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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Here's why corporate plutocrats control our
politics:</FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Until " liberal washing " becomes anathema to more
of the genuine left, there is <BR>little chance of combating today’s plutocratic
politics. It is a politics that <BR>manufactures the parameters of economic
debates so that only corporate-friendly <BR>outcomes are possible. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial> </DIV>
<DIV><BR>BY DAVID SIROTA<BR>Salon.com, November 1, 2013<BR><A href=""
target=_blank>http://www.salon.com/2013/11/01/how_the_1_percent_always_wins_liberal_washing_is_the_rights_new_favorite_tactic/</A><BR><BR><BR>“What
is most striking about the present is not the virtues of moderation but of
<BR>the potential power of conviction. One detects, behind all the anxiety about
<BR>‘extremists,’ ‘radicals,’ and ‘militant minorities,’ a degree of envy. On
the <BR>Right there is a group with enough commitment to a shared project that
is <BR>willing and able to disrupt the ordinary functioning of government. If
only the <BR>Left had such wherewithal. We might, at the very least, get
something more than <BR>than the economically stagnant, politically oppressive
Mugwumpery of the <BR>Democratic Party.” — Jacobin’s Alex
Gourevitch <BR><BR><BR>This trenchant passage about liberals’ reaction to
the Tea Party summarizes a <BR>hugely significant yet little discussed truism:
American politics has been <BR>inexorably lurching to the right not only because
of the extremism of the Tea <BR>Party, but also because of a lack of Tea
Party-like cohesion, organization and <BR>energy on the left. There are, of
course, many factors that contribute to that <BR>sad reality including a
successful war on the labor movement; a campaign finance <BR>system that makes
conservative oligarchs even more powerful than they already <BR>are; and a
mediasphere that ignores principles and tells liberals everything <BR>must be
seen exclusively in partisan red-versus-blue terms. One factor, though,
<BR>stands out for how it so destructively shapes the assumptions that define
our <BR>political discourse. That factor can be called “liberal
washing.”<BR><BR>Similar to green washing liberal washing is all about wrapping
corporate America’s agenda in the veneer of <BR>fight-for-the-little-guy
progressivism, thus portraying plutocrats’ radical <BR>rip-off schemes as
ideologically moderate efforts to rescue the proles.<BR><BR> If corporate
America cooks up a <BR>scheme to rip off the middle class, Republicans will
provide the bulk of the <BR>congressional votes for the scheme — but enough
establishment-credentialed <BR>liberals inevitably will endorse the scheme to
make it at least appear to be <BR>mainstream and bipartisan. Yes, it seems no
matter how venal, underhanded or <BR>outright corrupt a heist may be, there
always ends up being a group of icons <BR>with liberal billing ready to drive
the getaway car.<BR><BR>The most reliable way to liberal-wash something is to
get a famous Democrat to <BR>support it. This is because even though many
Democratic politicians, party <BR>officials, operatives and pundits are neither
liberal nor progressive, the media <BR>nonetheless usually portrays all people
affiliated with the Democratic Party as <BR>uniformly liberal on all
issues.<BR><BR>The famous examples of liberal washing come from the White House.
A few decades <BR>ago, Democratic President Bill Clinton liberal-washed
corporatist schemes like <BR>NAFTA and financial deregulation. Today, it is
Democratic President Barack Obama <BR>liberal-washing the insurance industry’s
healthcare initiatives and now joining <BR>with a handful of Democratic
legislators to liberalwash – and legitimize – the <BR>right-wing crusade to
slash Social Security benefits.<BR><BR>But, then, as evidenced by just the last
few months of news, liberal washing <BR>also operates just as powerfully in
other political arenas.<BR><BR>In the Congress, for example, the NSA
surveillance programs that so enrich <BR>private contractors were frantically
liberal-washed by (among others) California <BR>Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.) In
that case, the liberal washing served as a <BR>handsome payback for the private
surveillance contracting industry that <BR>bankrolls the California lawmaker’s
election campaigns and her family.<BR><BR>Likewise, in the think tank sector,
the Center for American Progress (where I <BR>once worked many years ago) is
next week liberal-washing Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd <BR>Blankfein and another
Goldman executive. That’s right: According to the <BR>Beltway’s most prominent
liberal think tank, the bailed out bank isn’t the Great <BR>Vampire Squid that
helped destroy the economy. It is, instead, according to CAP, <BR>an icon of
“shared social goals in areas like housing, clean energy and — most <BR>recently
— preventive social services.” Such liberal washing is a clear P.R. <BR>coup for
Goldman Sachs — one it was probably hoping for when, according to the <BR>Nation
magazine, Goldman Sachs became one of CAP’s many corporate donors no <BR>doubt
looking to be liberal-washed.<BR><BR>Out on the campaign trail, it is often the
same kind of liberal washing. As just <BR>the most famous example, then-Newark
Mayor Cory Booker used his billing as a <BR>liberal hero to famously
liberal-wash the private equity industry’s predatory <BR>business model and its
anti-public school agenda. In return for his efforts, he <BR>was showered with
Wall Street cash, which helped him then buy his state’s <BR>Democratic
nomination for U.S. Senate — and, ultimately, the U.S. Senate seat
<BR>itself.<BR><BR>At the municipal level, this kind of thing can be even more
shameless, and it <BR>involves not only Democratic politicians but also leaders
of traditionally <BR>liberal organizations. A few years ago, for example, some
(but not all) <BR>prominent union leaders helped liberal-wash Rahm Emanuel.
Those union leaders <BR>endorsed the former investment banker in his run for
Chicago mayor, despite <BR>Emanuel being the architect of the union-crushing
NAFTA and calling liberals <BR>“fucking retarded.” Once elected, Emanuel used
his manufactured liberal <BR>credentials to then liberal-wash a full-scale war
on organized labor. That war <BR>has included school closings and efforts to
privatize municipal services — aka <BR>policies designed to undermine
public-sector unions.<BR><BR>A similar story is now playing out in Rhode Island,
where financial <BR>executive-turned-Democratic State Treasurer Gina Raimondo is
liberal-washing a <BR>Wall Street rip-off plot of truly epic proportions.
Championing a scheme that <BR>enriches the same financial industry that
bankrolls her campaigns, Raimondo has <BR>used her public office to slash
retiree benefits and divert more of the state’s <BR>public pension funds into
risky hedge funds. Not surprisingly, the latter move <BR>forces retirees to pay
the excessive fees to the same financial industry that <BR>launched Raimondo’s
career.<BR><BR>As if underscoring the devious liberal-washing objectives,
Raimondo has made <BR>sure to publicly bill her pension-slashing record as proof
that she is a <BR>“progressive Democrat.” Such language is the epitome of
liberal washing, as it <BR>equates progressivism with slashing retiree benefits.
For her efforts, Raimondo <BR>has been supported by Enron billionaire John
Arnold — who recently tried to <BR>liberal-wash himself with a high-profile
donation to Head Start after he was <BR>outed as the sponsor of pension-slashing
initiatives all over America (note: The <BR>humiliating stories about Arnold
haven’t stopped him from working with a <BR>Democratic mayor to liberal-wash a
new pension-slashing initiative in <BR>California). Meanwhile, when the local
union representing Rhode Island’s public <BR>employees raised objections to
Raimondo’s pension initiatives, out came even <BR>more liberal washing, this
time from former Service Employees International <BR>Union leader Andy
Stern.<BR><BR>Having recently converted his national labor prominence into a
plum position in <BR>the empire of private equity billionaire Ronald Perelman
and in the education <BR>“reform” foundation of anti-teachers-union billionaire
Eli Broad, Stern this <BR>weekend published a Providence Journal editorial that
has to be read to be <BR>believed. He first berates unions for supposedly airing
“ideologically-driven <BR>attacks” and then liberal-washes Raimondo as a
populist champion of the ordinary <BR>worker. Somehow omitting the embarrassing
fact that Raimondo’s Wall <BR>Street-enriching moves are failing to even
out-earn the fee-less S&P 500, Stern <BR>insisted that “Rhode Island should
be applauded” for using more cash from public <BR>workers’ retirement nest-eggs
to pay the exorbitant fees of billionaire hedge <BR>fund managers and private
equity executives (and potentially enriching Raimondo <BR>personally in the
process).<BR><BR>Genuine liberals and progressives may behold all this and
wonder: With friends <BR>like these, who needs Gordon Gekko? It’s a justifiable
harrumph. But as <BR>depressing as the situation is, the rise of liberal washing
should be anything <BR>but surprising.<BR><BR>Sure, it may seem counterintuitive
that liberalwashing has come to prominence at <BR>the very moment American
politics has become more partisan. But it is entirely <BR>predictable. With
politics more than ever becoming a mind-deadening video game <BR>between two
principle-free teams, the oligarchy is no longer betting on one of <BR>those
teams. Instead, it is employing liberal washing to hack the whole
<BR>red-versus-blue operating system.<BR><BR>As a political tactic, it makes
perfect sense. Whether it is a company, a trade <BR>association, a front group
or a lobbying firm that is pushing a particular <BR>policy, corporate America
knows that it has a better chance of getting its way <BR>if it can portray its
goals as an apolitical agenda with support from both sides <BR>of the
ideological spectrum. Liberal washing is the key to that formula; it <BR>helps
depict the radical as mainstream, the ideological as pragmatic and the
<BR>old-fashioned heist as an act of bleeding-heart altruism.<BR><BR>Until
liberal washing becomes anathema to more of the genuine left, there is
<BR>little chance of combating today’s plutocratic politics. It is a politics
that <BR>manufactures the parameters of economic debates so that only
corporate-friendly <BR>outcomes are possible. It is a politics that relies as
much on money and votes <BR>as on permissive semiotics — the kind that permits
labels like “liberal,” <BR>“progressive” and “left” to include those who shill
for the right. Only when <BR>those labels start meaning something and liberal
washing is defanged can we hope <BR>to get, in the words of Gourevitch,
“something more than the economically <BR>stagnant, politically oppressive”
culture we’re currently stuck with.<BR><BR><BR>David Sirota is a nationally
syndicated newspaper columnist, magazine journalist <BR>and the best-selling
author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and <BR>"Back to Our
Future." E-mail him at <A href="">ds@davidsirota.com</A>, follow him on Twitter
<BR>@davidsirota or visit his website at <A href=""
target=_blank>www.davidsirota.com</A>.<BR></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>