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Stevendsmith Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 11:41 AM
Original message
Tony Blair Democrats? Give me a Break!
I've been hearing this term quite a bit lately--epecially from Bush apologist and hopeless Iraq war romantic, Thomas Friedman of the NYT. Someone please explain this term to me.

What the hell is the difference between Tony Blair and George W. Bush when it comes to Iraq? They both lied their asses off about the threat posed by Saddam. They were two peas in a pod. It was Blair who pushed the 45-minute deployment thing. Theirs was a unified policy of deception.
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Sagan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 11:51 AM
Response to Original message
1. Tony Blair Democrats is a valid term

See all the Dems who kiss up to Chimpy at every opportunity? Those are Tony Blair Democrats.

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cprise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 12:06 PM
Response to Reply #1
5. Clark and Dean need to use this in the Primaries
Get the paintbrush out...
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Iverson Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 11:53 AM
Response to Original message
2. an attempt to answer
First of all, anything written by Thomas Friedman has to be understood as seeing the world through a distorted prism, and not the same distorted prism that most of us share.

Even though Blair has been Bush's poodle, the expression "Tony Blair Democrats" is fitting inasmuch as it describes the "third way" approach within a party that has a history of liberalism yet is currently shifting right. Thus, a Tony Blair Democrat might be one who dislikes labor and likes economic globalization.
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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 11:53 AM
Response to Original message
3. Here's where it comes from
Edited on Tue Jan-27-04 11:55 AM by Thankfully_in_Britai
Essentially it's 3rd way cobblers.

http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?contentid=251557&knlgAreaID=127&subsecid=171
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cprise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 12:02 PM
Response to Original message
4. Blairite = Clintonite = Neo-liberal = New Democrat = DLC = 3rd Way
Edited on Tue Jan-27-04 12:03 PM by cprise
Time to pay the piper, Clinton-worshippers!
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T_i_B Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 12:48 PM
Response to Reply #4
7. In the case of Blair
The piper that calls the tune is currently in the whitehouse. If you don't belive me then how do you explain "new" labour doing something like this?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1116854,00.html

"Spare a thought this bleak new year for all those who rely on charity. Open your hearts, for example, to a group of people who, though they live in London, are in such desperate need of handouts that last year they received £7.6m in foreign aid. The Adam Smith Institute, the ultra-rightwing lobby group, now receives more money from Britain's Department for International Development (DfID) than Liberia or Somalia, two of the most desperate nations on Earth.
Are the members of the Adam Smith Institute starving? Hardly. They work in plush offices in Great Smith Street, just around the corner from the Houses of Parliament. They hold lavish receptions and bring in speakers from all over the world. Big business already contributes generously to this good cause.

It gets what it pays for. The institute's purpose is to devise new means for corporations to grab the resources that belong to the public realm. Its president, Madsen Pirie, claims to have invented the word privatisation. His was the organisation that persuaded the Conservative government to sell off the railways, deregulate the buses, introduce the poll tax, cut the top rates of income tax, outsource local government services and start to part-privatise the national health service and the education system. "We propose things," Pirie once boasted, "which people regard as being on the edge of lunacy. The next thing you know, they're on the edge of policy." In this spirit, his institute now calls for the privatisation of social security, the dismantling of the NHS and a shift from public to private education. It opposes government spending on everything, in other words, except the Adam Smith Institute."
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annagull Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 12:54 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. That's pretty enlightening
It all boils down to the one party system that is dedicated to making money for themselves and lording over us serfs. It's frightening and disgusting that Tom Delay has the same agenda as New Labour and the DLC.
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cprise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 01:14 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. You beat me to it
I spent 15 min. searching for that article! :)

It is disgusting, though...

All this was pioneered by the sainted Clare Short. Short's trick was to retain her radical credentials by publicly criticising the work of other departments, while retaining her job by pursuing in her own department policies that were far more vicious and destructive than those she attacked. Blair's trick was to keep her there, to assure old Labour voters that they still had a voice in government, while ensuring that Short did precisely what his corporate backers wanted.
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sweetheart Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-04 04:15 AM
Response to Reply #4
12. Tony blair's is "Bill Clinton II" wassa problem?
For anyone who sings the praises of bill clinton to diss tony blair is hipocritical.

Bill clinton's illegal war in sudan has much less scrutiny.!
Bill Clinton championed regime change in iraq and bush just did it.
Bill Clinton championed using mass media to circumvent the constitutional process, and now to complain when bush does it is quite thin.

Any Democrat who claims to like clinton, yet loathe blair is a hypocrate.
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Elidor Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 12:19 PM
Response to Original message
6. We have a pet Blair-Democrat here at DU
I won't mention the name.
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Tierra_y_Libertad Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jan-27-04 12:52 PM
Response to Original message
8. Tony Blair Democrats backed the war.
What's the problem with calling them what they are? Actually, I find the term far too gentle.
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Nihil Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-04 03:59 AM
Response to Reply #8
11. Yes but ...
"Lying bastard Democrats" would cause too many threads to be deleted.
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Spentastic Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-04 05:25 AM
Response to Original message
13. The problem with the term is that it's an oxymoron
Tony Blair fucking hates democracy. It stands in the way of him selling out to the private sector as quickly as possible.

Why not just call them "compassionate conservatives"

Oh, they've tried that already.
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rman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-04 07:08 AM
Response to Original message
14. many Brits think Blair is a lyar in calling himself labour
the Labour Party is as divided (left/right) as US Dems.
But it isn't working as well in the UK as it is in the US because of lack of media control.
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Nihil Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-04 08:25 AM
Response to Reply #14
15. but to give Tony his due ...
... it's certainly not through lack of trying to control the media ...

And, let's face it, given that he can still bring enough "influence"
to bear on Hutton, variable top-up fees and BCCI (quiet huh?), not
to mention Iraq itself, he's really not doing that badly for being
the "poor cousin" in GWB's plutocracy.

Nihil
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Loonman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Jan-28-04 08:41 AM
Response to Original message
16. Blair is a traitor to his party
He ain't Labour.
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