Centrist hawks urge Dems to ignore the "non-interventionist left" wing.

Plus a look at the Hamiltonian Democrats under Robert Rubin who are setting the economic policy. How do I know they are setting it? Because:

Robert Rubin got the floor to himself to talk to Dem freshmen.



More about how policy is being set by Democrats whose agenda is more hawkish than most of the party. From the WP last year:

Centrist Democrats Urge Party Policy With Muscle



New name: "the "non-interventionist left" wing of their party"

That's us, I guess.

And remember when Pelosi said this? She was countered by Joe Lieberman who is in charge of investigating pre war stuff. He just plain said no.



Yes, Jeremy, your group should be disturbed...you pushed the war and chided anti-war people in the party.

Joe just said no...no investigation.

Lieberman doesn't want to to see us "digging around anymore for who did what in 2003"

In case you are not convinced of the rightward turning of the party policies....there is this from the WP.

Hamiltonian Democrats



But here's the real kicker by the Hamilton Institute. This is why we can NOT get a straight answer from our Democrats about Social Security.



Who recently formed a "bipartisan" group? Oh, yeh, this group. They got together with the Heritage Foundation. We are being left behind as they scurry to the right.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1609">Why are our Democrats joining with right wing groups and Republicans on Social Security?



I think the so-called battle for the party is well underway, only a few are just unwilling to admit it.

All I can do is k&r, and thank you for making such an important post. I hope lots of people read it.

Thank you again for an excellent piece of work,
sw

They are just absolutely unrelenting, so must we be.

people like Hillary and Hoyer and the rest are the worst kinds of extremists... look at the carnage of Iraq, and try to explain how that it was a *moderate* position to support this war of aggression.

Yes, what the corporate media now calls "centrism" is a linguistic perversion.

The great majority of Americans - Democrats, independents, and many disenchanted Republicans - are opposed to the current war, and to the accompanying constitutional abuses of the hawks.

If "centrism" is to retain any of its original meaning, then, the "centrist" position, whether Democratic, Republican, or independent - is antiwar.

Has the corporate media been channeling Frank Luntz?

or maybe what's really in their heads is dreams of imperialism and wealth and power.

"Yes to Kosovo, no to Iraq."

Your mileage may vary.

Now what the fuck does This session, her spokesman explains, is only about "fiscal responsibility," not globalization and trade not the deterioration of wages and disappearing jobs tell us? Hey, guys? "Fiscal responsibility" is the Republicans' pet issue. Just because they abandoned that pet to die doesn't mean that we need to take care of it before we take care of our own. We've got declining real wages and no healthcare over here, so let's get that fucking taken care of, and then we'll worry about not taxing the rich.

Everyone should take a good hour with this. You could learn something.

because that is the popular opinion of those at the center of the political spectrum here in the US.

How can Rubin consider himself a "centrist" if his policy position is to the "right" of most Americans?

Sorry Mr. Rubin, labels don't mean squat.

madfloridian is just juxtaposing two different people and viewpoints she lumps together, to try to conflate them.
It's a baldfaced distortion, of course. A lie worthy of the Republican party - typical of the anti-Democratic D.U. contingent. Yawn.

Meanwhile, back in the land of fact-based Democratic activism, Robert Rubin is well known to be an advocate for
increasing taxes, saying in a 1996 speech: "You cannot solve the nation's fiscal problems without increased revenues."

For which, of course, he's attacked by the Republicans for being too liberal.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

Ok, is that all you got?

I'll be quiet now.

- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community

was its perception as a place of freedom and opportunity. A place where the average person had a chance to "make it big." It wasn't so much our political and military might that shifted the Soviet Union, but our commercial and cultural goods...things that reflected what they thought it meant to be an American.

Defeating Islamic Jihadists isn't going to be a matter of blowing things up, or hunting them down, but by working to become the kind of nation no one seriously considers attacking. Not necessarily out of fear, but out of respect...or even admiration.

There's a streak of decency that used to flow through our self-image, that reached out to the rest of the world. A belief in fair play, in protecting the vulnerable, in being more than the neighborhood bully, but the nation that stood between the bully and its intended victim.

If we really want to regain some of what's been lost, we have to stop propping up tyrannical governments, stop feeding monsters who prey on their own people, and begin to take the lead in the fight for human rights world-wide.

Any other path is the primrose path to destruction.

.

Hamilton wanted Washington to be an emperor, and Washington refused.

The problem is that there is no viable alternative and we must vote for the lesser of two evils. That's not to say that there aren't good people in the Dem party, but by and large, these are wealthy people with wealthy interests. The rest of us are just pleebs.

Congresscritters should be able to think for themselves and make up their own minds. If they can't do that, then that's a far bigger problem than Pelosi not inviting labor to talk about economic issues.

As for the PPI and the Heritage Foundation getting together, that's a little disturbing to say the least. Knowing what the Heritage Foundation's agenda is, nobody in the Democratic Party should have common goals with such an organization, especially on social security.

And labor was turned down. Hard to think for yourself when only one side is presented.

The idea that they need Bob Rubin or labor to educate them on economic issues is disturbing. If you're going to run for Congress you should have a good prior understanding of key issues such as trade and the economy. If Congressmen really don't understand the issues enough that their ideology will be persuaded by a lecture from Bob Rubin then they really need to sit down and do some serious reading.

he'd have kicked Ruben;s butt out the door and onto Mass Ave.

They're ideological twins and funded by the same corporations.

reminds me of bush calling the neocons "compassionate conservatives".

... which implies that they appeal to the views of SOME group of voters in the mass political spectrum purely on their viewpoints. They don't really exist. They DO appeal to the folks with money. The folks that expect favors back from their campaign bribes. That is NOT centrist but corporatist (or at least "special interest"ist, if we can come up with a term for that).

What matters to DLC types is not representing political views purely on their merits, but viewpoints that those who want to pay their way into office, merits be damned!

The DLC would like to run everything from the Politburo and simply announce the truth through Pravda to an unquestioning mass of madly flag-waving smiley faces.

Time to pushback agains the Bayhs of the party.

Obama's comments to the Hamilton Project launch:

SEN. OBAMA: Thank you. Thank you very much.

I would love just to sit here with these folks and listen because you have on this panel and in this room some of the most innovative, thoughtful policymakers, people who have both ideas but also ways of implementing them into action. Our country owes a great debt to a number of people who are in this room because they helped put us on a pathway of prosperity that we are still enjoying, despite the best efforts of some.

(Laughter)

SEN. OBAMA: I want to thank Bob and Roger and Peter for inviting me to be here today. I wish I could be here longer. I am going to have to run after a few minutes because we do have an important issue relating to U.S.-India relations.

But when Roger originally called to invite me, not only to this forum but to invite me to engage in this project, I couldn’t help but think that this was the sort of breath of fresh air that I think this town needs.

We have all known for some time that the forces of globalization have changed the rules of the game—how we work, how we prosper, how we compete with the rest of the word. We all know that the coming baby boomers’ retirement will only add to the challenges that we face in this new era. Unfortunately, while the world has changed around us, Washington has been remarkably slow to adapt twenty-first century solutions for a twenty-first century economy. As so many of us have seen, both sides of the political spectrum have tended to cling to outdated policies and tired ideologies instead of coalescing around what actually works.

For those on the left, and I include myself in that category, too many of us have been interested in defending programs the way they were written in 1938, believing that if we admit the need to modernize these programs to fit changing times, then the other side will use those acknowledgements to destroy them altogether. On the right, there is a tendency to push for massive tax cuts, as Peter indicated from my speech at Knox College, no matter what the cost or who the target is, a view that stems from the belief that there is no role for government whatsoever in the challenges we face. Of course, neither of these approaches really works.

Before we came here, somebody was asking me, how do I maintain my idealism? I do because I think the American people know that neither of these approaches works. I think there is a broad consensus out there in the Country that we should be looking for common sense, practical solutions to the problems that we face. I think that there is a market. I think that there is a demand for solutions that are practical, that are based on facts, that are tested, and that require us to think in new ways.

A lot of the people who are here today have done that in the administration. Not only have they succeeded on many of their policies, but almost just as importantly, they have failed occasionally and have acknowledged those failures and adjusted their views. I think that is the kind of experimentation and attitude that all our policymaking has to pursue.

One thing that we all know is that when you invest in people, people will prosper. When you invest in education and health care and benefits for working Americans, it pays dividends throughout every level of our economy. When you keep the deficit low and our debt out of the hands of foreign nations, then we can all win.

Now, the economic statistics of the nineties that we are all so familiar with speak for themselves—income growth across the board, 22 million new jobs, the lowest poverty rate in three decades, the lowest unemployment in years, and record surpluses. None of this, I would argue, happened by itself. It happened because the leadership we had, including many in this room, was willing to take on entrenched interests and experiment with policies that weren’t necessarily partisan or ideological.

That is what I hope we will see from The Hamilton Project in the months and years to come. You have already drawn some of the brightest minds from academia and policy circles, many of them I have stolen ideas from liberally, people ranging from Robert Gordon to Austan Goolsbee; Jon Gruber; my dear friend, Jim Wallis here, who can inform what are sometimes dry policy debates with a prophetic voice. So I know that there are going to be wonderful ideas that are generated as a consequence of this project.

Not every idea will I embrace, and I hope that one of the roles that I can play, as a participant in this process, is to not only encourage the work but occasionally challenge it. I will give one simple example. I think that if you polled many of the people in this room, most of us are strong free traders and most of us believe in markets. Bob and I have had a running debate now for about a year about how do we, in fact, deal with the losers in a globalized economy. There has been a tendency in the past for us to say, well, look, we have got to grow the pie, and we will retrain those who need retraining. But, in fact, we have never taken that side of the equation as seriously as we need to take it. So, hopefully, this is not just going to be all of us preaching to the choir. Hopefully, part of what we are going to be doing is challenging our own conventional wisdom and pushing out the boundaries and testing these ideas in a vigorous and aggressive way.

But I can’t think of a better start, given the people who are participating today. I am glad that Brookings has been willing to provide a home for this wonderful effort.

Just remember, as we move forward, that there are real consequences to the work that is being done here. There are people in places like Decatur, Illinois, or Galesburg, Illinois, who have seen their jobs eliminated. They have lost their health care. They have lost their retirement security. They don’t have a clear sense of how their children will succeed in the same way that they succeeded. They believe that this may be the first generation in which their children do worse than they do. Some of that, then, will end up manifesting itself in the sort of nativist sentiment, protectionism, and anti-immigration sentiment that we are debating here in Washington. So there are real consequences to the work that is being done here. This is not a bloodless process.

I think that as long as all of us retain that sense of passion about the ultimate outcome that we want, which is a stronger, more prosperous America than we are passing on to our children, then I think we will do well in this process. I am glad to be a part of it.

Thank you very much.

someone predicted that they would try to switch back to the Dems again, now that they have worn out their welcome with the Republicans. Tell the Neo-Cons where they can go.

Straight to Hell.

and we on the Left have either been in denial or allowed ourselves to be silenced.

If we are willing to put up with this BS, we get the government we deserve.

Corporations are NOT good governments.

The basic centrist message seems to be "Less for Domestic Needs; More for War."

And the extension of that is to allow the Corporate Elite take over the domestic agenda.

will not happen until the huge tax cuts for the very wealthy are done away with. To Republics, any spending for war is ok, any spending on maintaining a safety net for the less fortunate is considered irresponsible. I'm disgusted with these hawks, and I'm disgusted with Pelosi.

Why do they want constant war?

We seem to be governed by a group of Sylvester McMonkey McBeans.

Remember him? He was the "entrepreneur" (probably a "centrist") in the great Dr. Seuss story about the Sneetches. McBean made money causing problems and made more money fixing the problems he'd caused. This went on until eventually the whole community was bankrupted and McBean left town with a pile of money.

War is a McBean machine.



The profiteers benefit from destroying countries and from rebuilding what they've destroyed.

They in turn create a financially insecure general population that becomes more dependent and pliable as result -- more likely to accept low wages and to vote for the "lesser of two evils" and less likely to assert its rights or to speak out against policies it doesn't approve of.

Speaking common sense with great analogies. Love it!

I'm honored by the comparison. And as soon as I complete my own theory on generative grammar, I'll be sure to post it.

Thanks again.

RTF

You know what's funny (and this is totally off-topic) is I remember the Sneetches from when I was a kid. And as a kid I understood it to be an anti-racism story.

It wasn't until I had kids of my own and read it to them that I caught the whole Sylvester McMonkey McBean getting rich by stirring up the shit angle. Live and learn I guess.

The Sneetches is definitely an anti-racism story as well.
That's what makes it such a wonderful work. It has several levels of meaning.

Forget Rubinomics - this Reaganomics all over again.

Nothing center here - only right. Nothing fiscally responsible about any of this.

The top of our Party is bought and paid for. Period.

We need to take it back. No more Orwellian "free trade." No more trickle down.

Sorry to say this, but Bill Clinton made this sellout bullshit OK.

Let's not let his wife continue it. mmmK?

I hope that democrats in office don't take this corporatist BS seriously,

They are foaming rightwing militarist authoritarians.

just what he said pretending to be centrists and showing how far the center is being moved to aforementioned group by those that keep voting for the lesser evil even as the lesser evil moves us toward greater evil every time.

The only reason that I can see to field these so-called centrist types is to win a conservative-leaning state and hold the majority. That said, I've been having this cosmic revelation about party politics of late wondering what the point of that is when they too often vote with the GOP. It's like taking two steps forward and one step back.

With Rahm's "win at any cost" attitude that encourages/depends on corporate tit sucking and the torpedoing of Red State Dem candidates who are in the least progressive/populist, what are we truly left with as a Party?

A bunch of Evan Bayh's who vote with the GOP some 50% of the time?? Candidates willing to vote away American jobs? Willing to leave American troops hanging by their balls in Iraq indefinitely? Willing to hand the GOP our civil rights on a silver plater?

Is that the Deal with the Devil we are forced to make to gain/maintain control of the Houses?

Because, make no mistake, it is a deal with the devil. And the People are the ones who end up doing all the suffering for such a deal.

Pelosi and these other centrists don't represent me or mine or my friends or any democrat I know. They represent insider beltway centrists who would have lost the last el;ection if their advice had been followed...not challenging Bush's Iraq policies, or advocating against torture and spying on Americans. Weak on defense they said, yet everyone who did not follow their advice got elected including Governors. Dems need to get rid of these beltway insider elites as they truly are blocks to progress.

The chairman of CitiGroup is sure going to be on the working class side of things. You bet!

I couldn't get my full social security until I turned 66 so I took it at 62. $300.00 a month difference. $300 X 48 = $14,400.00 over 4 years or $3,600.00 per year less than at full benefits.

Over the four years I will collect $61,872.00 in social security. At that rate it will take 17.186666 years to make up the difference if I had waited until age 66. I am screwing myself by .3 of a year. BFD

I mostly decided to take it at 62 because I was afraid there would be none there if I waited until 66. By the way, I paid in for 48 years, so this is NOT an entitlement as many would have you believe.

Not that anybody cares. But I digress.

Dennis Kucinich is the one that can beat any repulsive in a head to head race.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,310016,00.html

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: In the meantime, developing right now: Joe Lieberman on a warpath with Democrats, says that a lot more of them are more worried about how the Bush Administration might respond to Iran's murder of our troops than the fact that Iran is murdering our troops, period.


...............

CAVUTO: But you went one extra step today, Senator. You have always spoken your own mind. You have been very gentlemanly in that when referring to Democrats. But, but this took on a new, more hostile tone today, or am I just imagining that?

LIEBERMAN: Well, it was in an academic setting. I hope it wasn't too hostile.

But I — it was direct because, look, this is an appeal to the Democratic Party — of which I am still a member, though an independent Democrat — to come back to our roots, which are the principled, internationalist, ready to use our military power to defend our security and interests tradition.

Incidentally, that's — when that point of view prevailed, Democrats were not only doing what was right for the country, but what was successful politically, because, ultimately, the people of America want leadership that they can trust to protect them in a dangerous world.

And there was this ironic flip that I talked about in my speech today, which was that, during the 2000 campaign, Vice President Gore actually was running the hawkish, internationalist campaign. Then-Governor Bush was talking about a humble foreign policy and against nation-building and the U.S. as the policemen of the world.

I'd say the so called non interventist left is like 40% of the US House Democratic delegation. Don't want us, well could take our eggs and go visit Ralph Nader. He'll welcome us.

I think I'm going to be sick.

-Laelth

The Clintons made out like bandits while the rest of us saw our jobs go to Mexico.

I don't get the direct connection between Bob Rubin and military spending, or the DLC and moderates. The DLC is Republican in all but name. Moderates are Democrats that don't take things as far as the left.

America faces a challenge in the coming years because of baby boom retirements. While the talk for 2008 is about universal health care, the big existing government programs, medicare and medicaid are both on unsustainable trajectories. We can't afford Bush level taxes, a baby boom retirement, a superpower military status, and a debt that will exceed $10 trillion all at the same time. One or more items will have to go. Judging by what they publish, the primary objective of the DLC is to ensure the military does not get cut.

The left once made a bigger deal out of military spending than they do now. Now is the most important time to limit military spending. The military-industrial complex is building a science-fiction-style zap-anything-in-an-instant global-military-machine. The machine will cost trillions and we can do well without it.

Both Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd, moderates, vow they'll get the weapons industry under control. Moderates generally want a foreign policy that uses war only as a last resort, and even then wars should be fought with large coalitions made up of forces from many countries. The future military plans of the right wing and the DLC will be jettisoned by moderates.

Bob Rubin and the Clintons are interchangable. They represent economic policy with balanced budgets as the centerpiece. Rubinomics created an economic boom in the 90s that drove down poverty rates more than prior government programs succeeded at doing. There were 22 million new jobs. Balanced budgets create lower long term interest rates. That benefits everybody.

If the deficit goes on unchecked, America will face the baby boom retirements with an even larger debt loaded onto the taxpayers. The best way to sustain the safety net is to lower the debt so that there will be money available. Balanced budgets and lowering the debt are moderate positions.

The Clinton/Rubin tax rates were higher than those under Bush. The additional burden on the wealthy did nothing to limit economic growth. In fact, the economy overheated. Moderates want to return to the Clinton tax rates or even slightly higher. Enough revenue will be produced to pay for universal health care and balance the budget, so long as other spending doesn't stray far from current levels.

The goals of the left and moderates are the same. The major policy differences between the left and moderates are over how to achieve an America which continues under Democratic ideals. The moderate approach will leave money available for core programs. Its the sustainable course.

Webb spoke out strongly about where our party was going. Now the bigger money is shifting into the party coffers, and I think we need to speak up.

Webb says the future of the Dem party lies in rejecting Rubin wing of party.



I wish him good luck on that.

Actually I was not making that many distinctions between military and economics....mainly pointing out where our party was already heading even before big business got on board with us.

I keep remembering the words oF NDN's Simon Rosenberg in describing the founding of a centrist think tank:

Aside from his war position, he's been very much outspoken on the Issue the Centrists Dare Not Name, mainly the grasp that the elite have on this country and the suffering it inflicts on the majority.

Probably the collapse of the world financial system and or dollar and maybe war with Iran.

Remember him - Jefferson-Jackson dinners an all. I'll tell you. He'd pitch a fit. He understood what we understood as a nation until the 1980's - the mega rich interests, heavy concentrations of money are to be discouraged and distrusted because of the great damage they can do.

Rubin did a fine job keeping Greenspan from going completely bonkers, Greenspan's only successful period. Thanks, now take a hike.

We're so compromised as a party of the people with the interests of huge money telling our representatives about the economy. The job of Congress is to keep the private money interests from manipulating money to their own ends. It's been going on forever in this country. The period from 1980 on is one of the few where there has not been a real distrust of the mega rich. Why? Because they do what their interests tell them and what their power allows them to do, accumulate influence to manipulate the system for more money. Wars are always helpful to this end.

The transfer of wealth from the middle class to the upper 1% or so has been spectacular since 1980. Now there is such influence, the mega rich are telling Congress how to behave. Oh, don't stop that war to quickly, might hurt The Money Party.

What would Andrew Jackson say?

Of course that policy was dreadful. What does that have to do with the notion that the people should protect themselves against the plutocrats. Do we slam FDR's economic policies for his inexcusable treatment of citizens simply due to their Japanese heritage (and with little other evidence)? We could but then we'd have to throw out the Declaration and Constitution too because it was written by slave holders. Blind reverence for "the founders" or others in which their names are used as meaningless totems is the problem.

The real issues now derive from an accumulation of wealth and the reinforcing loop it creates - more wealth, more power, more damage - to the nation, the vast majority of people, and the 1,100,000 dead Iraqi civilians who got in the way of *'s fantasy that he could actually get away with that war.

I didn't ask what would Jackson say about immigration or race. I said, what would he say about Democrats using investment bankers to teach economics to a bunch of Democrats in Congress.

I should have said, What would Eugene V. Debs say? but not too many would recognize the name.

Peace

I know what you meant.

Didn't notice. I'd actually thought, will I get nailed for this so, you know, I sort of deserved it;)

Get me an alternative with a Democrat - damn, "What would FDR say?" ...and then you say;)...

the pieces are moving - I'm afraid there is no question of the game.

Great - let's just become repuke-lite.

many of the the Democrats are now sucking off the same fetid, corporate tit the GOP has been all these years. With the very same results.

Fuck you very much, Rahm Emmanuel. :mad:

Right now it feels like the "centrists" are winning. :(