On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 12:40 AM, Alan Rudy <alan.rudy at gmail.com> wrote:
> This is what I expected someone here to point out... what a middle finger
> to labor, environmentalists, feminists, wall street reformers, and the
> middle class from the DLC... looks like they're planning to lose in 2008,
> too.
>
>
>
> 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
>>> ___________________________________
>>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>>
>>
>> ___________________________________
>> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>
>
>
>
> --
> *********************************************************
> Alan P. Rudy
> Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work
> Central Michigan University
> 124 Anspach Hall
> Mt Pleasant, MI 48858
> 517-881-6319
>
-- ********************************************************* Alan P. Rudy Dept. Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work Central Michigan University 124 Anspach Hall Mt Pleasant, MI 48858 517-881-6319