Continued Sound Off: More on DLC Delusions

More pointed commentary on the dreary DLC meeting in Ohio this week. For a sampling, take your pick of Digby, Sirota or Kos in response to Will Marshall's piece, Hillary's capitulation to DLC mongering and other highlights of the recent meeting of anti-progressives. Today, the Washington Post weighs in on the battles and Arianna Huffington challenges the DLC to a rumble.

Why are we losing elections? The DLC seems to believe it's because we aren't more behind the "patriotic war" in Iraq and militarism as a solution to our problems! Oh, we're so caught up in the 60s that we can't see the merits of supporting wars backed by lies against enemies that weren't involved in 9-11! But wait, didn't the majority of prominent Dems vote FOR the Iraq War? Didn't our presidential candidate, deemed Mr. Electability because of his military credentials, vote FOR the Iraq War as well?  Didn't Kerry even show up at the convention with a Reporting for Duty salute and an array of his fellow Viet Nam vets? All we needed was a medley of Sousa marches for added emphasis.

The DLC argues we must adopt a more "authentic" patriotism than the Repubs. Marshall dubs it "progressive patriotism" of all things. Hey these folks seem alot like Rovian Repubs in their penchant for hijacking the terminology of their opposition and distorting it, don't they? As far as I can tell, the DLC isn't progressive in anything except kowtowing to big donors and falling over one another trying to show how willing they are to use military power. Shame on those decrepit peace activists and elitist liberals who gave millions of dollars in small donations and millions of hours of volunteer help on behalf of Kerry, even if they had to hold their noses while doing so. Any minute now I expect to read that DLC bigwigs like Al From and Bruce Reed have instructed the Democratic Wing of the Party to do the right thing about America -- Love It Or Leave It.

Marshall says:

The left's unease with patriotism is rooted in a 1960s narrative of American arrogance and abuse of power. For many liberals who came of age during the protests against the Vietnam War, writes leftish commentator Todd Gitlin, "the most powerful public emotion of our lives was rejecting patriotism." As he and other honest liberals have acknowledged, the excesses of protest politics still haunt liberalism today and complicate Democratic efforts to develop a coherent stance toward American power and the use of force.

Well I was there and it wasn't about "rejecting patriotism" any more than the civil rights movement was about hating America. It was about using the unique tools of American democracy to try and pull the country's leaders back from military madness -- a madness very similar to the one we are seeing today.

Love my country? Yes. Spend time and money and energy participating actively in the American democracy I love within the Party and without? Yes. Blindly support military solutions to nonmilitary problems and an invasion of a sovereign nation based on lies and distortions at the highest levels? Sorry, no. If that makes me unpatriotic in the eyes of DLC Dems who seem to believe they own the Democratic Party, so be it. How about you?  --Barb