What do you think of the DLC wing of the Democratic Party

[gaiilonfong]

Poll question: What do you think of the DLC wing of the Democratic Party

[MannyGoldstein]

1. They're Also Fantastic At Losing Elections

We lost both houses of Congress for the entire time the DLC was in charge.

[gaiilonfong]

2. You got that right. n/t

[EFerrari]

11. Was in charge? If you have good news, share it!

[comradebillyboy]

16. Maybe we should purge them from the democratic party

and narrow the base to include only sufficiently left leaning "progressives" for your taste. Then maybe the democratic candidates could win maybe 30% of the popular vote. Real progress there.

[MannyGoldstein]

20. The DLC Is About Triangulation - About Always Pushing Farther RIGHT

How about we get someone like FDR who stays within electable limits but pushes LEFT instead?

[comradebillyboy]

26. great idea

who is that person?

[Tesha]

34. Then again, without the DLC's constant corruption of the Democrat message, maybe we...

Then again, without the DLC's constant corruption of
the Democrat message, maybe we'd be able to actually
win the votes of the 70% or so of Americans who are
actually Democrats at heart and whose best interests
are represented by Democrats.

But as it is, with the real Democrats saying "A" and
the DLC saying "Z", people can't figure out what Dem-
ocrats stand for and correctly understand that, as a
party, we don't have any fundamental values that we're
willing to stand by.

I'd gladly eject the DLC and see what happens.

Tesha

[Marr]

3. I don't think either extreme end of the party should be allowed to steer it.

That goes for the self-proclaimed "moderates" (at the extreme right of the party) just as well as it goes for the farthest left, even though I'm probably a member of that latter group. If the Democratic Party really is a "big tent", then logic dictates that it should appeal to the center if it wants to stay intact.

Not the nation's political center, as defined by our punditocracy. The *party's* political center.

For example, I'd consider John Edwards to be someone who sits at the party's political center. Dennis Kucinich represents me more precisely, but I know that I'm a bit further left that the party as a whole, and so I think Edwards is a more wise choice.

[formercia]

4. John Edwards is a member of the DLC

so why is he so anti-corporation?

He's also a CFR member and attended the Bilderberg conference.

Has he seen the light?

[in_cog_ni_to]

5. Do you have a current list of DLC members? I haven't seen an updated list in YEARS.

People HIDE their membership.

[formercia]

23. I don't know how current this list is:

http://www.nndb.com/group/269/000093987/

[havocmom]

8. If you need information to wage an effective fight against an agenda

and those pushing the agenda will let you into a meeting or three, it would be helpful to go and learn as much as you can.

[formercia]

25. Before I joined the CIA

I didn't believe most of what was said about the Agency. It didn't take long to find out most of it was true.

[Warren Stupidity]

6. It's the Duopoly, Stupid. nt.

[zorahopkins]

7. I Prefer

I prefer people from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party.

But, that's just me.

[in_cog_ni_to]

10. Damn Loony Lefty, Tree Hugging, Bleeding Heart Radical Liberal!

:)

I agree wholeheartedly!:hi:

[zorahopkins]

17. Who Supports Socialized Medicine For All

I am one of those damn, looney lefties that is a tree hugging, bleeding heart radical liberal that supports socialized medicine for all!

[in_cog_ni_to]

18. ME TOO!!!!

:thumbsup:

We are definitely on the same page.:hi:

[cascadiance]

41. DLC = Donothing League of Corporatists!

[fascisthunter]

9. Hey, DLC. You Belong in the GOP

get lost.

[whatdoyouthink]

12. They could Change or

perspective - if they would JUST STAND UP (show back bone) to the Right wing - and do the people (US) work - otherwise there approval will float around Bushes

[LoZoccolo]

13. I like what they stand for.

In keeping with our party's grand tradition, we reaffirm Jefferson's belief in individual liberty and capacity for self-government. We endorse Jackson's credo of equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none. We embrace Roosevelt's thirst for innovation and Kennedy's summons to civic duty. And we intend to carry on Clinton's insistence upon new means to achieve progressive ideals.

We believe that the promise of America is equal opportunity for all and special privilege for none. We believe that economic growth generated in the private sector is the prerequisite for opportunity, and that government's role is to promote growth and to equip Americans with the tools they need to prosper in the New Economy.

We believe that government programs should be grounded in the values most Americans share: work, family, personal responsibility, individual liberty, faith, tolerance, and inclusion.

We believe in community; that we can achieve our individual destinies only if we share a commitment to our national destiny. We believe in an ethic of mutual responsibility in which government has an obligation to create opportunity for citizens, but citizens have an obligation to give something back to the commonwealth.

We believe America has a responsibility to lead the world toward greater political and economic freedom.

We believe that as advocates of activist government, we need to reinvent government so that it is both more responsive and more accountable to those it serves and to the taxpayers who pay for it.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=86&subid=194&contentid=3775

[mike_c]

14. they have utterly ruined the democratic party....

It's no longer the party of the people to the extent that the DLC have been successful.

[mmonk]

15. I plan to post something later about our current situation

in the world. DLC'ers won't like it, especially in terms of terrorism and Pakistan. I hope it doesn't induce too much consternation as the information will have been researched. My hope is only to bring us into the reality of current US policy in order to induce real change from our nightmare. Sorry this appears hit and run but is only my way of preparing the reader for it.

[Fading Captain]

19. The DLC stands for war and corporate greed

What's not to like?

[harun]

24. And Imperialism (n/t)

[chaumont58]

21. They are batshit crazy

They are locked in a 1973 timewarp. Nixon is still president and the dirty fuckin' hippies are a danger to the world. Like I said, batshit crazy.

[leftofthedial]

22. Isn't that the DLC wing of the *repuke* party?

[TahitiNut]

27. They're the HIV in our body politic.

Think about it ... the metaphor is apt.

[bonito]

28. Some information

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1463 DLC

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1534 PPI

[MethuenProgressive]

29. Obama's "bi-partisan, one America" BS = DLC Triangulation

If you oppose the DLC, and support Obama, you don't know enough about either.

[Individualist]

30. They want to undermine the Democratic party

and turn it into a submissive branch of the republican party. It seems they've succeeded in that goal. Damn the DLC!

This is why the DLC is dangerous. For all their claims of supposedly wanting to help Democrats, they employ people like Marshall Wittman who specifically try to undermine the Democratic Party, even if it means he has to publicly defecate out the most rank and easily-debunkable lies. They reguarly give credence to the right wing's agenda and its worst, most unsupportable lies. They are the real force that tries to make sure this country is a one party state and that Democrats never really challenge the Republicans in a serious way. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/why-the-dlc-is-so-dangero_b_13640.html


Let's just look at the cold, hard facts about the DLC and its record. The DLC has pushed, among other things, the war in Iraq and "free" trade policies, using bags of corporate money to buy enough Democratic votes to help Republicans make those policies a reality. They have chastised anyone who has opposed those policies as either unpatriotic or anti-business -- even as a majority of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq, oppose the DLC's business-written trade deals, and are sick of watching America's economy sold out to the highest corporate bidder. Additionally, in brazenly Orwellian fashion, the DLC has also called its extremist agenda "centrist," even though polls show the American public opposes most of their agenda, and supports much of the progressive agenda. http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0727-32.htm

The progressive movement has not just threatened this message monopoly -- it is undoing it. Through MoveOn, the rise of popular documentaries, blogs, think tanks, etc. It's not just that we talk about real values and innovative strategies. It's because we're talking, period, that the centrists feel threatened.

Hence the DLC's vicious attempts to discredit the movement. And that's what they want. They don't seek to win an argument over policy. They seek to destroy the credibility of their opponents and restore their message monopoly. http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=721

"The Democratic Leadership Council's agenda is indistinguishable from the Republican Neoconservative agenda," http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Kucinich_DLC_agenda_undistinguishable_from_Neocon_0813.html

http://dlcwatch.blogspot.com

Without a doubt, the DLC is the most fundamentalist organization within the caucus, the most ideologically rigid, and the most destructive to the progressive cause.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/5/24/1712/23448

These DLC types are amazing, they really are. Their pathology is unique; they all secretly worship the guilt-by-association tactics of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, but unlike those two, not one of them has enough balls to take being thought of as the bad guy by the general public.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/11275627/the_low_post_democrats_walk_themselves_to_the_gallows

[Kucinich4America]

31. They really aren't a wing of the Democratic party at all

More like the pro-choice wing of the Republican party. But they didn't have the guts to fight the religious reich wackos in their own party, so they took their corporate funders and are trying to buy OUR party.

Go back where you came from, DLC. And take your rigged primaries with you.

[Writer]

32. The DLC: It just IS. Nothing more. Nothing less.

[warren pease]

33. Better an honest republican lunatic than a covert corporatist back-stabber. n/t

[Swamp Rat]

35. The cofounder of the DLC is a member of PNAC.

Information on Will Marshall:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1295

(snip)

Although Marshall calls himself a "centrist," he has associated himself with neoconservative organizations and their radical foreign policy agendas. At the onset of the Iraq invasion, Marshall signed statements issued by the Project for the New American Century calling for the removal of Saddam Hussein, advocating that NATO help "secure and destroy all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction," and arguing that the invasion "can contribute decisively to the democratization of the Middle East."

Marshall's credentials as a liberal hawk have been well established by his affinity for other PNAC-associated groups, including the U.S. Committee on NATO and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Marshall served on the board of directors of the U.S. Committee on NATO alongside such leading neoconservative figures as Robert Kagan, Richard Perle, Randy Scheunemann, Paul Wolfowitz, Stephen Hadley, Peter Rodman, Jeffrey Gedmin, Gary Schmitt, and the committee's founder and president Bruce Jackson. At the request of the Bush administration, Jackson also formed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which, with former DLC chairman Joseph Lieberman serving as co-chair with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), aimed to build bipartisan support for the liberation, occupation, and democratization of Iraq. Marshall, together with former Democratic Sen. Robert Kerrey of Nebraska (who coauthored "Progressive Internationalism"), represented the liberal hawk wing of the Democratic Party on the committee's neocon-dominated advisory board. Other advisers included James Woolsey, Eliot Cohen, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Joshua Muravchik, Chris Williams, and Richard Perle.

On February 25, 2003, Marshall joined an array of neoconservatives marshaled by the Social Democrats/USA (SD/USA)—a wellspring of neoconservative strategy—to sign a letter to Bush calling for the invasion of Iraq. Marshall and others asked the president to "act alone if that proves necessary" and then, as a follow-up to a military-induced regime change in Iraq, to implement a democratization plan. The SD/USA letter urged the president to commit his administration to "maintaining substantial U.S. military forces in Iraq for as long as may be required to ensure a stable, representative regime is in place and functioning." Others signing the SD/USA letter included Jackson, Kagan, Woolsey, Hillel Fradkin, Rachelle Horowitz, Penn Kemble, Nina Shea, Michael Novak, Clifford May, and Ben Wattenberg.

(snip)

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1295


Information on the DLC:
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1463

[Pastiche423]

36. 2008 Presidential Candidates

that are or were DLC:

John Edwards
Hillary Clinton
Chris Dodd
Bill Richardson

[Kucinich4America]

37. But only one of those four (Hillary) seems to be running as a DLC candidate

Edwards and Richardson have distanced themselves considerably from the corporatist right wing platform. The fact that the corporate media whores have ignored Richardson, and tried to ignore Edwards until he took the lead in Iowa, would seem to indicate that neither of them have the DLC's blessings.

As for Dodd, he's been acting like the exact opposite of a spineless DLC'er in the Senate recently, so maybe he woke up as well.

Hillary, by contrast, still is pictured among the DLC leadership and is pandering to the far right as much as possible.

[Pastiche423]

38. Go ahead and believe that poseur

johnnyboy has distanced himself considerably from the corporatist right wing platform.

The only reason he "seems to" is that he'll say anything to be president. But he's done jack shit.

Empty words.

[Kucinich4America]

40. I have the same concerns about Edwards as you do.

What he's saying is great. The fact that he's still meeting with the Bilderbergers and giving speeches to AIPAC (in which he seemed to buy into their hysteria about Iran) give me reason to doubt his conversion.

[Pastiche423]

43. Past is prologue

His resume does not match his words on the campaign trail. But some people prefer pretty words instead of researching actual deeds.

[KingFlorez]

39. I think they have far less influence than a lot of people think

I don't agree with a lot of their positions, but at the same time I think they are just a faction of the party that doesn't have as much power as some say.

[cali]

42. I agree. And there are also DLC members like

Chris Dodd- hardly the enemy.

[Kucinich4America]

44. Then why is the media going out of their way to promote the DLC's chosen candidate

Whose main "qualifcation" for the presidency is the fact that she's married to a guy who used to have the job?

Why was Howard Dean (metaphorically) assassinated in 2004 after challenging the DLC's corporatist, Bush-lite agenda?

Why do people like Judas Carville and Rahm Emmanuel get to be considered as "spokespeople" for the Democratic Party, instead of the actual party chairman (the previously mentioned Dr. Dean)?

Why do a dozen DLC senators who vote with the party less than 50% of the time get to determine the agenda of the Legislative bbranch of government?

[KingFlorez]

47. There are no current Democratic Senators who vote the party line less than 50%

As for the other things you mentioned, I still don't believe they are that powerful.

[cascadiance]

45. They do control the DCCC too!

... which is why we don't have more progressive candidates that have gotten into congress. That's a big reason why I don't contribute to the party any more. Just individual candidates that I think are decent. I make a point of sending back solicitations from them for money with hand written solicitations with their postage envelopes to do impeachment or no money in the future...

[WillyT]

46. DLC = Democratic Losers Coalition

No thanks.

[CorpGovActivist]

48. .