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

Tue Dec 1 16:51:43 UTC 2020

Thanks David, you too!

On Tue, Dec 1, 2020, 10:06 AM David Johnson <davidjohnson1451 at comcast.net>
wrote:

> 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.) "
>
>
>
> *Current Affairs <https://www.currentaffairs.org/> *
>
> *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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