Right-wing propaganda disguised as friendly advice from an ex-Clevelander

Every so often, I find myself wistfully thinking back to my decades as a faithful daily newspaper subscriber. And I think, “Well, the Plain Dealer can’t stay this biased and terrible forever, can it? Some day, I’ll be able to re-subscribe.”

Then I glimpse something like today’s front-page story “Can Drew Carey Save Cleveland?” detailing what right-wing comedian/game-show host Carey thinks we ought to be doing to turn the area around.

Anyone who has followed Carey even superficially knows that his ideas for “saving” this area are going to be a litany of Republican talking points, proven failures — privatize everything! — that enrich only the wealthy. Ever since I found out five or six years ago what a greedy, selfish, myopic right-winger he is, Cleveland’s fascination with him has baffled me even more. Sometimes we seem so famished for even secondhand glory that we elevate anyone with even a scrap of fame who has any connection with this area to the status of semi-deity. Anyone remember that American Idol loser of a few years back who got front-page story after front-page story in the PD?

So Drew Carey assumes the persona of an out-of-shape, beer-drinking, sports-talk-listening blue-collar Cleveland guy, and we suck it up — or it’s pushed down our throats by our local media. But it’s false. Carey made millions, and now he wants to protect his millions. Fine. But don’t insult us by promoting his “solutions” for an area he’s long left in the dust as if he were some kind of expert — all without revealing his strong political bias. “Less government,” “more competition,” “lower taxes.” It would be laughable if it weren’t so predictable, so rotely and rigidly ideological — and such a recipe for disaster for those of us who aren’t rich like him.

The biggest joke of all is a reference to Carey’s involvement with the “non-partisan, libertarian-leaning” Reason Foundation. Now, I was completely unfamiliar with this group, so I Googled them. They’re a group of wealthy corporatists who push extreme privatization — turning virtually every essential service over to “private enterprise” vultures to feast and get rich on our carcasses. Yes, they “self-describe” as “non-partisan” but that’s only in the sense that they are not officially affiliated with a political party. It’s clear that 99% of their beliefs align with one party (The other one percent – and the only thing I can give Carey kudos for — is that he doesn’t think big-building projects like the convention center/medical mart are beneficial. Oh, and he supports medical marijanua).

Then I found a list of some of the Reason Foundation’s funders. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation? The Scaife Foundation — as in Richard Mellon “Hillary killed Vince Foster and dumped his body in the park” Scaife? Both these foundations have poured tens of millions of dollars into infiltrating right-wing positions — anti-labor, anti-affirmative action, anti-separation of church and state, extreme privatization and deregulation of business, just for starters — into the media, universities and other institutions. Both were instrumental in the eight-year, mostly lie-based persecution of Bill Clinton. At least four of the foundations listed were funders of the Institute on Religion & Democracy, a stealth organization that has spent three decades trying to destroy mainline churches who have the gall to promote peace, social justice and responsible environmental stewardship, instead of flogging gay marriage and abortion .

Every foundation on the list has also funded the American Enterprise Institute, which brought us most of the Bush administration policies. And the Bradley Foundation was the major funder of the infamous PNAC — Project for a New American Century — the group that conceived (in 1997!) and executed the Iraq war, and included such luminaries as Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld.

“Non-partisan,” my ass.

I’m sure it’s great for Drew Carey’s low-esteem ego to consort with the roster of elite, powerful men (and one solitary woman) who make up the Reason Foundation’s board. He can forget about his humble Cleveland roots and feel like he’s above us now that he’s rich. That’s fine and dandy. But, Plain Dealer, don’t demean your readers by putting his advice on the front page as a prescription for what’s wrong with the region without context — without revealing that he embraces a specific, radical, controversial political philosophy.