[Peace-discuss] how_the_1_percent_always_wins_liberal_washing_is_the_rights_new_favorite_tactic

[David Johnson]

Here's why corporate plutocrats control our politics:

Until " liberal washing " becomes anathema to more of the genuine left, there is 
little chance of combating today's plutocratic politics. It is a politics that 
manufactures the parameters of economic debates so that only corporate-friendly 
outcomes are possible. 



BY DAVID SIROTA
Salon.com, November 1, 2013
http://www.salon.com/2013/11/01/how_the_1_percent_always_wins_liberal_washing_is_the_rights_new_favorite_tactic/


"What is most striking about the present is not the virtues of moderation but of 
the potential power of conviction. One detects, behind all the anxiety about 
'extremists,' 'radicals,' and 'militant minorities,' a degree of envy. On the 
Right there is a group with enough commitment to a shared project that is 
willing and able to disrupt the ordinary functioning of government. If only the 
Left had such wherewithal. We might, at the very least, get something more than 
than the economically stagnant, politically oppressive Mugwumpery of the 
Democratic Party." - Jacobin's Alex Gourevitch 


This trenchant passage about liberals' reaction to the Tea Party summarizes a 
hugely significant yet little discussed truism: American politics has been 
inexorably lurching to the right not only because of the extremism of the Tea 
Party, but also because of a lack of Tea Party-like cohesion, organization and 
energy on the left. There are, of course, many factors that contribute to that 
sad reality including a successful war on the labor movement; a campaign finance 
system that makes conservative oligarchs even more powerful than they already 
are; and a mediasphere that ignores principles and tells liberals everything 
must be seen exclusively in partisan red-versus-blue terms. One factor, though, 
stands out for how it so destructively shapes the assumptions that define our 
political discourse. That factor can be called "liberal washing."

Similar to green washing liberal washing is all about wrapping corporate America's agenda in the veneer of 
fight-for-the-little-guy progressivism, thus portraying plutocrats' radical 
rip-off schemes as ideologically moderate efforts to rescue the proles.

 If corporate America cooks up a 
scheme to rip off the middle class, Republicans will provide the bulk of the 
congressional votes for the scheme - but enough establishment-credentialed 
liberals inevitably will endorse the scheme to make it at least appear to be 
mainstream and bipartisan. Yes, it seems no matter how venal, underhanded or 
outright corrupt a heist may be, there always ends up being a group of icons 
with liberal billing ready to drive the getaway car.

The most reliable way to liberal-wash something is to get a famous Democrat to 
support it. This is because even though many Democratic politicians, party 
officials, operatives and pundits are neither liberal nor progressive, the media 
nonetheless usually portrays all people affiliated with the Democratic Party as 
uniformly liberal on all issues.

The famous examples of liberal washing come from the White House. A few decades 
ago, Democratic President Bill Clinton liberal-washed corporatist schemes like 
NAFTA and financial deregulation. Today, it is Democratic President Barack Obama 
liberal-washing the insurance industry's healthcare initiatives and now joining 
with a handful of Democratic legislators to liberalwash - and legitimize - the 
right-wing crusade to slash Social Security benefits.

But, then, as evidenced by just the last few months of news, liberal washing 
also operates just as powerfully in other political arenas.

In the Congress, for example, the NSA surveillance programs that so enrich 
private contractors were frantically liberal-washed by (among others) California 
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.) In that case, the liberal washing served as a 
handsome payback for the private surveillance contracting industry that 
bankrolls the California lawmaker's election campaigns and her family.

Likewise, in the think tank sector, the Center for American Progress (where I 
once worked many years ago) is next week liberal-washing Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd 
Blankfein and another Goldman executive. That's right: According to the 
Beltway's most prominent liberal think tank, the bailed out bank isn't the Great 
Vampire Squid that helped destroy the economy. It is, instead, according to CAP, 
an icon of "shared social goals in areas like housing, clean energy and - most 
recently - preventive social services." Such liberal washing is a clear P.R. 
coup for Goldman Sachs - one it was probably hoping for when, according to the 
Nation magazine, Goldman Sachs became one of CAP's many corporate donors no 
doubt looking to be liberal-washed.

Out on the campaign trail, it is often the same kind of liberal washing. As just 
the most famous example, then-Newark Mayor Cory Booker used his billing as a 
liberal hero to famously liberal-wash the private equity industry's predatory 
business model and its anti-public school agenda. In return for his efforts, he 
was showered with Wall Street cash, which helped him then buy his state's 
Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate - and, ultimately, the U.S. Senate seat 
itself.

At the municipal level, this kind of thing can be even more shameless, and it 
involves not only Democratic politicians but also leaders of traditionally 
liberal organizations. A few years ago, for example, some (but not all) 
prominent union leaders helped liberal-wash Rahm Emanuel. Those union leaders 
endorsed the former investment banker in his run for Chicago mayor, despite 
Emanuel being the architect of the union-crushing NAFTA and calling liberals 
"fucking retarded." Once elected, Emanuel used his manufactured liberal 
credentials to then liberal-wash a full-scale war on organized labor. That war 
has included school closings and efforts to privatize municipal services - aka 
policies designed to undermine public-sector unions.

A similar story is now playing out in Rhode Island, where financial 
executive-turned-Democratic State Treasurer Gina Raimondo is liberal-washing a 
Wall Street rip-off plot of truly epic proportions. Championing a scheme that 
enriches the same financial industry that bankrolls her campaigns, Raimondo has 
used her public office to slash retiree benefits and divert more of the state's 
public pension funds into risky hedge funds. Not surprisingly, the latter move 
forces retirees to pay the excessive fees to the same financial industry that 
launched Raimondo's career.

As if underscoring the devious liberal-washing objectives, Raimondo has made 
sure to publicly bill her pension-slashing record as proof that she is a 
"progressive Democrat." Such language is the epitome of liberal washing, as it 
equates progressivism with slashing retiree benefits. For her efforts, Raimondo 
has been supported by Enron billionaire John Arnold - who recently tried to 
liberal-wash himself with a high-profile donation to Head Start after he was 
outed as the sponsor of pension-slashing initiatives all over America (note: The 
humiliating stories about Arnold haven't stopped him from working with a 
Democratic mayor to liberal-wash a new pension-slashing initiative in 
California). Meanwhile, when the local union representing Rhode Island's public 
employees raised objections to Raimondo's pension initiatives, out came even 
more liberal washing, this time from former Service Employees International 
Union leader Andy Stern.

Having recently converted his national labor prominence into a plum position in 
the empire of private equity billionaire Ronald Perelman and in the education 
"reform" foundation of anti-teachers-union billionaire Eli Broad, Stern this 
weekend published a Providence Journal editorial that has to be read to be 
believed. He first berates unions for supposedly airing "ideologically-driven 
attacks" and then liberal-washes Raimondo as a populist champion of the ordinary 
worker. Somehow omitting the embarrassing fact that Raimondo's Wall 
Street-enriching moves are failing to even out-earn the fee-less S&P 500, Stern 
insisted that "Rhode Island should be applauded" for using more cash from public 
workers' retirement nest-eggs to pay the exorbitant fees of billionaire hedge 
fund managers and private equity executives (and potentially enriching Raimondo 
personally in the process).

Genuine liberals and progressives may behold all this and wonder: With friends 
like these, who needs Gordon Gekko? It's a justifiable harrumph. But as 
depressing as the situation is, the rise of liberal washing should be anything 
but surprising.

Sure, it may seem counterintuitive that liberalwashing has come to prominence at 
the very moment American politics has become more partisan. But it is entirely 
predictable. With politics more than ever becoming a mind-deadening video game 
between two principle-free teams, the oligarchy is no longer betting on one of 
those teams. Instead, it is employing liberal washing to hack the whole 
red-versus-blue operating system.

As a political tactic, it makes perfect sense. Whether it is a company, a trade 
association, a front group or a lobbying firm that is pushing a particular 
policy, corporate America knows that it has a better chance of getting its way 
if it can portray its goals as an apolitical agenda with support from both sides 
of the ideological spectrum. Liberal washing is the key to that formula; it 
helps depict the radical as mainstream, the ideological as pragmatic and the 
old-fashioned heist as an act of bleeding-heart altruism.

Until liberal washing becomes anathema to more of the genuine left, there is 
little chance of combating today's plutocratic politics. It is a politics that 
manufactures the parameters of economic debates so that only corporate-friendly 
outcomes are possible. It is a politics that relies as much on money and votes 
as on permissive semiotics - the kind that permits labels like "liberal," 
"progressive" and "left" to include those who shill for the right. Only when 
those labels start meaning something and liberal washing is defanged can we hope 
to get, in the words of Gourevitch, "something more than the economically 
stagnant, politically oppressive" culture we're currently stuck with.


David Sirota is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, magazine journalist 
and the best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and 
"Back to Our Future." E-mail him at ds at davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter 
@davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
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