True moderation versus false centrism.
There is a type of centrism called moderation. There is another type falsely applied which needs to rely on the conservative right wing.
That is what we are facing as a party now. It is a legacy of the think tanks who have controlled party policy since the late 80s. It is showing in the stances our party is taking on issues like Iran, like condemning MoveOn, like giving in on FISA issues like we did.
True moderation means taking sensible, practical positions based on truth. The false centrism that I refer to takes positions based on fear of the right wing, fear of being weak on National Security, fear that we will be attacked by their machine.
True moderates are the overwhelming majority in the party. The centrists who falsely set their own issues on conservative policies in order to win...are in the minority.
Howie Klein of Down With Tyranny and Fire Dog Lake had a really good rant on this a few months ago.
Nothing gets me crazier than when I'm with a bunch of really smart progressives and they start using the reactionary frame of calling right-wing Democrats like Harold Ford or Joe Lieberman or Ben Nelson "moderate." They're not moderate; they're the extreme right-wing of the Democratic Party; well, Lieberman isn't part of the Democratic Party but he was the extreme right of it before Connecticut voters tossed him out. The others, along with many DLC and Blue Dog members, are. In a day and age when members' entire voting record is easily accessible, there is not reason to call someone like Jim Marshall (D-GA) or Chris Carney (D-PA) or Dan Boren (OK), Boyd Allen (FL), Gene Taylor (D-MS), Bud Cramer (AL), John Barrow (D-GA), Heath Shuler (D-NC), Al Wynn (D-MD) or Dan Lipinski (D-IL) a moderate. Well, there is one reason: you accept the radical right's frame of political polarity.
WHO YOU CALLIN' A CENTRIST?Howie differentiated between "moderate" and right wing.
George Lakoff weighed in as well.
No Center, No CentristsThe very idea that there is a "center" marginalizes progressives, and sees them as extremists, when they simply share fundamental American values. The term "center" suggests there is a "mainstream" where most people are and that there is a single set of views held by that mainstream. That is false.
..."My colleague, Glenn W. Smith, has pointed to the DLC strategy of getting as many "swing voters" as possible and the minimum number of base voters needed to win. That is why the DLC and Rahm Emanuel argued against Howard Dean's 50-state strategy and for a swing-state alone strategy."
...."But worst of all, the DLC has been cowed by the conservatives. They have drunk the conservative Kool-Aid. As Harold Ford intimated in his debate with Markos Moulitsas: To win you have be a hawk on foreign policy, a social conservative on abortion and gay marriage, and not raise taxes. Nonsense
Howard Dean in his book published in 2004 spoke often of the difference between true moderation and false centrism. In this statement he made a good point. It is from a section called:
"We have to reconnect to the base."
In recent years the Democrats, in our pursuit of big dollars, have neglected the people we're there to serve. We let our connection to our base atrophy and have forgotten, as they say in politics, who brought us to the dance. In service to a falsely named "centrism" we've sidestepped every major request from labor unions, especially on including worker protections in our free-trade agreements.
I think a lot of us have grown tired of the false use of centrism, such as we have seen in the votes in Congress recently. Condeming MoveOn to look tough. Wobbling all over the place on FISA for fear of not looking supportive of strict measures.
Even worse, talking so tough on Iran that it appears we will not even try to stop Bush from attacking or bombing them....all to seem tough on National Security.
Real moderates, true moderates do not have to act like that. They have the right take on the issues anyway. All they need to do is stand up with courage.