On Nov 5th, my old employer will do positive PR for Goldman Sachs, which ruined the lives of millions of people.
Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) November 1, 2013
The event to which Jilani linked in this Tweet (since deleted) is November 5. Here’s the lineup: Two folks from Goldman Sachs. Wait, are they folks? Two panjandrums from Goldman Sachs.
Neera Tanden, President, Center for American Progress
Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Director, Office of Management & Budget
Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Goldman Sachs
Linda Gibbs, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, New York City
Alicia Glen, Head of Urban Investment, Goldman Sachs
Jonathan Greenblatt, Special Assistant to the President; Director, Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation
Kathlyn Mead, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, The California Endowment
John Roman, Senior Fellow, The Urban Institute
Annie Donovan, Chief Executive Officer, Coopmetrics
What’s it about? Press advisory from CAP:
On Tuesday, November 5, the Center for American Progress will host a discussion with experts in the burgeoning field of social impact investing. Government has a real opportunity to invest in innovation in the social sector. In tight fiscal times, all levels of government seek innovative approaches to deliver better services and get better outcomes.
You may remember, but two years ago, anticipating the 2012 election cycle, Jilani, an excellent writer, was targeted along with three others at CAP for expressing ideas critical of Israel. The targeter was Josh Block, neoconservative Israel lobbyist, working in tandem with other neocons, and Alan Dershowitz and Spencer Ackerman riding shotgun. A few months later Jilani and two of the others had packed their bags, and MJ Rosenberg, who had dared to coin the term Israel Firster, and was targeted for doing so, was out at Media Matters. (Even as Haim Saban and Sheldon Adelson want to ask American Jews about their allegiance to Israel in a crunch) A reminder that the Israel lobby, which transcends party, and transcends White House chain of command too, is entrenched in the Democratic Party.
Zaid Jilani is one of my favourite progressive writers. And unlike a lot of ‘progressive’ writers, he is consistent with his judgements. He doesn’t like ethnic nationalism from those who use it under the guise of liberalism. Jews have done this for a long time, and nobody checked us at it, and now we see the results. He slams ethnic nationalism across all racial boundaries, just as an example, because he is committed to the principle. Oppression under a white-dominated society does mean you have to embrace liberalism if you’re an ethnic nationalist, but at one point the tide turns, and then what? (BTW This also applies to the Palestinian struggle. This is one of the issues with people like Ahmad Moor, who slams Zionism and then turns around and wants Palestinian ethnic nationalism. The 1SS seeks to do away with this, but Moor and others can’t quite get away from their ethnic nationalism.)
You can find similar examples, only within the U.S., too, where the progressive movement has been too lazy/slow/afraid to truly examine those among its ranks. Are they really committed to universal values or do they use liberalism to further their aims?
And the same thing applies here. ‘Progressive’ institutions selling out to Goldman Sachs and Wall Street. Since it is us, we don’t want to focus about it. Or take Obama’s drone wars. There has been some muted criticism, but Obama’s first 4 years or so, he got away with murder, more or less.
The main issue with the progressive movement is that we have allowed the GOP to become the main bogeyman without being that introspective that there are a ton of issues – and that Goldman event signifies it – that we need to deal with, but that we haven’t. Social, racial or economic. Zaid is one of the(few, sadly) progressives, I think, who could act as a moral corrective, someone who is carrying the same principles about human universalism inside the movement as well as outside, and the same thing applies about standing up to the way Wall Street has corrupted the establishment of the Democratic party, which this cozy event is a signifier of.
Alan Dersowitchz
“on June 7, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz gave an interviewto the Internet-based Newsmax, in which he attacked the journalist who reported the story for the Guardian:
“Even Benjamin Franklin was wrong when he said those who would give up any privacy or rights in the name of security deserved neither. That’s nonsense. That’s hyperbole. That’s extremism. That’s the kind of thing we expect from the guy who wrote the story for the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald, who, you know, never met a terrorist he didn’t like and never met an American government official he liked. We need nuance in the discussion. We need to have some compromises. We’ve made compromises over the years…. But I don’t want these extreme radicals who hate America and love terrorism to be dominating the debate, and that’s what’s been happening…. Do not believe anything you read from Glenn Greenwald. And anything you read in the Guardian take with a grain of salt.
About two weeks later, on June 24, Dershowitz argued on CNNthat Greenwald had committed a felony by revealing the contents of the NSA documents that had been leaked by Edward Snowden. In response to a suggestion by CNN’s Piers Morgan that Greenwald’s NSA-related reporting “borders on criminality,” Dershowitz said:
Well, it doesn’t border on criminality—it’s right in the heartland of criminality. The statute itself does punish the publication of classified material, if you know that it’s classified. And so, Greenwald, in my view, clearly has committed a felony.’
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/11/01-4
The name is “Goldman Sachs” or “Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.,” not Goldman, Sachs.
The targeter was Josh Block, neoconservative Israel lobbyist, working in tandem with other neocons, and Alan Dershowitz and Spencer Ackerman riding shotgun.
Spencer played footsie with Josh Block?!? Ugh!!! :-(