Looking for DLC info.

[MelissaB]

Anybody have in links handy about the DLC? A liberal friend of mine has never heard of them.

[SteppingRazor]

1. Er ... Dlc.org?

:shrug:

[MelissaB]

2. Yep, got that one.

I guess I'm looking for a short explanation of what they are and do.


I thought I had some things bookmarked, but can't find the links.

[SteppingRazor]

9. It's probably a lot longer than you'd want, but ...

at DLC.org is the Hyde Park Declaration, which pretty much sums up the DLC and the whole New Democrat philosophy:

http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=128&subid=174&contentid=1926


Of course, that paints it in the most glowing terms possible. Wikipedia has a pretty good summation of criticism against the DLC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council#Criticism

Basically, it outlines that Third Way triangulation can result in capitulation, while others claim it completely concedes populism to political enemies.

[Individualist]

11. What they are and do...

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

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

"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


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

[IndianaJones]

3. whinyliberalboogeyman.com. nt.

[RB TexLa]

6. LOL

[fascisthunter]

8. How About Fascist Republican Light FauxDemocrats.org

say hi to Gollum, I mean Lieberman.

[IndianaJones]

10. ooohhh..you hunt fascists. nt.

[fascisthunter]

13. You Name Yourself After a Movie Hero

consistantly poseur with your politics.

[IndianaJones]

14. I'm scared of snakes and whiny liberals. nt.

[fascisthunter]

15. Most Elite Snobs Are Scared

I don't blame your type

[IndianaJones]

16. plus I live in Indiana and my name is Jones...mighty fascist hunter. nt.

[fascisthunter]

17. Ahhh... Really Clever

too bad the only one that was whining was you... not too clever there. Typical arrogant Hillary supporter and defender of the DLC. Say hello to your buddy Bush. Love it....

[IndianaJones]

18. and you tracked me down. kudos hunter. nt.

[fascisthunter]

20. Seee... now That's Your Fear Getting Hold of You Again

I actually "responded to your post, which was definately flame bait. I just find it interesting you would bother to defend in such a manner when the topic was about the DLC. We know we threaten your position... it's why you need so much money to buy elections and keep others out of the Democratic Process. No honesty, no integrity, and make sure you do everything you can to get what you want. America is catching on though....

If you didn't want to read "whinning" as you suggested, why did you track down this thread and flaim bait the way you did?

Wonder why the DLC is sooo hated? Maybe because they are more in line with Republicans, who support unjustified wars without really having the balls to admit as much all while compromising principles this party has championed for many years.

So while you whine about how liberals expose your DLC agenda, just remember that you do it yourselves... you have no legs to stand on so you need to personally attack liberals. We ahve the facts on our side.... say hi to Bush, your buddy.

[IndianaJones]

25. say hi to Joe Momma. nt.

[dorkulon]

21. Gee, what a mature, eloquent debater you are.

Child.

[TahitiNut]

22. Sounds more like Mr. Shole from Texas.

:evilgrin:


:rofl:

[TahitiNut]

12. If you don't wish to hear the whining, you should ...

... locate the slave quarters further from your plantation workshop. :eyes:

[antigop]

4. How about this?

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/14/3154/

[Warpy]

7. balanced by their own site, which is scary enough

http://www.dlc.org/

[Mnpaul]

23. It is scary

However, the bill also "restores" oversight of the process by the courts, Congress, and the Department of Justice. Furthermore, it prohibits warrantless physical searches of Americans, and ensures that warrants are not overly broad.

This represents a sensible compromise, and a necessary advance in the protection of individual liberty. Yet progress on this bill is snagged in the Senate. The controversy centers on a provision that would grant retroactive and qualified immunity from prosecution to telecommunications companies that complied with the Bush administration's request for assistance in collecting American citizens' private information. Civil liberties groups have filed some 40 lawsuits against companies like AT&T and Verizon to protect Americans' right to privacy.

However, it makes little sense to hold up progress on modernizing the FISA bill to punish private companies that responded to White House requests for information. Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) has done yeoman's work as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee to forge this compromise, and offered an explanation of his support for an immunity clause in an October 31 Washington Post editorial: "These companies were assured that their cooperation was not only legal but also necessary because of their unique technical capabilities. They were also told it was their patriotic duty to help protect the country after the devastating attacks on our homeland."
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=124&subid=307&contentid=254517

The should be drummed out of the Dem party

[Fleshdancer]

5. wikipedia has a page on the DLC

this should give you an overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Leadership_Council

[dorkulon]

19. Matt Taibbi on the DLC

http://www.nypress.com/18/2/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

People are slowly coming to understand what the DLC is. You are a tiny gang of needle-nosed cubicle slaves hired to sell out the genuine political aspirations of millions of people. You have been hired to rush from newsroom to newsroom badmouthing almost every principle your constituents have held for decades, and to propagandize at every opportunity the hopelessness of such ideas as peace, tolerance and ideological backbone.

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/39862/?page=entire

Marshall is the president of the DLC's Progressive Policy Institute and owns the distinction of being the first public figure to use the term "body count" in a positive sense with regard to the Iraq war ("Coalition forces still face daily attacks but the body count tilts massively in their favor"). He wasted no time in giving me the party line: "What we're seeing is an ideological purge," he said cheerily. "It's national effort by the left to get rid of somebody they've decided to demonize ... we have concerns about narrow dogmatism..."

We went back and forth for a while. I noted that his conception of "narrow dogmatists" included the readers of Daily Kos, a website with something like 440,000 visitors a day; I also noted that recent Gallup polls showed that fully 91 percent of Democrats supported a withdrawal of some kind from Iraq.

"So these hundreds of thousands of Democrats who are against the war are narrow dogmatists," I said, "and... how many people are there in your office? Ten? Twenty? Thirty?"

"Well, it'd probably be in the thirty zone," sighed Marshall.

I asked Marshall if there was a publicly available list of donors to the DLC.

"Uh, I don't know," he said. "I'd have to refer you to the press office for that. They can help you there..." (Note: a DLC spokeswoman would later tell me the DLC has a policy of "no public disclosure," although she did say the group is funded in half by corporate donations, in half by individuals).

"So let me get this straight," I said. "We have thirty corporate-funded spokesmen telling hundreds of thousands of actual voters that they're narrow dogmatists?"

He paused and sighed, clearly exasperated. "Look," he said. "Everybody in politics draws money from the same basic sources. It's the same pool of companies and wealthy individuals..."

"Okay," I said. "So basically in this dispute over Lieberman, we have people on one side, and companies on the other? Would it be correct to say that?" I asked.

"Well, I guess if you live in a cartoon world you could say that," he said.

The DLC are the lowest kind of scum; we're talking about people who are paid by the likes of Eli Lilly and Union Carbide to go on television and call suburban moms and college kids who happen to be against the war commies and jihadists. On the ignominious-sellout scale, that's lower than doing PR for a utility that turns your grandmother's heat off at Christmas. And that's pretty bad -- but with enough money and enough of the right kind of publicity their side still might win in the Lamont/Lieberman primary on August 8th.

And win they did.

[MelissaB]

24. Thanks, everybody!

:hi: