The Nation "Party Cannibals"...how the Democratic agenda was hijacked.

This article is from The Nation 2005. It is one of the best I have seen in really laying out how the Democratic party had its platform taken over by conservative Democrats who have never really given it back. And they don't intend to do so.

Party Cannibals

It's good to look back a decade or so and see how quickly it happened.



They tried to split the difference with the Republicans to neutralize attacks from them. It didn't work then, and it doesn't work now. While we fail to hold them accountable for their actions, they are attacking our side with a vengeance.



I was really concerned this week when Evan Bayh with Harry Reid's blessing decided to try to copy the efforts of the House Blue Democrats....and he intends to form his own Blue Dog group in the Senate.

Just what we need for party unity. Both House and Senate with groups that are formed to be sure that business friendly agendas get through. To be sure that the liberals and progressives, or whatever we call ourselves are kept on the edge of the party until they need us to vote.

President Elect Obama can bring the change we need if he listens to the people who see the danger in becoming just like the other side. We don't need an era of "post partisanship" (another name for one party rule)....we need just the opposite.

Things are not looking good out there these days.

Edit:
I also want to put this out there because I've been thinking about it all day. All the people who say we need to just chill out for awhile and see how Obama does or "just trust Obama" etc. seem to be operating on a paradigm typical of American society; politics only occurs when elections are near. That is part of our problem. We don't realize, as a society, that politics is an ongoing process that doesn't only happen between January and November in even numbered years. The political process unfolds every day of every year, and if anybody wants to get their agenda enacted they have to work at it constantly on every level. That's why some of us are worried about what Obama is doing *now* because it can set the tone for the future. The time to take action on this stuff is not in 2010, or 2012. The time to take action on issues that matter to you is right now.

You'll hear people say a lot that "the good thing about the American system of government is that we can fire our leaders every 2/4 years". I disagree with that statement because I think it's too narrow. Being able to replace our leaders is *a* good thing, but not the only one. Taking that stance makes us lose sight of the good things about our system that are guaranteed in the first amendment. Freedom of speech, press, assembly and petition means that we don't have to wait until election day to press for policy changes. We can do it all the time. We don't just have to pick leaders and then let them do whatever they want during their terms. We can try to persuade them to see things our way at any point.

The last thing, and this is more specific to this case, I think, is that we can't just let Obama do what he wants without input from us. Do you think the conservatives aren't going to put pressure on him? I don't. That means that if we adopt a hands-off wait-and-see-approach, the only people Obama is going to be hearing from will be the other side. Think about that. We've got to be right on top of this administration from the get-go. Think of it as a way of offering support. You *know* he wants to be the President we know he can be. It's up to us to show him that he'll be rewarded, not punished by the American people for doing what we want him to do.

I would only add this to your '...The time to take action on issues that matter to you is right now...': not only is it right now, it is also local. We absolutely have to rebuild the Democratic party from the ground up. We will accomplish nothing unless and until we have a solid progressive foundation. Rahm's appointment instantly shored up the crumbling dlc foundation. I think it remains weak (they still do not know how to win elections) but it was given a boost.

"President Elect Obama can bring the change we need if he listens to the people who see the danger in becoming just like the other side. We don't need an era of "post partisanship" (another name for one party rule)....we need just the opposite."

unless they're not really your enemy....

i don't use the word enemy lightly, either.

there should be no question about the republicans. the only question is, are right wing and centrist democrats the enemy (i.e., more like republicans than like friends of the people)?

is just dangerous.

:hi:

:hi:

no one can show how ANY presidential candidate did well with a "liberal" platform and agenda. From Bryan onwward, running on a lilberal platform guaranteed a loss.

Note that even FDR didn't run as a "liberal-- he snuck it all in after he got elected, and had the great "liberals" William Randolph Hearst and Joe Kennedy squarely in his corner during the first campaign. He campaigned on smaller government, of all things, and said Hoover didn't close enough federal agencies.

We had a little dry spell there except for Clinton.

My problem and what I write about so much is the perception of anyone who is not on the inside is "liberal" or "fringe."

That is the harm in this. Liberal is a good word, a fine word. Our own party has done a lot to soil it and abuse it.

all ran and won as more or less "centrists." What they did when they got in is another story, but getting in is the first job.

Congress is pretty screwed up thanks to gerrymandering, but while you find hundreds of Democratic districts, you don't find too many "liberal" ones. Same goes for states.

I don't know if we have abused it or have just been overwhelmed by the abuse we've gotten from the other side. Being identified with Communists during the Cold War sure didn't help our cause. Admittedly, some of our more squirrely types haven't helped either and just let us fall into rhetorical traps.

Every time someone looks into American political and social beliefs our liberal positions and programs are overwhelminly favored-- until they are called "liberal" and then they are immediately scorned. It's a huge selling job we have to do, but too few are concentrating on getting the right message out.

Florida has many examples through the years. Someone who is a real honest to goodness anti-war liberal is running, and pow they are out of the race and a more conservative Dem is in their place...or in several cases millionaire Republicans who changed parties.

We have to keep pointing out that most of the ones that are tagged with "liberal" are mostly right where the country is and mostly want the same things for our country.

and Kerry's BCCI report that was to be released in Dec1992 assured that GHWBush would face impeachment in 93 after the hearings generated by the report.

I wish to all that is holy in this world that we had an honest progressive Democratic nominee in 92, instead of that ass who sided with the secrecy and privilege of Poppy Bush and the powerful elite.

But one man made the decision not to allow the report. Good for Kerry for the many things he did in that respect.

worrywarts. I think people get too hung up on what to call other people. If what is done works, I'm okay with that.

I'm also okay with giving someone a shot at trying to get it done. Labels might be thrown out the window.

and I'm OK with it if he gets two steps forward and just one step back.

It's a big country to run, and he has to deal with the half of it that's Republican, not to mention all those Democrats who already seem willing to stab him in the back. (Or the Forum...)

I don't like some of his choices so far, but I'm not the President and I don't have to deal with the Cabinet-- a Cabinet that looks very pragmatic and able to deal with the problems we have, not cave to ideologies on either side.

...because without that, there would have been insurrection. since then it has all been very surreptitiously and cleverly whittled away by repubs and dems acting in cahoots.

obama is the new bone-thrower. that's all.

paying any price for their treason was part of allowing him to throw those bones...

Yes, I believe they should have been prosecuted for their crimes and tossed in prison. The world probably would have been a better place.

It was largely a personality race. Reagan looked like the coach who led your high school football team to the state championship. Mondale came off like the principal who made the team forfeit the title because he heard they had a kegger after the game. And Mondale's nomination gave the GOP another chance to run against Jimmy Carter who(although we all respect him)was seen in those years as OUR party's Herbert Hoover by most of the country.

Four year later, Dukakis lost as an android. He ran as a bloodless centrist technocrat who refused to fight back against smears. Our beloved and brilliant party "leaders" pushed for him because he was supposedly "electable". Then when he dragged himself down to defeat, we, the progressives(who'd been left out in the cold in that campaign AND in '84)were unjustly given all the blame, as if it was OUR fault that Dukakis refused to defend himself or even to make the argument that our party had done positive things for the country.

Clinton, four years later, would have won on any platform, because he did defend himself(and had a brilliant rapid response team).

If you really campaigned towards a liberal agenda's strength and weren't tied to keeping from "offending" the corporate lobbyists, THEN I'd bet we would win in a landslide. So much of what liberals want are AMERICAN issues and in favor by a majority of Americans, not just "liberal" Americans. Because if it is sold correctly AND honestly, people will understand it is there to serve THEM and not serve agendas against their interests that has lead to so many distrusting our government now.

The MASSIVE distrust of our government now IS a symptom of little or NO representation for real progressive ideas in our government. When the duplicitous agendas of the oter side are exposed, it makes sense that it just sews distrust, and the continual pattern of this happening just leads more people to distrust their government. And the Republicans LOVE it, because they want to kill government, and just throw control to those outside of it as much as possible that they control. Either way they win.

as the neocons were to the repukes.

with meaningful and vital information like this, when you're sposed to be all frothed up because Whatsisface Warren is gonna give a prayer somewhere?

he is actually giving the invocation because this hijacking of our agenda made Democrats of all kinds think they had to compromise with extremists.

We don't. It is hurting one group terribly and is catering to bigots. So I don't think he should be giving it.

Thanks for the words about the post...:hi:

I can understand people being pissed, but c'mon. It's about a two-minute prayer. This is getting entirely too much bandwidth.

The country and the world are about to go off the cliff, with looming economic and ecological disaster, combined with a total breakdown of trust in our institutions, and people are all frothed up about which particular idiot delivers an appeal to some hypothetical supernatural entity that He, She or It suspend the rules of the Universe in our behalf, even though to do so would probably work to the detriment of most of the other several billion denizens of this spinning mudball. Get real, people. If ya gotta be in a snit, then get in a snit about something that matters.

I think putting Harry Reid into his position in the Senate was part of this scheme. He needs to be replaced by someone who is more of a real Democrat.

choices are a way to deflect their power and their positions although their pov will be heard, require them to implement Obama's agenda.

I wish they would start their own party.

Evan Bayh has already begun trying to split the party apart. It seems only natural for the DLCers to join them as neither hold true to the issues and ethics of the Democratic Party.

...is to the left, push HARD to the left, and keep MOVING to the left. Pure and simple.

President Obama will have an UNPRECEDENTED MOMENT in presidential history to end capitalism, corporate bias, nationalize (yes, SOCIALIZE) all corporations, completely take over all energy production, establish a fair and just tax system that will, ultimately, forever limit all income to no more than 5 times what the person who makes minimum wage makes (including all holdings), cede military control to the UN and ultimate court authority to the World Court, and to basically ban the republican party and the conservative movement as a whole.

This MUST BE DONE...MAKE IT SO!

:puke:

Otherwise, the communist party USA must have a website somewhere.

:yourock:

Yes I believe life's necessities like health etc, should be socialized and as far as education, everyone who can should. Wealth should be limited but not by any means to the levels you suggest. Capitalism and socialism have their places and functions and both must be controlled with an even hand for the benefit of us all. The one thing in my opinion that must be eliminated is religion from government; Absolutely.

We saw more change from GWB than we will see from Obama. Look at how different our nation is today than it was in 2000.

Obama's change will amount to moving some conservative issues forward, and "modifying" some of the Bush changes as lip service to those who want to GET RID OF THEM.

We won't actually be "getting rid of" the war on terror, NCLB, the Patriot Act, etc., of course.

How liberal are Obama's cabinet picks are. Not!

And "Make it so"?

Look, buddy, this isn't the Picard/Riker administration we're swearing in here.

administration that we are swearing in, either.

It amazes me how anti-change the "change" voters are, when it means authentic, bold leftward change.

:shrug:

Thanks for posting it. DLC's goal is to turn the party into a subservient branch of the neocons. Looks to me like they've succeeded.

They have been rude and snide about those not on the inside of their group and its corporate allies.

incredible...

Good article!

That sums up the situation in one phrase. We've been saying this for years.

to see if there was any thought of a banding together to keep a movement intact..no, not much.

There is a cautious mention now and then, but not much else.

I hear that a few bloggers had a meeting, but nothing much from that yet.

We can make our voices heard or stay on the edge again for 4 years as Al From and Will Marshall use their corporate money to build their power.

This is how the pugs keep control of us and that is why I am so angry to see O moving in that direction.

Move in that direction, I mean.

I haven't changed my registration, but I'm more than done with being bullied into "lesser evil" votes.

If enough people joined me to make an impact, perhaps we'd get more than lip service.

:shrug:

That whenever I find a post that I completely agree with your name is somewhere under it. Very unusual.

Thank you.

?

sorry

agree with the other poster on your contributions, btw, espec on education

:hi: