Articles from 1997 and 2000 on how DLC and Democrats co-opted GOP policies, got corporate donations.

madfloridian

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Fri May-14-10 10:48 AM
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Articles from 1997 and 2000 on how DLC and Democrats co-opted GOP policies, got corporate donations.

Edited on Fri May-14-10 10:51 AM by madfloridian

What's more they no longer had to depend on the traditional constituents in the party such as unions and minorities. They did not have to stand for issues that those constituencies demanded. It was convenient.

In 1997 there was an article in Mother Jones magazine called Democrats at the Crossroads

It's a fascinating article. I think that the stances of today's party leaders on women's rights, gay rights, education, and the privatization of Social Security and Medicare indicate that the DLC has won this round.

As Clinton's second term begins, both New Democrats and populists are maneuvering furiously to influence the White House and shape future party strategies. The DLC is using its close personal ties to Clinton, Gore, Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, and other White House staffers to push proposals for "reinventing government," such as privatizing Social Security and Medicare, and reforming education.

New Democrats are delighted by the commanding Clinton-Gore victory in November -- but at the same time they can hardly hide their glee that the AFL-CIO's campaign fell short of putting the Democrats back in charge of the House of Representatives. They fear and dislike "big labor," of course. But another factor may also be at work. The DLC has always cared most about presidential politics, while its congressional ties have been primarily to Southern Democrats -- and these are a fast-disappearing breed. Many Southern DLC politicians are now former members of Congress, defeated or replaced by Republicans. Not incidentally, perhaps, DLC leaders are suddenly talking about "bipartisan" solutions, above and beyond mere "party politics."

We heard the word "bipartisan" the moment the elections were over in 2006 and 2008. It was not a coincidence.

Privatization to the forefront even in 1997:

DLC President Al From is urging Clinton to undertake a "fundamental restructuring of our biggest systems for delivering public benefits -- Medicare, Social Security, and public education, for openers." Similarly, Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), the DLC's think tank, argues for moving Medicare and Medicaid "into the new marketplace."

Sound familiar? Under Arne Duncan the schools are being subjected to hostile takeovers by private management companies.

Further Obama packed the new debt commission with those who are eager to turn Social Security over to Wall Street.

After the defeat of the Conrad-Gregg commission, groups defending Social Security had little time to rejoice before Obama resuscitated the plan, creating the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform by executive order. While the Commission's proposals will not be limited to an up or down vote in Congress, it's otherwise exactly as Conrad-Gregg envisioned, and Pelosi and Reid have promised to put them to a vote before the end of the current session of Congress.

Obama's deficit commission is actually much older than Conrad-Gregg. Its history as a vehicle for reforming Social Security goes back to 1981, when it was given life under President Ronald Reagan as the Greenspan Commission (guess who chaired it).

A statement from the DLC's Al From makes clear how proud they were of taking the GOP positions.

The predominant analysis in the media echoes the New Democrat view that Clinton won by pre-empting the right on such issues as crime, welfare reform, and a balanced budget. "Every time Dole tried to get cracking on an issue," Al From pointed out at a post-election DLC press conference, "he couldn't do it because the president had, in a sense, beat him there."

Beating the Republican in being Republican.

And the present movement to "reform" education started years ago. The charter school movement today was pushed by the DLC years ago. Al From even wrote about it in 2000.

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is now calling for reforms including school choice and merit pay for teachers.....America is a tale of two public school systems: one that works reasonably well, although it could certainly be better, and one that is by almost any standard a disaster," says From.

.."From argues that the public school system too often serves the interests of teachers and administrators at the expense of the students themselves. It is a "monopolistic" system that "offers a 'one-size-fits-hardly-anyone' model that strangles excellence and innovation" he says.

Characterizing charter schools as "oases of innovation," From writes, "The time has come to bring life to the rest of the desert-by introducing the same forces of choice and competition to every public school in America."

With the appointment of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education, the DLC think tank won their fight against public education.

In the year 2000 John Nichols wrote an article for the Progressive.

Behind the DLC Takeover - Democratic Leadership Council

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.

We knew something was going on back in 2000. We just did not know what. The very lack of the kind of fight our party should have put up for Al Gore told us something, but we did not then understand.

Paul Wellstone was quoted in the Nichol's article when he said:

"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans," he said. "I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."

Someone else reiterated his statement in 2004 and openly was critical of this group. His name was Howard Dean. The DLC made a public statement that he was not the man to be president. They held a press conference to announce it.

"We are increasingly confident that President Bush can be beaten next year, but Dean is not the man to do it," Reed and From wrote.

The 'D' in DLC Doesn't Stand for Dean (David Von Drehle, May 15, 2003, Washington Post)

More than 50 centrist Democrats, including Virginia Gov. Mark R. Warner, met here yesterday to plot strategy for the "New Democrat" movement. To help get the ball rolling they read a memo by Al From and Bruce Reed, the chairman and president of the Democratic Leadership Council. The memo dismissed Dean as an elitist liberal from the "McGovern-Mondale wing" of the party -- "the wing that lost 49 states in two elections, and transformed Democrats from a strong national party into a much weaker regional one."

"It is a shame that the DLC is trying to divide the party along these lines," said Dean spokesman Joe Trippi. "Governor Dean's record as a centrist on health care and balancing the budget speaks for itself."

As founder of the DLC, From has been pushing the Democratic Party to the right for nearly 20 years. He was in tall cotton, philosophically speaking, when an early leader of the DLC, Bill Clinton, was elected president in 1992. As Clinton's domestic policy guru, Reed pushed New Democrat ideas -- such as welfare reform -- that were often unpopular with party liberals.

"We are increasingly confident that President Bush can be beaten next year, but Dean is not the man to do it," Reed and From wrote. "Most Democrats aren't elitists who think they know better than everyone else."

Their agenda is being continued. I fear that it won't be long until education, Social Security, and Medicare are turned over to the same corporations who harmed this country financially under the Bush administration.

When party leaders take on the agenda of the other party on purpose, and the people of the party allow it to happen...there is no good to come from that.