Reply #16: oppose the DLC policies that one strongly disagrees with and are unpopular

[Douglas Carpenter]

Whether or not the DLC organization plays a role in the Democratic Party is of minimal concern to me. I would however be deeply concerned about reactionary policies regardless what organization supports them.

My biggest concern regarding the DLC is that certain strong elements of the DLC along with some people who are clearly not DLC at all support a foreign policy worldview that is neither centrist or moderate, but extremist - a somewhat modified form of foreign policy neoconservatism. Now this ideology has been completely discredited by facts on the ground and is extraordinarily unpopular. If these ideologues, whether DLC or not, succeed in their agenda - America will find itself in a state of permanent and self-destructive war and there will be no resources left to rebuild the economy and the national infrastructure - much less implement new programs that benefit ordinary people. Fortunately a number of sane and rational people even within the Defense and Intelligence establishment recognize the utter folly of this dangerous and destructive worldview. "A bunch of dangerous Kooks", to quote Gen. Brent Scowcroft, Bush Sr.'s former National Security Adviser - hardly a lefty.

As far as getting rid of ALL beltway corporate lobbyist. I'm afraid that would require a total social revolution. As someone more eloquent and more learned than me once said, "government is the executive committee of the bourgeoisie." I doubt that any of us are up to the task of a social revolution at this point. And there is certainly no mass political will for such an all encompassing adventure.

It might be possible however to push massive draconian legislation that could clip the wings of lobbyist just a bit. For such legislation to pass, it might also impose equally strong controls on progressive lobbyist. Still reducing the relatively weak influence of progressive lobbyist might be a reasonable price to pay in exchange for reducing the very strong influence of corporate lobbyist.