From Danny Haiphong, Blackagendareport.com, December 8, 2018: (Creative Commons)
“The eBay billionaire’s project is to stabilize an imperial system in crisis by luring “progressives” into corporate dominated “Big Tent” against Trump.
“Omidyar actively creates infrastructure for leftists and progressives to be bamboozled into supporting the machinations of imperialism.”
“One of the most disturbing trends in the era of Trump has been the flock of billionaires that have come rushing into the Democratic Party to pose as leaders of an opposition movement to the “fascist” predations of the real estate mogul. These billionaires, which include capitalists such as George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Tom Steyer are the architects of a “Big Tent” strategy first outlined by Black Agenda Report Editor Glen Ford. This strategy was devised by the Hillary Clinton Presidential campaign of 2016. The strategy has two components. The first component is the promotion of “diversity” to distract from the fact that the Democratic Party can no longer appeal to the interests of the poor or working-class, especially Black people who have been held in electoral captivity for a generation. Second, “Big Tent” Democrats actively seek an alliance of Wall Street, the military and intelligence apparatus, and Republicans to provide the financial and political strength behind the strategy.
“’Big Tent’ Democrats actively seek an alliance of Wall Street, the military and intelligence apparatus, and Republicans.”
The “Big Tent” strategy is called the “Resistance.” One of the chief billionaire-backers of the “Resistance” is Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar is the founder of the eBay corporation. His surplus profits have been used over the years to exert “soft power” influence over the U.S. state. Omidyar has given hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of cash to Democratic Party candidates since 1999.
Omidyar was one of the principle donors to the NeverTrump Political Action Committee (PAC) that formed during the 2016 election. The NeverTrump PAC brought together neoliberal and neoconservative Democrats into an alliance against Trump. William Kristol, editor in chief at the Weekly Standard and longtime Republican, has been one of the most vocal supports of the NeverTrump movement. Kristol is an expert in the think-tank business and understands the importance of “soft power.” He helped found the Project for the New American Century that peddled neocon wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as an escalation of the U.S.’ military presence around the world, including on Russia’s doorstep. Kristol has become a favorite of the corporate media since Trump was elected in 2016. He is a regular on MSNBC and is viewed by corporate Democrats as the “sane” wing of the Republican Party.
“The ‘Big Tent’ strategy is a marked political shift to the right.”
That Omidyar would align with Kristol is a stark indication of the “Big Tent” strategy at work. In a post on Twitter after the midterm elections came to pass, Kristol celebrated the support that he has received from “the left” and its benefactors such as Pierre Omidyar. Kristol’s excitement about billionaire support from all sides of the political aisle represents a development in the Trump era that is far more dangerous than Trump himself. The “Big Tent” strategy is a marked political shift to the right. Not only this, but the shift is part and parcel of a covert war against the real “left” that is principally being waged by the fake “left” coalition of thieves and warmongers in the Democratic Party.
The critical question that must be asked is whether there are any benefits for ordinary poor and working-class people in supporting the NeverTrump coalition or billionaire backers such as Omidyar. And the answer is more complex than a simple “no.” It is far worse than that. Omidyar is not a “lesser-evil” billionaire. In the system of U.S. imperialism, those don’t exist.
By supporting Omidyar and his version of the “Resistance,” most of humanity stands to lose. Omidyar’s “soft power” network has only one mission and that is to stabilize an empire in crisis. One of the ways that Omidyar has attempted to stabilize the imperialist system is through investments in journalism.Omidyar is the principle owner of First Look Media, the parent corporation of The Intercept. While The Intercept has covered important issues in the past, it has been charged with privatizing Edward Snowden’s leaks and promoting regime change efforts in Syria through direct attacks on the democratically-elected government of Bashar Al-Assad. [also by Haiphong’
“The billionaire’s influence is representative of conflict within the ruling class.”
Furthermore, The Intercept possesses a troubling record of outing the identities of those leaking secret government information. In a word, Omidyar has used his influence over The Intercept to stifle dissent while promoting the outlet as a pioneer of “independent” media.
Omidyar is most concerned, however, with ensuring that the US empire maintains corporate and military control over the world’s nations and peoples. He has donated millions to the Clinton Global Initiative responsible for imposing ruthless austerity measures on nations such as Haiti. There is also documented evidence that Omidyar used his philanthropic network to support the “Maidan Revolution” in Ukraine in 2014 which propelled neo-Nazis into state power, much to the pleasure of the IMF. The billionaire eBay mogul has also been a critical supporter of the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. USAID is well-known for its support of “soft power” tactics to promote regime change in nations that do not bow down to U.S. military and corporate power such as Cuba.
Omidyar is not just dangerous at the individual level. Rather, the billionaire’s influence over the U.S. power structure is representative of conflict within the ruling class of the imperialist system headed by the United States. On the other side of Omidyar stands Trump, a ruthless billionaire who holds no allegiance to any sector of the imperialist system. Trump is not loyal to the banks or the military and intelligence apparatus. Trump is loyal to himself. His moves as President thus far such as the tax breaks for the rich, his willingness to broker peace in Korea, or his racist dog whistles and policies toward immigration from Central America, are all representative of the sharpening decline of imperialism.
“In this period of crisis in the political apparatus of imperialism, party lines are becoming blurred.”
Omidyar wants to save the imperialist system from decline. The section of the billionaire class from which Omidyar belongs is interested only in engendering endless war and austerity under conditions of social peace. The likes of Omidyar pose as the “Resistance” to Trump but really represent a threat of potentially greater proportions. Omidyar actively creates infrastructure for leftists and progressives to be bamboozled into supporting the machinations of imperialism.It is no secret that the section of the Republican Party that supports Trump also wields “soft power” through outfits such as the Federalist Society. However, in this period of crisis in the political apparatus of imperialism, party lines are becoming blurred. The “Big Tent” strategy reigns and billionaires such as Omidyar will do anything to ensure that the deadly alliance re-assumes full control of the system from Trump.
In conclusion, a dialectical relationship exists between Omidyar and Trump. It was Omidyar’s section of the ruling class that created the economic and political conditions for Trump. For over thirty years, billionaires such as Omidyar, Steyer, and Buffet have bled workers and poor people dry. Wages and wealth have plummeted for the majority while profits and land holdings have soared for the minority. The only thing that workers and poor people can count on is that the military, police, and surveillance apparatus will grow as people become more desperate and impoverished. Omidyar and the Democratic Party-aligned billionaires have coalesced with as many repressive forces in the ruling class as possible to wage a struggle against Trump. In doing so, they avoid the very real crisis of legitimacy that elected Donald Trump in the first place.
We should steer clear of supporting Omidyar and expose his putrid political record as proof that there is no such thing as a “progressive” billionaire. Real progressives and radicals stand for universal healthcare, peace, jobs, and against war, mass incarceration, and mass surveillance. These are the political issues of our time that the entire ruling class stands against. Trump knew this and politically appealed to anti-regime change and anti-free trade sentiment within the Republican and Democratic Party. Through their “resistance” toward Trump, Omidyar and his ilk have as their real goal the suppression of this sentiment so that it never becomes a truly progressive movement for social transformation in this country.”
Note: Haiphong’s links are often to Pando Press, not all the Intercept exposés here are some recent ones: from b at Moon of Alabama here and here, and Whitney Webb’s ‘Omidyar’s Intercept Teams Up with War-Propaganda Firm Bellingcat’, Oct. 2018
“Despite promoting itself as an “independent” and open-source investigation site, Bellingcat has received a significant portion of its funding from Google, which is also one of the most powerful U.S. military contractors and whose rise to prominence was directly aided by the CIA, and [bellingcat founder elliot higgins is employed by the Atlantic Council.]”
One or more of Danny’s or b’s links likely describe Maz Hussain’s thrilling paean to the White Helmets al-Qaeda psyop; Ames had mentioned Pierre’s entrepreneurial micro-loans in India that had disastrous consequences, yes, such a magnificent philanthropist he is!
Ach, I’d almost forgotten Paul Carr’s 2014 ‘Revealed: Visitor logs show extent of Pam and Pierre’s cozy White House Ties’.
From blockading WikiLeaks from Pay Pal, to funding four smear jobs against Julian Assange himself, one by Greenwald and Naomi Klein…it’s all skiddles and beer, boy howdy! And when one clicks into the place, there are pleas to send them money! Pierre’s quarter of a billion didn’t last long, I guess. How many ‘fearless journalists’ does he have in his stable by now? Egad: I just found it: 123?
(cross-posted at caucus99percent.com)
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
aaaaand…pierre’s still at it; plenty good digital money to be made…in a cashless society. #what.a.schmuck
There seems to be a parallel effort to take traditional left-wing criticism of deep state actors and actions and taint them in the eyes of anyone among the liberal class who’d have any remaining sympathies toward their bent by attaching them to neo-Trumpians social media figures. The twist being that, yes, there are cadres of covert on-line n’er do wells, but many if not most of them, I suspect, do what they do as a cover. A recent case in point came as a recommended yootoob video, the purveyor of which ranted on about the evil Bush crime family and a truthful tale of their misdeeds, including Prescot’s attempting to overthrow FDR, but the dude spouting the stuff, and I see a lot of this, was all patriotic and proud for Don the 45th, last faithful lover of America.
interesting, mein freunde. i wish i could wriggle my way into the reasons for it, by my imagination seems to be on the blink.
i will offer that although this diary at c99 only got 18 recs and a few disapproving comments (if largely inscrutable), but it was more than i’d expected as it stepped on some heavy cultural icons there. i did have to do some extra digging though. one was this nsa doc i’d recalled, but only vaguely, and i scored it accidentally via the intrepid whitney webb. ; ) fuck them, though, and pierre. from my comment:
eureka! i found it! whitney webb oct 30, 2017: ‘The Intercept Withheld NSA Doc That May Have Altered Course Of Syrian War’; [doc dated 2013] If this document had been published sooner, it could have dramatically changed the course of the war by exposing the true face of the “moderate rebels” — and potentially saved tens of thousands of lives. That didn’t happen, and no reason has been given by the Intercept for its delay’
“However, the Intercept article regarding the document is unusual for several reasons. First, the report inaccurately claims that the attack launched at the Saudis’ behest did not result in any confirmed casualties. Second, it states that the 2011 uprising in Syria was an organic, “peaceful” movement that led the Syrian government to wage “an open war against their own people” — a narrative that has since been debunked.
Yet, the largest oversight of all is the article’s failure to mention the U.S.’ role in funding the Free Syrian Army, as well as the CIA’s well-documented role in training the FSA and pumping tons of weapons into Syria in order to foment and exacerbate the conflict in its early days. In light of the NSA document’s revelation that the U.S. had been given advance notice of the planned FSA attack – on a civilian target, no less – Washington’s decision to let it proceed clearly suggests that the U.S. was involved in and well aware of the Saudi directives to the FSA. However, the Intercept piece chooses not to mention this crucial context.”
“Also worth noting is the fact that PayPal, of which Omidyar is a major owner, has allegedly been implicated in several of the still-withheld NSA documents for its business relationship with the NSA and its role in the agency’s mass spying program. In addition, former Intercept writers have asserted that Omidyar was “shockingly disinterested in the actual journalism” of the paper, suggesting that the Intercept was created explicitly to delay the release of damaging documents from the Snowden cache until deemed acceptable to the U.S. political establishment and others who stood to lose face were the entire cache to have been made public.
Indeed, another interesting coincidence supporting this thesis is the fact that the Intercept published this latest piece only after the U.S. State Department itself began to report more honestly on the nature of these so-called “rebels.” A day before the Intercept’s story on Syrian “rebels” and the Saudis, the U.S. State Department – for the first time – admitted that “moderate” rebels in Syria had previously used chemical weapons, a charge it had categorically denied for years in order to facilitate laying the blame for any and all chemical weapons attacks in Syria on the Syrian government.
In other words, the Intercept released the document, which effectively destroys Washington’s “moderate rebels” narrative with its own internal documents, only after the U.S. government itself began to unravel that very same narrative.
The Intercept did not respond to MintPress News’ request for comment regarding the timing of the document’s release.”
here’s hoping all is well with you and yours in berlin.
Thank you. And you & yours. I have to say, I agree with the first comment’s assertion that the withholding of this doc was not necessarily directly critical to the the cause, at least insofar as its release wouldn’t likely have changed much, if anything. But who knows, it’s just a speculative game, after all, which reminds me that there are aspects of the culture of media that simply lend plausibility for certain of that speculation, as well as provide cover for the do-good Lib who can simply shrug off a minor hand-wring. Had I your diligence, which I appreciate, wendely, there is an extensive analysis of a, who’s that Irish cum American who rants the resistance? ah, John Oliver… he had presented a bit around the time he or his producers deemed it worthy to address potential cognitive dissonance vis à vis Don of Orange’s failure to adequately criticise our Arabic Prince in crime over the murdered journalist. He did what his side of the binary-brand does: Laid out an as-if we’re really concerned crit of the US’ longstanding relationship in spite of everything, and once he got that out of the way, summarised it as, “so we all know that our relationship has been complicated, but…”
In other words, if things were not offensive enough, we are treated to a paltry self-analysis on occasion just to pretend our press is not in fact ignoring anything. It’s all there. The stratification it creates (from whence comes the term something-er than thou) leads to the almost most active of activists to throw their hands up in reply, accusing the analyser of “purity”. The purpose, I summarily theorise, is plausibility so stratified its not even palpable.
while webb was correct that mentioning the old doc may not have changed the course of the war, her larger point was that the place was so cowardly that it was only after…etc. maz wrote it up. it reminded me of GG and snowden’s unwillingness to name ‘afghanistan’ in one of their fearless journalistic endeavors. wikileaks (or assange) finally did, but the chich was that the the NSA is used to target bombs for the isaf, US, whatever wars. assange doesn’t really give a fuck about protecting war crimes, which is another one of those ‘curation failures’ the bad whistleblower’s always accused of.
now i haven’t seen oliver or kimmel, et.al. for years (kimmel in a suit was a bridge too far), but if, and it’s unlikely, i’m getting your drift, his chosen brand’s job was to criticize don of orange (gotta love that) and then plead the fog of realpolitik? myownself, it all struck me as though were not kashoggi the WaPo’s alleged critic of the clown prince, the story never would have gained the traction it had. but i’m a cynic, of course. i read the angry arab on how narrow his criticism was, so i’m biased.
your final paragraph is top-notch, reminding me once again that if one chooses to criticize the hope-and-change candidates, newly electeds, compromised NGOs’ brands, it amounts to heresy for some…okay, for many. ;-)
but again, i may be misreading you here; if so, lemme know, okay?
ach. i’d forgotten: it was maz hussain as well who’d written up a long piece glorifying the al quaeda psyop ‘the white helemets’, as had amy goodman. now you really have to blind to NOT see them for what they are: false flag gas-attacks in syria play actors.
Not a misread, but regarding the stratification, it includes criticising the criticism of those things, particularly when they fall into any number of tried-and-true categories of counter-intel useful idiocy and the like. Think, Tarzie’s quite good Chomsky series. By the time one gets used to, say, the Intercept as bulwark against fawning media empires, crit thereof is something they cannot get their heads around. Shit’s deep, even when you follow it very closely.
i appreciate your amplifying on stratification further. i’d missed tarzie’s *series* on chomsky, but on what may have been the final one (?) a commenter pushing back in chomsky’s defense; iirc, T kinda of agreed. but tarzie was a major brand-buster, even when i disagreed in part. and oh, my, does chomsky’s name come up a lot lately, as does one of the gods of ‘the left’: old sourpuss chris hedges.
but wsws authors recently instructed readers about 2 jacobin essays, the first advising ‘get off social media’ and some kinda silly reasons for it, second one critiqued that edict, but only so far. but the SEP is pissed as hell that jacobin DSA and the new DSAs in congress are ruining the socialist brand, and i agree in spades, although there must be a number of various definitons, as there are for ‘the deep state’.
I normally would not care, but could you please retrieve my latest reply to this comment from wherever it went? I don’t write a lot nowadays (and should have saved it elsewhere), and having so many words eaten annoys the fucking shit out of me.
please always ask, maybe in email as well. i have no idea why some comments get sent to trash or spam when earlier ones haven’t. i’m sure you don’t use the words i’ve blockaded, though blockading phrases would have made more sense in the ‘askimet’ protocols.
tonight’s closing time song:
g’ night.
tonight’s closing song (and i’m thinking of the incredible william blum who crossed into the light two days ago, as well, see the New Moon open menu):
Congrats Wendy, and my Congrats to the persons that have expanded this Thread with their considerable “base” level of knowledge.
And for some unknown reason, Word Press has me down with a much differing password. Perhaps, I can get it repaired and return to posting here at Café Babylon?
Jaango
mornin’, jaango. dunno what you mean, there aren’t any passwords, registration to comment here. now if you mean your screen name, do you use ‘jim gonzales’ on other wordpress sites? that could be the rub.
j of 9 seems to be able to switch screen names here (and very whimsically, i’ll add) at will. had you tried to post as jaango and the software wouldn’t allow it?
Wendy,
I got it taken care of now. And of recent vintage, I don’t “do” political blogs anymore, so my ‘new’ arrival here at Café Babylon, speaks to my notion that New Ideas need to animate our politics, and consequently, the Super Wealthy are adamant that we, the generic public, should be “pushed” in the direction that demonstrates their continued approach to craft their opportunities to create a greater wealth schematic that’s beneficial to them.
again, your comment is pretty inscrutable to me, sorry. too many ‘big dictionary’ words for me. imo, you’d be better off talking in words that are ‘regular speak’, not couched in faux-academic-speak.