The concluding paragraph of Ms. Slaughter’s essay, in which she extemporizes on a theme of Martin Luther King, is worthy of full quotation:
‘It is incumbent upon those of us who see an arc of progress bending towards peace and universal human rights to appreciate the full scope of the threat posed to our 20th-century global architecture. Our response has to be more than defending the status quo. We must begin sketching an affirmative counter-vision of state and non-state institutions that empower their members more than they constrain them and solve problems effectively together.’
Yet here is another paraphrase mixed with quotation of Ms. Slaughter’s as what? friend/ally/apologist for Corporatism:
The chairman of Google’s parent company at the time, Eric Schmidt—who, along with his foundation and Google, had by that point donated nearly $20 million to New America—was not pleased, Lynn told the Times, and called Slaughter to say so. Lynn was informed that his actions had endangered the institution, and he was ultimately fired.
The debacle raised all sorts of questions about New America’s coziness with corporate funders, and as staffers gathered in the conference room—across the lobby from the “Eric Schmidt Ideas Lab”—they were impatient for answers. Many worried that the think tank’s intellectual integrity had been compromised, and they feared for their reputations. What would happen the next time someone’s work ran crosswise with the interests of a big donor?
Instead of stanching the anxiety, Slaughter stoked it. According to a recording of the meeting, she said that while she recognized that the standard in journalism was never to show sources what you were writing, New America’s “norm can’t be that. We’re an organization that develops relationships with funders. And you know, these are not just black boxes; they’re people. Google is a person, the Ford Foundation—C. . . . And particularly when they give you money, which is really a nice thing . . . basic courtesy I think requires—if you know something really bad, you say, ‘Here’s a heads-up.’ ”
Ms. Slaughter defends the ‘rules based order’ that Henry Kissinger defended in Luce’s recent interview/audience with The Great Man, in the pages of this newspaper. She quite carefully frames her twin attack on Putin/Trump, in terms of an anti-patriarchal criticism, and quite rightly so. Yet it doesn’t quite have the ring of truth. It expresses the current respectable bourgeois Party Line.
Ms. Slaughter has very carefully cultivated the monetary support of Mr. Eric Schmidt, a very powerful donor to her Foundation. Mr. Barry Lynn was fired from his job at New America for honest reporting, not withstanding Ms. Slaughter’s maladroit intervention argued as: We’re an organization that develops relationships with funders.
Old Socialist
https://www.ft.com/content/a5762736-8c01-11e8-affd-da9960227309
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