Tim Geithner and Chris Dodd’s opposition to Elizabeth Warren stems from the fact that she wasn’t a puppet for big banks.
Editor’s Note: As chair of the bailout oversight panel, Elizabeth Warren held Wall Street executives’ feet to the fire and proved time and time again that she was not afraid to speak out. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is fighting to block her appointment. Sign Credo’s petition pushing Elizabeth Warren police Wall Street.
Over the last few days, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner have made the case that Harvard professor and Congressional Oversight Panel chairwoman Elizabeth Warren is too controversial a figure to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. This, then, raises the revealing question of how Washington defines “controversial”?
Recall that the charge of “too controversial” was not made by Senate Democrats (or at least not at the volume they are being made against Warren) against Gary Gensler, the former Goldman Sachs executive appointed by President Obama to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. It was not made by most Senate Democrats against Larry Summers, a hedge fund executive subsequently appointed to a top economic position in the administration. It was not made against Citigroup executive Jack Lew when last week he was appointed to head the Office of Management and Budget. And it wasn’t made against Tim Geithner, who orchestrated massive taxpayer giveaways to major banks during his time at the New York Fed.
And yet, according to Democratic-run Washington, D.C., Elizabeth Warren — an academic not connected to the financial industry or past corrupt governmental decisions; a regulator working to protect taxpayer’s bailout money — may apparently be too controversial to be confirmed by a Democratic Senate.
The message to both today’s generation and the future generation of citizens who may aspire to work in government is pretty clear: If you are personally/financially connected to private for-profit corporations — even those that helped destroy the economy — that underwrite political campaigns, Washington has no problem with your appointment to a position overseeing those same private corporations. But if you forge an independent path and are not connected to those corporations and to that sluice of corporate campaign cash, you are suspect — and probably will have trouble getting a job in government. Why? Because the former cadre of insiders poses no real threat to the economic status quo — while the latter kind of independent outsider like Elizabeth Warren might actually rock the boat. Defining “controversial” this way, thus, creates a perverse incentive system: Going through the revolving door is rewarded as noncontroversial, while refusing to go through the revolving door is effectively punished as too controversial.
This is how corruption tends to work most often in D.C. On a day to day basis, it’s far less the brazen money-for-votes schemes, and far more the narrowing of the political debate and the distortion of political language itself. In this case, it’s the hijacking of the concept of “controversial” so as to marginalize an agent of change. And if that hijacking ends up preventing Elizabeth Warren from heading the CFPA, then, indeed, the status quo will have won.
David Sirota is the author of the best-selling books Hostile Takeover and The Uprising. He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and blogs at OpenLeft.com. E-mail him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @davidsirota.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re shoring up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy