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

Tue Dec 1 16:06:42 UTC 2020

There is a Left David, 

But it does NOT include Neo-liberals or phony “ progressive “ Democrats.

I wish it was larger, more coordinated, etc.. but I am hopeful for the future ( even though the short and medium term will be difficult ) if for no other reasons being the political inclination of a majority of younger people under 35 ( polls indicating their favorable view of “ Socialism  “ ), the proliferation on YouTube of REAL Left news programs ( see my  recent post ), and the fact the Neo-Liberals are becoming more arrogant and telling people to “ go fuck themselves if they don’t like how they are doing things “., etc  along with the coming storm of economic downturn ( foreclosures, evictions, no healthcare, unemployment with no UBI, etc. ).

I hate to  see the latter happen, but the Neo-Liberals and the Republicans created this problem and their policies are not going to help and there will be only the Neo-Liberals to blame.

Of course that “ opportunity “ ( I hate to call it that ) is also a time of danger, in that it can just as easily be exploited and organized by the Fascists.

We are living in interesting times, and it is going to get a lot more interesting. I just hope I live to see a revolutionary change for the better, both in the U.S. and the world.

I hope you are doing well David. Stay safe.

David J.

From: David Green [mailto:davidgreen50 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, December 01, 2020 8:27 AM
To: David Johnson
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] Why Is The Center For American Progress Betraying The Left?

>From Tanden to Robinson, they are all corporate neoliberal. Their differences are performative and aestheticized. The "left" is a phantom. It has no material interest in the working class. Tanden and Robinson are literally on the same team. The same club, as George Carlin would have said.

On Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 6:16 PM David Johnson via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

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… 

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

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

The Center for American Progress is one of the largest and most important think tanks <https://thebestschools.org/features/most-influential-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 reports and fact sheets <https://www.americanprogress.org/?post_type=reports> . In 2008, TIME branded it “Obama’s idea factory <http://content.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1861305,00.html> .” 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 received support from <https://www.americanprogressaction.org/about/c4-our-supporters-2013/>  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 <http://aohr.org.uk/images/releases/forced-disappearance-torture-in-UAE.pdf> ) has given over $500,000 <https://www.americanprogress.org/c3-our-supporters/> . Investigative journalist Ken Silverstein, in an important 2013 investigation <https://www.thenation.com/article/secret-donors-behind-center-american-progress-and-other-think-tanks-updated-524/>  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 <https://www.americanprogress.org/c3-our-supporters/>  of many of its largest donors.)

CAP president Neera Tanden has described herself as “a loyal soldier <https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/5705> ” for Hillary Clinton and despite heading a “nonpartisan” think tank, worked behind the scenes <https://newrepublic.com/article/138212/neera-tanden-works>  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 advised <https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/2893>  the Clinton campaign against a $15 minimum wage, and in one disturbing instance, as Glenn Greenwald has reported <https://theintercept.com/2015/11/05/leaked-emails-from-pro-clinton-group-reveal-censorship-of-staff-on-israel-aipac-pandering-warped-militarism/> , 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 reported that <https://twitter.com/andrewperezdc/status/1072717919467929601>  according to financial disclosure forms, CAP donated $200,000 last year to the American Enterprise Institute <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute> . The AEI is a right-wing free-market think tank perhaps best known as the longtime home of racist <https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/07/why-is-charles-murray-odious>  social scientist Charles Murray. When Current Affairs challenged Tanden on Twitter about the donation, she replied <https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1072878336328810496> :

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 “Drivers of Authoritarian Populism in the United States <https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/05/10/450552/drivers-authoritarian-populism-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 economic leftists are included in the category <https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2018/05/10/450430/europes-populist-challenge/> :

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 Viktor Orbán <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Orb%C3%A1n> ? 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.”

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