The Progressive Independent has provided a comprehensive history of the DLC and its affiliates that every Liberal/Progressive Democrat should familiarize himself/herself with. It is for this reason that I have posted it on "Democrats Against The DLC" and "Anti DLC Coalition". Our battle is not just against Republicans, we as progressives must be cognizant of the enemy within whose primary objective is to create ONE political party consisting of the Republican party and its surrogate cancerous sibling the Democratic Leadership Council. PNAC. What informed American hasn't heard of the treacherous Project for a New American Century by now?PNAC is a small off-shoot, occupying the 5th floor, of the American Enterprise Institute which has been around since 1943. The AEI has 12 very busy floors where its operative have had plenty of time to send their operatives over to infiltrate the Democratic Party, or leave them in to be more accurate since the PNACers & AEIers are ORIGINALLY DEMOCRATS. To this day Richard Perle, Fieth and Wolfowitz are still Democrats. The day the Republican party, which they hijacked also, no longer suits their needs, they'll follow other PNAC neo-cons like Marshall Wittman back to the Democratic Party where the neoliberal Democratic Leadership Council is laying out the welcome mat for them. The AEI, the PNAC & the DLC were founded by Scoop Jackson democrats who follow the philosophy of Leo Strauss. To this day the DLC is stacked with neo-conservative ideologues, who maintain deep personal ties to the war-mongers in the Bush Administration.The DLC is following the footsteps of its neo-conservative, war-mongering predecessor organizations of the 1970s: the Coalition for a Democratic Majority (CDM)((also see here )), founded in 1972 by the likes of Richard Perle, Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, among others; the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) ((also see here )), founded in 1976 by Richard Perle, Midge Decter, Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol, and Jeane Kirkpatrick, et al; and the Committee for the Free World (CFW) (( also see this )), founded in 1981 by exactly the same crew. Rounding out the picture, CFW's chairman was none other than Donald Rumsfeld.The "missing link" between the "Democratic" DLC and the now "Republican" CDM/CPD/CFW neo-cons, is the Social Democrats-USA, (SDUSA), whose chairman, Penn Kemble, was the Executive Director of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority in 1972, until he brought in Richard Perle's underling Stephen Bryen to take his place. Bryen, who created the hawkish Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) in the early 1980s, when he served as Perle's aide at the Department of Defense, is another leading member of the neo-conservative gang that wants to go to war against the entire Arab world in the name of anti-terrorism. Providing daily coordination between Perle and Bryen would be Joshua Muravchik, a fixture at nearly every American Enterprise Institute event--but also a leader of SDUSA since its creation.The DLC and SDUSA both maintain extremely close links to Tony Blair's British "New Labour" party faction, and in parallel, are out to recreate a new version of the Coalition for a Democratic Majority in time for the 2004 elections. The battle cry for this effort is to follow the "strong defense" lead of the original CDM's heroes: the late Dem Senators Henry "Scoop" Jackson, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan.The CDM's two leading lights in Congress were the Democratic Senators Jackson and Moynihan. The Cold Warrior and fanatically pro-IsraelJackson remains the model for the DLC crowd today. Former DLC president Joe Lieberman declares he is proud to be identified as a"'Scoop' Jackson Democrat." It was these two Senators' offices that housed the Straussians behind the no-exit Iraq War. link -From Jackson's office: Paul Wolfowitz Richard Perle Frank GaffneyFrom Moynihan's office: Elliott Abrams Abram Shulsky Gary SchmittIn 1999, Norman Podhoretz, known as the "father" of neo-conservatism, wrote that the CDM was created to destroy the policies of 1972 Dem nominee George McGovern in the Democratic Party, especially because of McGovern's opposition the CDM was a flop that "never got off the ground." But in the mid-80s, the DLC certainly did get off the ground, and controls the Democratic Party today. See here -"...In the 1970s, under the leadership of Carl Gershman, SD/USA ((Social Democrats-USA)) became a supporter of Sen. Henry Jackson and his contingent of conservative, hawkish "defenders of democracy." As such, they gained a great deal of political experience and savvy, but little political power. It was not until the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, that the SD/USA achieved positions of power and influence in both the labor movement and the government. (2)...""cite "Some SD-USA members:"Carl Gershman, chair of SD/USA from 1974 to 1980, was an aide to Jeane Kirkpatrick when she was the U.S. ambassador to the UnitedNations. In 1984, he served as an adviser to the National Bipartisan Commission on Central America (the Kissinger Commission) establishedby President Reagan. (2) Penn Kemble was on the advisory committee of the U.S. Information Agency's (USIA) Voice of America. (34) ArchPuddington worked for USIA's Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. (35) Elliott Abrams was Assistant Secretary of State for InterAmericanAffairs in the Reagan administration. Prior to that he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and as a staffer forSen. Henry Jackson. (40) Abrams was a major figure in the Iran-Contra Affair. (41) Bruce McColm served as a consultant to the U.S. Senate'sCentral American Monitoring Group and has taken congressional representatives on fact-finding tours in Central America. (11) JeaneKirkpatrick was the U.S. delegate to the United Nations during the Reagan administration. (53) Max Kampleman was a legislative counselfor Sen. Hubert Humphrey and a chief U.S. negotiator to the Geneva arms talks with the Soviet Union. (40)The anti-communist, anti-left fervor of SD-USA is no second to PNAC (or the DLC, for that matter). Members were leaders in the AFL-CIO's efforts in overthrowing Allende in Chile, and later in anti-left action in Central America; they have been in the leadership of theCIA's subversion wing -- the NED -- since its inception; they have been on the board of the terrorist Mas Canosa's Cuban-AmericanNational Foundation; they supported the 2002 coup against Chavez in Venezuela and continue to support opposition terrorists, purgingunions in Venezuela (just as everywhere else) of any "left" leadership or influence by whatever means necessary.Link -Michael Lind for instance traced their roots back to the right wing Shactmanite faction of the American Trotskyite movement who entered the Democratic Party in the 1960s and then split with the Left over the Vietnam War. Many members of this group continued their rightward itinerary by rallying to Senator Scoop Jackson’s campaign against the New Democrats. Some finished with the Democratic Leadership Council, while others found a home in the Reagan and now the Bush fils administrations. Other critics who promote an “Iran-Contra bis” scenario for the current flap over intelligence trace the group back to the policy cabal that had promoted the Contra war against the Sandinistas and who had lost their power and influence in the second Reagan Administration as a result of the Iran-Contra hearings of the late 1980s.linkLet me point out, that another committee spawned from the same hellish cancer was the Balkan Action Committee which brought us step one of the PNAC wars, the one against Yugoslavia, and was staffed by the same neo-Cons. Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz, Abramowitz, Carlucci were all on its executive Committee. They're pretty much the same. Both the same cancer, coming from the same place & destroying both parties. If I were a Republican, I'd be pissed as hell at the Democrats from whom this spawned. But as such I'm just a Progressive Democrat determined to keep that vermin out and toss out the ones they left behind warming their butts in my party. Lieberman, Feinstein, Kerry- ever wonder why they really went along with the war? It had nothing to do with being fooled! These wars were planned long ago with full complicity of the Democratic Leadership Council which firmly endorsed this war and has endorsed every scheme against the people that the Bush Administration has wanted.