ROCKRIDGE INSTITUTE: The Trouble with the DLC

[yurbud]

The Trouble with the DLC
Created by glenn_at_rockridge (Rockridge Institute staff member) on Monday, August 13, 2007 06:08 AM

Glenn W. Smith examines how a strategy pursued for decades by advocates of "centrism" has suppressed appeals to progressive values.

Why are Harold Ford and others from the more paternalistic and condescending quarters of the Democratic Party so keen on discrediting the rising progressive movement? What have been the consequences of their obsession with "the middle"? Most importantly, how have the Tory Democrats managed to bury the expression of deep progressive values, and what should the progressive movement do about it?

For three decades, advocates of "centrism" have used their money to monopolize the Democratic message and leave the progressive base out in the cold, not spoken to. Since its founding in 1985, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) has been leading this effort. How did they pull this off? Before we get into that, let's call them what they are. "Centrist" implies conciliation, moderation, compromise. It reinforces the mistaken idea that our political life falls along a neat, linear scale from left to right. That metaphor makes the center a pretty good and safe place to be. And that it certainly is not.

The plutocratic Democrats should be referred to not as centrists, but as industrial authoritarians. Their movement was born after the Nixon re-election in 1972. They blamed that landslide on Democratic Party rules changes that audaciously sought to include Americans formerly excluded from the back rooms of power. They fronted for older corporate interests – oil and gas, finance, insurance. The are really 19th-Century paternalists who would save us from ourselves by keeping us far from the plantation's Big House.

These industrial authoritarians figured out how to dominate Democratic messaging. When DLC chairman Harold Ford lost his cool in his Meet the Press encounter with Markos Moulitsas on Sunday, it was clear just how determined they are to continue their domination...

http://www.rockridgenation.org/blog/archive/2007/08/13/the-trouble-with-the-dlc

[snot]

1. "Harold Ford in Meet the Press encounter with Markos Moulitsas"

Any video or transcript?

[bleever]

2. It isn't pretty.

Harold Ford Junior was on the dreaded Fox Noise network tonight taking a "victory lap" with Sean Hannity and DLC "counterpoint" Bob Beckel piling on the "crazies" who don't like a Democratic party that aligns itself with corporations over people.

I'm too nauseous to find the clip, but I'm sure it's available.

[snot]

4. I searched YouTube; no match so far. nt

[Gregorian]

5. Try this.

I don't know if it still works. I posted it in my url bar, and got the whole show.

mms://msnbc.wmod.llnwd.net/a275/e1/video/100/mtp_netcast_070812.asf

[Gloria]

3. Link to partial video and the whole MTP exchange

part
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/08/12/mtp-markos-discusses-the-emergence-of-the-netroots-movement/

whole thing--Click "NBC Meet the Press Netcast" to the left of the media player. (If you click on the player, you'll get an ad.)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10386260/
The segment is right at the beginning of the show.

[yurbud]

6. they want to make sure the only choice we have is between tony soprano and phil leotardo