[Peace-discuss] Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left?

Tue Dec 1 00:16:06 UTC 2020

Neera Tanden was just appointed by Biden to be the head of the OMB ( Office
of Management and Budget ) and instantly received an endorsement from
Neo-Con Republican War Monger Bill Kristol. That should tell you everything.
However, for those who are not familiar with the obnoxious Neo-Liberal Neera
Tanden and her corporate funded think tank - "The Center for Corporate
Progress ", oops, I mean " The Center For American Progress ", here is an
article from two years ago ( Dec. 2018 ) that goes into a lot of good (
horrible ) detail.....From the article -  " The Center for American
Progress, however, is cozy with some of America’s largest and most
controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate
donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP
received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the
American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons
manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United
Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out forced disappearances and
torture) has given over $500,000. Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein,
in an important 2013 investigation of CAP’s funding, was told by multiple
former staffers that when CAP was seeking support from Saudis it muted its
criticism of the Saudi kingdom. (CAP continues to conceal the identities of
many of its largest donors.) "

 <https://www.currentaffairs.org/> Current Affairs 

Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left? 

As the left tries to fight against inequality and exploitation, the main
“progressive” think tank joins forces with right-wing free market
capitalists

*	 <https://www.currentaffairs.org/author/nathan-j-robinson> Nathan J.
Robinson

filed 13 December 2018 in
<https://www.currentaffairs.org/category/politics> Politics 

The Center for American Progress is one of the
<https://thebestschools.org/features/most-influential-think-tanks/> largest
and most important think tanks in Washington, certainly the preeminent
“progressive” think tank. It describes its agenda as promoting “bold,
progressive ideas” and releases a number of extremely useful
<https://www.americanprogress.org/?post_type=reports> reports and fact
sheets. In 2008, TIME branded it “
<http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1861305,00.html>
Obama’s idea factory.” CAP has strong ties with both Obama and the
Clintons—it was founded by close Clinton confidante John Podesta and its
president, Neera Tanden, previously worked for both Bill and Hillary
Clinton. The New Republic has described it as “stuffed to the gills with
staffers who have either worked in previous Democratic administrations or
will go on to work in future ones.”

The phrase “progressive” is often associated with the left wing of the
Democratic Party, by contrast with its “moderate” wing, and progressives are
typically skeptical of corporate influence in politics. The Center for
American Progress, however, is cozy with some of America’s largest and most
controversial companies. Though it is quick to emphasize that corporate
donations constitute only a small part of its funding, in 2013 alone CAP
<https://www.americanprogressaction.org/about/c4-our-supporters-2013/>
received support from Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Coca-Cola, Citigroup, the
American Beverage Association, Comcast, BlueCross BlueShield, weapons
manufacturer Northrop Grumman, and Walmart. The government of the United
Arab Emirates (which regularly carries out
<http://aohr.org.uk/images/releases/forced-disappearance-torture-in-UAE.pdf>
forced disappearances and torture) has
<https://www.americanprogress.org/c3-our-supporters/> given over $500,000.
Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, in an
<https://www.thenation.com/article/secret-donors-behind-center-american-prog
ress-and-other-think-tanks-updated-524/> important 2013 investigation of
CAP’s funding, was told by multiple former staffers that when CAP was
seeking support from Saudis it muted its criticism of the Saudi kingdom.
(CAP continues to  <https://www.americanprogress.org/c3-our-supporters/>
conceal the identities of many of its largest donors.)

CAP president Neera Tanden has described herself as “
<https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5705> a loyal soldier” for
Hillary Clinton and despite heading a “nonpartisan” think tank, worked
<https://newrepublic.com/article/138212/neera-tanden-works> behind the
scenes during the 2016 primary to try to erode Bernie Sanders’ support.
Leaked internal emails reveal Tanden’s own political instincts to depart
from what is typically considered “progressive.” She
<https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2893> advised the Clinton
campaign against a $15 minimum wage, and in one disturbing instance, as
Glenn Greenwald
<https://theintercept.com/2015/11/05/leaked-emails-from-pro-clinton-group-re
veal-censorship-of-staff-on-israel-aipac-pandering-warped-militarism/> has
reported, argued “that Libyans should be forced to turn over large portions
of their oil revenues to repay the U.S. for the costs incurred in bombing
Libya, on the grounds that Americans will support future wars only if they
see that the countries attacked by the U.S. pay for the invasions.”

The Center for American Progress does not just accept shady donations. It
also gives them. Journalist Andrew Perez
<https://twitter.com/andrewperezdc/status/1072717919467929601> reported that
according to financial disclosure forms, CAP donated $200,000 last year to
the  <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute> American
Enterprise Institute. The AEI is a right-wing free-market think tank perhaps
best known as the longtime home of
<https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray-odious> racist
social scientist Charles Murray. When Current Affairs challenged Tanden on
Twitter about the donation, she
<https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1072878336328810496> replied:

We have a joint program on defending democracy from the rise of
authoritarianism. Here’s the press release from the CAP website. Welcome
[Current Affairs] to cover the many papers we have jointly authored. This is
a critical topic more media should focus on.

Naturally, Current Affairs gladly accepts the invitation to focus on CAP’s
collaboration with the AEI. I looked at two of the “reports” that they have
produced together so far. First, it is still unclear why CAP is giving AEI
$200,000. The reports Tanden links to are a few pages each, more like
extended op-eds than scholarly works, and involve no original research. They
both focus not on “authoritarianism” as Tanden says, but on what they call
“authoritarian populism.” This is important, because while Tanden suggests
that nobody could object to “defending democracy from the rise of
authoritarianism,” we know that to the American Enterprise Institute,
“democracy” and “authoritarianism” do not necessarily mean what they mean to
you and me. When the AEI speaks of democracy, it means “laissez-faire
capitalism” and when it speaks of “authoritarianism” it means “minimum wage
laws” or any mildly redistributive social policies that could threaten
American Enterprise. Tanden wants to wave away concerns about the
collaboration, because after all everyone agrees democracy is good. But the
question is—what are we actually “defending” here?

The CAP/AEI report “
<https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/05/10/450552
/drivers-authoritarian-populism-united-states/> Drivers of Authoritarian
Populism in the United States” defines what it means by “populism”:
“political parties and leaders that are anti-establishment and that divide
society into two groups: self-serving elites and good, ordinary people.” By
that definition, Bernie Sanders clearly falls under the “populist”
umbrella—he is anti-establishment and believes that ordinary people are
being fleeced by self-serving elites. The report says that populism is not
inherently bad, and emphasizes that it is targeted against the bigoted form
of populism. But in the CAP/AEI discussion of European “authoritarian
populism,” it’s clear that
<https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/05/10/450430
/europes-populist-challenge/> economic leftists are included in the
category:

A 2017 study, which looked at elections across Europe between 1980 and 2016,
found that there is an asymmetry in drivers of support for right- and
left-wing authoritarian populists. While the right wing seems unresponsive
to changes in objective economic characteristics, the support for left-wing
extreme populists, such as Syriza in Greece or Podemos in Spain, is
sensitive both to rates of economic growth and to unemployment. The rise of
the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, under the leadership of Jeremy
Corbyn, can be viewed in a similar fashion.

Podemos, Syriza, and Corbyn—“authoritarians”? Why? What could possibly put
them in a category alongside
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Orb%C3%A1n> Viktor Orbán? The CAP/AEI
reports are actually extremely vague, saying they believe in “a market
economy with shared prosperity” and “economic openness” but not making it
particularly clear what that means. After all, who is against “openness” and
“prosperity”? Who wants to be closed and poor? But it’s clear that what
they’re actually talking about is free market capitalism. Corbyn, Syriza,
and Podemos are only “authoritarian” if you subscribe to the radical
libertarian theory that wealth redistribution is totalitarian. CAP/AEI are
cagey about saying that they’re teaming up to defend capitalism from
leftists, but that’s precisely the implication of the reports’ statement
that left parties are “authoritarian populism” that needs defeating in order
to preserve “democracy.”

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20201130/f7284e60/attachment-0001.htm>