Corruption by any other name is still corruption.
Carl Jarvis
On 6/30/16, TomDispatch <tomdispatch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.tomdispatch.com
June 30, 2016
Tomgram: Thomas Frank, Worshipping Money in D.C.
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176159/tomgram%3A_thomas_frank%2C_worshipping_money_in_d.c./)
[Note for TomDispatch Readers: Read today's piece and then get your hands on
Thomas Frank's new book, Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever Happened to the
Party of the People?
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1627795391/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) It's the
political must-read of this season if you want to know where liberalism went
in the last two and a half decades. The next TomDispatch post will be on
Tuesday, July 5th. Tom]
I’m no stranger to shakedowns. I’ve experienced them, in one form or
another, from Asia to Africa.
Sometimes the corruption is subtle. Sometimes it’s naked. Sometimes you
press folded currency into someone’s palm. Sometimes there’s a more official
procedure. Sometimes a payment is demanded outright. (A weapon might even be
involved.) Other times, it’s up to you to suggest that we somehow work
things out privately.
Luckily, I live in the United States, and if the 2016 presidential campaign
has reminded me of anything, it’s that America is, by definition (and unlike
so many of the other countries on the planet), a corruption-free zone. Mind
you, no one would claim that the race for the Oval Office is free of
unethical behavior. It’s just that the actions and efforts involved aren’t
considered “corrupt” here.
Take an Associated Press (AP) exposé last week. It revealed
(http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9f7412236962464f9f2c0a8d2696ba25/trumps-campaign-cycles-6-million-trump-companies)
that the campaign of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump had “plowed
about $6 million” -- roughly 10% of his expenditures -- “back into Trump
corporate products and services.” The campaign paid, for instance, about
$520,000 in rent and utilities for its headquarters at Manhattan’s Trump
Tower and an astounding $4.6 million to TAG Air, the holding company for the
billionaire candidate’s airplanes.
The AP investigation found that the Trump campaign was “unafraid to
co-mingle political and business endeavors in an unprecedented way,” while
noting that there is, in fact, “nothing illegal about it.” In other words,
while it may seem shady, feel fraudulent, and -- to steal a Trumpism --
sound crooked, it’s all on the up and up according to our unique American
system.
Today, Thomas Frank, author most recently of Listen, Liberal: Or, What Ever
Happened to the Party of the People?
(http://www.amazon.com/dp/1627795391/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20) , takes
us on a tour of another dimly lit corner of corruption-free America, a
completely legal and remarkably unethical world that comes with its own
guidebook: a newsletter chronicling daily dalliances involving money,
alcohol, and political influence. Though it may seem like a foreign world to
those of us outside the Beltway bubble, it influences our daily lives in
myriad ways. Think of it as a circuit of cocktail hours and cocktail
parties linked by a well-greased set of revolving doors; an endless series
of social events attended by the influential, the influencers, and those
looking -- for the right price -- to be influenced. If it seems like I’m
using that word -- influence -- a little too much, it isn’t by chance. Let
the influential Thomas Frank explain how influence and Influence have
warped Washington and the rest of our world. Nick Turse
The Life of the Parties
The Influence of Influence in Washington
By Thomas Frank (http://www.tomdispatch.com/authors/thomasfrank)
Although it’s difficult to remember those days eight years ago when
Democrats seemed to represent something idealistic and hopeful and brave,
let’s take a moment and try to recall the stand Barack Obama once took
against lobbyists. Those were the days when the nation was learning that
George W. Bush’s Washington was, essentially, just a big playground for
those lobbyists and that every government operation had been opened to the
power of money. Righteous disgust filled the air. “Special interests” were
much denounced. And a certain inspiring senator from Illinois promised
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/22/AR2007062201019.html)
that, should he be elected president, his administration would contain no
lobbyists at all. The revolving door between government and K Street, he
assured us, would turn no more.
Instead, the nation got a lesson in all the other ways that “special
interests” can get what they want -- like simple class solidarity
(http://listenliberal.com) between the Ivy Leaguers who advise the president
and the Ivy Leaguers who sell derivative securities to unsuspecting
foreigners. As that inspiring young president filled his administration with
Wall Street personnel, we learned that the revolving door still works, even
if the people passing through it aren’t registered lobbyists.
But whatever became of lobbying itself, which once seemed to exemplify
everything wrong with Washington, D.C.? Perhaps it won’t surprise you to
learn that lobbying remains one of the nation’s persistently prosperous
industries, and that, since 2011, it has been the focus of Influence, one of
the daily email newsletters published by Politico, that great chronicler of
the Obama years. Influence was to be, as its very first edition declared
(http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/politico-influence/2011/04/welcome-to-politico-influence-why-lobbyists-arent-worried-about-revenue-slump-rich-gold-jonathan-jones-weigh-in-on-the-future-jamie-brown-hantman-launches-own-firm-008930)
, “the must-read crib sheet for Washington’s influence class,” with news of
developments on K Street done up in tones of sycophantic smugness. For my
money, it is one of the quintessential journalistic artifacts of our time:
the constantly unfolding tale of power-for-hire, told always with a discreet
sympathy
for the man on top.
Click here to read more of this dispatch.
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176159/tomgram%3A_thomas_frank%2C_worshipping_money_in_d.c./#more)
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