{"id":4074,"date":"2020-12-28T15:54:40","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T15:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=144052"},"modified":"2020-12-28T15:54:40","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T15:54:40","slug":"neera-tanden-and-antony-blinken-personify-the-moderate-rot-at-the-top-of-the-democratic-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/28\/neera-tanden-and-antony-blinken-personify-the-moderate-rot-at-the-top-of-the-democratic-party\/","title":{"rendered":"Neera Tanden and Antony Blinken Personify the ‘Moderate’ Rot at the Top of the Democratic Party"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes a couple of nominations convey an incoming president\u2019s basic mindset and worldview. That\u2019s how it seems with Joe Biden\u2019s choices to run the Office of Management and Budget and the State Department.<\/p>\n

For OMB director, Biden selected corporate centrist Neera Tanden, whose Center for American Progress thrives on the largesse of wealthy donors representing powerful corporate interests. Tanden has been a notably scornful foe of the Democratic Party\u2019s progressive wing; former Sanders speechwriter David Sirota calls<\/a> her \u201cthe single biggest, most aggressive Bernie Sanders critic in the United States.\u201d Who better to oversee the budget of the U.S. government?<\/p>\n

For Secretary of State, Biden chose his longtime top foreign-policy adviser, whose frequent support for U.S. warfare included pushing for the disastrous<\/a> 2011 military intervention in Libya. Antony Blinken is a revolving-door pro who has combined his record<\/a> of war boosterism with entrepreneurial zeal to personally profit<\/a> from influence-peddling for weapons sales to the Pentagon. Who better to oversee diplomacy for the U.S. government?<\/p>\n

“With few exceptions, Biden’s current policy positions are destructively corporate, deferential to obscene concentrations of wealth, woefully inadequate for meeting human needs, and zealously militaristic.”<\/span> Standard news coverage tells us that Tanden and Blinken are \u201cmoderates.\u201d But what\u2019s so moderate about being on the take from rich beneficiaries of corporate America while opposing proposals that would curb their profits in order to reduce income inequality and advance social justice? What\u2019s so moderate about serving the military-industrial complex while advocating for massive \u201cdefense\u201d spending and what amounts to endless war?<\/p>\n

Unless they fail to get Senate confirmation, Tanden and Blinken will shape future history in major ways.<\/p>\n

As OMB director, Tanden would head what the Washington Post<\/em> describes<\/a> as \u201cthe nerve center of the federal government, executing the annual spending plan, setting fiscal and personnel policy for agencies, and overseeing the regulatory process across the executive branch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blinken is ready to be the administration\u2019s most influential figure on foreign policy, bolstered by his longstanding close ties with Biden. As staff director for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when Biden chaired the panel\u2019s mid-2002 crucial sham hearings<\/a> on scenarios for invading Iraq, Blinken helped grease the skids for the catastrophic invasion.<\/p>\n

Overall, purported \u201cmoderates\u201d Tanden and Blinken have benefited from favorable mass-media coverage since their nominations were announced several weeks ago. Most of the well-documented critical accounts have appeared in progressive outlets such as Common Dreams<\/a><\/em>, Democracy Now<\/a><\/em>, The Daily Poster<\/a><\/em>, In These Times<\/a> <\/em>and The American Prospect<\/a><\/em>. But some unappealing aspects of their records have been reported by the mainstream press.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn her nine years helming Washington\u2019s leading liberal think tank, Neera Tanden mingled with deep-pocketed donors who made their fortunes on Wall Street, in Silicon Valley and in other powerful sectors of corporate America,\u201d the Washington Post<\/em> reported<\/a> in early December. \u201cAt formal pitches and swanky fundraisers, Tanden personally cultivated the bevy of benefactors fueling the $45 million to $50 million annual budget of the Center for American Progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Post<\/em> added: \u201cAs OMB director, Tanden would have a hand in policies that touch every part of the economy after years spent courting corporate and foreign donors. These regulatory decisions will have profound implications for a range of U.S. companies, dictating how much they pay in taxes, the barriers they face and whether they benefit from new stimulus programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blinken\u2019s eagerness to cash in<\/a> on the warfare state — when not a formal part of the government\u2019s war-making apparatus — is well-documented<\/a> and chilling. In a healthier political culture, Blinken\u2019s shameless insistence on profiteering from military weapons sales, as spelled out in a Nov. 28 New York Times<\/em> news story<\/a>, would have sunk his nomination for Secretary of State.<\/p>\n

As for Tanden, in recent years her Center for American Progress received<\/a> between $1.5 million and $3 million from the United Arab Emirates, which is allied with Saudi Arabia in waging a long and murderous war on Yemen. CAP refused to back a Senate resolution<\/a> calling for the U.S. government to end its military support for that war. On a range of foreign-policy issues, Tanden has shown dedication to militarism again<\/a> and again<\/a> and again<\/a>.<\/p>\n

By many accounts, progressive organizing<\/a> was a key factor<\/a> in preventing<\/a> the widely expected nomination of hawkish Mich\u00e8le Flournoy to be Secretary of Defense. (RootsAction.org, where I\u2019m national director, was part of that organizing effort.) Last week, the withdrawal of torture defender Mike Morell from consideration for CIA director was a victory for activism<\/a> led by CodePink, Progressive Democrats of America, Witness Against Torture and other groups.<\/p>\n

During the first weeks of 2021, such organizing could be effective in helping to derail other nominations. High on the deserving list are Agriculture Secretary nominee Tom \u201cMr. Monsanto\u201d<\/a> Vilsack, a loyal ally of corporate Big Ag<\/a>, and Director of National Intelligence nominee Avril Haines — whose record<\/a> as former deputy director of the CIA included<\/a> working to prevent accountability for agency personnel who engaged in torture, as well as crafting legal rationales for drone strikes that often killed civilians.<\/p>\n

Such deplorable nominees don\u2019t tell the whole story of Biden\u2019s incoming team, which includes some decent economic and environmental appointees. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that progressive focus on personnel has led to far better outcomes than when Obama put a corporate- and bank-friendly Cabinet together with little resistance,\u201d The American Prospect<\/em>\u2019s executive editor, David Dayen, correctly pointed out<\/a> last week. At the same time, none of Biden\u2019s high-level nominees were supporters of the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign or are fully in sync with the progressive wing of the party.<\/p>\n

The brighter spots among Joe Biden\u2019s nominations reflect the political wattage that progressives have generated in recent years on a wide array of intertwined matters, from climate to healthcare to economic justice to structural racism. Yet, with few exceptions, Biden\u2019s current policy positions are destructively corporate, deferential to obscene concentrations of wealth, woefully inadequate for meeting human needs, and zealously militaristic. It\u2019s hardly incidental that the list of key White House staff<\/a> is overwhelmingly dominated by corporate-aligned operatives and PR specialists.<\/p>\n

Wishful thinking aside, on vital issue after vital issue, it\u2019s foreseeable that Biden — and the people in line for the most powerful roles in his administration — will not do the right thing unless movements can organize effectively enough to make them do it.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes a couple of nominations convey an incoming president\u2019s basic mindset and worldview. That\u2019s how it seems with Joe Biden\u2019s choices to run the Office of Management and\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4074"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4075,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4074\/revisions\/4075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}