on edit - I realize the majority of the posters in this thread do not seem to support the DLC. This is directed at readers who do.
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It's one thing to be a centrist Democrat and another to sell out to corporate interests and support the neo-con agenda. I consider myself to be a centrist, but not a DLC'er. If you want to support the DLC, at least know who you are crawling into bed with.
The top of the DLC home page has a link to the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI), which was formed to create policy for the DLC. The DLC and PPI are very intertwined. Al From, DLC founder, is the chairman of PPI. The DLC website shows joint contact info for both organizations and the same person answers the phone for both (202-547-0001 PPI, 202-546-0007 DLC). The press e-mail for both DLC and PPI is
[email protected] Right now the headlines on the DLC website include two press releases from the PPI.
Will Marshall is the president and founder of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI). Before that he was the policy director for the DLC. He is also one of the select people who actually signed the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) statements on post war Iraq, along with a few frequent Blueprint authors (the DLC magazine). He is also an advisor to the Committee to Liberate Iraq (CLI), who's mission is to "engage in educational and advocacy efforts" in support of liberating the Iraqi people. Translation: it serves as another "authority" to support the PNAC agenda, which it does very well. CLI is loaded with PNAC'ers, including 3 of the board of directors.
In case any of you are not aware, PNAC was created in 1997 by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and Jeb Bush (to name a few of the major players of the Bush administration). They issued a report in September 2000 titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses; Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century" which is pretty much a blueprint for the National Security Strategy released by the Bush administration in September 2002. More to the point, it lays out exactly what we are seeing - the defense budget raised to 3.8% of the GDP, multiple, simultaneous major theater wars to show the world our power, removal of Saddam Hussein and the establishment of an American protectorate in Iraq, attempts to replace organizations like the UN and NATO as the world's political leadership and "constable" - and much, much more.
Although Will Marshall (and the rest of the DLC/PPI) has been pushing a slightly sanitized, politically correct neo-con-lite agenda for years, it is just recently that he came out of the closet with his official PNAC/CLI affiliations. The PNAC statements were released in March 2003 and CLI was formed in the fall of 2002. Like many of the neo-cons, he seems to be more brazen and open than ever before.
But the DLC agenda and alliances are not news. I encourage you to read this article from the April 23, 2001 issue of The American Prospect, "How the DLC Does It."
<snip>
Simon Rosenberg, the former field director for the DLC who directs the New Democrat Network, a spin-off political action committee, says, "We're trying to raise money to help them lessen their reliance on traditional interest groups in the Democratic Party. In that way," he adds, "they are ideologically freed, frankly, from taking positions that make it difficult for Democrats to win."
<snip>
Though the DLC offers a nominal $50 membership to anyone interested, its mass base is minuscule. "There's a New Democrat audience of about 5,000 to 10,000 people who get our stuff on a regular basis," says Matthew Frankel, the DLC's spokesman. And with a nonexistent grass-roots presence, the DLC is generally unknown except to practitioners of "inside baseball" politics. Yet the affiliation of scores of members of Congress has enabled the DLC to establish alliances with Fortune 500 corporate supporters, particularly along the so-called K Street corridor of Washington-based lobbyists and in high-tech enclaves such as California's Silicon Valley.
<snip>
In 1996 Lieberman, Breaux, and Simon Rosenberg founded the New Democrat Network political action committee. "Our role is to add political muscle," says Rosenberg. In the 1997–1998 reporting period, its first full cycle, NDN raised $1.4 million directly, and another $1.2 million in so-called "bundled" contributions, gathered at fundraisers for individual candidates and funneled through NDN. In the 1999–2000 period, NDN more than doubled its take, raising $4 million directly and bundling $1.45 million more, plus $450,000 for GoreLieberman. Nearly $2 million of NDN's take in the last cycle came in large, unregulated soft-money chunks from companies such as Aetna, AT&T, and Microsoft and from trade groups such as the Securities Industry Association, who helped sponsor a $1.2-million fundraiser honoring Lieberman on February 13.
NDN's brochures sound like investment prospectuses. "NDN acts as a political venture capital fund to create a new generation of elected officials," says the PAC. "NDN provides the political intelligence you need to make well-informed decisions on how to spend your political capital. Just like an investment advisor, NDN exhaustively vets candidates and endorses only those who meet our narrowly defined criteria."
Much, much more:
http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/7/dreyfuss-r.htmlIn case anyone thinks that this 3 year old article unfairly illustrates the DLC allegiance to its corporate sponsors, I suggest you read page 20 of PPI's Policy report dated February 2004, "A Return to Fiscal Responsibility - A Progressive Plan to Slash the Deficit." This section talks about forming a Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission to decide what corporate subsidies to cut and what to keep:
<snip>
The commission idea is based on the recognition that there are legitimate differences of opinion as to what constitutes a "corporate subsidy" in the budget or tax code - not to mention powerful pressures on members of Congress to defend subsidies with a special impact on their states or districts. Like the highly successful Defense Base Closing Commission, the Corporate Subsidy Reform Commission would be an independent body required to submit a package of budget and tax subsidies to be eliminated, after presidential and congressional review, on an up-or-down vote in Congress.
In essence, the commission approach would provide political "cover," and an opportunity for involvement, for many members of Congress who oppose all subsidies in principle but support some subsidies in practice.
more:
http://www.ppionline.org/documents/deficit_plan_0104.pdfCentrist Democrats? Or lapdogs for corporate special interests?
Here are some samples of the PNAC influence from The Blueprint (note the dates):
America's New Mission
By Will Marshall The Blueprint Magazine 11/15/01
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?&kaid=124&subid=307&contentid=3916The Case Against Saddam
By Khidir Hamza The Blueprint Magazine 11/15/01
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?&kaid=124&subid=307&contentid=3926Why it's Time to Revolutionize the Military
By James R. Blaker and Steven J. Nider The Blueprint Magazine 2/17/01
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=124&subid=159&contentid=2980They were laying the groundwork for the PNAC agenda just prior to and after 9/11.
Want some more? How about the DLC Agenda published in the 7/27/03 issue of The Blueprint. Again, it is a more politically correct, slightly sanitized version of the PNAC agenda. Huge defense budget, tax breaks to those who can build businesses (in other words, the wealthy DLC contributors) and American domination of the world.
http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=251925&kaid=128&subid=174The DLC was founded in the mid 80's to counter the perception that the Democratic party was too liberal. Early DLC'ers included Clinton, Gore and Carter. The first year's budget was only $400,000. By 1990 the combined DLC-PPI revenues were $2.2 million. The good idea had been hijacked by special interests. Note that Gore endorsed Dean and while neither Carter or Clinton officially endorsed anyone, they unofficially got behind Dean and Clark - neither of which are DLC. Why?
I'm sure many of the New Democrats (what DLC members are called) joined on for funding support and without really understanding what the DLC's agenda really is. Most of the DLC's message is spun to sound like it challenges Bush, but look at the core messages and you find them more closely aligned with the neo-cons than it appears on the surface. When you realize this, and check voting records against NDL membership, Congressional Democratic support for the Bush administration's policies (out of control military budget, tax cuts and war, war, war) makes more sense.
Chances are most of the DU'ers who support the DLC didn't understand the devil they were aligning themselves with either. Knowing all this, is the DLC still an organization you want to affiliate yourselves with?
Links for more info:
DLC website:
http://www.ndol.org/New Dem Directory:
http://www.ndol.org/new_dem_dir_action.cfm?viewAll=1PPI website:
http://www.ppionline.org/CLI website:
http://209.50.252.70/index.shtmlPNAC Iraq statements:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqstatement-031903.htmhttp://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqstatement-032803.htmMore info on PNAC:
The President's Real Goal in Iraq
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 9/29/02 By Jay Bookman
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/opinion/0902/29bookman.htmlOf Gods and Mortals and Empire
By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Friday 21 February 2003
http://truthout.org/docs_02/022203A.htmBlood Money
By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Perspective Thursday 27 February 2003
http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtmlA copy of the Project for the New American Century's September 2000 report titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses; Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century" can be viewed at
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf A copy of the National Security Strategy of the United States dated September 2002 can be viewed at
http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.pdf