MEDIA WARS: An honest post mortem of liberal betrayals might explain the “White working class backlash”
ABOVE IMAGE: Senators Greeley (R) and Baucus (D), who steered the political ship to the shoals of Obamacare. Medicare for All was the obvious solution, and still is, but that was taken off the table before the debate was even joined.
PATRICE GREANVILLE
Those extremists of the center, the liberal class: by their media thou shalt know them
[dropcap]S[/dropcap]alon, the 21 y/o liberal megaphone, self-defined as “smart tabloid”, and formerly edited by Joan Walsh, provides a good example of liberaloid shilling for the Democratic party establishment, which by definition fears and detests its own leftwing rank and file and the handful of leaders it has been able to produce. It is media like Salon that, parading as progressive platforms, in effect block any type of reform, let alone revolutionary measures to clean up the accumulated messes, “drain the swamp”, which Trump has used so effectively to capture the allegiance of millions of Americans.
The liberal media do that by disarming the left, including whatever left manages to survive within the Democratic party fold, thereby preventing any and all efforts to hold the Democratic executive’s feet to the fire, or move the establishment to yield some of its power. This was seen perhaps more transparently than ever before during the Obama tenure, a man who high-handedly —and to this date with almost complete impunity, if we judge by the pervasive sycophancy that characterizes most of his public appearances—betrayed every implicit promise he ever made to the masses.
Although throughout its existence Salon has operated technically in the red, it receives generous infusions of cash from liberal tycoons and other deep pockets, the most notable being John Warnock, an American computer scientist and businessman best known as the co-founder with Charles Geschke of Adobe Systems Inc., a gouging graphics and publishing software company. (Just ask any freelance art director.)
The reason we even mention Salon in these pages is because they gave us an excellent example of a hatchet job on a genuine leftwing liberal, Dennis Kucinich, The liberal case against Dennis Kucinich, (1) a toxic piece of claptrap authored by Alex Koppelman, about whom more later. This piece of pseudo journalism should be examined by all those who claim serious membership in the progressive community. It appeared on Salon on March 10, 2010, but its didactic value is as fresh and relevant today as when it was first published. I think that Journalism students would also do well to look at this piece closely, as it teaches them what kind of cultural and political pressures to conform lurk in the background of their professional careers.
As a matter of method, I am quoting below the original article in toto so as to facilitate comprehension of what’s going on here and insure record-keeping, in case this article should suddenly disappear. My commentary follows passages I need to clarify (in bold) or is presented in a separate a blue panel.
While I have no use for Koppelman’s brand of journalism, I should make clear that he is far from alone in this insalubrious niche: most Democrat-influenced scribes can hardly contain the venom and disdain they carry for someone like Kucinich, whom they regard, at best, as a sort of party spoiler. See for instance the strong undercurrent of unpleasantness permeating the words of Melissa Harris-Perry, a TV host and commentator, and Democratic party apparatchik, whose contributions usually have the gravitas of a mosquito (and one whom Black Agenda Report editors long certified as among the nation’s “Black misleaders”), as she supposedly expresses regret over Kucinich’s loss of his seat in Ohio’s 10th District, due to gerrymandering by the awful Rethuglicans:
Harris-Perry
“Gerrymandering is a big reason why Republicans wanted to win control of the Ohio statehouse, which they did in a big way in November 2010. This is not a district rich with Republican genius: Rich Lott, Kaptur’s last opponent, loved to dress up like a Nazi for fun, and they nominated Samuel the Un-Plumber last night. John Nichols reminds us all of what happened in The Nation today:
Had his district remained intact, Kucinich would have won Tuesday’s primary. But the 2010 election put Republican Governor John Kasich and his conservative allies in charge of the Ohio redistricting process. With encouragement from House Speaker John Boehner, they targeted Kucinich from the start. Everyone knew Kucinich was threatened, and the congressman even entertained the prospect of moving to Washington state, where he has long been a favorite of progressive activists and where population shifts had created an open seat that might be friendly to his ambitions.
I’m not here to lionize Dennis Kucinich, as some have been doing today. Frankly, I remain disgusted about how his mayoralty set Cleveland back, and his flirtation with running in Washington State was is off-putting. (sic) But during last night’s msnbc coverage, Rachel Maddow made the important observation about this primary: no matter who won the race, electorates that generally vote Democratic would have one fewer representative, all because Republicans changed the rules to target one man. Whether you like or dislike him, that’s unfortunate.
Nasty. As they say, with friends like these…
In any case, let’s go back to Koppelman and his screed against Kucinich.
Koppelman’s professional resume reads like a bad rash all over the main foxholes of the liberal media establishment. Besides Salon, the man has credits at CNN (CNNmoney), The New Yorker, The Guardian (UK), MSNBC, Fox News, and so on. All of which makes him exquisitely qualified to deliver hatchet jobs, not just to his right, where they could be expected given his main political coloration, but to his left, where his snide digs and omissions of context, all of it packaged in smooth, educated prose, makes him an effective and much-in-demand communicator for the neoliberal status quo, and the rotten politics of its main “left” vessel, the Democrats. Well, enough of intros, let’s have a closer look.
AS IT APPEARED IN SALON
The liberal case against Dennis Kucinich
Progressive hero wants to kill healthcare reform. Is it finally time to give up on him?
TOPICS: DENNIS KUCINICH, D-OHIO, HEALTHCARE REFORM, WAR ROOM, POLITICS NEWS
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, in October 2008.
The left has been torn over healthcare reform this year. Some liberals argue that Democrats’ current proposals [what was to become Obamacare] are a major step forward and worth passing despite their flaws, while others argue that the bill should be scrapped because the flaws outweigh the good, and because of the lack of progressive favorites like a public option. [Commonly and lucidly defined as “Medicare for all”, or Single Payer”]
On Tuesday night, two liberal favorites got set up to butt heads. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Countdown,” DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas was asked by guest host Lawrence O’Donnell about Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s opposition to President Obama’s reform proposal. Moulitsas didn’t take it easy on Kucinich in his response.
“[I]t’s definitely a very Ralph Nader-esque approach, I think, to politics — a very unrealistic and self-defeating approach,” Moulitsas said.
“And I’m going to hold people, like Dennis Kucinich, responsible for the 40,000 Americans that die each year from a lack of health care. And I don’t care if you’re a Republican or you’re a conservative Democrat or you’re somebody like Dennis Kucinich. The fact is, this does a heck of a lot for a lot of people … It’s not the ideal solution. But we have our foot in the door, and if somebody like Kucinich wants to block that, I find that completely reprehensible.”
Later, pressed by O’Donnell, Moulitsas said he’d support the idea of a primary challenge against Kucinich if the congressman continues his opposition to the legislation. [How noble of him, to join the Kucinich lynching mob.]
As Firedoglake’s David Dayen pointed out, it’s actually too late for someone to decide to challenge Kucinich in a primary this year. But all this — and some back-and-forth Moulitsas engaged in on Twitter after the segment aired — leads to a larger discussion: What, exactly, has Kucinich accomplished during his seven terms in Congress?
Moulitsas argues that the congressman hasn’t accomplished anything at all, and — though I know I’m going to get slammed for saying this — I have to agree. Sure, it’s good to see a politician standing up for his beliefs and fighting for a point of view that might not otherwise be represented. But there are ways to do that and simultaneously be an effective legislator. Kucinich simply isn’t, and he’s never really tried hard to be. (You could also argue — I would — that the way he goes about things makes him pretty ineffective as a spokesman for his ideals.)
Furthermore, as Koppelman & Co surely know, the question of executive or legislative “accomplishment” is so loaded, an inherently neutral, as to be meaningless without specific context. It’s like the old question of firearms and scalpels: they can save you or they can kill you. Or even technology: it can be bad or good depending on how and by whom it is used. The answer is always situational. If you have a Congress comprised of crooks and warmongering criminals bent on ripping off the public at every turn and launching “wars of choice” behind the usual excuses and pretexts, then I’d say anything that makes them accomplish little or nothing is to the better of humanity. It should be applauded. Second, Koppelman pretends to forget that any idea liable to irritate the corporate powers that be and their status quo—among which the healthcare scam is one of their most egregious prossessions—is going to generate a huge amount of opposition and invective from the prostitutes in the political class, from the White House to Congress and beyond, and from their sycophants in the equally prostituted media. All of which only means that people and honest media must struggle, not take a rotten status quo as an immutable given, which is exactly what Moulitsas, who fancies himself a progressive, and Koppelman, who fancies himself an honest journalist possessing some wisdom, would like us to believe.
Thirdly, it was shown, during the ramp up to the actual policy debate, and by highly reputable witnesses like Physicians for a National Health Program and the brave national nurses unions, that Obamacare would be one more gigantic Rube Goldberg concoction, a quilt of patches benefitting in the end only Big Pharma (whom Obama refused to press to even grant better wholesale prices for its drugs to Medicare) and the health insurance racket. Fact is, there was no cogent or defensible reason for the Democrats to simply brush single payer off the table, arbitrarily, and without any explanations, thereby refusing to lead a badly needed reform supported by easily two-thirds if not more of the population, except the White House and the DNC’s unwillingness to defy their real constituency, the almighty 0.00001%. Under such circumstances, how fair is it to castigate Kucinich with such zeal and bad faith for insisting on doing what the public wanted and still needs desperately? Whence all this venom? I’m still waiting for an explanation.
Just look at this section from the biography on his congressional Web site:
In Congress, Kucinich has authored and co-sponsored legislation to create a national health care system, preserve Social Security, lower the costs of prescription drugs, provide economic development through infrastructure improvements, abolish the death penalty, provide universal prekindergarten to all 3, 4, and 5 year olds, create a Department of Peace, regulate genetically engineered foods, repeal the USA PATRIOT Act, and provide tax relief to working class families.
Notice that the bio never says whether any of that legislation actually passed. In fact, according to the Web site GovTrack, of the 97 bills Kucinich has sponsored since taking office in 1997, only three have become law. Ninety-three didn’t even make it out of committee.
The three that were enacted are, in chronological order from first to last: A bill “to make available to the Ukranian Museum and Archives the USIA television program ‘Window on America,’” a bill “to designate the facility of the United States Postal Service located at 14500 Lorain Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio as the ‘John P. Gallagher Post Office Building” and a bill “proclaiming Casimir Pulaski to be an honorary citizen of the United States posthumously.”
ERRATUM: In our first iteration of this article we incorrectly identified Pete Catapano as Salon’s current editor. He is no longer affiliated with that organization.
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