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Footnotes to a quiet civil war

By Avedon from the Sideshow

BTD recommends a Democracy Now! debate between Glenn Greenwald and Cass Sunstein in which, he says, Sunstein is an ass. Truly, you'd expect someone like Sunstein to know what he's talking about on an issue like FISA, only he doesn't - or at least, like many apologists for the FISA vote, he's just not a very good liar. (Also: I dunno, is Vanity Fair doing a parody of the New Yorker cover much better? I mean, except that, in this case, what's in the cartoon is actually true - especially what's in the fireplace.)

Barney Frank is pretty good on a lot of things, but he's not having much success convincing corporate America that they have a stake in rescuing America from the mess they've been making. Mick Arran says: "Barney's not naive but I have to wonder if he understands that his own party is half the problem? The conservative DLC leadership is putting ZERO pressure on business to conciliate labor, treat its workers better, or come up with a health care plan that doesn't put all the expense on the employee. So why should they respond? They're paying Blue Dogs to make sure they don't have to and the Dem presidential candidate just made a pilgrimage to Wall Street (Harold Ford set it up; his Wall Street contacts are the reason he was given charge of the DLC) to reassure them that if he wins in November, the investor class has nothing to worry about, nothing to be afraid of. He's on their side."

Bill Scher has posted a bunch of interviews he did with people at Netroots Nation over at Liberal Oasis, such as with Jim Hightower and Natasha Chart.

Don Siegelman has his own web page, and he wants you to send your rep a letter. (Does anyone know if Sammy's interview with Siegelman has been posted anywhere yet? His article about Siegelman's case is here.)

Corporate-Powered DLC VS. People-Powered Unity

...and the Tug of War over Obama.

Let there be no mistake: the DLC will try (and hopefully fail) to keep its greasy grips on control of this Party if it's the last thing they do.

But, take heart: their grip is slipping.

They succeeded in 2004 by purging Dean from the primaries and pushing Kerry to the right.
They succeeded in 2008 by keeping Hillary's campaign on life support.

And then they tried to push Obama out.

But, they failed.

We can be sure that they will try to be victorious once again now that a nominee has been chosen.

However, it is a nominee who-- contrary to their preferred candidate (Hillary) who was/is an active member of their organization-- has gone out of his way to slap the DLC in the past:

DLC shunned by Obama
Mon Mar 07, 2005 at 06:30:37 PM EDT

It appears the DLC is getting such a bad reputation that even a hint of association with the group sends Democrats running for cover.
Look at Barack Obama's statement after the DLC listed him as one of the "100 New Democrats to Watch.":

"Neither my staff nor I have had any direct contact with anybody at the DLC since I began this campaign a year ago," Obama wrote. "I don't know who nominated me for the DLC list of 100 rising stars, nor did I expend any effort to be included on the list.... I certainly did not view such inclusion as an endorsement on my part of the DLC platform."
After realizing that his name appeared in the DLC's database, Obama asked to have it removed. The message was clear: The DLC needed Obama a lot more than Obama needed the DLC.

The Nation, March 21, 2005

Obama still on DLC's list
Tue Mar 15, 2005 at 11:36:51 AM EDT

Last year, Barack Obama asked the DLC to remove him from their list. He's still on it.
Obama's presence is another bit of proof that the DLC tries to take credit for any Democrat elected for office.
[...]
Do any of these people want to associate with an organization that is urging the eviction of millions of Democrats from the party's ranks? An organization that likes to claim credit for Bill Clinton, but never -- mind you -- helped deliver 50 percent of the American people for any Democratic ticket.

DLC: Oh, I guess Obama isn't one of us
Wed Mar 16, 2005 at 11:31:48 AM EDT

Twice the DLC has tried to claim credit for Obama, slapping him up on their list of members, and for the second time, they've had to back down.
[...]
They may love the guy, but Obama want's nothing to do with the DLC. Remember, Obama raised over $3 million from MoveOn members, the very organization the DLC wants purged from the party's ranks. We know where Obama's loyalties lie, and it's wiith the netroots. He's one of ours.
This little episode also highlights the DLC's interesting tactic of slapping up people on the list without asking for permission to do so, an attempt to take credit for peoples' success. Most politicians won't give a damn, but it's damn weird for an organziation to have "members" when those people never asked to be members.

And we must do our part to keep tugging so that we finally win this war.

Each time he is tugged from the right, we must tug harder from the left.
Until we win...

related: http://www.blackcommentator.com/48/48_cover.html
____________________
"We can bomb the world to pieces, but we can't bomb it into peace."
"Power to the peaceful..." --Franti

By SJerseyIndyJuly 22, 2008 - 3:32pm