About the Third Way Organization and the DLC:

[hedgehog]

I think this info is worth its own thread:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Way_%28think_tank%29

"Third Way, backed by Wall Street titans, corporate money, and congressional allies, is publicly warning against divisive “soak-the-rich” politics voiced by populist Democrats. Its target: Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts senator whose rise to power two years ago helped galvanize Democratic grass roots against Wall Street and pushed the issue of income inequality to the forefront.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2014/10/06/struggle-for-soul-democratic-party-pits-wall-street-backed-think-tank-against-elizabeth-warren/pYk3SXRnZDmpi7C7N4ZpXN/story.html


"What’s more, Third Way’s leadership has tenuous connections to the Democratic Party it hopes to shape. Daniel Loeb, a hedge fund manager listed as a trustee on Third Way’s 2012 annual disclosure, bundled $556,031 for Mitt Romney last year. Third Way board member Derek Kaufman, another hedge fund executive, also gave to Romney."

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177437/gop-donors-and-k-street-fuel-third-ways-advice-democratic-party#

"The organization publicly discloses little about its funding. But a Globe examination of public documents and the backgrounds of its leadership offers a window into how some wealthy Wall Street and business interests — who contribute generously to Democratic candidates — have sought to tip the Democratic Party’s intellectual debate against populism.

Third Way raises just over a third of its $9.3 million annual budget from undisclosed corporations. The remainder, the bulk of its funding, is donated by individuals, almost all of whom are members of Third Way’s board of trustees.

The group is dominated by executives from the financial industry, people who are typically the targets of the populist rhetoric of Warren, and sometimes even President Obama.

Two-thirds of its 31 trustees have held senior leadership positions in investment funds or big banks or served in some other capacity on Wall Street."

http://progressivesforobama.blogspot.com/2014/10/third-way-faction-and-struggle-for.html


DLC

"An August, 2000 Newsweek story on Joe Liebermn, The Soul And The Steel reveals that some of the early funding came from ARCO, Chevron, Merck, Du Pont, Microsoft, Philip Morris and Koch Industries:"

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/DLC

"According to tax records, DLC's budget declined rapidly after 2004, from $2.6 million to $1.5 million in 2008.[23] Much of the DLC's budget, as well as that of PPI, was at one point made up of grants from Fortune 500 companies and various conservative foundations. According to the a 2002 study by the Capital Research Center, corporate contributors to the PPI included the AT&T Foundation, Eastman Kodak Charitable Trust, Prudential Foundation, Georgia-Pacific Foundation, Chevron, and Amoco Foundation. The Third Way Foundation, an umbrella group of the New Democrats in the DLC, received funding from the Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Ameritech Foundation, and General Mills Foundation. According to John Nichols in the Progressive, the DLC had funding from Bank One, Citigroup, Dow Chemical, DuPont, General Electric, Health Insurance Corporation, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Occidental Petroleum, and Raytheon - See more at:


http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/Democratic_Leadership_Council#sthash.XNV8e7xa.dpuf

[peacebird]

1. Third way & DLC are corporatist slime.

[merrily]

2. Bill and Hillary Clinton were founding members of the DLC, the worst thing to happen to the

Democratic Party of the 20th century. People will be quick to point out that it is defunct. Technically, yes. However, its philosophy lives in the the New Democrat* Party and in other think tanks, like Third Way, Progressive Policy Institute, Center for American Progress and No Labels.

Basically, the DLC swallowed the Democratic Party. Once Democrats,especially those with Presidential aspirations, saw how Clinton succeeded, they could not shed traditional Democratic principles fast enough. Of course, Ross Perot was no small part of Clinton's success, but why let facts confuse anyone? The meme became, "This is how you get elected." And it's been on DU every day, again and again and again.

The wet dream of the Koch brothers and those like them.

*They named their own caucuses this way: House New Democrat Caucus and Senate New Democrat Caucus. So, I assume they'd name the Party, if they thought they needed a name, the New Democrat Party.

[hedgehog]

3. It is absolutely stunning how many of our leaders were associated with this group -

no wonder the old "right" became the new "center"!

The DLC seems to have closed up shop now; I guess the owners figured its work was done.

The articles on the Third Way are scary - it funds projects by other think tanks. Laundering donor money?

[merrily]

4. My post addresses the "closed up shop" myth and you're right: its work was complete.

Almost everyone in office is either a New Democrat or goes along to get along. When an old timer like Reid calls a Democratic candidate "too progressive," I'd say the work was complete and then some. The minnow had not only swallowed the whale, but digested it, even the blowhole.

[Maedhros]

5. The mercenary company Blackwater is "defunct."

They simply changed their name to Xe Services in 2009 because of bad press, then (oops!) to Academi in 2011 because of continued bad press. But they are still killing foreigners for money, despite what they are called.

The DLC did the same thing, changing their brand to Third Way. But they're still selling out traditional Democratic values to the highest corporate bidder.

And people want to elect one of their founders to the Presidency.

[merrily]

6. Not a change. DLC, Third Way, Progressive, New Democrat, No Labels- all are used simultaneously.

As I noted to another poster recently, only criminals have more aliases.

[Maedhros]

7. Tom Tomorrow had a great cartoon many years ago, with this terribly appropriate quote

that applies to the Third Way types:

"Just go back to watching your television programs, and leave running the country to us."

[merrily]

8. Sadly, for most USians, the instruction is unnecessary, but I get the point about the plutocrats.

[Maedhros]

9. Most Americans view the government like they do the weather:

it's something that happens to them, and can't be controlled. So they don't waste effort trying.

[merrily]

10. True. Also, people are worn down. I get worn down myself sometimes and I don't even

have to hold down two or three jobs and try to raise a decent family at the same time, maybe as a single parent.

Thing is, if people thought voting would improve their lives and the lives of loved ones, friends, neighbors, etc., they'd vote.

Democrats rode for years and years on Social Security and unions alone. I can remember my father, a factory worker and shop steward, listening to election returns as though all our lives depended on them. (That's how I became a Democrat at the age of four.)

Medicare had to have an impact, though it was not as noticeable because we started losing the Southern States after the Civil Rights Act passed.

What now? NAFTA? Comfortable shoes that must have been misplaced in the move to the White House? Repeal of Glass Steagall? Trumka warning Democrats that unions are not married to them?

Maybe Obamacare will sort out so that more people like it. It already has the loyalty of those with pre-existing conditions. Had it been a better bill, had EFCA passed, neither 2010 nor 2014 would have been as bad as they are.

[colsohlibgal]

11. It Is A Cancer

I keep hearing people defend Obama by how high the Dow is. That's Wall Street, not main street.

Oh, and get ready for the TPP. read up on it and weep. Another odious trade deal but lot's more tacked onto it that's really bad for the 99%

[hedgehog]

12. Look at our senior Party statesmen, and who is going to tell Obama TPP

is a bad deal? He's no expert in financial matters or economics, so even if his gut tells hi one thing, his brain is going to tell him to listen to the experts. That's how JFK got hung up in the Bay of Pigs and started us down the road to Vietnam, listening to the experts.

[blkmusclmachine]

13. Third Way = DLC

[TBF]

16. Yup and Bill Clinton passed NAFTA -

immediately we heard the sucking of jobs out of the country. Hillary will do the same with TPP.

I wouldn't be so against moving jobs (and lifting boats all over) if we actually took care of the displaced here. Give them unemployment (that doesn't end until they find employment) and free retraining to keep up in today's technical job market. We could even provide a minimum income for folks who would make the choice to stay home with their children and/or elderly parents rather than re-enter that new job market. But we don't do that. Through no fault of their own millions of people are pink-slipped and on their own without support. It's not humane.

[hedgehog]

17. How many people took out student loans to go to college for retraining -

only to end up with no job offers?

[TBF]

19. That is why I said retraining

should be free. I also offered that many might prefer a guaranteed minimum income in order to care for small children or elderly parents.

Student loans are another topic for a different thread (and I have a lot to say about that as well).

[Odin2005]

14. Anyone who thinks "soaking the rich is a BAD thing is not a real Democrat.

And they should not be allowed to call themselves a Democrat. These 3rd Way fuckers sound exactly like Al Smith's seditious rants against FDR.

[Scuba]

15. Yeah, but the Third Way at least gives us choices!

[LiberalElite]

18. Yeah do you want

to be slapped with the right hand or left?

[Recursion]

20. Use of the phrase "Third Way" goes back 60 years; the think tank just calls itself that

It was coined as far as I know by Röpke sometime in the early Cold War, and came to be associated with the "Central European" movement and its attempt to synthesize capitalist and communist economic doctrines.

The DLC per se doesn't exist anymore; Ford closed it down I think 2 years ago.

One problem is that DUers use "third way", "DLC", and "blue dog" as synonyms, which they aren't...