New York Times endorses plutocracy! (Cory Booker)-David Sirota

[Dusty Bake Activate]

http://www.salon.com/2013/08/05/new_york_times_endorses_plutocracy/

If you happened to have read the New York Times’ opinion section this weekend, you may have noticed you were told that the U.S. Senate – the body comprised primarily of millionaires – apparently needs more lawmakers who are very close to the wealthy.

Yes, despite every member of the upper house raising huge amounts of campaign money primarily from the American aristocracy, and despite the fact that legalized bribery results in votes that consistently defend the aristocracy’s economic interests at the expense of everyone else — the grey lady’s editorial board implored voters to see Senate candidates’ all-too-close relationship with America’s uber-rich not as something suspicious or repugnant, but as something commendable and worthy of reward.

This was the powerful message in the Times’ house editorial this weekend endorsing Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s candidacy in New Jersey’s upcoming special U.S. Senate election. Citing Booker’s success engineering a $100 million donation to Newark schools from Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (but conveniently not mentioning the ugly controversies surrounding the donation), the newspaper concluded its endorsement with a slap at Booker’s opponents – one that in a single sentence revealed everything you need to know about the elite media’s royalism (emphasis added):

Some of Mr. Booker’s opponents are trying to denigrate those assets — his fame, his ability to work with Republicans, his coziness with the moneyed class.

You read that correctly: According to the Times, being “cozy with the moneyed class” should be seen by voters as an “asset” for an aspiring senator – one the Times insinuates shouldn’t dare be “denigrated” by other candidates.

Of course, the Times is fairly accurate in declaring Booker as “cozy with the moneyed class.” If anything, in fact, it’s an understatement – Booker is one of Corporate America’s most loyal and obedient Democratic politicians.

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As the Republic Report and ThinkProgress both document, Booker’s entire political career has been bankrolled by Wall Street. According to The Record newspaper, that includes his current U.S. Senate race, in which Booker “is tapping high-tech billionaires (and) Wall Street hedge-fund managers” to finance his campaign. Additionally, Booker has done something most politicians are too embarrassed to do because it is so blatantly unethical: whereas most politicians wait to retire before personally cashing in on their government service, Booker has personally pocketed massive speaking fees from corporations and interest groups while simultaneously holding a full-time public office.

This kind of financial investment in Booker would no doubt result in big legislative returns for the rich and corporations if he becomes a senator — just as those investments have already resulted in big returns for the “moneyed class” with Booker as prominent municipal politician.

For example, while raking in all this corporate money, Booker has been a driving force behind the national effort to privatize public schools — an effort that is making huge money for education profiteers. He also seemed to consider endorsing corporate-backed cuts to Social Security — until he was recently humiliated into backing down. But most notably of all, Booker used his political fame to publicly attack the Democratic Party’s rhetorical criticism of Wall Street in the middle of the 2012 election.

That’s right, last year Booker took to national television to slam President Obama for raising legitimate questions about Bain Capital’s brand of Gordon Gekko-style vulture capitalism.

“It’s nauseating to the American public,” Booker thundered during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Enough is enough. Stop attacking private equity.”

He then added that “from a very personal level I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity (because) they’ve done a lot to support businesses [and] to grow businesses.”

Booker’s statements — which omitted private equity’s increasingly problematic record – generated nationwide headlines and dominated the news cycle for days. It was the kind of publicity that the aristocracy could only dream of — or simply buy outright. In fact, as my Salon colleague Steve Kornacki noted at the time, the latter is probably exactly what Booker’s televised defense of Wall Street was all about. Booker had long before been bought, and he was most likely paying the investment back so as to guarantee even more corporate money for himself in the future.

Considering all that, you might expect an allegedly liberal editorial board in this Citizens United era to issue a scathing editorial denouncing Booker and endorsing one of his opponents with a more virtuous record. The fact that the opposite happened this weekend at one of the world’s largest newspapers exposes a taboo truth: namely, that regardless of stated ideology on hot-button issues, the establishment press across the ideological spectrum almost universally accepts and/or lauds — rather than questions — the corrosive influence of money in politics. Indeed, even the ostensibly liberal New York Times editorial board doesn’t view Booker’s unseemly relationship with the “moneyed class” as any kind of liability – it openly views it and praises it as a cherished “asset.”

Now, sure, Booker’s version of pay-to-play corruption is old news, as is the elite media’s typical deference to politicians who most steadfastly embody such legalized corruption. However, that deference usually expresses itself as positive puff pieces, softball questions and generally slanted coverage — and it is almost never just declared in crystal clear language.

That’s what makes the Times’ house editorial so important and such a critical historical marker in this new Gilded Age: beyond its endorsement of a particular corporatist candidate, it provides a rare example of the establishment press admitting to its plutocratic worldview.

In that worldview, voters are not supposed to see politicians’ loyalty to corporations and the wealthy as the root of so many of the nation’s problems. Instead, we are supposed to see a politician’s unity with the “moneyed class” as an altogether desirable “asset” — no matter how much that so-called “asset” harms the country.

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

We gotta find a way to take money outta politics..

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

Wow, I didn't know all that about Booker.

 

[Sensitive Blake Griffin]

Wow, I didn't know all that about Booker.

I didn't either breh, I thought he was one of the good ones

 

[Julius Skrrvin]

I didn't either breh, I thought he was one of the good ones

oh well at least we still have elizabeth warren

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Wow, I didn't know all that about Booker.

You ain't know? He's Wall Street bought and sold. That's why he went so hard at the Obama campaign over their Bain Capital attacks. I hope people don't make the same mistakes of thinking he's this man of the people like they did with Obama because he's young, black, and speaks well. But Obama wasn't even really a shill when he was a Senator. He sold his soul behind the scenes while running for President. Booker already did and he's not even a Senator yet.

 

[theworldismine13]

another dumb ass sirota article, booker is right, we should not be attacking private equity, private equity and capitalism is the key to revitalizing cities, charter schools and privatization are key to reforming the education system

and nothing in the article addresses whether booker is a good mayor or not, this article is just a dumb ass hit piece

 

[theworldismine13]

i want somebody to explain to me how you think we can bring jobs to cities without private equity?

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

another dumb ass sirota article, booker is right, we should not be attacking private equity, private equity and capitalism is the key to revitalizing cities, charter schools and privatization are key to reforming the education system

and nothing in the article addresses whether booker is a good mayor or not, this article is just a dumb ass hit piece

I'm surprised it took you even this long to

 

[theworldismine13]

I'm surprised it took you even this long to

im not surprised that you posted this, its another one in the series of intellectually bankrupt articles you have posted that offer no real solutions to people just a bunch of leftist ramblings that try to denigrate the free market and individual freedom

 

[Allah]

i want somebody to explain to me how you think we can bring jobs to cities without private equity?

tax more, expand private sector, unionize all workers public and private to increase quality of jobs so that person x doesnt have to work 3 jobs and instead can work 1 and free up the other 2, increase minimum wage etc etc

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

im not surprised that you posted this, its another one in the series of intellectually bankrupt articles you have posted that offer no real solutions to people just a bunch of leftist ramblings that try to denigrate the free market and individual freedom

lol...yeah, that's what that is. I'm against freedom because I don't care for government bought and sold by corporate America.

 

[theworldismine13]

tax more, expand private sector, unionize all workers public and private to increase quality of jobs so that person x doesnt have to work 3 jobs and instead can work 1 and free up the other 2, increase minimum wage etc etc

how do you expand the private sector without private equity, how do you expand the number of private jobs that you want to unionize without private equity?

you make no sense whatsoever

 

[Allah]

how do you expand the private sector without private equity, how do you expand the number of private jobs that you want to unionize without private equity?

you make no sense whatsoever

im not saying demolish the private sector, but they should not be taking a front seat in the management of a city

 

[theworldismine13]

im not saying demolish the private sector, but they should not be taking a front seat in the management of a city

im asking a simple question, i didnt ask you whether you wanted to abolish the private sector, i asked how do you bring jobs to a city without private equity?

the point im making is that there is a limit to how much leftist political theory can be used to develop and revitalize a city, you need private equity and capitalism to develop a city and there is nothing wrong with what booker said and there is nothing wrong with attracting capital to your city and working with investors, which is what booker has been doing in newark

i just did a thread of another example of it http://www.thecoli.com/threads/capitalism-education-ahh.135940/

this denigration of private equity and capitalism its not something black people and black cities should get down with, its a dead end economically and intellectually, we want private equity and capitalism in our cities

and this guy sirota is an idiot and this article is a stupid hit piece