On Wed, Nov 3, 2010 at 11:04 PM, Mark Wain <wtkh at comcast.net> wrote:
> The DLC's analysis is an excellent but snarky lesson to the working class.
> It does not even mention a word about trade unions and/or their position in
> the Party.
>
> It says, "politically costly decisions like the continuation of TARP and
> the automobile industry rescue took a toll," reminding workers: you don't
> ever wishing this kind of auto industry rescue to happen again.
>
> "(T)he administration will instead embark on an aggressive, export-oriented
> trade negotiating program (like that Ed Gresser suggested late in 2009) in a
> time when -- as stimulus phases out and families continue save -- the
> country needs exports more than ever for growth." It wants continuing export
> not so much of commodity as of jobs via trade agreements. How in the world
> one can export enmasse service products that is the US' main competitive
> advantage?
>
> Its education program says, "government as a provider of public goods and a
> facilitator of innovation, worker skills, and competitiveness. " How about
> workers' higher education facilitator and their wage stagnation caused
> education-poverty? Community college education alone does not enable
> ordinary workers to find high-wage or highly skilled jobs.
>
> Although the DLC is the rightist clique in DP, since the winds blow toward
> the right in the landscape of politics, DP would have no other choice than
> following its right-wing holding sway.
>
> Workers have also no choice except breaking up as a political epigone with
> DP. If not, their livelihoods will only be more miserable than now.
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Doug Henwood" <dhenwood at panix.com>
> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, November 03, 2010 1:39 PM
> Subject: [lbo-talk] the DLC's analysis
>
>
>
> THE MORNING AFTER
>>
>> After a brief two years in power, few Democrats feel we deserved
>> quite the beating we got last night. On the morning after, our
>> temptation will be to write it off as the inevitable result of a
>> terrible political landscape. But we urge a different response.
>> The public has given our party a rebuke; and we believe Democrats
>> need to accept the verdict and make some changes.
>>
>> Before turning to these changes, a few bright spots:
>> In particular, we are very pleased to congratulate Senator-elect
>> Chris Coons on his victory in one of the nation's marquee Senate
>> races. Chris is a long-time friend, and a participant in the
>> Fellows Program that is the pride of our state and local
>> government program. His success is a reminder that -- now more
>> than ever -- we need to focus on recruiting and supporting the
>> next generation of Democratic leaders. We're happy to see many
>> New Democrat House members, Senators and state candidates -- Gabby
>> Giffords in Arizona, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in Florida,
>> Ron Kind in Wisconsin, Dan Malloy in Connecticut, Gavin Newsom
>> in California -- prevailing in sometimes close races. And we note
>> for the record that President Obama and the 111th Congress came
>> to Washington to do big things, and achieved many of them: an
>> historic reform of health policy, new policies for student loans
>> and K-12 education, an improved trade adjustment assistance
>> program and broadened support for scientific research, all while
>> managing an inherited crisis and two wars. These are major
>> achievements, and Democrats should be proud of them.
>>
>> But all in all this was a night in which the public judged
>> Democrats harshly -- taken as a whole, certainly the worst defeat
>> since 1994 and perhaps since 1980 -- with net losses of at least
>> 60 House seats, 6 Senate seats, and 9 Governors' mansions. True
>> enough, our party faced a bad landscape: high unemployment and
>> necessary but politically costly decisions like the continuation
>> of TARP and the automobile industry rescue took a toll, and all
>> the more so against the backdrop of a midterm election with its
>> typical swing against a new president and many marginal House
>> seats. But Democrats knew the landscape was bad, prepared well
>> with early campaigning and strong fundraising -- and in the
>> Senate might have fared still worse, had Republican primary
>> voters nominated better candidates.
>>
>> Fundamentally, Democrats lost the middle. In 2006, moderates
>> decided the election, voting for Democrats by 22 million to
>> 14 million. This year's Democratic moderate vote probably fell by
>> about 6 million. Doubtless many changed votes or shifted to the
>> conservative camp simply for the sake of change in a bad economy
>> -- but many also looked at our agenda and began to worry.
>>
>> Why? Moderates are aspirational and pragmatic, seeing an important
>> but limited role for government in economic life. For them, the
>> party's apparent lack of interest in a long-term path away from
>> emergency stimulus toward fiscal balance revived a pre-Clinton
>> reputation for carefree attitudes toward public money. And without
>> a clear route back to growth led by the private sector, moderates
>> wondered whether Democrats were beginning to see government as
>> replacing entrepreneurs and inventors as the driver of growth.
>> Worried that Democrats might be pushing beyond their limits,
>> they looked to the other team.
>>
>> To rebound we need to recover their confidence, with a reshaped
>> set of policies that recognizes and responds to their
>> disenchantment. Here are a few suggestions, drawn from the DLC's
>> research and policy development over the past year:
>>
>> - Economic Growth: Moderates see the private sector as the main
>> source of growth, and don't see the government as a credible
>> long-term replacement. In a period of crisis, they want
>> businesses and government to collaborate to find new sources
>> of growth -- encouraging broadband internet deployment to
>> homes, easing business creation and finding effective
>> incentives to hire, promoting exports -- rather than blame
>> and accuse one another for creating or prolonging the crisis.
>> And while they want businesses and rich families to contribute
>> their share to the greater good, they are also more alarmed
>> than inspired by populist attacks on business and wealth. We
>> are particularly hopeful Democrats will drop the gloomy
>> trade-bashing ads of this past campaign, and the administration
>> will instead embark on an aggressive, export-oriented trade
>> negotiating program (like that Ed Gresser suggested late in
>> 2009) in a time when -- as stimulus phases out and families
>> continue save -- the country needs exports more than ever
>> for growth.
>>
>> - Innovation and Education Reform: Moderates see a role for
>> government as a provider of public goods and a facilitator
>> of innovation, worker skills, and competitiveness. Part of
>> this is a continued robust commitment to scientific research
>> and top-quality infrastructure; part of it is improving science
>> and math education, and attracting more technically skilled
>> immigrants; part is a commitment to give workers the skills
>> they need as computers and robots replace human workers at
>> construction sites and in factories. Here Paul Weinstein and
>> Jessica Milano point to greater federal support for community
>> colleges as a way to help more unskilled, low-wage workers
>> qualify for high-wage jobs in rapidly growing fields like
>> health care and information technology.
>>
>> - Fiscal Discipline: Moderates worry about the country's
>> financial health. Especially with baby boom retirements
>> threatening to swamp government finances by mid-decade, they
>> need a credible route back out of emergency deficits and
>> toward fiscal balance -- and Democrats need to win back
>> public trust on this issue. The White House's Fiscal
>> Responsibility and Debt Reduction Commission, with the DLC's
>> Bruce Reed as Executive Director, will offer a set of options
>> this December on controlling spending, entitlement policy,
>> growth measures and tax reform -- and Democrats should be
>> its advocates. We are also working with state and local
>> officials on reinventing government, drawing lessons from
>> private-sector expertise in cost-savings through logistics
>> and information technology, to reduce the cost of public
>> services and to rebuild confidence that Democrats are careful
>> managers of public money.
>>
>> A final lesson: Rebuilding is not impossible. Democrats bounced
>> back after the Republican landslides in the 1980s that led to
>> creation of the DLC, then after the 1994 defeat as the Clinton
>> administration embraced and enacted a bold New Democrat agenda,
>> and in 2006 when Democrats put forward a plan of ideas that spoke
>> to the needs and frustrations of swing voters across the country.
>> Our challenge now is not essentially more difficult than it was
>> then, and we look forward to the debate and the fresh start.
>>
>> ----
>> To view an HTML version of this email, with links, please visit:
>> http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=0&subid=900183&contentid=254649
>> ___________________________________
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>>
>
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-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319