Earlier this week, the think tank New America expelled a subsidiary called Open Markets, led by Barry Lynn. New America is funded in large part by Google. In June, Open Markets put out a press release lauding the European Union’s multi-billion dollar sanctions against Google. You connect the dots. Here’s a backgrounder.
New America’s leader, Ann-Marie Slaughter, has been furiously and ineffectively spinning this week. (Atrios’ one sentence on her leadership pretty much says it all.) Her latest excuse-making exercise includes this gem:
Nothing we say is going to convince the many people who want to believe a David versus Goliath story of Barry Lynn versus big bad Google. On the contrary, Barry’s new organization and campaign against Google is the opening salvo of one group of Democrats versus another group of Democrats in the run-up to the 2020 election, at a time when I personally think the country faces far greater challenges of racism, violence, a broken political system, and geographic and partisan divisions so great that we are losing any common sense of what we stand and strive for as a country.
Translation: if we don’t shut up about my little think tank imbroglio, we may lose the 2020 election.
That really is some prime bullshit. First, monopolies contribute to our “broken political system”. Raising consciousness about the way that monopolies make our lives shitty, and being the party with a solution, is an election winner in 2018, 2020 and beyond. Second, if our party is so fucking delicate that a little debate in 2017 is going to sink our 2020 chances, maybe we need to talk about that instead of sweeping it under the rug. Third, I think we’re on the way to party unity over a key set of policies that are going to have broad appeal to our traditional constituencies. For proof of that, see the recent unity over Medicare for all between Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders.
Frankly, I’m sick of shit stirring and fear mongering with the goal of shutting people up. The only fear I have after reading Slaughter’s piece is that someone will think that she has some insight into the Democratic party. She needs to find a way to save her $500K a year gig that doesn’t involve claptrap like this.
AnonPhenom
shorter: “The Dirty Fucking Hippies are at it again!”
Frank Wilhoit
Monopolies are only one manifestation of the unaccountability of business. Always factor up. Focussing on monopoly distracts from the other aspects of the problem, which, taken together, are not obviously less important.
Baud
I don’t trust anyone involved in this story and will count on the commetariat to advise me who is in the right. I’ll check back in a couple of hours.
Tom Levenson
Pulled my post to give this some time to breathe. Will repost in an hour or so.
ruemara
I’m looking at a world where too many on the left didn’t want to hear of fearmongering and bullshit about how important the upcoming election was. No offense, but I have other issues more demanding of my attention.
Cermet
CORPORATIONS ARE ENEMY #1; why? Because they through banks and other large investment agencies are the primary financiers of far right ideology and frankly, control all major politicians (primarily but far from solely the thug party.). They corrupt all that they touch – if dems take any real power for any length of time, they too will be owned by these monsters. These monsters exist to serve only the 0.0001 and higher that basically own policy. That is why taking back the vote and prevent voting from being solely the right of rich white men/woman is the first critical battle.
FlipYrWhig
The part of “the left” that hyper-obsesses over how women at think tanks are DOIN IT RONG–like Slaughter and Tanden–is wearing me out. Get your collective shit together, people.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
@FlipYrWhig:
Thirded. I didn’t know that this think tank even existed and I’m not sure why I’m supposed to care about their insider machinations. What does this think tank actually do? What is its purpose?
efgoldman
@Mnemosyne:
Like most similar organizations: to provide employment and grant opportunities to otherwise unemployable post-docs.
Hungry Joe
I suspect that MOST $500K-a-year gigs involve claptrap. And a fair amount of it, at that. Maybe that’s because I fall short when it comes to imagining a position that you couldn’t fill with a top-notch person for half that money. He might not be a “he,” might not have first and last names that are interchangeable, e.g. “Morgan Jamison” / “Jamison Morgan,” might not have had his or her pop bribe his or her way into a Greater or Lesser Ivy, might not be 6’2″ with silver hair … but I truly believe that you can find somebody who can do a kick-ass job, no matter WHAT the job, for a quarter of a million per.
debbie
@Baud:
All I know is that I heard Barry Lynn interviewed on NPR and he sounded kind of whiny.
Felonius Monk
This is all you need to know. If Susan Molinari is involved, it’s wingnut grifting.
Hungry Joe
Please, no one confuse him with Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
Aimai
@FlipYrWhig: yes.
scav
“New America”? That’s,the sort of organizational name that makes my neck hairs rise. Not that “Open Markets” is any better on the personal hackle-index.
Then there’s the explicit PR framing that it’s all just a between-“Democrat” squabble. That plus the corporate control of funding? Every paper pushed out probably comes through far more spin-PhDs and lawyers than copy-editors — let alone anything resembling peer-review.
ChuckBerryIsGod
See Josh Marshall for his take on Google from a bloggers view and an interview with Barry Lynn, head of Open Markets.
And the podcast with Lynn:
WereBear
In other news, Snopes has announced that the photo of tRump which is showing him rescuing someone from flood waters is a fake.
Normally I bet they don’t feel the need, but in this case…
trollhattan
@WereBear:
If he were shirtless, riding a bear I’d have bought it.
James Powell
No disrespect, but I’m not convinced this is true. First, raising consciousness about anything is pretty tough, more like a 20 year project than a strategy for 2018 or 2020. Second, 2016 showed us that unless and until white people stop voting, Democrats will struggle to win more than the occasional presidential election. Not that that’s nothing, but that it is clearly never going to be enough.
Doug!
Slaughter has been awful for a long time.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne:
This is actually a pretty big deal up in my neck of the woods. It’s not a new phenomenon, but it’s showing the side of Google that they pretend to hide behind a cuddly image, and is yet another good example of the morally compromised position of most think tanks and policy shops.
Chet Murthy
@FlipYrWhig:
Damn. I didn’t even notice. Thank you for pointing this out. OK: (1) New America did was wrong; (2) the power of monopolies (and the concentration of wealth that invariably accompanies them) is really problematic, BUT (3) I think it’s right, that the heat&light shouldn’t be focused on Slaughter, but rather on GOOG & Eric Schmidt. For every Slaughter & Tanden, there are thousands of entitled male douchenozzles (Vinod Khosla, for example) who need to be spanked.
We need to reach gender parity in douchenozzle-spanking, and that means the boys gotta go first.
That said, @ruemara: I -do- think these issues are important. As somebody (apparently, Giovanni Gentile, not Mussolini) once said about Fascism,
So we -should- care about monopolies. I’ll argue that it’s -important-, just not -urgent-. Which doesn’t mean you ignore it..
ThresherK
OT: Mad Magazine’s take on Donald Trump’s stance on dressing and equipping cops like military, reimaging Norman Rockwell.
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
Oh, so it’s industry news from an industry town. Okay. I get that industry folks tend to forget that people outside of their industry don’t really care about the minutia of what’s going on. Honestly, in this part of the state, we don’t think about Google much since we’re too busy obsessing about Force Friday. ?
Baud
So I guess a pox on all their houses.
Major Major Major Major
@Mnemosyne: Is mistermix in the ‘biz?
I think a lot of the reason the story is getting traction because of the Podesta connection and the Bernie butthurt brigade, but otherwise it’s a pretty standard influence peddling story with a tech twist, yeah.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: Did Lynn do anything that deserved the separation?
Mnemosyne
@Major Major Major Major:
IIRC, he is, but on the East Coast.
Major Major Major Major
@Baud: Other than criticize the paymasters? Not that I’m aware of, but I haven’t been following too closely.
@Mnemosyne: Most of my friends who are mad about this don’t work in tech, FWIW, but they are Bay Area.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major: I haven’t been following it either. That’s why I ask. Thanks.
MomSense
@ruemara:
I’m so mad at the leftier than though. I expect idiocy from the right wingers, but the betrayal from the left is unforgiveabke.
Aussie Sheila
@Cermet:
Exactly.
From this distance the Dems main problem appears to be that so few poor and marginal people in the US polity actually vote. I understand the problem of voter suppression aimed at Dem constituencies, but that isn’t the whole story.
The universal franchise is merely an ‘equal opportunity’ proposition, in the absence of both the means and capacity to exercise that right. Fix that issue, and the constituency for redistribution widens automatically, and the capacity of wealthy insiders to control debate is reduced, although of course, not eliminated entirely .
tobie
@Aussie Sheila: I think your perspective from the distance is actually spot on. It is really hard to vote in this country, especially if you’re poor and working one or more minimum wage jobs while relying on the public transportation network to get anywhere, including to the polls, when you hardly have time to feed yourself or your children or attend to your other needs.
Regarding the theme of this thread: finding ways to revive anti-trust legislation is genuinely important…I’d rather focus on that than on a think tank I’d never heard of previously.
AnonPhenom
@mistermix
…exemplified nowhere better than in the comment section of your post. Well done. Did you know that would happen?
The very epitome of a circle-jerk
Mnemosyne
@AnonPhenom:
Given everything else going on right now, reducing corporate influence on the Democratic Party is low on my list of priorities.
YMMV.
bluespapa
Yeah, I’m willing to have the debate. I think unity over Medicare for all is a loser in more than just my state, as is free college for all, and shaming me as a corporatist neoliberal is shallow response. I stopped using Google as a search engine ages ago, and I don’t know why Josh Marshall isn’t more resourceful; he’s an educated guy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@bluespapa: I don’t know what state you’re in, but I agree single-payer and ‘free college’ are at best high risk propositions, but I think Medicare access for all, essentially a public option, is a much lighter lift.
Bobby Thomson
@James Powell: that was the most bullshit-laden part of mix’s post. That message has been tested and it FAILED. Bigly.
lowtechcyclist
There’s three things going on in blog posts like this about Google, New America, and Anne Marie Slaughter. Thing One, in plain sight, is that if Google gives lots of money to a think tank, and people at the think tank say things Google doesn’t like, Google will see to it that they’re fired. That’s pretty simple, and could have just as easily happened 50 years ago, only with a different company.
Thing Two is that this has something to do with Google’s monopoly power. The connection escapes me, but I don’t really care, because I’m glad the subject has been raised, especially given what Josh Marshall has had to say about the subject.
Thing Three is the subtext that New America and Anne Marie Slaughter have something to do with the Democratic Party. I really do need the dots connected on this, and judging from some of the other comments here, I’m not the only one. As a left-leaning person, why is their bad behavior something that people like Atrios and mistermix think I should know about?
low-tech cyclist
@James Powell:
The GOP has won the popular vote in only one Presidential election since 1988. The Electoral College has saved their asses in another two elections, and they needed assists from the Supreme Court in one of those, and from the Russians and James Comey in the other.
The weakness in the Dems’ game these days is much more at the state and local level. When they lose the White House, there’s no safety net.
WaterGirl
I think this is a bigger deal than most of you seen to think.
The thread is obviously dead, so I won’t say much, but I will say a couple of things. First, a hack is fair game for attack, regardless of gender. Second, whatever happened to Google’s “Don’t be Evil”? I think it’s absolutely right to call Google out for this as loudly as possible. Google’s actions here are very heavy-handed.
This is a power move, pure and simple. I don’t think that donors to universities should be able to dictate research outcomes or limit what research is actually done, and I think that same principle applies here.
low-tech cyclist
@WaterGirl: You may be right, but I at least don’t know enough to say. Maybe New America was basically a Google creation from the get-go, and they still provide most of the funding, and it’s basically their pet foundation. In which case this would be about as dog-bites-man a story as it’s possible to come up with.
Probably something that extreme isn’t actually true, but there’s been nothing in the blog posts I’ve read about this that would say one way or the other.