Corporate Republicans or Corporate Democrats?

John Edwards makes an excellent point in a speech today in New Hampshire.

Edwards is strongly going after the vote of Democratic wing of the Democratic party by calling out the DLC candidates in the race and connecting the influence of money to the Clinton White House.

From Marc Ambinder ...

The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other.

The American people deserve to know that their Presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate.

It’s time to end the game. It’s time to tell the big corporations and the lobbyists who have been running things for too long that their time is over. It’s time to challenge politicians to put the American people’s interests ahead of their own calculated political interests, to look the lobbyists in the eye and just say no.

Corporate Republicans or Corporate Democrats? It still means it is a government that supports policies that favor corporate interests over the interests of common Americans.

DLC Translation Guide

I saw this on Democratic Underground and thought I'd share it. It is a translation guide to use while listening to a DLC candidate speak.

When They Say: Pragmatic
They Mean: Corporatist
Example: "Rahm Emanuel's campaign was a pragmatic success."

When They Say: Grown-up
They Mean: Corporatist
Example: "Unlike Dennis Kucinich, Hillary Clinton is a grown-up."

When They Say: Rational
They Mean: Corporatist
Example: "Harold Ford advocates a rational approach to foreign policy."

When They Say: Reasonable
They Mean: Corporatist
Example: "Steny Hoyer wants to adopt reasonable restrictions on greenhouse gasses."

When They Say: Centrist
They Mean: Corporatist
Example: "Diane Feinstein's centrist views have not been popular in the more liberal areas of her state."

When They Say: Bipartisan
They Mean: Corporatist
Example: "Joe Lieberman led a bipartisan effort to compromise on the Roberts nomination."

Edwards: "I'm not a new Democrat, I'm a REAL Democrat."

John Deeth had a busy day covering the Hillary Clinton event in Iowa City (here) and the John Edwards event in Cedar Rapids (here and here). In his second post, Deeth had this great quote from John Edwards...

I'm not a new Democrat, I'm a REAL Democrat.

This quote is a hit at Hillary Clinton and DLC democrats. It sums up an argument that I have repeatedly made on this blog about the so-called centrist Democrats (here, here, here, and here). We don't need politicians that speak to the center, we need politicians that speak to the people about their shared values and who aren't afraid stand up for their beliefs.

Right now John Edwards is speaking about the shared values and he isn't afraid to stand up for his beliefs.

Where does Vilsack Really Stand on the Iraq War?

Tom Vilsack recently has been outspoken against the Iraq War and has been getting noticed for his anti-war positions.

Today, Kos takes a look at where Vilsack was on the War back in 2005. Kos looks into Vilsack's statements and the statements of the DLC, which Vilsack headed. Kos concludes...

Of course, the DLC has been a haven for pro-war Democratic warmongers, and has been used by the media to paint a picture of a divided party. Vilsack, in charge of the operation, not only signed off on editorial decrees by the DLC opposing Murtha's and other withdrawal plans, but also gave safe haven for these warmongering "Democrats" to divide the party.

Then, when given the stage at the last conference he attended as chair, he refused to tackle the issue in any meaningful way.

And now he wants to claim he's an anti Iraq War crusader, and demands we tell him what we've done to try and help end this war?

Amazing.

But I'll tell you what lots of us were doing to help end this war -- fighting his very own organization's efforts to prolong it.

Vilsack Interview with Rolling Stone

Tom Vilsack was recently interviewed by Rolling Stone. Most of the interview was about Iraq and he was also asked about ethanol. Here is the question that I thought was most interesting...

RS: You’re the chair of the arch-centrist DLC. Does that make it hard for you to tap into the energy of the Netroots that propelled an underdog like Howard Dean?

Vilsack: One issue that I have that will be appealing particularly to the folks of the Netroots is the issue of energy security. If we truly want this country to be strong and secure we need to be less reliant on foreign energy and regimes that want to do us harm. We need to create whole new industries, a whole new economy around energy security and we also have the opportunity to reclaim the moral high ground on issues of climate change and global warming and climate security which we clearly lost when we walked away from Kyoto.

Back to School Homework

It has been a busy couple weeks, hence the fewer posts I have been making. Last week, my Grandma had emergency surgery and is still in the hospital. I have started my job as a 2nd grade teacher this week (well, I started 2 weeks ago, but finally started getting paid for it this week). The kids come on Tuesday for the 1st day of school, so I have been busy getting my room ready, attending workshops, and planning curriculum. It is fun though. To top it off, my sister-in-law, who is pregnant, went to the hospital today and will probably deliver tonight or tomorrow.

Here are some articles that I was going to blog about, if I wasn't so busy. Since it is back to school time, here is some homework for this weekend.

• Randi Rhodes of Air America Radio interviewed Sen. Byron Dorgan about his new book, Take This Job and Ship It, about the so-called Free Trade agreements. Very interesting interview. (Most interesting statement: Dorgan said the US has a $2 billion a DAY trade decifit.) I am adding this book to my reading list. Listen to the interview here.
  

• Politics 101: Don't Reinforce Your Opponents' Lies by David Sirota

Take, for instance, the term "moderate." This is a word the American Heritage Dictionary defines as "Being within reasonable limits; not excessive or extreme." Yet, it is applied specifically to politicians pundits who, measured against public opinion, are the opposite, like Joe Lieberman (De Facto GOP Nominee-CT), John McCain (R-AZ) and New York Times columnist David Brooks. Think about their major positions: Lieberman likens his opponents terrorist sympathizers, calls them "extremists" on national television, and shills for a war that 60 percent of Americans oppose. McCain actually wants to send more troops to Iraq - again a position only a small minority of Americans supports. Brooks calls for an end to American democracy, saying "voters shouldn't be allowed to define the choices in American politics." Yet, these folks are routinely referred to by the media and political Establishment as leading "moderates," that is, leading voices for positions that are supposedly "within reasonable limits" and are "not excessive or extreme" in relation to the rest of the country's positions.

• Politics 101: You Can't Take the Democratic Party Out of the Democratic Party by David Sirota
  

“If you pretend like you aren’t a Democrat or that your opponent is just a bad politician instead of a bad Republican politician, voters will think you are ashamed of who you are,” writes Stoller. “It’s not about being a proud Democrat, it’s about not being a tool, and voters don’t like tools.” Put another way, when you try to take the Democratic Party out of the Democratic Party, you insult voters’ intelligence, hurt the party’s long-term prospects, and generally look like an idiot.

• Off With Their Heads by Matt Taibi

These DLC types are amazing, they really are. Their pathology is unique; they all secretly worship the guilt-by-association tactics of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, but unlike those two, not one of them has enough balls to take being thought of as the bad guy by the general public. So instead of telling big, bold whoppers right out in the open, they're forever coming out with backhanded little asides like this one, apparently in the hope that only your subconscious will notice. I won't be surprised if they respond to the next electoral loss by a DLC candidate by having Bruce Reed argue in the Wall Street Journal that "bloggers, Queer Eye, and Arabs with syphilis are not the future of the Democratic Party."

• Politicians Middle-Class Delusions by Jonahton Schwarz

Then there are the campaign contributions courted by politicians: the Center for Responsive Politics found that 86 percent of itemized money raised in 2004 came from less than 0.2 percent of Americans. Politicians spend shocking amounts of their time on the phone hitting these people up for cash, and it's safe to assume few among them worry much about hikes in their health care premiums. And when they're not raising money, politicians are rushing off to the TV studio. Lieberman, for instance, is constantly buddying it up on TV with Tim Russert (annual salary: $5 million), Sean Hannity ($5 million plus), and Chris Matthews ($4.3 million second home on Nantucket).

Lieberman, the DLC and democratic values

I just read a couple of articles by Matt Taibbi, who writes for Rolling Stone. These articles take a look at the DLC and the Lieberman - Lamont race in the Democratic Primary for Senate in Connecticut.

Why the Democrats are Still Doomed takes a look at the DLC and their new mouthpiece, Conservative David Brooks of the NY Times. Taibbi discusses an article Brooks wrote about the Lieberman - Lamont race that attacked Lamont supporters as leftists that are unfairly attacking the nice, squeaky-clean Lieberman.

But the most objectionable thing about the Brooks column was its crude parroting of a suspiciously similar DLC editorial published about a month before (See Road Rage, from the August 10th, 2006, issue of Rolling Stone) entitled "The Return of Liberal Fundamentalism." Both columns described Lamont's Internet supporters as "fundamentalist" liberals bent on a "purge" of poor nice old Joe Lieberman, who represents heterodoxy, centrism and bipartisanship. Brooks used the word "purge" twice; the author of the DLC column, Ed Kilgore, used it eight times.

Let's be clear about what we're dealing with here. These people are professional communicators. They don't repeatedly use words like "purge" and "fundamentalist" -- terms obviously associated with communism and Islamic terrorism -- by accident. They know exactly what they're doing. It's an authoritarian tactic and it should piss you off. It pissed me off.

Taibbi, in a conversation with a DLC spokesperson, then questions who these leftists are by bringing up statistics saying that over 440,000 people visit Daily Kos daily and that a recent Gallup poll showed 91% of Democrats supported some kind of withdrawl from Iraq.

"So let me get this straight," I said. "We have thirty corporate-funded spokesmen telling hundreds of thousands of actual voters that they're narrow dogmatists?"

He paused and sighed, clearly exasperated. "Look," he said. "Everybody in politics draws money from the same basic sources. It's the same pool of companies and wealthy individuals . . ."

"Okay," I said. "So basically in this dispute over Lieberman, we have people on one side, and companies on the other? Would it be correct to say that?" I asked.

"Well, I guess if you live in a cartoon world you could say that," he said.

I think it is about time an anvil falls on the DLC and then the Democartic party can get back to putting people above profit and winning elections again.

Check out Taibbi's other article about the DLC and the Lieberman-Lamont race called Lieberman: Bush's Favorite Democrat.