A seemingly trivial controversy reveals quite a bit about pervasive political values
by GLENN GREENWALD, The Guardian, 27 April 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
News reports yesterday indicated that Bradley Manning, widely known to
be gay, had been selected to be one of the Grand Marshals of the
annual San Francisco gay pride parade, named by the LGBT Pride
Celebration Committee. When the predictable backlash instantly ensued,
the president of the Board of SF Pride, Lisa L Williams, quickly
capitulated, issuing a cowardly, imperious statement that has to be
read to be believed.
Williams proclaimed that "Manning will not be a grand marshal in this
year's San Francisco Pride celebration" and termed his selection "a
mistake". She blamed it all on a "staff person" who prematurely made
the announcement based on a preliminary vote, and she assures us all
that the culprit "has been disciplined": disciplined. She then accuses
Manning of "actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and
women in uniform": a substance-free falsehood originally spread by top
US military officials which has since been decisively and extensively
debunked, even by some government officials (indeed, it's the US
government itself, not Manning, that is guilty of "actions which
placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform"). And
then, in my favorite part of her statement, Williams decreed to all
organization members that "even the hint of support" for Manning's
action - even the hint - "will not be tolerated by the leadership of
San Francisco Pride". Will not be tolerated.
I originally had no intention of writing about this episode, but the
more I discovered about it, the more revealing it became. So let's
just consider a few of the points raised by all of this.
First, while even a hint of support for Manning will not be tolerated,
there is a long roster of large corporations serving as the event's
sponsors who are welcomed with open arms. The list is here. It
includes AT&T and Verizon, the telecom giants that enabled the illegal
warrantless eavesdropping on US citizens by the Bush administration
and its NSA, only to get retroactively immunized from Congress and
thus shielded from all criminal and civil liability (including a
lawsuit brought in San Francisco against those corporations by their
customers who were illegally spied on). Last month, AT&T was fined by
OSHA for failing to protect one of its employees who was attacked, was
found by the FCC last year to have overcharged customers by secretly
switching them to plans they didn't want, and is now being sued by the
US government for "allegedly bill[ing] the government improperly for
services designed for the deaf and hard-of-hearing who place calls by
typing messages over the web."
The list of SF Pride sponsors also includes Bank of America, now being
sued for $1 billion by the US government for allegedly engaging in a
systematic scheme of mortgage fraud which the US Attorney called
"spectacularly brazen in scope". Just last month, the same SF Pride
sponsor received a record fine for ignoring a court order and instead
trying to collect mortgage payments from bankrupt homeowners to which
it was not entitled. Earlier this month, SF-Pride-sponsoring Bank of
America paid $2.4 billion to settle shareholder allegations that Bank
executives "failed to disclose information about losses at Merrill
Lynch and bonuses paid to Merrill Lynch employees before the brokerage
was acquired by Bank of America in January 2009 for $18.5 billion."
Another beloved SF Pride sponsor, Wells Fargo, is also being "sued by
the US for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages over claims the
bank made reckless mortgage loans that caused losses for a federal
insurance program when they defaulted". Last year, Wells Fargo was
fined $3.1 million by a federal judge for engaging in conduct that
court called "highly reprehensible" relating to its persecution of a
struggling homeowner. In 2011, the bank was fined by the US government
"for allegedly pushing borrowers with good credit into expensive
mortgages and falsifying loan applications."
Also in Good Standing with the SF Pride board: Clear Channel, the
media outlet owned by Bain Capital that broadcasts the radio programs
of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck; a pension fund is suing
this SF Pride sponsor for making cheap, below-market loans to its
struggling parent company. The health care giant Kaiser Permanente,
another proud SF Pride sponsor, is currently under investigation by
California officials for alleged massive privacy violations in the
form of recklessly disclosing 300,000 patient records.
So apparently, the very high-minded ethical standards of Lisa L
Williams and the SF Pride Board apply only to young and powerless Army
Privates who engage in an act of conscience against the US war
machine, but instantly disappear for large corporations and banks that
hand over cash. What we really see here is how the largest and most
corrupt corporations own not just the government but also the culture.
Even at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, once an iconic symbol of
cultural dissent and disregard for stifling peities, nothing can
happen that might offend AT&T and the Bank of America. The minute
something even a bit deviant takes place (as defined by standards
imposed by America's political and corporate class), even the SF Gay
Pride Parade must scamper, capitulate, apologize, and take an oath of
fealty to their orthodoxies (we adore the military, the state, and
your laws). And, as usual, the largest corporate factions are
completely exempt from the strictures and standards applied to the
marginalized and powerless. Thus, while Bradley Manning is persona non
grata at SF Pride, illegal eavesdropping telecoms, scheming banks, and
hedge-fund purveryors of the nation's worst right-wing agitprop are
more than welcome.
Second, the authoritarian, state-and-military-revering mentality
pervading Williams' statement is striking. It isn't just the imperious
decree that "even a hint of support" for Manning "will not be
tolerated", though that is certainly creepy. Nor is it the weird
announcement that the wrongdoer "has been disciplined". Even worse is
the mindless embrace of the baseless claims of US military officials
(that Manning "placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in
uniform") along with the supremely authoritarian view that any actions
barred by the state are, ipso facto, ignoble and wrong. Conduct can be
illegal and yet still be noble and commendable: see, for instance,
Daniel Ellsberg, or most of the leaders of the civil rights movement
in the US. Indeed, acts of civil disobedience and conscience by people
who risk their own interests to battle injustices are often the most
commendable acts. Equating illegal behavior with ignominious behavior
is the defining mentality of an authoritarian - and is particularly
notable coming from what was once viewed as a bastion of liberal
dissent.
But the more one learns about the parties involved here, the less
surprising it becomes. According to her biography, Williams "organized
satellite offices for the Obama campaign" and also works for various
Democratic politicians. It was President Obama, of course, who so
notoriously decreed Bradley Manning guilty in public before his trial
by military officers serving under Obama even began, and whose
administration was found by the UN's top torture investigator to have
abused him and is now so harshly prosecuting him. It's anything but
surprising that a person who was a loyal Obama campaign aide finds
Bradley Manning anathema while adoring big corporations and banks
(which funded the Obama campaign and who, in the case of telecoms,
Obama voted to immunize).
What we see here is how even many of the most liberal precincts in
America are now the leading spokespeople for and loyalists to state
power as a result of their loyalty to President Obama. Thus do we have
the President of the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade sounding exactly
like the Chairman of the Joints Chief, or Sarah Palin, or gay war-
loving neocons, in depicting any meaningful opposition to the National
Security State as the supreme sin. I'd be willing to bet large amounts
of money that Williams has never condemned the Obama administration's
abuse of Manning in detention or its dangerously radical prosecution
of him for "aiding the enemy". I have no doubt that the people who did
all of that would be showered with gratitude by Parade officials if
they attended. In so many liberal precincts in the Age of Obama - even
now including the SF Gay Pride parade - the federal government, its
military, and its federal prosecutors are to be revered and celebrated
but not criticized; only those who oppose them are villains.
Third, when I wrote several weeks ago about the remarkable shift in
public opinion on gay equality, I noted that this development is less
significant than it seems because the cause of gay equality poses no
real threat to elite factions or to how political and economic power
in the US are distributed. If anything, it bolsters those power
structures because it completely and harmlessly assimilates a
previously excluded group into existing institutions and thus
incentivizes them to accommodate those institutions and adopt their
mindset. This event illustrates exactly what I meant.
While some of the nation's most corrupt corporations are welcome to
fly their flag over the parade, consider what Manning - for whom "even
a hint of support will not be tolerated" - actually did. His leak
revealed all sorts of corruption, deceit and illegality on the part of
the world's most powerful corporations. They led to numerous
journalism awards for WikiLeaks. Even Bill Keller, the former
Executive Editor of the New York Times who is a harsh WikiLeaks
critic, credited those leaks with helping to spark the Arab Spring,
the greatest democratic revolution the world has seen in decades.
Multiple media accounts describe how the cables documenting atrocities
committed by US troops in Iraq prevented the Malaki government from
allowing US troops to stay beyond the agreed-to deadline: i.e., helped
end the Iraq war by thwarting Obama's attempts to prolong it. For all
of that, Manning was selected by Guardian readers as the 2012 Person
of the Year, while former Army Lt. Dan Choi said yesterday:
As we move forward as a country, we need truth in order to gain
justice, you can't have justice without the whole truth . . . So what
[Manning did as a gay American, as a gay soldier, he stood for
integrity, I am proud of him."
But none of those vital benefits matter to authoritarians. That's
because authoritarians, by definition, believe in the overarching
Goodness of institutions of power, and believe the only bad acts come
from those who challenge or subvert that power. Bad acts aren't
committed by the National Security State or Surveillance State; they
are only committed by those who oppose them. If a person's actions
threaten power factions or are deemed prohibited by them, then Good
Authoritarians will reflexively view the person as evil and will be
eager to publicly disassociate themselves from such individuals. Or,
as Williams put it, "even the hint of support" for Manning "will not
be tolerated", and those who deviate from this decree will be
"disciplined".
Even the SF Gay Pride Parade is now owned by and beholden to the
nation's largest corporations, subject to their dictates. Those who
run the event are functionaries of, loyalists to, the nation's most
powerful political officials. That's how this parade was so seamlessly
transformed from orthodoxy-challenging, individualistic and creative
cultural icon into yet another pile of obedient apparatchiks that
spout banal slogans doled out by the state while viciously scorning
those who challenge them. Yes, there will undoubtedly still be
exotically-dressed drag queens, lesbian motorcycle clubs, and groups
proudly defined by their unusual sexual proclivities participating in
the parade, but they'll be marching under a Bank of America banner and
behind flag-waving fans of the National Security State, the US
President, and the political party that dominates American politics
and its political and military institutions. Yet another edgy,
interesting, creative, independent event has been degraded and
neutered into a meek and subservient ritual that must pay homage to
the nation's most powerful entities and at all costs avoid offending
them in any way.
It's hardly surprising that someone who so boldly and courageously
opposes the US war machine is demonized and scorned this way. Daniel
Ellsberg was subjected to the same attacks before he was transformed
many years later into a liberal hero (though Ellsberg had the good
fortune to be persecuted by a Republican rather than Democratic
President and thus, even back then, had some substantial support; come
to think of it, Ellsberg lives in San Francisco: would expressions of
support for him be tolerated?). But the fact that such lock-step, heel-
clicking, military-mimicking behavior is now coming from the SF Gay
Pride Parade of all places is indeed noteworthy: it reflects just how
pervasive this authoritarian rot has become.
Corporate corruption and sleaze
For a bit more on the dominance of corporate sleaze and corruption in
our political culture, see the first few paragraphs of this
extraordinary Politico article on a new book about DC culture....
http://www.politico.com/story/
...and this Washington Post article detailing the supreme annual
convergence of political, media and corporate sleaze called "the White
House Correspondents' Dinner", to be held this weekend. ....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
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