowledge) never been any hard and fast description of what we're to adhere to and what not, other than airy admonitions to not show tattoos or green hair in public.

So...what *is* the plan at this stage of the game? Al From and company rose to power for a reason. What is it? What's the plan?
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Kathy in Cambridge Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 09:38 PM
Response to Original message
1. Expect to hear crickets
because there IS no DLC game plan.
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Merlot Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 09:51 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. except maybe power for it's own sake?
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 10:29 PM
Response to Original message
3. "Al From and company rose to power for a reason." Yep, they did.
Edited on Fri Dec-10-04 10:33 PM by scarletwoman
The DLC was purposely designed to be a Trojan horse to put the reins of the Democratic party in the hands of the wealthy elite so that there could never again be another be another threat to their power like the New Deal and the Great Society.

They are not Democrats, they are agents of the plutocracy cementing their control of entire political establishment. It would be foolish indeed to allow a party machinery to remain in the hands of people who might want to protect the interests of the working class at the expense of the Ruling Class.

Here's an old piece from the 2000 election campaign that gives some good perspective:

Behind the DLC Takeover
By John Nichols

At the national convention of a major political party, an ideologically rigid sectarian clique secures the ultimate triumph. It inserts two of its own as nominees for the Presidency and the Vice Presidency. Heavily financed by the most powerful corporations in the world, the group's leaders gather in a private club fifty-four floors above the convention hall, apart from the delegates of the party they had infiltrated. There, they carefully monitor the convention's acceptance of a platform the organization had drafted almost in its entirety. Then, with the ticket secured and with the policy course of the party set, they introduce a team of 100 shock troops to deploy across the country to lock up the party's grassroots.

This is not some fantastic political thriller starring Harrison Ford or Sharon Stone. This is the real-life version of Invasion of the Party Snatchers--with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) burrowing into the pod that is the Democratic Party.

Founded in the mid-1980s with essentially the same purpose as the Christian Coalition--to pull a broad political party dramatically to the right--the DLC has been far more successful than its headline-grabbing Republican counterpart. After Walter Mondale's 1984 defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan, a group of mostly Southern, conservative Democrats hatched the theory that their party was in trouble because it had grown too sympathetic to the agendas of organized labor, feminists, African Americans, Latinos, gays and lesbians, peace activists, and egalitarians.

And they found willing corporate allies, in corporate America, who provided the money needed to make a theory appear to be a movement. In the ensuing fifteen years, the DLC's impact on the American political debate has been dramatic. The group now controls much of the upper-level apparatus of the Democratic Party.


<snip>

Those corporate contributors--whose names fill the lists of givers to the DLC and a closely linked political arm, the New Democrat Network--include Bank One, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, the Health Insurance Corporation of America, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the National Association of Mortgage Brokers, Occidental Petroleum, Raytheon, and much of the rest of the Fortune 500.

"With the DLC in a position to influence the Democratic Party, Wall Street wins either way," says populist Jim Hightower, who has abandoned his lifelong loyalty to the Democratic Party this year in order to back Nader's candidacy. "If the Republicans win, the corporations have a party in power that will do their bidding. And if the Democrats win, Wall Street knows the DLC will keep them in line."


(read the rest, it's pretty darn interesting...)

sw
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 12:08 PM
Response to Reply #3
5. Oops, I totally forgot to the post the link to the article above.
(not that this thread was getting any attention, anyway. Oh well...)

Here's the link: http://www.progressive.org/nich1000.htm

sw
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mattclearing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:10 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. John Nichols is great.
It's funny...I'm tempted to think the DLC are infiltrators and trolls after reading that. Like they are a trojan horse.
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 11:32 PM
Response to Original message
4. I'm giving this a kick, 'cuz I'd like to see some other responses.
It's a very relevant question, after all.

sw
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mattclearing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:06 PM
Response to Original message
6. I would like to see responses to this as well.
My feeling is that the DLC has a philosophically flawed outlook. Hear me out here.

The Republicans have moved so far to the right as to be somewhat scary. And yet, because they have mastered message techniques and destroying Democratic candidates, they remain competitive, even victorious, in national politics despite their extremism.

The DLC looks at their success, and tries to aim for the middle of the debate, hoping to cobble together a coalition of moderates into a voting bloc. This shifts the entire political debate center-right.

In order to keep our government moderate, I propose equal and opposite extremism. Not stupidity. I'm not saying to oppose "lowering taxes" with "tax and spend." Our fiscal conservatism is sound. I'm saying that we need to openly advocate for government's ability and obligation to help people. We need to push science.

The DLC is asking us to appeal to people that we don't appeal to, and don't want to. It asks us to pander, to beg for votes. Who ever won anything of value from begging?
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:30 PM
Response to Reply #6
8. Your observations are certainly valid.
Edited on Sat Dec-11-04 01:32 PM by scarletwoman
But as you can tell from my first post in this thread, I'm not inclined to ascribe any good motives whatsoever to the DLC.

I think they are corporatist infiltrators whose sole purpose is to neutralize any threat to the power of the Overclass to control the machinery of our government by eviscerating the Democratic Party of any remaining vestiges of New Deal/social welfare/working class advocacy.

My opinion, of course...

sw
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mattclearing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:35 PM
Response to Reply #8
9. I wrote this before reading the article, if that explains it.
Now my view has changed.
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:47 PM
Response to Reply #9
13. Yep, that explains it.
;-)

sw
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Cheswick2.0 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:41 PM
Response to Original message
10. I am resisting answering because I really think some of our DLC defenders
need to answer this since the question is directed to them.
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mattclearing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:41 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. There are DLC defenders here?
eom
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:45 PM
Response to Reply #11
12. Oh yes, there certainly are!
At least 4 that I know of by name.

Here's a post by one of them: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1424047#1424162

sw
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mattclearing Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 01:49 PM
Response to Reply #12
14. Ever read Jews for Buchanan?
John Nichols is so smart. We need millions of people like him.
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scarletwoman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-11-04 03:37 PM
Response to Reply #10
15. Well, they ignored it last night, and they seem to be ignoring it again.
Of course, it doesn't have "DLC" in the subject line, so maybe it's just not attracting their attention.

Maybe another thread needs to be started with a new title, but the same question. I WOULD like to see how they answer it. (Not starting the thread myself because I'm going offline now...)

sw
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