Status quo
I can never decide if it’s a good thing that the Politico spends so much time profiling unelected people with power in Washington DC. But this piece is pure Chamber of Commerce propaganda:
If the combination of Obama policies and attacks on the Chamber turns business against Democrats, it could have a big effect on elections. Many businesses, spooked by the crackdown on soft money, have been reluctant to fund groups outside of the Chamber in recent elections. If they are motivated, Republicans will have a much better chance at reclaiming the money edge that they once enjoyed but have let slip away in recent years.
Several CEOs have told POLITICO in recent weeks they have gone from genuinely uncertain about Obama’s economic views to authentically concerned. And the outcome of climate change, health care and regulation could turn much of business against the president’s goals.
Having spent a lot of time (and possibly too many blog posts) on elite media’s defense of Fox News, I think I get it now: Fox, the Chamber, the think tanks, and all the assholes, elected and unelected, who have been running this country into the ground for however many years, are part of the status quo. And the status quo is good to media elites. They’ll defend it every step of the way.
heretic
What has changed in the last twenty or so years, with the rise of millionaire ‘journalists’ is that the media now sees themselves as peers of the ruling class. With that is mind, this all makes perfect sense.
asiangrrlMN
Yeah, that sums it up nicely, DougJ. So, the question becomes, how do we make the media elite uncomfortable enough that they want to change the status quo?
PeakVT
Concern CEOs are concerned.
Wevs.
Elthy-san
At the risk of sounding like an over-educated prat, the concept you’re looking for is Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony.
Basically any Political Economy text that doesn’t fully subscribe to the Market Model of Media will explain at much greater detail.
CalD
Thanks again for reading the Politico (so I don’t have to).
Bob (Not B.o.B.)
This is where the Chamber comes across as elitist jerks. The Chamber does NOT speak for all businesses, even all its members. If more businesses, especially smaller ones, knew what positions they advocated, the membership would fall dramatically.
The Michigan Chamber’s political arm isn’t even a business organization any longer. It is an anti-government arm of the Republican party.
As far as the media goes, we need to remember these are huge business conglomerates. Can we really expect a defense contractor (GE) who owns NBC to really broadcast fair news coverage?
dr. bloor
“Several CEOs” = the new “Some say…”
I also love how MoveOn suddenly has the power to shove around wimps like Apple and PG&E.
Wankfest.
MikeJ
Aren’t businesses all over quitting the chamber in droves this year?
The Grand Panjandrum
They’ve got all of the Republicans and a good portion of the Democrats with them so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
Zifnab
@asiangrrlMN: Cancel your newspaper subscription, unsubscribe from cable, and generally stop feeding the beast.
I don’t think they’ll ever get so uncomfortable that they embrace change, but they will get uncomfortable enough that they stop existing.
asiangrrlMN
@Zifnab: Well, I don’t have a newspaper subscription, and I don’t have cable, so I guess I will have to get more creative.
Zifnab
@MikeJ: There were a handful of defections, notable because they left or gave up positions in protest over Global Warming. But it’s not exactly an exodus.
Zifnab
@asiangrrlMN: So find where Wolf Blitzer lives, fill a brown paper bag with dog poop, light it on fire, drop it on his doorstep, and run. That’s what I do.
geg6
@MikeJ:
Yes. Which is probably a large part of this pushback that Politico is pimping.
Rich white men getting nervous. Me likey.
asiangrrlMN
@Zifnab: Oooh! That sounds like fun. Then, Cokie Roberts. Then, Peggy Noonan, followed by David Brooks. Or do I mean David Broder? Both!
Zifnab
@asiangrrlMN: Peggy Noonan is getting her car keyed. David Brooks will be getting a very unexpected wet willy. With Broder, I’m just going to swap all the street signs in front of his house and hope he never makes it to the office again.
MikeJ
But the Chamber went from 3 million members (they claimed) to 300,000 (the confirmed number). They lost nine out of ten members!
smiley
Defense of the status quo is the definition of conservative.
asiangrrlMN
@Zifnab: I really like the way you think. May I subscribe to your newsletter?
ksmiami
The same CEOs who have been running America into the ground, managing businesses badly and laying good workers off… I am VERY concerned about their opinions, sure, cry me a river.
Zifnab
@asiangrrlMN: Sure you can, but it’s only far to warn you I’m actually just Bill Kristol in a John Stewart mask.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zifnab:
[/Milhouse van Houten]
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Zifnab:
Just be sure to keep your hands above the waist, OK? No under the table dinner party hanky-panky.
RememberNovember
So Corporate policy trumps the human condition. Nice. Welcome to Walmartistan.
asiangrrlMN
@Zifnab: Ooooh, you just reminded me of the one I dislike the most—Always Wrong Kristol and that smarmy smirk of his.
Tom G
This is a point that Glenn Greenwald has been making for awhile also. It’s one of the reasons I value his reporting and opinion.
fungus amungus
“If the combination of Obama policies and attacks on the Chamber turns business against Democrats….”
This is an “if”?
ItAintEazy
Well, I’m glad we re-establish the fact that you don’t anger those that buy ink by the barrel. Except this time pissing off those assclowns is just letting them off way, way too easily.
GregB
Yeah, the Chamber has been a big supporter of Democrats and left wingers all along, right?
What dreck.
Mike Allen’s lips must be forever tired.
-G
Violet
@asiangrrlMN:
It’ll happen. It’s already happening. Mass newspaper layoffs. Media consolidations. OMG Teh Blogosphere (Ethics panel! Ethics panel!) The landscape is shifting, but the old, rich dinosaurs don’t want to see it.
The rich folks funding the media elite spokesmouths don’t like it at all, but they can’t stop it. It’s just not happening fast enough, that’s all.
linda
vandehei is a complete gop operative; little mikey allen just wants to be employed.
fungus amungus
Wait, please to ignore previous comment. Wrong argument. My bad.
smedley
Pointing and laughing is probably not sufficient. Podesta had a seat at the table yesterday and tried it only once with Laura Ingraham. He should have been more forceful in his laughing and pointing. But, then, he may not have been invited back.
Ash Can
Our neighborhood has a chamber of commerce, and even on this micro level they’re nothing more than an ineffective clique. Are there any chambers of commerce anywhere, on any level, that actually do any fucking good at all for the businesses they supposedly serve?
Ed Drone
F*ck the “status quo!” We need a “status whoa!”
Or, to make it a suitable family-friendly bumper-sticker,
“Status whoa, not status quo.”
If the big media and big business are not paying attention, slap some of these on their cars and delivery trucks and news-stands. Make them wonder, and make the public aware that they are being duped.
Ths slogan is even vague enough that tea-party twits can use it, thinking the “whoa” part applies to their “vision.” We can correct them if people start talking it up. But till it’s a subject of conversation in more than liberal blogs, we’ll get nowhere.
Ed
lou
The perpetual D.C. muddle is good for bidness and incumbents.
SGEW
“Chamber of Commerce Criticizes Obama Team: Lobbyist Accuses White House of ‘Name-Calling’”
Someone’s feelings have been hurt.
Peter J
PRESIDENT OBAMA TIES GEORGE W. BUSH ON GOLF
If Politico was an actual newspaper, my cat would claw my eyes out if I put it in her litter box…
Not sure how they could forget to add that Bush stopped playing golf out of the respect for the soldiers killed in Iraq, and that this obviously means that Obama has no respect for the troops. But I bet there will be an update later.
(Bush decision had nothing to do with knee problems…)
(Bush ended up spending 487 days at Camp David, and 490 at his ranch…)
shoutingattherain
@SGEW:
ZOMG! Can hair pulling be far behind?
The Grand Panjandrum
BTW don’t forget to vote for Bitsy!
Ash Can
@Peter J:
Why not? He wasn’t the one running the country. He was probably just getting in the way back in DC.
Bob In Pacifica
George Seldes’ 1943 book, FACTS AND FASCISM, had a whole chapter on the National Association of Manufacturers. These groups have always been doing this crap. Back then they could openly back fascists because fascists were good for business and all the nasty concentration camp stuff hadn’t been widely circulated. And speaking of the media and pundits, Seldes, in another chapter, reprints a New York Times headline that praised Mussolini for getting trains to run on time. Really.
So I don’t really think all that much has changed, structurally, from back then. The press, or the mainstream media, has always carried the water for the Big Money. What I think happens is that some folks individually at some point in their lives suddenly have the lightbulb go on. Aha! Fox, ABC, CBS, MSNBC lies to me!
Metaphorically, each one of us comes home one day to find our newspaper, or cable network, in bed with fatcats and we are forced to choose between believing them or our lying eyes. Republican deadenders are easily distracted from what is going on between the sheets. They walk into that room and look for aliens under the bed or gays in the closet. They miss the show on the main stage.
Chad N Freude
I guess we can infer from this that they started out falsely uncertain, then became genuinely uncertain, then moved to inauthentically concerned, and have now achieved authentic concern.
I would have been tossed off the high school paper if I had written something like that. The idiocy of the reportage hurts.
El Cid
Noting the blatantly clear class connections between the ownership and high directorates at our news production corporations and other prominent corporations, investment firms, and powerful economic interests is crazy, fringe, conspiracy theorist, and will totally make a lot of centrists cry. Stop it.
max
And the status quo is good to media elites. They’ll defend it every step of the way.
Welcome to Enlightenment, my friend. Every policy of the last 20 years (which translates into every stupid policy of the last twenty year), regardless of the official reason for putting it in place, has three basic motivations:
1) More money for ME! ME! ME! (Fuck Red Staters/Blue Staters/Flyover country/DFH/Rednecks/We love the Communist Chinese/etc.)
2) My tiny little dick is actually HUGE! (We love the troops, so let’s get them killed for no reason!)
3) Wait. You mean Osama bin Laden is trying to KILL ME??? (If those planes had been flown into buildings in Omaha, no one would have given a shit.)
Lastly, bipartisanship translates to ‘Let’s get a small group together to fuck the rest of the country hard.’
max
[‘All else is ever-twisting rationalization.’]
comrade scott's agenda of rage
And thus endeth today’s episode of “The Blinding Flash of the Obvious.”
:)
woody
And the status quo is good to media elites. They’ll defend it every step of the way.
In the Corporate State, corporate media are the State Media.
Violet
Gosh dog it, that Pom is really running away with the contest. All hands on deck.
!
woody
“Metaphorically, each one of us comes home one day to find our newspaper, or cable network, in bed with fatcats and we are forced to choose between believing them or our lying eyes.”
The genius of the modern propaganda state is in its ability to co-opt the ‘middle-class’ who have so much of their own ideas of ‘success’ embedded in the propagandas of the State…(cf. Jacques Ellul, Propagandas:
Violet
Urgh. Apparently I can’t press the proper button. Vote for Little Bitsy!
kuvasz
if it took you this long to see the problem you are likely a part of the problem.
tc125231
Well, no duh.
JGabriel
As opposed to being falsely uncertain and faux concerned?
Jeebus. I wonder how much they pay the company that authenticates concern. Does it get outsourced to more sincere parts of the world?
.
mistersnrub
Speaking of the WaPo, what is the deal with Howie Kurtz? How can a self-described “media critic” give such a pass to Fox News? He is incredulous that the channel has an agenda, and continues to unthinkingly regurgitate the trope that Fox distinguishes btw opinion and news. Why doesn’t he, you know, do his goddamn job and watch the channel to see it with his own eyes. What a putz.
Chuck
@Violet:
I’m really sorry for the shelter, but I’m boycotting this contest. It got ugly a long time ago, and the folks running it are just stretching it out for more ad impressions.
Violet
@Chuck:
Actually they seem to have shortened it. I agree the twelve week contest was too long and all about getting clicks, etc. But it was supposed to go on until Thanksgiving. As of yesterday, Oprah decided she wanted in on it, so they’re declaring the semifinalists today or tomorrow, then they’ll be on Oprah on Wednesday where they announce the winner. That means it’s ending almost a month earlier than they had intended.
Calouste
@heretic:
Remember that bit from 1984 where the torturer/government gook goes on to Winston Smith about how Big Brother’s trials are so much better than Stalin’s because at Stalin’s show trials the defendant confessed to crimes they didn’t commit because they were told to, where as at Big Brother’s trials defendants confessed to crimes they didn’t commit because they actually believed in them?
Something similar has happened to journalism in the US. Originally journalists had to write down what the media owners told them, but that wasn’t convincing enough. It turned out it worked far better to make the journalists actually part of the ruling class, inside the bubble, and then they would actually fervently believe what they were saying.
Chad N Freude
@JGabriel: I beat ya to it, dude. See @Chad N Freude.
kay
If I were a media mogul I would charge business interests for ad space, instead of giving them ads for free.
Seems a lot cleaner and easier, and they might actually start making money.
Was abandoning that business model smart?
I don’t see this new “free ads!” model working, because no rational consumer is going to pay to read a Chamber press release. Maybe I’m missing something.
Ed Drone
@woody
:
It seems to me that the Rethuglicans have trouble switching from their integration to their agitation propaganda. When Shrub was in office, they needed integration (go along to get along—nothing to see here, move
onalong). Now that he and his platform are revealed as trashing thecountryworld, they need to switch to agitation-prop. Now, agit-prop was always their strong suit, but since their earlier integraprop (to coin a word) called for certain attitudes in their followers, they’re having trouble getting folks to make the mental/emotional switch.And that’s why their agitprop is getting so much attention—it’s out in the open more than they’d like. It’s obvious what it’s for, and people outside the some-of-the-people-all-of-the-time group azre catching on. The man behind the curtain is no longer being ignored, and attention is being paid.
And they hate it when that happens.
Ed
inkadu
@Violet: I’m not sure the demise of Big Media is going to help our cause any. All it means is there will be less factual reporting and the people who may have been exposed to an inconvenient fact in proper context will now be standing slack-jawed in front of Villagers talking about lapel pins.
The 24-hr networks are picking up the viewers left behind by other media, I’m afraid. The blogs are picking up folks who care about politics and have more than two brain cells to rub together—and that’s the decided minority.
Brick Oven Bill
Obama is George Bush, except that Obama is comfortable being photographed while golfing at the same time that men are fighting and dying on his order. The policies are essentially the same. The golf-thing was Bush’s glimmer of Virtue.
Democrats = Status Quo
Republicans = Status Quo
Congressional Approval Ratings are around 20%.
Behold the Tea Bagger. Behold Crissy.
Another Change option would be to turn things over to the United States Marine Corps for a short, defined, period of time. Goldman Sachs could tell it to the Marines. The early Romans had a similar system.
Perhaps there could be a combination of the two.
Midnight Marauder
@Chad N Freude:
If I didn’t know better, I’d say you just created a prototype for a first ever Concern Trolling Scale.
kay
I love these shills, who spend a good part of ever day extolling the virtues of small business, and then insist that “business” in the US is some seamless entity wholly represented by the US Chamber of Commerce.
Which isn’t even factually true for big business, as evidenced by the dissent on climate change legislation, and was never true of small business.
So, who are they talking about? They’re talking about Chamber members, a group media inflated by a factor of ten until someone actually sat down and counted.
If you’re going to accept a an ad from the Chamber of Commerce, at least charge them for the space.
Redhand
Boy, does this sum it up, especially as regards the WaPo’s “worst in America” Opinion Section.
JGabriel
Brick Oven Bill:
Ya see, when Conservatives vote Republican, it’s really a compromise vote — what they really want is a military dictatorship.
Thanks for clarifying that for us, BOB.
.
ericblair
@kay: If I were a media mogul I would charge business interests for ad space, instead of giving them ads for free.
Seems a lot cleaner and easier, and they might actually start making money.
I think the current problem is that the media mogul isn’t out to make money with his outlet; it’s to provide propaganda cover for the parent company’s broader interests. A lot of these rags have never turned a dime in profit, but are worthwhile in keeping our current crop of betters fat and happy.
tofubo
see previous
http://www.balloon-juice.com/?.....nt-1416064
Brick Oven Bill
The Romans strictly defined the length of time of military rule, I think it was six months. This is because they appreciated the value of representative rule, and understood the danger of a powerful executive.
Bush used to write letters to the families of the fallen, and meet and commiserate with them. I have yet to see electronic images of Obama doing this, making me doubt that he does. Because even if he didn’t and just faked some imagery, the TV people would surely have broadcast it.
Obama is scared of his military. This is why he opposes the Constitutional removal of Zelaya from power in Honduras, why he will not meet with General McChrystal, why he plays golf in wartime (Denial-Type II Defense Mechanism), and why he likely has his secretary send form letters to the families of the fallen.
PurpleGirl
Vote for Bitsy… she’s at 38?? to Commissioner James Gordon’s 48??. Vote for Bitsy.
TenguPhule
There is an obvious solution to the problem of the status quo.
Madame Guillotine.
arguingwithsignposts
At least bitsy’s firmly in second at the moment. I’m glad this is going to end sooner, but that Pom does not look “cute” at all, imho.
TenguPhule
Obviously not doing the job of president left him with lots of free time.
TenguPhule
So now in BOB-land, military coups = Constitutional.
Why am I not surprised?
TenguPhule
Or we could just give it all to me and the 35% of the population too stupid to live would be in large unmarked graves by New Years.
Joshua
Can I safely assume that Politico interviewed these CEOs both today and several weeks ago so they have in writing the change in mood these CEOs have experienced?
Or are these CEOs just blowing it out their ass to make them sound more open-minded and pragmatic than they actually are?
Brian Griffin
Fox’s model also may be seen as the only way for the rest of the networks to head in the future. So admitting the basic facts of bias could leave them without sources in the future.
Currently, if you want to learn anything about policy you have to go to partisan news sources. (I’m not saying that Fox tells anyone about policy.) So we have two sets of separate “facts” for every debate.
Traditionally, the networks and the papers tried to keep the debaters honest and perhaps even actually covered policy, but now they only report on who is perceived to be winning the debate. As a result, they’ve completely marginalized themselves: they actually have no remaining function beyond providing a stock ticker with good hair.
Unless the networks can return to their traditional role, which seems impossibly difficult once they’ve abandoned it (as trust would take decades to regain), their only choice (which is much less expensive, btw) to keep ad dollars flowing will be to serve as cheerleaders for a team, a la Fox.
Stoic
Victor Laszlo: Thanks. I appreciate it. Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.
Brian Griffin
by the way, the stock market under democrats has outperformed the stock market under republicans, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, for the past 100 years.
CEO pay, on the other hand, has tended to rise a lot faster under republicans.
just sayin’...
flounder
Did you catch the part where they insinuate that a bunch of energy companies like PG&E left the Chamber because they were pressured by “Move-on”?
F-ing irresponsible.
Calouste
And in completely unrelated news, newspaper circulation is down 10.6% compared to the same period last year.
slippy
@Chad N Freude: This reminds me of how my girlfriend and I joke that we “really” love each other, and all those other times we were bullshitting.
The Establishment has just done one thing for me, and they’ve done it very effectively: they’ve reminded me that Obama is not one of them, and that if he wants it and they don’t, it’s probably good for me and not them.
So, I hereby take a shit in the Chamberpot of Commerce.
socraticsilence
BOB-
I shouldn’t even engage with you but this is such a blatantly egregious historical understatement I can’t let it slide:
“The Romans strictly defined the length of time of military rule, I think it was six months. This is because they appreciated the value of representative rule, and understood the danger of a powerful executive.”
Nice, of you to leave out the end results of this system, I mean its certainly not like this lead to the establishment of a monarchial regime or anything- or the various derivations of the surname of one of said leaders came to be an honorific title in multiple European nation-states- I mean Kaiser, Czar, I’m sure they just have their roots in Caesar because of the noted Russian and German respect for the orderly turnover of power.
Phoenix Woman
This is why I call it “the GOP/Media Complex”. Because that’s what it is. FOX is the most extreme component, but it’s more a matter of degree rather than difference at this point, since FOX sets their agenda.
slippy
@socraticsilence: In other words, we’ve mistakenly misnamed the Friedman Unit.
It should have been the Caesar Unit.
Tony J
@Brian Griffin:
Liebral propaganda that is easily refuted by mumble…. mumble…. something…. mumble…. mumble…. the Dark Side.
A-ha! Yes. Which, as you can see, proves that high rates of pay for Wealth Creators translates into economic success, because it’s only after Republicans reward the stock market that the Democrats get to coast through another term in power on the riptide of profit they did nothing to create.
Who needs to know anything about the economy? It’s clear that simply electing Republicans is all the average voter has to do to keep the engine ticking over.
slippy
@Brick Oven Bill:
Anybody who believes this deserves to be mocked as head-crushingly fucking stupid.
Bush had no glimmers of virtue. He inconveniently injured himself so that he was unable to play golf anymore, and then conveniently made a Big Fucking Deal out of it because he thought fucking morons without four brain cells between their ears would think he was virtuous.
In that, he was successful.
dr. bloor
@Brick Oven Bill:
This has some merit, but would be a far superior option if Obama handed over control to the leadership group in “Taps.” They were every bit as disciplined and principled as the real Marines, and would bring added benefits including good looks, stage presence and (in Cruise’s case) the far-reaching vision of Scientology to the office.
redoubt
@slippy: BOB, for one, welcomes his Fascist overlords.
Since it’s apparent that his knowledge of history stopped with the Roman Republic. “Crossing the Rubicon” is in the lexicon for a reason.
@Bob In Pacifica: I’m reminded of a book—Fritz Thyssen, I Paid Hitler, 1941.
dadanarchist
This is why I proposed elsewhere that Politico be known as Concern Troll Bridge: it is a one-stop shop for every flavor of concern trollery one could ever want, and since trolls live under bridges, well…
Politico’s sole purpose is to provide an anonymous means for Village and Corporate elites to wring their hands and express their concern about Democratic policies that are, quite sensibly, attempting to limit their influence and crack down on the amount of shit they were allowed to get away with under the reign of George II/Cheney the First, and the Clenis’ DNC-run WH.
Since Mike Allen will fellate anybody with an iota of power, they all know where to turn…
dadanarchist
That should read DLC-run WH.
matoko_chan
For the lexicon—
con-serf-a-tism, n, defn–
the mistaken belief by the proletariat that keeping Wallstreet’s capitalist boot on their throats will one day result in a key to the club.