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TechnoratiThe AT&T Convention in Denver
This blogger has obtained an image of the very handsome welcome bag that every delegate and member of the media will receive upon arrival at the Democratic National Convention next month in Denver. Here is one side (in my view, the prettier side) of the bag:
He has the other side here, and notes that there's "no word on what will be in the bags yet." If AT&T's parents taught it any manners at all, that bag will runneth over with all sorts of fine items, as AT&T has much to be grateful for, both to the Party whose convention it is generously sponsoring and to the media stars who will be attending. How far are we away from both parties selling naming rights to the companies on whose behalf they so assiduously labor?
What's most striking about the Convention bag -- aside, of course, from its stunning design -- is how the parties no longer bother even trying to hide who it is who funds and sponsors them. But -- an earnest citizen might object -- just because AT&T is helping to pay for the Democrats' convention and having its logo plastered all over it the way a ranch owner brands his cattle doesn't mean that they will receive any special consideration when it comes time for Congress to debate and pass our nation's laws.
With regard to the important question, let's hear from financier and lobbyist Steve Farber, the Chief Fundraiser for the Democratic National Convention:
Mr. Farber's vast contact list could prove crucial in raising the millions of dollars needed by the Denver host committee to showcase Senator Barack Obama and the Democratic Party in August in Denver. But Mr. Farber's activities are a public display of how corporate connections fuel politics -- exactly the type of special influence that Mr. Obama had pledged to expunge from politics when he said he would not accept donations from lobbyists. . . .
Yet, as Mr. Farber hops on planes, hosts breakfasts and pulls out the stops, he at least can draw on the resources of his law firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, one of the fastest-growing lobbying shops in Washington and one of the most powerful firms in the West, thanks to some recent strategic mergers that have only fattened his roster of blue-chip corporate clients.
"Steve Farber is involved with a lot of high-level candidates and ones who have won," said Floyd Ciruli, head of Ciruli Associates, a Denver political consulting firm. "He's famous for hiring ex-politicians, their children and ex-judges. He's very good at making connections with people who have access to politicians" . . . .
As a result of Mr. Farber's efforts, dozens of organizations have signed up as corporate sponsors of the Denver convention, including six that are lobbying clients of his firm: UnitedHealth Group, AT&T, Comcast, the National Association of Home Builders, Western Union and Google. In return for these donations, which can go up to $1 million or more, sponsors are promised prominent display space for corporate marketing and access to elected officials and Democratic leaders at a large number of parties and receptions.
Mr. Farber is now going through his client list -- and also approaching nonclients -- in his search for cash. Conventions are one of the last remaining ways for corporations to put big money into politics, since they are banned from giving directly to candidates and parties.
Even more, corporations can give unlimited amounts of money to host committees, in contrast to individuals who are restricted in the size of their political donations. Corporations can also take a tax deduction on their donations to the host committee, but individuals are barred from deducting political contributions.
"Farber has a dual role," said Steve Weissman, a policy analyst at the Campaign Finance Institute who has studied convention finances. "He is a businessman and a community activist, and yet he is connected to a law firm that is one of the biggest in Washington. When any of Steve Farber's clients have a problem, federal elected officials will feel obligated to listen to him if he approaches them later on federal policy interests."
Although he is a Democrat, Mr. Farber's firm draws political talent from both sides of the aisle. Its lobbyists include Jim Nicholson, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee; former Senator Hank Brown, Republican of Colorado; and Judy Black, wife of Charlie Black, Senator John McCain's chief adviser, and a major bundler of donations for Mr. McCain.
But then there's this: "In raising money for the convention, Mr. Farber said he was not selling access to the many politicians attending the event, but promoting regional pride and the chance to participate in a historical event." Everyone can decide for themselves which scenario they find more plausible.
None of this is new, of course. And it should be emphasized that the McCain campaign is shamelessly drowning in lobbyist influence, while the Obama campaign -- to its credit -- has been applying its ban on associating with lobbyists so meticulously that it actually disinvited Obama loyalist Max Cleland from an Obama fundraising event last week merely because Cleland is a registered lobbyist for a company that designs products for soldiers recovering from war injuries. As symbolic and hedged as it might be, Obama's policy -- along with Obama's pledge to ban any lobbyists from working in the Obama White House -- is at least a very mild step towards acknowledging how tawdry all of this is.
* * * * *
In fairness, it's important to note that some telecoms are more modest than AT&T and aren't always eager to have their logo plastered all over the place. For instance, Comcast -- another client of Farber's lobbying firm that is a DNC sponsor -- refused last month to accept the television ads which the Blue America PAC submitted to run on Comcast stations in Rep. Chris Carney's Pennsylvania district criticizing Carney's support for telecom amnesty. When rejecting it, Comcast demanded that a whole slew of changes be made to the ad.
Once all those changes were made and the ad was re-submitted, Comcast again rejected the ad, but indicated that they would accept the ad on the condition that one last change was made: namely, they demanded that the Comcast logo be removed from the screen shot in the ad which showed the logos of the telecoms which (a) contributed to Carney's campaign and (b) benefited from the amnesty Carney then supported as a result of having the telecom lawsuits against them dismissed. Thus, the ad originally contained the following screen shot accompanying this narrated line: "[Carney] even wants to give amnesty to phone companies accused of breaking the law -- and which gave thousands to his campaign":
Comcast had, indeed, given close to $20,000 to Carney and had been a defendant in some of the lawsuits to be dismissed under the telecom amnesty which Carney vocally supported. Nonetheless, once the Comcast logo was removed from that shot, Comcast accepted the ad and has been running it on its cable stations ever since. So it's important to acknowledge that not every mammoth corporation is as eager as AT&T is to splash its logo all over our political debates. Some, like Comcast, are much more humble.
Glenn Greenwald was previously a constitutional law and civil rights litigator in New York. He is the author of the New York Times Bestselling book "How Would a Patriot Act?," a critique of the Bush administration's use of executive power, released in May 2006. His second book, "A Tragic Legacy", examines the Bush legacy.
© Salon.com
33 Comments so far
Show AllMikeBinSC:
I have no problem elucidating my internal anquish for the state of this country for fools such as you who believe such a demonstration is akin to the repressed person inside you.
Yet I understand that need for a perceived intellectual superiority fostered by a sexually frustrated mother and a father of dubious masculinity.
The best Democratic Party that money can buy!!!! At least now it is very much out in the open.
Samson:
I agree that some kind of unity campaign must be forged. I contributed both to the Ron Paul, Green, and Kucinich campaigns. I am not sure how to get these third party strands working together, to transcend their differences. Paul's idea to cede "hot button" issues like abortion to the states, rather than taking a federal stand, seems like a good compromise. Can the Greens accept the smaller government that the folks who want to dismantle the Federal Reserve (great idea) and reduce taxation wish to do? At this moment, big government (eg., Homeland Security, the military industrial media complex) is the wrong direction to take, as our rights are being swallowed up in its move toward full blown fascism.
You have a very informative and progressive blog.
Peace
the "in your facenesss" of this whole enterprise would be unseemly in a third world banana republic - which, apparently, the us is soon to be - if it is not already so - i think of new orleans..........
the facade of the vote in the united states has become a parody of lucy holding the ball for charlie brown to kick - and every year he is surprised when she pulls the ball back, like it is the first time.
no health care, no worker's rights, no environmental protection, etc - all spun by the corporations who pay the lap dogs in congress to deny the american people social rights that every other developed nation thinks of as basic.
like how dumb do you have to be?
the empire is rotten
the empire is rotten
They've probably already got cute little swizzle sticks in the shape of little cruise missiles. The perfect thing for a gathering of the 'cruise missile left'.
dcb is dead right.
We need one unity candidate. Heck, I think we need to unify the Greens and the Libertarians into one unified 'opposition' campaign. If we ever want to get serious in a 'winner-take-all' system, we've got to have an election where there's one 'opposition' candidate against two candidates splitting the corporate-suck-up vote. And to me it makes much better sense to build a party and get ballot access and matching funds than to run as an independent. ( or the really, really stupid idea of writing in 'Kucinich'). So, as much as I like Ralph, and I've worked and voted for him in the past, dcb is right on this one.
'movement building' is great. There's absolutely no reason why that's something different from a campaign. But there's a limit to how far it can go when you continually elect officials that oppose it. Someday we've got to get serious about winning elections. And if not 'winning' elections, the about seriously working to defeat Democrats. This is a course towards establishing real political power. And if we did that, the just maybe the Democrats might start to take us seriously and start to offer us some of what we want.
Ah, the best 'democracy' money can buy!
Is anyone surprised when in exchange for these millions of dollars the Democrats do whatever the dealers of this money fix ask? After all, the Democrats always need another fix, later in this campaign, or certainly in the next.
Is it any surprise that this leads to headlines like 'Democrats cave on ....'? Is it any surprise that when what the majority of Americans want is sacrificed by the Democrats so they can go get their next money fix?
Actually, from where I sit, the whole 'telecom immunity' saga smells a lot like a shakedown by the Democrats. The leadership knew all along that they were going to pass the bill Bush wanted. So, they let a couple of Democrats have a time denouncing the bill and making threats that the telecoms wouldn't get this. Meanwhile, the moneymen and the leadership talked with the telecoms and said 'if you would contribute a bit more, we can make sure this doesn't pass'.
The key point to take away from all of this is that the Democrats do what the money wants them to do. They won't ever do what the American people want if it conflicts with what the money wants. This is what you get when you continually vote for candidates that have sold out to corporate America.
There's an easy way to fix this. Never, ever vote for the candidates you see frequently on corporate TV. Those are always the corporate whores. The candidate you want to vote for is the one you almost never see on corporate TV, or that is always being slammed, smeared and ridiculed by corporate TV.
The candidate that the corporations hate and that they'll do anything to keep from winning ... that's the one you want in office.
Overkill: your offensive substitution of "Jews" for "I.D.F." does not win friends.
dcb: isn't there an easier way to resolve the cognitive dissonance you are experiencing than to attack old Ralph? Have you considered the possibility that the electoral process is a diversion from the important work of movement building and direct non-violent action?
So this was the candy the telco's dangled in front of the grasping little dem children? Vote for immunity, and we'll fund your little convention in Denver? The same spying that bushCON was doing on the Dems so they could build their blackmail case file?
Vote for us, we're change YOU CAN BELIEVE IN !!! say the dems
And don't forget, have a very pleasant day ....''''....
Betrayal, distrust, disgust, whatever words you want to use, they don't begin to describe how I feel.
RT DRURY: It's not far off.
Methinks DogLeg is an unhappy camper! A little frustrated perhaps.
At least a dozen seats for AT&T in the US House of Representatives. Why not? God Bless the United States of America!
The Democrats co-operated with Bush and gave the big telecoms immunity for the Bush spy job, so would not one expect some payback to be given? Relax, people, that is the way the world has always worked and will continue to do so, in spite of some of the rosy rhetoric we are hearing.
I thought Greenwald would bring up Obama' FISA vote, which lets AT&T off the hook for violating the Fourth Amendment rights of U.S. citizens.
The bag is like insult upon injury.
Instead of candidate names on election ballots, we should just have the corporate logos on the ballot.
The sad part is that we just may find the same logos for all the candidates.
Wake up America!
...and just when you thought this political system could reach no lower, you find more putrid, disgustingly dehumanized, irradiated vomit to further the dismantling of all rational thought. This country, these false politicians that have the moral turpitude of a creature straight out of a zombie movie are no longer on the horizon of my life.
I am 61 years old, I am a fucking Vietnam veteran, I have an advanced degree and have raised 3 children that will never serve these bastards and their wars against Americans, let alone the rest of the world.
Obama will rot in hell like the rest of them.
Fuck you, Amerika. The world is waiting to call in it's markers, just like what happened to Germany in WWII.
And they will be bombing American cities you fucking fools.
TupeloGreens:
Talk is great, but not enough. To truly break out of the 2-party duopoly Ralph crows about, he needs to bring his intelligence and base of followers to support the Greens 100%. Why? So that the Greens can break the 5% threshold (or whatever it is that they need) in order to qualify for ballot status and public funding in federal elections. Why is Ralph fooling with the mirage of a 4th party when we don't even have a real 2nd let alone 3rd party in the US? IMO he's an elite tool meant to divide the left.
For more info check out http://prisonplanet.tv/alex_jones_live.html
it's time to walk the walk. talking isnt enough. Be in denver for the convention.
Let our elected officials hear you roar from the the wired "free speech zone"
we're allowed to be in. May our numbers burst their un-constitutional fences
and walls.
Vote McKinney-Clemente. 5% for the Green Party will do more for America than a solid win by Obama. Why? Because then we'll have a real opposition party instead of Republican Lite.
By the way, here is part of Nader's statement on the McKinney nomination:
"I want to congratulate Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente on winning the Green Party nomination for the Presidency of the United States. I wish them well and hope they go into all 50 states and spread the message of the Green Agenda. The country needs a diversity of voices that are unrelentingly progressive, forthright, candid, and documented in good sound civic values and the well being of all the people.
"Third party candidates usually are more forthright and they highlight social justice issues that are regularly ignored or contravened by the two major parties. As history shows from the anti-slavery Liberty Party of the 1840's to the women's suffrage and farmer and labor parties up to the early 20th century, eventually the big ideas of these little parties break through.
"Although the Nader/Gonzalez and Green Party platforms have many similarities, we are not competing for votes, but instead we are allies joined in a common struggle to tap the huge and growing numbers of millions of unsatisfied voters who want to vote for something better than the lesser of two-evils. The more progressive voices and choices, the more widespread will be the definition of freedom as participation in power.
"In Cynthia McKinney, the Greens have an energetic and courageous candidate unafraid to challenge America to be better for the millions who are marginalized, overcharged, underpaid and ignored by the two-party duopoly. Her vim and vigor offers the Green Party an excellent chance to break through in 2008 and provides voters one more viable alternative to the DemReps. I wish her and Ms. Clemente good luck.
"http://www.votenader.org/media/2008/07/15/McKinney/
John M. Wages, Jr.
US House Candidate, MS-01
www.VoteJohnWages.com
Note to all DNC attendees - refuse to accept the ATT graft bag and, of course, any and all other graft offered during your Denver visit.
Or is even that too much "sacrifice" to ask?
Maybe there's a progressive org out there willing to produce and offer an alternative bag that features the Constitution on one side and the Bill of Rights on the other? And, inside, how about, say, a copy of the Kucinich Articles of Impeachment, a DVD demo of water-torture, and a refrigerator magnet that says: "Bush is illegally wiretapping your phones and email, too."
I want one! My son collects coca cola stuff. His whole house is decorated with coca cola. He could put reading material for the bathroom in this bag.
This gives a whole new meaning to the old phone slogan,"reach out and touch someone", from both ends of the equation.
One way for We the People to beat corporations is to become a bigger one by incorporating ourselves with equal shares of non-transferable stock in our public treasure and to receive dividends from our stock.
Support a progressive Independent for Congress.
For peace, social and economic justice and human rights:
www.carolmillercongress.com
formernadervoter: "Democrat=corporate party=no real change in any major policy now affecting Americans. Vote Nader."
Nader would at best be a cabinet appointment, maybe for a new department of consumer affairs (that he almost got through Congress in the 70s). His campaign manager is a bonesman, as are Kerry, W, and other minions of the new world order. Nader IS NOT a movement builder. He should get behind McKinney. There is no need for a Nader voice outside the Green Party. I question who his masters truly are at this point.
to Juliann:
I was in a wealthy neighborhood in Southern California recently, and walked around a little league complex with about 7 baseball fields. It was quite an amazing set up: clean, perfect grass fields, and with all the amenities.. Every field was adorned with dozens of large signs bolted to the fences 10-15 feet above the ground near dug outs, bleachers, and the outfield. It was more distracting than moving banners on the web, or running ad text on a tv broadcast. Just way too commercial for something so pure as baseball for 7 year olds. Oh and there was a big cell tower right at the center of all the fields. Nice to give autism, alzheimers, and other cognitive degenerative disorders a boost with that. Gotta start young.
And look at all the public transportation these days, with busses for example being plastered with oversized ads every square inch of their surface. I look at this and see the soul of America dropping out.
I lived in Hawaii for a while. They have a law that there are to be no outdoor billboards. Something about advertising impeding our ability to appreciate the natural environment -- (the selling of "nature" being a bigger ticket item in the islands).
Was it not Raytheon's Bunker Busterâ„¢ that the Jews used so effectively on Lebanese Civilian Families hiding in their Bomb Shelters?
This continuing marketing of everything in America - using brand names - is heartbreaking. When I heard they renamed Mile High Stadium in Denver to Invesco Field - I closed the book on my remaining vestiges of the front range where I once lived for more than 20 years. Here in Ohio Jacobs Field was renamed to Progressive (Insurance) field. What's left? Children's foreheads are still available to be used as billboards. Maybe that's on the plate.
Sad sad sad.
I understand that Raytheon, Lockheed, and National Forge were pretty disappointed that their snazzy "Bunker Busterâ„¢" logo lost out to AT&T.
But they had to admit that the FISA deal gave AT&T an obvious advantage.
And they're still working on the rights to supply the convention with Bunker Busterâ„¢ swizzle sticks, so it won't be a total loss.
AT&T sponsored the 2008 Live Web of Obama's speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP). You had to download Microsoft's "silverware" software (.exe) to watch the show.
Martin Luther King is spinning in his grave.
Democrat=corporate party=no real change in any major policy now affecting Americans.
Vote Nader.
VOTE THIRD PARTY
F-THE DEMOCRATS---BETRAYERS!!!
I'm genetically hyperbolic, and this one leaves me spechless. No room in scull left for eyeballs to roll back
This should remind EVERY VOTER of their elected officials' betrayal of their privacy rights with the Neo-FISA Act.
They get the Bag and we get the Boot!