David Van Os letter on the DLC.

[acmejack]

Dennis, I feel honored that you quoted me. I like the way you quoted me. You quoted me accurately and for the right principles.

However, I must tell you, I have no truck with the Democratic Leadership Council. They are stalking dogs for the corporate fatcats and they have been steadily destroying the Democratic Party ever since they started touching it, by taking the Democratic Party away from working people's issues and trying to turn it into another branch of the Republican Party as a shill for corporate power.

Right now the DLC is a bigger obstacle for us than even the Republican Party, because the DLC co-opts Democratic energy and uses it to achieve Republican goals. This is not about having a big tent or not, this is about recognizing the DLC for what it is - a direct opponent of most of the things that most Democrats stand for. "Having a big tent" does not mean letting people who are against most of what you believe in have a say in how you set up your tent. The sooner Al From and his corporatist bunch lose all influence in the Democratic Party the better, as far as I am concerned.

This is not about progressive, liberal, moderate, conservative, left, center, right, or any similar malarkey spun by the ivory tower pundit class. There is not a dime's worth of ideological difference between any types of Democrats, that is, real people type Democrats who get dirt under their fingernails. The DLC is corporate elitism trying to disguise itself. I don't know what exactly they should be called, but they aren't Democrats and their motive is not achievement of the Democratic Party Platform.

Balanced budgets are a good thing, indeed they are necessary for democracy, social justice, and economic justice. Balanced budgets promote liberty, democracy, social justice, and economic justice for the people, by making it fiscally possible for the people to breathe free. If the DLC were really for fiscal discipline, really and truly for balanced budgets, that would be one thing. But they're not. When they say that, they are mouthing empty words to co-opt Democratic energy. They are in favor of the corporatist Republican agenda to spread American military influence all over the world so as to create fortress protection for giant corporations to achieve unlimited profits and unlimited power by totally ridding themselves of all pro-worker and pro-consumer economic regulation. Creating those fortresses of military protection for corporate greed requires ripping off American working people for lots of tax money and engaging in gigantic deficit spending for an insatiable military budget that supplies the largesse of corporate welfare to the already-rich in the form of luxurious defense contracts. Their program is not a program of fiscal discipline.

Social and economic justice do not cause budget deficits. We had budget surpluses during the great years of LBJ's Great Society. It was not the Great Society that created systemic budget deficits; it was the black hole of Vietnam that turned LBJ's budget surplus into a deficit. Military spending does not create goods that are transferred in exchange for money or other goods, and thus keep money circulating in the economy for the good of all the people. Instead, military spending creates goods that are destroyed or used up, and thus do not keep money circulating in the economy, but rather expend money and its value on a one-way street into oblivion.

We Democrats get absolutely nowhere engaging in academic debates with each other about what's liberal or conservative or centrist or progressive or right or left. Those debates are as useful as the medieval monks debating over how many angels can dance on a pinhead. We need to get away from "left and right" and concentrate on right and wrong. We need to get away from "liberal vs. conservative" and concentrate on liberty vs. tyranny. We need to mean what we say and say what we mean, and let the chips fall where they may when the self-serving pundits who are not getting sweaty with us in the arena engage in their intellectual masturbation of fretting over which neat little labels to try to pigeonhole us into. We need Democrats to remember that public office is a civic duty, not a social promotion. We need Democrats to stop peddling promises to people for their votes and concentrate on fighting for justice for the people in order to earn their votes.

We need Democrats to cease worrying about getting money from big donors and start fighting for working people to get more money on their paychecks. We need Democrats to be partisan Democrats and not try to be nonpartisan Nothingcrats. We need to fight for the truth, fight for justice, and fight for democracy, for the people. If we dare to fight for the people without a flinch, we will dare to win. Respectfully,David Van OsFuture People's Lawyer of Texas

[johncoby2]

1. OK. What was this about? eom

[acmejack]

2. It was a reply to a running DLC move to Center vs populist feud

On going in the Texas Democratic Veterans. of which both David and I are members. I thought you might be interested in his thoughts on the matter. He holds the DLC in as much regard as I do..

[sonias]

3. I'm with you and David on that one too acmejack

The DLC is doing us absolutely no good.

Sonia

[johncoby2]

4. Ohhhhh......I guess I should have read it before asking questions!

Good piece!