Talk:Democratic Leadership Council

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Parts of this page appears to be promotion of Lyndon LaRouche, a controversial figure himself along with being a convicted criminal. I believe there is enough independent information about the problems of the DLC without using LaRouche as an authoratitive source of information. -- Termigator 18:48 22 Jul 2003 (EDT)

I agree. We shouldn't be using LaRouche as an authoritative source of information on anything. I think this article should be revised to eliminate all references to LaRouche, and any claims that cannot be documented from some other source should be eliminated. --Sheldon Rampton 01:41 23 Jul 2003 (EDT)

To answer your question, there was no intention to include this article as an endorsement of LaRouche or anyone else. The article, as written, is loaded with links and info which "fall into place" with much else that has been included in the SourceWatch thus far. If it is believed that parts of it should be further vetted, then ... as they say .... be my guest and vett them. Otherwise, I think that this Talk page has sufficiently covered the issue. -- AI 0400 24 Jul 2003 (EDT)

Regardless of whether this page was intended to promote Lyndon LaRouche, it has that effect. It repeats uncritically a number of LaRouche's claims, and LaRouche is not a trustworthy source of information. The guy claims that the Grateful Dead rock band was created as part of a British spy operation, has ties to neo-Nazi groups including the Liberty Lobby, an has an extraordinary history of cynical dishonesty. Here, for example, is the URL to some information about him:
http://www.protest.net/view.cgi?view=2312
Insofar as the SourceWatch deals with LaRouche, it should focus on exposing his propaganda, not repeating it. I would fix this article myself, but I'm way too busy these days already. --Sheldon Rampton 01:13 25 Jul 2003 (EDT)

There is no citation given for this lengthy extraction which appears to have been taken from a publication. Relocating it here until a citation is provided. Artificial Intelligence 08:32, 14 May 2005 (EDT)

Washington Babylon, 17f:

Nowhere was the excitement [for Clinton] keener than in the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its modest half-thought-tank, the Progressive Policy Institute. back in late 1992, at a dinner held to honor Clinton, the council took in $2.6 million. Among sponsors of the $15,000-a-plate affair were the American Bankers Association, the Tobacco Institute, Merrill Lynch, Coca-Cola and Occidental Petroleum. The Council was designed by Clinton, Charles Robb and other souther politicians to extract money and political endorsements from these corporate bigwigs, while simultaneously selling to the ever-receptive pundits of the Fourth Estate the notion that here at last was an outfit prepared to do battle with the hated "special interests", otherwise known as the base of the Democratic Party--working people in unions, blacks, Hispanics, greens and so on.
PPI's budget is provided largely by a board of trustees, whose 21 members play a significant role in forming policy. The board includes five investment bankers, three real estate barons, a Louisiana socialite, a leading contributor to the Republican Party, and officials from Coca-Cola, Gilman Paper Co. and the Mars candy empire.
An important issue for the PPI in 1993 was the battle for NAFTA, which it promoted in a series of position papers and in a corporate-financed lobbying campaign. To the delight of the Institute's vice chairman, Al From, the debate on the trade pact provoked a split between the Clinton administration and organized labor, the PPI's bete noire. Another priority of the Institute was "two-years-and-out" welfare reform, an interest finally consummated in the welfare votes of 1995.
The link between the DLC's finances and its ideology was vividly displayed in a fundraising campaign it conducted in 1994. On March 7 of that year, development director Winston McGregor sent PPi trustees a memo with the names of several hundred potential contributors. Man of the prospects were culled from an earlier memo, dated February 28, which catalogues all $5000-plus donors from the Democratic party. A note attached to the latter document says the PPi "should explore almost all the individuals on these lists with the exception of those from the labor community".
The PPI's targets are a resplendent mix of Fortune 500 firms and wealthy individuals. They include prominent Republicans such as billionaire Walter Annenberg, Richard Nixon's ambassador to Britain, who made it to the "A list" of top prospects. In some cases, the memo selects who [would] be most successful in soliciting the contribution":
  • Bill Clinton was suggested to put the bite on Don Tyson, head of Little Rock-based Tyson Foods, and on mega-investor Warren Buffett, whose net worth is valued at $8.3 billion.
  • VP Al Gore, the administration's point man on the information superhighway, was to extract money from John Cooke of the Disney Channel. Cooke's firm has much at stake in federal policy on telecommunications laws and regulations.
  • Senator John Breaux--who once announced that his vote could not be bought but "it can be rented"--was to coax funds from John Kluge of Metromedia, a company which Breaux oversees from the communications subcommittee of the Senate Commerce committee. The Louisiana senator, a vigilant ally of agricultural interests, was also to solicit Grover Connell, the country's largest independent sugar and rice trade.
The PPI's policy choices were particularly interesting in light of its funding base and donor targets. Take the issue of campaign finance reform, which vice-chair Form once opposed in the Institute's soporific publication, The New Democrat. "For all the superficial appeal of replacing special interest money with public funding ... I shudder at the thought that some day some government bureaucrat could decide which campaigns to fund", From wrote tactfully. "The best solution is lots of sunshine. Give voters the information they need to exercise their ultimate power."
Peering over From's soldier was PPI board member Richard Fisher, who spent $4.5 million of his own money to buy victory in Texas's Democratic senate primary in 1994. The Institute's major funders are the same corporations and individuals who under the current system, purchase political influence with their campaign contributions.
The New Democrat also feels strongly about China, blasting Peking's "bully boys" for their "abysmal" human rights record while simultaneously demanding that Clinton renew that country's most-favored-nation trade status. Many DLC corporate contributors have important commercial relations with Peking, including at least three firms which hold seats on the Council's board; Xerox controls 45 per cent of China's desktop copier market, Pepsico recently announced new investments in China of $350 million and Merck's chairman, Roy Vagelos, last year visited Peking to explore business possibilities.
With regard to the budget, a New Democrat editorial in 1994 proposed reducing federal spending by $225 billion over the next five years. Not one of the recommended cuts would affect the military budget, a posture pleasing to such DLC donors as Martin Marietta, General Dynamics, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas.
...
As Ellen Miller of the Center for Responsive Politics puts it, "The type of donors that give money [to the DLC] are expecting something in return, in this case favorable policies from an influential institution. And they [the DLC] are able to get money from these corporations because of the positions they take.

Temp relocation of the following until appropriate supporting citation can be located: Artificial Intelligence 07:13, 18 May 2005 (EDT)

"... is a group which tries to pull Democrats closer to "the center". It strongly backed President Bill Clinton, a former chair of the council, and attacked people like Howard Dean for being too far left. Al From is the founder and CEO. Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) is chair."
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