Pelosi Wants to Prosecute Snowden But Protect Trump Whistleblower

Norman Solomon, 

Truthout

October 4, 2019

https://truthout.org/articles/pelosi-wants-to-prosecute-snowden-but-protect-trump-whistleblower/

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi was quick to condemn NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden when he revealed the U.S. government’s vast surveillance programs. “I think that he should be prosecuted,” Pelosi told reporters, just days after Snowden’s name became public in June 2013.

Later that month, speaking about Snowden at a Netroots Nation conference, Pelosi rendered a quick summary judgment: “He did violate the law in terms of releasing those documents.” Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” she reiterated that Snowden “did break the law” — and added the flagrant lie that “he’s threatening in any event to share information with Russia and China.”

Sticking to a basic script for leaders of both major parties, Pelosi has vehemently denied the systematic violations of the Fourth Amendment that Snowden exposed. Such denial is routine, while sometimes going over-the-top to blame the messenger for the accurate news. “Edward Snowden is a coward,” the Obama administration’s top diplomat, Secretary of State John Kerry, said in a TV interview one year after Snowden’s revelations. “He is a traitor. And he has betrayed his country.”

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Fast-forward to the present: House Speaker Pelosi, now the most powerful Democrat in the U.S. government, is suddenly voicing grave concern for the rights and safety of the whistleblower who filed the complaint that has led to an impeachment inquiry against President Trump. The intelligence agency insider, she declared, “must be provided with every protection guaranteed by the law to defend the integrity of our government and ensure accountability and trust.”

But leading Democrats and Republicans have shown scant interest in ensuring genuine “accountability and trust.” On many profound issues, whistleblowing is essential to fill the gap left by powerful politicians who use soothing rhetoric to fog up their dedicated service to corporate America and the military-industrial-surveillance complex.

Congressional Democrats and their Republican counterparts didn’t inform the public about a vast array of war crimes by the U.S. military in Iraq. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning did.

The bipartisan leadership in Congress didn’t inform the public about the torture procedures of the George W. Bush administration. CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou did.

Congressional leaders didn’t inform the public about the wholesale shredding of the Fourth Amendment by the Bush and Obama administrations. NSA whistleblowers Thomas Drake and Edward Snowden did.

The persecution of “national security” whistleblowers is an ongoing effort to block the flow of crucial information. The entire concept of democracy is based on the informed consent of the governed. Without whistleblowers like Manning, Kiriakou, Drake and Snowden, we’re left with the uninformed “consent” of the governed, which is not meaningful consent at all.

With few exceptions, officials running all three branches of the U.S. government are unwilling to disrupt systems of secrecy that hide what cannot withstand the light of day. Those systems protect multibillion-dollar industries profiting from huge military budgets and surveillance operations. Without unauthorized disclosures, we would know far less about the destructive effects of what’s done with our tax dollars in our names.

Routinely, with its fabrications and omissions in realms of “national security,” the official story amounts to a lie. No wonder dissembling officials in high places are so eager to intimidate would-be whistleblowers by ferreting out and punishing those who reveal classified information.

Meanwhile, tacitly authorized disclosures of classified information — self-serving stories leaked by the powerful — are routine. The methods of such leaks are among the most pernicious open secrets in Washington: hidden in plain sight, ever-present and constantly useful to the powerful. One of the few lawmakers to publicly point out the glaring contradiction was Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who wrote in a September 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton that “leaking information to the press in order to bring pressure to bear on a policy question” had become “a routine aspect of government life.”

Moynihan added: “An evenhanded prosecution of leakers could imperil an entire administration.” But even-handed prosecution is nowhere in sight. Instead, selective prosecutions — and selective expressions of outrage, based on nationalistic fervor and partisan calculations — are standard operating procedures.

At the same time, while often eager to run with information provided by brave whistleblowers, the media establishment rarely stands up for them. Commonly — as in the cases of Manning, Kiriakou and Jeffrey Sterling — journalists get prizes while whistleblowers get prison. In a relay race for truth, reporters and editors cross the finish line to accolades, while severe punishment awaits the whistleblowers who handed them the baton.

Hypocrisy and double standards, of course, are nothing new in the nation’s capital or from corporate media outlets. But the current deluge of mainstream reverence for “national security” whistleblowing shouldn’t be taken at face value.

To a significant extent, similar problems exist among self-described liberal and progressive groups that are now so enthusiastic about the whistleblower who has exposed Trump’s indefensible efforts to manipulate the Ukrainian government for his political advantage. Organizations should look at themselves in the mirror and assess whether they’ve imitated the expedient double standards of the Democratic Party’s approach to whistleblowers.

When the largest online progressive group in the country, MoveOn.org, suddenly becomes a champion of a whistleblower who has exposed Trump — after refusing to support courageous whistleblowers like Manning, Snowden, Kiriakou, Drake, Sterling and others who were persecuted by the Obama administration — the corrosive effects of mimicking the Democratic leadership should be apparent.

None of this changes the reality that the Trump regime must be completely opposed and removed from power. Nor should we fall into conflating the two major parties across the board, when it’s clear that on numerous crucial issues — such as those often determined by Supreme Court decisions — the stark differences have huge consequences.

But Democratic Party leaders as champions of whistleblowers? The idea is a ridiculous fraud.

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Who Would FDR Endorse?

Conor Lynch

OCT 01, 2019

OPINION

TD ORIGINALS

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/who-would-fdr-endorse/

During her speech at Washington Square Park in New York last week, which drew a massive crowd of both supporters and curious bystanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren evoked the legacy of Frances Perkins, the longest-serving secretary of labor and first female member of the presidential Cabinet.

The Warren campaign’s decision to stage a speech at the famous park in lower Manhattan was inspired partly by the fact that it is a block away from the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory, where 146 garment workers—most of them young immigrant women—died in a fire in 1911. The disaster, as Warren told her audience, prompted major reforms, which Perkins was instrumental in pushing. As the presidential candidate put it in her speech, “With Frances working the system from the inside, the women workers organizing and applying pressure from the outside, they rewrote New York state’s labor laws from top to bottom to protect workers.”

Twenty years later, Franklin D. Roosevelt selected Perkins as his labor secretary (a position she would hold during his entire presidency), and the administration passed everything from Social Security and unemployment insurance to minimum wage and the Wagner Act, which guaranteed labor’s right to organize. One “very persistent woman,” Warren declared, “backed up by millions of people across [the] country,” achieved major structural reforms that had a transformative effect on the country.

Warren isn’t the first 2020 Democratic candidate to give a major speech on the legacy of the New Deal. In June, in his widely discussed speech on democratic socialism, Sen. Bernie Sanders repeatedly invoked FDR and his “bold and visionary leadership” as an example for what we need today.

Though some commentators (including me) questioned the Vermont senator’s decision to make FDR and New Deal liberalism the focal point of a speech about democratic socialism, which presumably goes beyond Roosevelt’s brand of social democracy (a program designed to preserve and stabilize American capitalism, not replace it), from a strategic standpoint, it makes perfect sense to employ Roosevelt as a model for the kind of leadership needed in the 21st century.

Roosevelt, along with members of his administration like Perkins, fought for transformative change that was, in Sanders’ words, “opposed by big business, Wall Street, the political establishment, by the Republican Party and by the conservative wing of FDR’s own Democratic Party.” At the time, Roosevelt was called everything from a fascist to a communist, and he had to deal with smears from members of his own party, such as 1928 Democratic presidential candidate Al Smith, who founded a group called the Liberty League to oppose the New Deal. At a 1936 Liberty League rally, Smith gave a then-27-year-old Joseph McCarthy a template for his future tactics, painting Roosevelt as a Bolshevik in disguise: “There can be only one capital, Washington or Moscow. There can be only … the clear, pure fresh air of free America, or the foul breath of communistic Russia. There can be only one flag, the Stars and Stripes, or the flag of the godless union of the Soviets.”

Roosevelt and his administration didn’t just face ad hominem political attacks, but institutional barriers that threatened to make real structural reform impossible. With a conservative majority, the Supreme Court ruled numerous New Deal policies unconstitutional, and stood in the way of any kind of economic reform. At one point, historian Jeff Shesol tell us in his 2010 book, “Supreme Power: Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court,” FDR thought that the court would “nullify virtually everything of significance that the administration had done.” This thought didn’t lead Roosevelt to despair, however, as he believed that after the “nine old men” overruled his popular reforms, it wouldn’t be long before “the nation’s streets were filled with marching farmers, marching miners, and marching factory workers.” In other words, Roosevelt was prepared for a fight, and counted on popular support against the so-called “economic royalists.” There would always be those who cried “unconstitutional” at “every effort to better the condition of our people,” Roosevelt observed in 1937. “Such cries have always been with us; and, ultimately, they have always been overruled.”

Roosevelt’s struggle with the Supreme Court culminated with his plan to add more justices to the court, which ultimately failed, but not before the court—Justice Owen Roberts in particular—shifted its tune on New Deal legislation.

Both Warren and Sanders have invoked Roosevelt and the New Deal not just because of policies, but because of the aggressive style of politics that Roosevelt and his team employed to achieve such transformative change. Roosevelt wasn’t afraid of being denounced as a communist or a dictator by right-wing detractors, and he eagerly embraced conflict with the wealthy business leaders who funded such groups as the Liberty League. Roosevelt used the bully pulpit to push his progressive agenda and famously welcomed the hatred of his opponents, who stood against economic and political reform widely supported by the American people—just as many progressive reforms are today.

One of the most frequent criticisms leveled at progressive candidates, often from centrists who claim to sympathize with their agenda, is that their plans are unrealistic and will never make it past Congress, let alone the Supreme Court. Reporting on Warren’s speech at Washington Square Park, The Atlantic’s Russell Berman observed that while Warren’s policy plans are “detailed and specific, her strategy for achieving them is less so.” Like Sanders, Warren calls for a sustained grassroots movement to pressure Washington, but, according to Berman, “that was also Obama’s plea, and while the former president was able to enact the Affordable Care Act, Wall Street reforms, and a large economic-stimulus package early in his tenure, his entreaties for outside help did not succeed in pressuring Republicans to support his plans.”

This is the conventional wisdom one often hears today about the Obama years, and while it is certainly true that President Obama faced unprecedented Republican obstructionism, it is simply false to claim that the 44th president fought aggressively for a progressive agenda and did everything he could to push for radical change. Even before he entered office, Obama had settled on a “pragmatic” response to the financial crisis, hiring centrists and neoliberal ideologues like Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers and Rahm Emanuel, while desperately working to achieve a “post-partisan” consensus (which was far more naive than the progressive approach toward movement-building).

One notable example of the Obama administration’s timid response was its failure to push for legislation that would have allowed judges to modify the terms of home mortgages, colloquially known as “cram down.” As David Dayen reported in 2015, it was within Obama’s power to prevent millions of people from losing their homes (just as it was within the administration’s power to criminally prosecute bank executives for their fraudulent behavior). “The administration’s eventual program, HAMP, grew out of the banking industry’s preferred alternative to [cram down], one where the industry, rather than bankruptcy judges, would control loan restructuring,” Dayen writes. “Unfortunately, the program has been a success for bankers and a failure for most hard-pressed homeowners.”

The idea that Obama was once a populist, and that a Warren or Sanders administration would end up just like the Obama administration did, is simply wrong. The two leading progressive candidates have already expressed a willingness to adopt the Rooseveltian style of politics that Obama was never willing to adopt, and the 44th president never favored the structural changes that the former do. “I am prepared to go to every state in this union and rally the American people around [a progressive] agenda to put pressure on their representatives, whether they are Democratic or Republican,” Sanders recently remarked in an interview, saying that he would also support primary challenges to Democrats who are not supportive of progressive policies like “Medicare for All.” This is an aggressive strategy in the tradition of Roosevelt, and it is the only strategy that could potentially lead to his progressive agenda becoming a reality in the future.

It is completely legitimate to ask how progressives would pass major legislation without a supermajority in Congress, and the fact is that Roosevelt had much more favorable circumstances in 1933 than any Democratic president is likely to have in the foreseeable future. There are certain measures that could give Democratic presidents some wiggle room. Warren has advocated eliminating the filibuster, for example, while Sanders has, curiously, rejected this approach, favoring the complicated budget reconciliation process instead.

None of this will matter, however, if progressive Democrats don’t manage to create a wave of popular enthusiasm for their agenda. It is important for progressive leaders to be honest and forthright about this to their supporters. None of their proposals stands a chance without a popular movement that goes well beyond the election cycle. Roosevelt understood the power of popular will; perhaps it is time for Democrats to refresh their memory.

Sara Nelson Is the Face of America's Resurgent Labor Movement

Natasha Hakimi Zapata

OCT 04, 2019

OPINION

TD ORIGINALS

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/sara-nelson-is-the-face-of-americas-resurgent-labor-movement/

During the chaos that transpired from Dec. 22, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019, in the most recent government shutdown, two speeches by a woman named Sara Nelson, our Truthdigger of the Month, spread like wildfire across the internet.

On Jan. 20, as she accepted the 2019 MLK Drum Major for Justice Award from the AFL-CIO, Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-Communications Workers of America (AFA-CWA), called for a general strike and questioned why the labor movement was missing in action during this crucial time for 800,000 federal workers.

“Almost a million workers are locked out or being forced to work without pay. Others are going to work when our workspace is increasingly unsafe,” Nelson said. “What is the Labor Movement waiting for?”

“Federal sector unions have their hands full caring for the 800,000 federal workers who are at the tip of the spear,” she went on. “Some would say the answer is for them to walk off the job. I say, what are you willing to do? Their destiny is tied up with our destiny—and they don’t even have time to ask us for help. Don’t wait for an invitation. … Go back with the fierce urgency of now to talk with your local and international unions about all workers joining together—to end this shutdown with a general strike.

“We can do this. Together. Si se puede. Every gender, race, culture, and creed. The American labor movement. We have the power. And to all Americans—We’ve got your back!”

Days later, speaking to another crowd in front of the Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Va., Nelson passionately highlighted the security dangers flight attendants—and anyone on a plane—during this period were facing while federal workers, including air traffic controllers, worked without pay.

NowThis

✔@nowthisnews

Lives are at risk because of the gov’t shutdown, and these airline workers want Trump to take that seriously

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“Many of these people are our veterans,” she said in her Jan. 24 speech. “Many of these people are fighting for our country right now, and we are not paying them.” When several air traffic controllers chose to abstain from unpaid work the next day, forcing flights to stay grounded in several busy airports, suddenly the Trump administration had an added incentive to reopen government as fast as humanly possible, proving the power workers have always held.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders reportedly credited Nelson with helping shut down the shutdown, telling her, “Between you and me, that’s what ended the shutdown. … When planes looked like they weren’t taking off.” But he wasn’t the only one who saw the role the rising labor movement star had played in those crucial days.

Nelson started organizing and intimidating corporate bosses not unlike President Trump long before she made national headlines during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. A United Airlines flight attendant since 1996, Nelson became the head of the AFA-CWA in 2014 after holding several positions at the union, including vice president. Her activism began almost as soon as she started working at United, and has continued throughout her tenure there as she’s helped negotiate better terms for pensions, among other labor improvements, not just for her fellow United flight attendants, but for the 50,000 members of the AFA-CWA who work at 20 airlines.

Now, Nelson has been tapped for the head job of the American labor movement, president of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), despite the fact the current president, Richard Trumka, still has a couple of years left in his term. The flight attendant turned union president and fervent activist is a far cry from the American labor leaders we’ve seen in the past few decades, and that’s precisely why so many people, including her, want her to lead labor in the upcoming years. Already, she’s been called “the most powerful labor leader in the country.”

Not only does Nelson have the passion and presence sorely lacking in other labor leaders—who, for instance, can remember a single speech by Trumka?—she’s willing to fight at the frontlines—not just for workers in her unions, but for all American workers—on a number of crucial issues.

The AFA-CWA president has testified before Congress about the sexual harassment still rampant in her industry, and has also thrown her support behind activism across the nation, including teachers’ strikes in California, Wyoming and West Virginia, General Motors workers protesting stagnant wages, and, most recently, the global climate strike inspired by Swedish youth activist Greta Thunberg.

Nelson is also an outspoken proponent of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal, stating her support stems from the proposal’s focus on the need to address both the very real climate crisis before us, along with better labor conditions and the creation of jobs.

When 2020 Democratic front-runners Biden and Sanders debated the Vermont senator’s Medicare for All bill, with Biden saying Sanders’ policy would fly in the face of union accomplishments, Nelson was clear where she stood:

Sara Nelson

✔@FlyingWithSara

A note to anyone who wants to use union members as a wedge to oppose #MedicareForAll: @UAW has one of the best plans in the country, but management can still use it to hold workers hostage. #M4A puts power back in our hands. #1u https://twitter.com/vyurkevich/status/1174036332320088065 …

Vanessa Yurkevich

✔@vyurkevich

NEW: GM is cutting off striking workers' health care coverage effective today. The UAW will now pick up the bill for their members' continued healthcare through COBRA. This development shows just how costly this strike will be to both sides.

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Nelson faces an uphill battle toward the leadership position she seems to have been born to take on. Since its formation after a merger in 1955, the AFL-CIO, which boasts 12.5 million members and is made up of 55 unions, has never had a woman in the top office. The labor leader is also facing stiff competition from the AFL-CIO’s secretary treasurer, Liz Shuler, who’s also likely to run.

But adversity is something Nelson is familiar with. As a woman, she has been consistently underestimated and discriminated against, even harassed, by men in any number of work situations. As she fights for women’s rights and workers’ rights, the Oregon native will not be cowed, no matter the challenge. Her rising profile is evidence of this, if nothing else.

The AFA-CWA president’s main inspiration for possibly running came after Trump was elected after running a campaign that fed off blue-collar workers’ discontent.

“Trump took up so much of the airwaves because he was off-script,” Nelson said. Unions, stuck in a defensive crouch, barely participated in the conversation. “If we had someone who could bring a different vision of what a union leader is,” she said, “it could have been a moment that was really powerful.”

Nelson, by all accounts, embodies that “different vision,” and with signs that the American labor movement is on the rise, there is no one better to take the lead than this strong, passionate woman who is a great speaker, has earned her progressive chops as a worker, activist and union leader, and understands the vital truth about the U.S. economy: Workers have all the power, as long as they have each other’s backs.

Since we just celebrated Labor Day in September, we have decided to make Sara Nelson our Truthdigger of the Month—for all she has done and will do for American workers.

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