Why are so many with DLC avatars coming out of the woodwork

[mot78]

The DLC is reviled here on DU, but recently I've a number of people defend the DLC and wear it's avatar. Is this a backlash?

[Dookus]

1. yes...

it's the same as a few weeks ago when a bunch of disgruntled people started using Lieberman avatars. Childish, ain't it?

[mdguss]

5. I put it on:

Because I saw some mocking of the moderate prospective/portrayal of moderates as extreme conservatives. I am a moderate/DLC Democrat, and proud of it. I came to the conclusion that if you don't speak up, your views might be mischaracterized.

[ulysses]

2. there've always been DLCers here.

The centrist-to-leftist ratio has always been fluid.

[GreenArrow]

3. well, everybody likes a winner

.

[lcordero]

4. a backlash that enables corporate and war criminals alike?

probably

[Bucky]

7. Hey nice example of McCarthyism here: differing views = evilness

DLC enables war criminals? Oh please. Have you read their website?

[JohnnyFianna1]

8. Isn't it strange

Expect the DLC presence to increase as the election nears. This is a strange phenomenon that seems to occur every election year. When troubled times come people rally around their leaders. They might be weak, their centrist, but we love em';)

[lcordero]

17. Like rallying around George Bush? I don't think so

I don't like George Bush or anything that even remotely resembles him.

[Terwilliger]

6. I think WCTV is trying to make a point

I don't disagree, but I think that's the thing.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

9. What is his point? I'm just catching up with all the DLC BS

I wonder if a lot of these folks are voting Dem for the first time. It seems that they think everyone to the left of Lieberman is a communist...

[mdguss]

11. We Don't:

That's why I spoke up. See: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=293945#293980

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sasquatch]

15. "Communist Sympathizers"(rolls eyes)

:eyes:Isn't that a little harsh to people whom disagree with you.

[mdguss]

16. He isn't speaking for me:

Or the DLC when he says that. Are there lots of people who are way more liberal than I? Yes. Are they communists? No.

[Brian Sweat]

21. Yes, there are communists on here.

Quite a few. They have a right to their viewpoint. I don't have a problem with people who espouse communism, I just don't think it is a valid economic system.

[salin]

23. but there is also a trend

growing to call things that have nothing to do with communism or socialism as being such. It is highly inaccurate, and inflamatory.

The belief, for example, in an adequately funded SEC, is not communist. It gets silly at time. Red baiting (suggesting that liberal ideas = communist) is never attractive and more than often is drastically incorrect.

[Brian Sweat]

28. I don't know if I would call it a trend. A way of life is more like it.

I am not saying that liberals or even socialist are communists. I am quite liberal myself. I am saying that there are people on this board that espouse communism.

There are others who romanticize Cuba and or the USSR. I know that neither of these were true communist systems, but they are not socialist success stories either.

[salin]

33. There are a few (but not many)

the rest are just good old fashion liberal.

The trend I refer to is the attempt to label any liberal position as socialist/communist (rush does a good job of blending them into a single world). Have seen that rhetorical devise used frequently in conservative circles - in a very simplistic, reactionary way. Thus I react when the term begins to be bandied about here - in some of the same careless and inaccurate ways. Often not in the context you describe, but instead in a generalized red-baiting sort of way.

[Selwynn]

24. You do understand the difference between socialism and communism, right?

That kind of sounded patronizing -- not my intention. I just mean that I've not seen a lot of "communists" about, but plenty of people espousing socialist principles in various forms. Thank God. There's a lot of things about socialism that are just and right. That's why a socialist democracy is pretty close to the ideal, in my opinion.

Anyway, there's a big difference between socialism and communism. I see a lot of "socialists" (to various degrees) on here, which is a good thing.

Progressivism, true progressivism holds to many socialist principles about the pursuit of greater equality.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bvar22]

35. Communists???here???Quite a few??? NOT.

I've been here daily since Jan. 2001. I have NEVER read a post from a member advocating that ALL Private Property be confiscated by the State.

I have read many posts supporting positions that could be considered socialistic...public owned utilities, universal healthcare, universal education, regulated corporatism.
This type of Socialism is NOT a FAILED system...in fact, it is thriving in many parts of the World.

Now, unregulated Capitalism...that is a FAILED system. The republicans and the DLC would take us back to the 1880s, era of the Robber Barons.

[salin]

22. thank you

I was a new democrat in the 80s... the term has shifted slightly right - so now I am a bit more left. There is room for this.

But reading slurs here at Du about commies in a binary way ... feels eerily uncomfortable... eerily 1950s rhetoric ... and while there have long been left/moderate differences at DU (and while I am left, I am not as far to the left as some others here)... I have rarely seen the old blur the term liberal into communist as a rhetorical devise :( There is really room for us all.

[mdguss]

25. Go to the link I sent above:

None of us moderates are throwing around the word communist. It is being used sarcastically to make us look like right-wingers.

[salin]

34. I think I just walked into the middle

of an ongoing ... not sure what to call it... but I did click the thread, and also got a clarifying note from another... I appreciate the context. Also glad to see that the piece to which you refer appears to have been locked relatively quickly. Looks like there was real baiting going on... just not quite what I was reading. *feeling a little silly for taking the bait after walking in halfway through the performance* Thanks again for the clarification.

[salin]

20. wow

echo... "and fellow travelors"

Look - I am not a socialist nor a communist. I was raised by a pro Capitalist Keynsian economist - or is that now considered socialist and communist or comsymps?

We do not have to agree on economic terms - are we to call perspectives left of laisez faire ... socialist? isn't that extreme? (not to mention inaccurate.)

[AtTheEndOfTheDay]

30. What of it?

[prolesunited]

31. I'll admit it

You found me. :hi:

Not being in favor of GOP-lite does NOT make you a communist.

On edit: Seems to me the communist and commie dupes that joined ANSWER's protests against the war were RIGHT. Everything we said about the pretext for going to war and the ramifications have proven to be true, haven't they?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

12. Please don't say that. I am a real, official member of the DLC

I have changed my views many times. Originally when I came to DU I was a Clark supporter. Then I started to like Edwards. Then, I changed a few times - I looked at Kucinich, Dean, Sharpton.

At this point, Kerry will probably win, so I'm ABB, baby!

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

10. It's MOMENTUM! The DLC is winning!

Kerry is in the lead, Clark is a strong contender. We want to win! Get on the bandwagon folks!

[lastknowngood]

14. Sorry I'm not a sheep I'll still have to use my Grey matter

I don't have much but I like to keep in moving. I see the DLC as more moderate repugs than Dem's they have used the rove/Gingrich strategies against the centrist/liberal. Remember that Gingrich is a good friend and mentor of the current leader of the DLC.

[Gin]

18. I am a centrist....I support Dean....I know nothing about the DLC...and

don't want to...what does that make me? Can't centrists want fiscal responsibility "and" social programs?

[union_maid]

29. Kerry's a liberal, Clark is a liberal

Neither one of them have articulated the disturbing philosophies that I'm reading here tonight. I've been spending a lot of time in the Primary forum and getting very frustrated at how both Kerry and others are being trashed, but I can kind of understand it if people think they stand for the things that DU DLC Democrats are putting out there.

[dae]

19. The DLC should stop promoting Zell Miller as a favorite son, I'd settle

for sorry SOB myself. However,the only statement I was in agreement with on the link http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=293945#293980
is "We believe that public policies should reinforce marriage, promote family, demand parental responsibility, and discourage out-of-wedlock births."
and that was all.

[union_maid]

27. The DLC is moderate?

No, I'm moderate. I don't believe there's going to be a revolution and I know we aren't going to be socialist, but fiscally conservative is still conservative in areas that are life and death to people who need a lot more help than they get from our government. The free market as it currently exists is still just another term for cheap labor. Democrats need to be for something better than that.

[mountainvue]

32. What is

DLC? New here, thanks.

[bvar22]

36. DLC

The republican wing of the Democratic Party. Very cozy with Big Money, Huge Corporations, NAFTA, WTO, corporate lobbyists....
DLC doesn't hang with people who get dirty when they work.

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