[corp-focus] The New American Filter - corrected version

[Robert Weissman]

In the just-sent version of The New American Filter column, The New
America Foundation was incorrectly identified as the New American
Foundation. This error is corrected in the version below. Otherwise,
this version is the same as the previous. Our apologies for the confusion.

--
Robert Weissman

The New American Filter
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Here's a good bet: young, good-looking, hip and upcoming policy wonks
aren't going to bite the hands that feed them.

If a public policy group holds a conference or a press briefing in
Washington, D.C. that is sponsored by big corporations, then the
discussion will barely mention big corporations, their role in causing
the problems, or solutions that might adversely affect those big corporations.

You can take it to the bank.

Case in point:

This week, at the National Press Club, the Atlantic Monthly Magazine and
The New America Foundation co-sponsored an event titled "What is the
Real State of the Union?"

In the materials is a copy of the January/February issue of The Atlantic
Monthly magazine, hot off the press.

The magazine and the Foundation got together 14 hot New America
Foundation fellows and asked them to think anew and write about problems
facing the nation.

So, for example, we get Jerediah Purdy on Trust (Too much trust can
actually be a bad thing -- a polity of suckers is no better than a
nation of cynics), Shannon Brownlee on Health Care (One of our biggest
health care problems is that there's just too much health care --
cutting down on the excess could save enough to cover everyone who is
now uninsured), Margaret Talbot on Crime (The inevitable consequence of
America's high incarceration rate is a high prison-release rate -- and
the prisoners getting out are often more violent and anti-social than
they were before), and Welfare and Poverty (It may be the greatest
policy achievement in recent history -- over the past decade significant
numbers of formerly welfare dependent black women have successfully
entered the work force. But what about black men?).

Along with the materials, is a one-page note from Ted Halstead, the
President of the New America Foundation, and Elizabeth Baker Keffer, the
Publisher of the Atlantic Monthly.

"We close with a note of thanks to each of our advertising partners and
their support of our effort to create a platform for thoughtful dialogue
about the true state of our union. In particular, we recognize: Shell,
Lockheed Martin, ADM, TIAA-CREF, Microsoft, The Hartford, Hewlett
Packard, and the Nuclear Energy Institute."

The event at the press club was an all day affair. And by the early
afternoon session, there was hardly a mention of the c word -- corporations.

This seemed to us to be a simple case of the rule: don't bite the hand
that feeds you.

And they didn't it.

One of the afternoon sessions was moderated by Jim Fallows, national
correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly and chairman of the New America Foundation.

One of the panelists during that session was Senator John Breaux (D-Louisiana).

The Senator, apparently oblivious to a banner hanging behind him
prominently featuring the corporate logo of the conference sponsors,
including the yellow sea shell of Royal Dutch Shell, begins to tell a
story about the debate over drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, how he argued that drilling would do minimal damage to the
environment, how other Democratic Senators would come up to him, and in
private say they agreed with him, but couldn't side with him in public
because of the "interest groups" -- read environmental groups.

Yes, interest groups were the problem.

They get in the way of reasonable compromise, Breaux said.

During the question period, Fallows calls on us.

Well, isn't it interesting, we observe, that Senator Breaux totally
ignored the interest groups that are sponsoring the conference.

I mean, there is the Shell Oil corporate logo glowing over the Senator's
left shoulder, and all he can talk about are the environmental groups,
as if the oil companies have no say in the matter?

Who are we kidding here?

And isn't the Senator's failure to recognize the elephant in the room
symptomatic of the entire effort?

Here you have The New America Foundation and the Atlantic Monthly taking
money from Shell, and ADM, and Lockheed Martin, The Hartford, and the
Nuclear Energy Institute to write about the real state of the union, and
you ignore corporate power -- just don't talk about it?

At this point, one of the young New America kids takes the microphone
from our hands and won't hand it back.

We pry it from his hands and continue to address Fallows.

In the essay about crime, why do you write nothing about corporate crime
and focus solely on street crime, ignoring that corporate crime and
violence inflicts far more damage on society than all street crime combined?

And in the essay on welfare, why do you focus solely on black Americans,
and ignore corporate welfare, which costs more than all individual
welfare combined?

And Fallows' answer is -- well, to run a magazine, you can't rely on
subscription income alone.

Well, yeah, but you don't have to totally ignore the subject of
corporate power, either.

And you don't have to give free advertising to your advertisers by
ordering a banner with their corporate logos emblazoned across the
bottom, to be beamed across national television via C-Span.

And we give up the mike.

And then, Michael Lind, a New America fellow, comes up to us and says
had we read his article (on National Unity -- Overcrowded cities on the
coasts. Dying rural communities in the interior. The way to save both
may be to create a post-agrarian heartland.) -- we would have known that
he in fact he calls for a cutback on agricultural subsidies and we
wouldn't have asked this "stupid question."

In fact, Michael, it was not a stupid question.

Just because you had a throwaway line on cutting agricultural subsidies,
that doesn't mean the issue of corporate power, corporate crime and
corporate welfare has been addressed.

New America scholars are young, hip and with it.

The Economist says they are "the brightest American thinkers under 40."

The New York Times says they "break out of the traditional liberal and
conservative categories."

The Washington Post calls the New America Foundation "The think tank for
Generation Next."

Looks more like they are bought and paid for.

And in exchange, they filter out any discussion of corporate power.

Call it the New American Filter.


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are
co-authors of Corporate Predators: The Hunt for MegaProfits and the
Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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