I encourage you to sign up for The American Prospect’s near-daily missive. This one is right on target, written by Harold Meyerson. The commentaries by Harold Meyerson and Robert Kuttner are well-informed, incisive, and wise. Let the Democratic candidates slug it out on the field of ideas and policies, not by this kind of ad hominem attack..
APRIL 17, 2019
Meyerson on TAP
How Think Progress Would Have Attacked Franklin Roosevelt. The past few days’ kerfuffle over the attacks that Think Progress has leveled against Bernie Sanders raises a question for the historically minded: How viciously would it have lashed out against Franklin Roosevelt for his presumed hypocrisy in attacking the reactionary rich more directly and vehemently than Sanders ever has?
Think Progress, which is the news and commentary website operating under the aegis and with the funding of the Democratic Party–aligned think tank Center for American Progress, accused Sanders last week of just such hypocrisy for his repeated attacks on the rich, even as he had a yearly income in excess of $1 million from the sale of his books. As one article on the Think Progress website put it:
It’s all very off-brand and embarrassing, but Sen. Bernie Sanders is a millionaire. Turns out railing against “millionaires and billionaires” can be quite the lucrative enterprise.
Sanders, who released his last ten years of tax returns on Monday, acknowledged that the proceeds from his book sales brought him over the millionaire threshold, and chastised Think Progress—and CAP, headed by longtime Hillary Clinton adviser Neera Tanden—for running this sort of ad hominem attack, not just on him but on other progressive Democrats as well.
Think Progress is hardly the first institution or individual to label liberals and leftists of some means as inauthentic or hypocritical for their own attacks on concentrated wealth. The Democratic leader subjected to the greatest number and most vicious of such attacks was Franklin Roosevelt, the heir to an old New York fortune who raised taxes on the wealthy, legalized collective bargaining, and levied attacks on the rich far more coruscating than anything Sanders has ever said. In his nationally broadcast Madison Square Garden speech on the eve of the 1936 election, when he was seeking his second term as president, FDR identified his “unscrupulous enemies” as
business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.
Whew! Next to that, Sanders sounds like Mr. Rogers.
FDR’s invective against the “forces of selfishness,” and the policies he enacted to combat those forces and create a larger, more confident middle class, prompted conservatives to contrast his anti-plutocratic politics with his personal wealth and accuse him of hypocrisy, insincerity, and double standards. Where did a rich guy come off criticizing other rich guys—or at least, other rich guys who wanted to keep prosperity from trickling down to the hoi polloi? What a sham! What chutzpah!
Not that Sanders has anything remotely resembling a fortune, much less an FDR-type fortune, but this is precisely the same attack that Think Progress belched forth last week against Bernie.
A lot of good, smart progressives work at Think Progress and CAP. They don’t work there because they like this kind of horseshit; they don’t work there because they want to produce memes for the likes of Fox News. That’s not CAP’s mission, either—at least, it shouldn’t be. ~ HAROLD MEYERSON
Diane Ravitch's blog 
As I said before, millionaires are today’s middle class. CAP should think in real dollars, not 40’s.
Sent from my iPhone
Yes. Yes. Yes. Feel the Bern!
They are grasping at straws to discredit Bernie, a man that is considered the most honest man in the Senate. He has stood firm against big money and fought for social justice for decades. Bernie has never been on the take from big money. Bernie’s popularity reflects a shift in what it means to be a progressive. He is inspiring young people because he is honest and sincere, not a phony. He is not a posturing fraud like so many politicians today.
It’s not what you have, it’s how you got it, and what you do with what you have.
Yes. Well said, Ira. Bernie Sanders didn’t earn his money running a fake “university” promising to train people to become billionaires in real estate, he didn’t inherit it from Daddy, and he didn’t he didn’t hire contractors whom he later stiffed on their payments.
He wrote a book. It sold well. Good for him.
While I find it refreshing that Sanders does not mind speaking his mind, I wonder if the country has not reached a tipping point somewhat similar to the place we are on climate change.
It seems to me that those who are interested in a society that distributes the spoils a bit more equitably are up against a new force that Franklin Roosevelt never had to consider. So much wealth is now concentrated in the hands of the few that a very few people can control whether we invest in our economy. Are there not powerful economic forces that can personally destroy an economy if governmental policy goes after the gravy train?
I could be wrong, but whomever is elected will have to contend with those of great economic power, whether we like it or not. Otherwise they will just leave and go live where they can make a killing off the Chinese, Singapore, or some other far-flung economic power. Are we dependent on the investments of the modern moneyed interests so much that they sneeze and we all catch a cold?
I should brush up on my history: how many years passed after the richy rich had sucked up all of the money and the economy crashed in 1929 before the country elected a President promising to re-distribute the wealth
Lee Fang has a list of corporate lobbyist donations to three Dem candidates Harris, Booker, & O’Rourke, who promised to reject lobbyists cash but took it anyway.
Amazon gave to Booker, O’Rourke, Harris, and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg.
Beto O’Rourke: His latest filing shows that he accepted donations from a federal utility-company lobbyist and a top Chevron lobbyist in New Mexico. John Buckley, chief executive officer of Subject Matter, a sprawling lobbying firm that represents corporate clients, such as health insurance giant UnitedHealth and oil giant BP, is an O’Rourke donor.
Kamila Harris: campaign received the most registered lobbyist donations of any Democratic presidential campaign that has said it would not take the cash.
The long list of state- and municipal-registered lobbyists giving to the Harris campaign includes Leecia Eve, a Verizon lobbyist in New York; Alex Tourk, an Airbnb lobbyist in San Francisco; Alexander Clemons, who represents AT&T; Cliff Berg, registered to lobby on behalf of Novartis, Cemex, and Visa; Darrell Campbell, a South Carolina lobbyist for Pfizer, Juul, HCA health care and Duke Energy; Emily Giske, a former Democratic National Committee superdelegate who lobbies for Cigna, IBM, and Google; Jennifer Wada, a charter school lobbyist; and Justin Ross, a Maryland construction and real estate lobbyist.
William Castleberry is not technically registered, but he is an influential Facebook lobbyist who oversees the Menlo Park, California, company’s expansive state-level government affairs operations; he gave $2,700 to Harris. Matthew Gerst, who gave $500, falls into similar territory: He leads the regulatory lobbying for CTIA, a trade group for wireless-telecom companies, such as Verizon and AT&T, but is not registered to lobby.
Booker has taken half a dozen donations from lobbyists registered under state and municipal lobbyist registration laws, but who do not appear in federal disclosures. The Booker campaign continues to embrace corporate lobbyists that register under state and municipal registration guidelines. His campaign received campaign funds from multiple lobbyists working at Mercury Public Affairs; Dennis Marco, a local health care and pharmaceutical lobbyist; and from Dennis Culnan, a New Jersey lobbyist closely tied to the Norcross family political machine.
“A lot of good, smart progressives work at Think Progress and CAP.”
I am not at all sure of this in relation to those who write about education. They are enthusiasts for all of the jargon of the day from Gates (a major funder) and are fine with the one-app systems of “choice” among schools. I have not stopped poking around the website and donor lists, but CAP does not seem to have anything that warrants its continued support by both teacher unions and other unionized workers.
On FoxNews, Bernie said of think tanks, “Look who funds them.” Follow the money (as you do so well).
Bernie Sanders has been a consistent voice for universal, single-payer healthcare. This is extraordinarily important.
The right in the US likes to argue that such a program would be too expensive. But consider these facts:
In 2016, according the the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States spent $10,348 per capita for healthcare. The total US expenditure for healthcare in 2016 was $3.3 trillion, 17.9 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
In the same year, the average cost of healthcare per capita in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development was $4,069 USD, and healthcare as a percentage of GDP in the OECD was 8.9 percent.
In 2018, the US spent 17.2 percent of its GDP on healthcare, again the highest percentage in the world.
So, we are already paying far more than anyone else in the world is. Why? Well, under our system, an enormous amount of our healthcare dollar is siphoned off into huge profits for insurers, pharmaceutical, and hospital chains.
We spend far more, but we have must worse outcomes. Our longevity rates are among the lowest in the OECD, our infant mortality rates are among the highest, and we have among the highest incidences of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.
Sanders has detailed exactly how he would pay for his Medicare for All proposal–mostly through steeper progressive taxes on the wealthiest of Americans.
It’s the smart and decent thing to do.
Just last week, the Atlantic ran a story about a promising young scholar who was working as an adjunct at a major university. Because she was a contingent employee in the US, she didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford inhalers and regular checkups. And so, in her mid twenties, she died.
As a result of our system, in which care is not available to all, people die. Bernie gives a damn about this, and he wants to fix it. That’s why he will have my vote.
The US is the only advanced industrial democratic state that does not have universal healthcare. We have the existence proof of all these other systems that are far cheaper and far better. But the racketeers who run our healthcare system spend a lot of money buying politicians and spreading disinformation about so-called “socialized medicine.” It’s purest ignorance that has kept us from adopting such a system. Bernie Sanders is a rare voice of sanity in our politics. In Europe, he would not be considered a leftist but a centrist. When we grow up, that will be true here too.
“A lot of good ..”, name the ones working at CAP. An organization reflects the values of its leader, in this case Neera Tanden who got her break from a public school and university and now pulls up behind her the ladder that she climbed.
“A lot of smart…”, if that’s true, why were there so many unforced errors in Hillary’s campaign?
Why is the CAP board chair the founder of a bipartisan lobby shop? Why was CAP’s creator the founder of a bipartisan PR firm? It smells.
Go Bernie.
The old guard of the DNC is shooting itself.
Read the article about Bernie’s co-chair at Talking Points Memo, 4-17-2019, and then identify who the new guard is.
If you want to know why Bernie’s not hearing public school advocates, read about his campaign co-chair at Talking Points Memo 4-17-2019.
Rep Ro Khanna received campaign money from John Arnold and they’re friends.
Khanna is backed by Peter Thiel, Eric Schmidt, Sheryl Sandberg, Sean Parker and Marissa Mayer. He’s Silicon Valley’s favorite congressman. Khanna is the Obama crew.
Let the Democratic candidates slug it out on the field of ideas and policies, not by this kind of ad hominem attack. Yes, yes, yes.
“slug it out” … not in an oligarchy.
The CAP brand became toxic to the tech monopolists and Rep. Ro Khanna, Silicon Valley’s favorite son, is now co-chairing for Bernie.
In 2018, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation sent over $1 million to CAP. That is in addtion to other techies, including Microsoft Corp.
Ann O’Leary could answer some questions about the Silicon Valley Community Fund.
I”m pretty bullish on Bernie. The blue collar Trump Dems I’ve talked to say they would’ve voted for Bernie if he’d been the nominee. He’ll get the base vote. He’ll get the vote of all centrists who have a shred of ethics, Trump’s vileness outweighing any qualm they have about Bernie’s socialist leanings. Too bad Bernie hasn’t yet seen the light on charters.
Bernie’s positions on public schools will not interfere with Silicon Valley’s “personalized education”.That is the significance of his selection of Rep. Ro Khanna as a co-chair.
The founder of four Gates-funded ed organizations identified, “…brands on a large scale”, as the goal of charters. Charters were a vehicle to digital education which makes the profit motivation for the tech industry a reality.
The charter movement can be abandoned after the success of its ruse about “better education”. The stopgap measure opened the door for privatization.
Linda, it seems to me that personalized education has a dubious future. From what I’ve seen, kids far prefer a live teacher to a computer.
Ponderosa, you would be right about the future of computer-based Instruction and Assessment if the decision were left to students and teachers. It is not.
The public’s preferences don’t matter when education is Bill Gates’ oligarchy.
Investigate at the SETDA site (Gates-funded) what your state department of ed. employees are doing to your communities, fostering public-private partnerships, promoting digital learning, offering showcases for new ed tech products, offering seminars on how to scale up for ed start-ups. The site’s Instructional Materials Map identifies which states REQUIRE IMPLEMENTATION of digital materials.
Contact your state employees listed by name at the site, if you think that the public doesn’t want them to do what they are doing. A former director stated that SETDA lobbies at the federal level. Are state employees lobbying in the states on behalf of SETDA’s “gold, silver, event and strategic partners”, for SETDA’s funder, Gates,…?