Explain the DLC to me please.

[Joe the Revelator]

Why is it such a bad horriable thing. I really wasn't aware of the hatred for it until i got to DU.

[cprise]

1. Neo-liberalism

THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say "an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone." It's like Reagan's "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics -- but somehow the wealth didn't trickle down very much.

CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the name of reducing government's role. Of course, they don't oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business.

DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the environmentand safety on the job.

PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.

ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY" and replacing it with "individual responsibility." Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves -- then blaming them, if they fail, as "lazy."

http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=376

More in-depth...
http://mondediplo.com/1998/12/08bourdieu


Also, politicans that are bought and paid-for by corporations. A way of perpetuating one's "electability" by serving primarily the interests of multi-national corporations. This descibes Clinton's mode of funding his campaigns, and others in the DLC follow suit. Their interests are so tied up in corporate gain, that drastic conservative moves to make corporations more powerful are met with weak, barely audible protests from Democrats. That Dems receive less in campaign funds from corporations than Republicans doesn't change the fact that corporations spell career prosperity to DLC Dems.

[youngred]

2. I was going to reply

but that's better than I could ever do. well said

[schultzee]

6. Clinton was their baby and he birthed Bush's NAFTA baby and

screwed the American workers. I hate Clinton for that and I hate the DLC which was infiltrated by the rePIGlicans to move the democrats to the right.

[mike1963]

3. They appease the wingnuts too much. Here's a link to their site

http://www.ndol.org/

It all sounds very noble but pay attention to their actions keeping the rhetoric in mind. I report, you decide. :D

[Joe the Revelator]

4. Thank you all very much...

Like someone said, they sounded a bit nobel. I'll have to go through and decide :-D. Thanks again.

[cprise]

5. bump

:D

[legin]

7. Seeing how i just saw Devil's Advocate NZ posting

(his classic post from a year or so ago which is sort of on topic)

I am speaking from experience here...
Here in NZ in the late eighties, our left-wing party, Labour, underwent the same right-wing transformation that has taken a hold in the US and the UK. Privatisation, union busting and all the rest of the typically right-wing policies subtly became the policies of Labour and much damage was done because of it.

Most of our national industries that provided tens of thousands of jobs, and much needed revenue for the government, were mismanaged and run into the ground, before being sold off at fire-sale prices to overseas corporations.

We were told that by selling these loss-making enterprises, the government would be able to reduce our national debt considerably, and that they would be run better and be cheaper for the public. What we got, was basically enough money to cover a few years interest repayments on the debt, and huge amounts of revenue lost overseas, revenue that could not only have covered those few years of interest payments, but many more years, and we would still own our assets.
Legislation was also bought in that basically killed the unions. It gave far too much power to the corporate employers, while taking power away from their employees. Unemployment skyrocketed, and although it eventually stabilised, it still remains relatively high, and real wages came down significantly, so much so, that people earning over 16,000 USD per year are considered wealthy.

Now comes the part that most of the pro-Dem posters would probably NOT like to hear: The people in our Labour party who brought about these changes, have since admitted that they were basically right-wing plants all along. As far as we can tell, those people in the Labour party were matched by similar people in the National party (the right-wing party) so that at that time, no matter who we voted for, these changes would have occured.

Those crypto-rightists in the Labour party eventually broke away to form a new party called the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers (ACT) which is a misnomer. They are in fact the most right-wing pro-Corporate party in New Zealand, they are in fact more right-wing than the right-wing National party of today.

Here is a partial listing of some of these people and what they are doing today: Mike Moore (head of the WTO), Roger Douglas (founder of ACT, and World Bank consultant), Richard Prebble (leader of ACT).
These three men and their supporters brought New Zealand to its knees and sold us down the river in order to put massive profits in the hands of their corporate masters. To give you an idea of how popular these peoples policies are, the ACT party garnered 7% of the party vote (NZers have two votes: one for a party, and one for an electorate. Half the seats in Parliament are electorate seats, filled by a straight vote for a candidate by voters in each electorate, and the other half filled by the percentage gained in the party vote), which was the same percentage as the NZ Green party.

What I described above is essentially a corporate coup. These corporates bought politicians in ALL parties at the time to ensure that their prefered policies would be enacted, and they were. Now, the Labour party has mostly been taken back from these people, and we have a new electoral system (the one I described above) that allows us to have a greater say in how our Government operates by empowering the smaller parties as a means of tempering the larger ones. That new system stopped the corporate takeover, and that is why the crypto-rightists eventually formed their own party. They still have a say, but it is nowehere near as large as it used to be, and it is out in the open. When ACT says it, we the people know that it is the corporate party line, and the major parties try to distance themselves from it.

This is what I believe is happening in both the US and the UK. The corporations have subverted your democratic system, and have bought both sides of the debate. In fact I would not be surprised if they have bought out the Greens as well as the Dems and Republicans.
Remember, they don't have to own the whole party, they just have to control a few key people who can make their policies stick. That is why the pro-Dems should be really cautious about supporting people like Daschle and Gephardt. As individuals they have the most power within the Dems to make changes to the Dems policies to suit the corporates, yet their unbought collegues take the heat unjustly because they themselves have no power to stop it without your support.
Could that be why Gephardt apparently did not inform anyone except Daschle that he was going to support Bush in that Rose Garden PR stunt?

I am sorry this took so long to explain, but I could go on forever about this, and I can not stress how important it is that Americans understand how this works. This is not a NZ thing or even a US thing, it is a corporate thing, promoted by the multinational trade organisations and corporations around the world. Remember that two of the people involved in our corporate coup went on to high positions at the World Bank and the WTO. This is what is in store for the US, and the more the pro-Dems ignore it, the more likely it is to destroy your wonderful nation.

The reason I am so concerned about what happens in the US in this regard, is because here they took our assets, but with control of the US military, they can take EVERYONES assets as well as their FREEDOM. The US is the frontline in this war, and it can only be fought by you. We in the rest of the world have no way of stopping the juggernaut once it controls the US military without another World War, and no-one wants that (except perhaps the corporates: they would make a killing, figuratively and literally).

The pro-Dem people have to cast aside their loyalty and demand that the Democratic party will only get it back if they get rid of the traitors within. That's what we did here in NZ, and trust me, the damage done in the few years the right had control, was nowhere near as bad as if we let the right control both the government AND the opposition.

The NZ public learned a valuable lesson, and our nation is all the better for it.

[Lars39]

8. A giant

:kick: NZ did it, we can, too!